Adam Watson (00:00)

Welcome back to “Simplifying the State,” the podcast where we break down politics so you don’t have to try to figure out why the Iranians are calling for a return to the monarchy. As always, I’m Adam Watson.

Nicholas Perrin (00:11)

I’m Nicholas Perrin.

Drew Garfinkel (00:12)

I’m Drew Garfinkel.

Adam Watson (00:14)

All right, now before we start, if you would be so kind as to rate us and follow the podcast wherever you are listening and to share it with anyone you think would enjoy it, like the cashier at Taco Bell. All right, so today’s subject is going to be sort of, it’s going to be connected mainly to Venezuela and the recent stuff that’s been going on there, but also just sort of the implications this has for the world order. So, pretty light stuff.

Okay, so I guess just to give everyone a rundown, since it was a little chaotic. On Jan. 3, the United States did an operation where they captured Venezuelan leader Nicholas Perrin. They also bombed the capital, Caracas. Maduro was then transferred to a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Iwo Jima, and he was then taken for arraignment in New York City. So that about sums up what happened. So what do you guys think about Trump’s claim that we’re going to be running Venezuela? You know, thoughts on that?

Nicholas Perrin (01:14)

Well, I think it’s very clear your thoughts on that, based on the way you said that, Adam.

Adam Watson (01:18)

I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nicholas, but you know.

Drew Garfinkel (01:21)

Yeah, maybe a bit leading. But yeah, I see where you’re going.

Adam Watson (01:25)

I have no idea what either of you are talking about. What are your guys’ thoughts on the whole “we’re going to be running Venezuela” thing?

Drew Garfinkel (01:33)

It’s not a good look, I don’t think. Like, for us to be, you know, occupying a foreign country and then quote-unquote running it, that doesn’t reflect well on us.

Nicholas Perrin (01:36)

Yeah. I mean, it’s just like back to, what was it? 2021, 2022. I mean, that was only like four or five years ago, you know? We were doing the same thing then. Why not do the same thing now?

Drew Garfinkel (01:56)

Wait, what did we do in 2022?

Nicholas Perrin (01:57)

I remember when we pulled out of Afghanistan.

Adam Watson (01:59)

Oh yeah, that was 2021.

Nicholas Perrin (02:01)

Here we go.

Adam Watson (02:01)

Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s sort of reminiscent of, you know, 2003, going in under, you know, shaky pretenses, taking over a country for its oil because, I mean, I don’t know if how many of you know this, but Venezuela has about 17% of the world’s oil reserves. So, you know, there’s a lot of oil there. But I mean, in terms of production, they don’t have a lot. I think they produced like a couple of hundred thousand barrels last year, which sounds like a lot, but on the global scale of the crude oil market, it’s not that much. Which is one of the big reasons that people’s gas prices will not be immediately affected by this because Venezuela has such a small impact on the global oil market. What do you think, Drew Garfinkel?

Drew Garfinkel (02:48)

You’re saying that there’s a lot of untapped oil, right? Like that, they’re not producing a bunch, but like the land itself has a bunch of oil and as the U.S., we want it, right?

Adam Watson (02:53)

Yeah. Yeah, so that seems to be what Trump was talking about because originally, I think the idea was that we’re going to capture Nicholas Perrin because, you know, he was a—and this was the description that the administration gave him—narco-terrorist. You know, and then, you know, Trump came out and just said, basically, we’re going to be taking over and controlling Venezuela and, you know, we want their oil. And then he had a big press conference with a bunch of oil executives.

And I mean, it did not go great because the main takeaway seems to be that they do not want to invest heavily in Venezuela unless they can get concrete guarantees for security and for political stability, which are two things that would be very hard to guarantee in Venezuela. So yeah.

Nicholas Perrin (03:49)

And the crude oil in Venezuela would especially be good for the United States, and less so other countries, because the crude oil in Venezuela is very thick and viscous. I forgot the exact term of it. It was heavy. And the oil refineries in the United States, especially ones toward the south, are especially equipped to deal with that kind of oil, just because that was kind of the oil that was prevalent in the United States.

Drew Garfinkel (03:49)

Not going well.

Nicholas Perrin (04:16)

And not a whole lot of other countries have those kinds of refineries, so they won’t be able to make use of it as much as the United States.

Drew Garfinkel (04:24)

So I don’t know a lot about oil. It’s like thick oil. Is that good? Or is that just different?

Adam Watson (04:30)

It’s not good. Yeah. Yeah.

Nicholas Perrin (04:31)

It’s harder to refine. Yeah, so generally it’s better to have lighter oil, but since the U.S. is already equipped to deal with it, it would give them a strategic advantage over Venezuela’s oil reserves.

Adam Watson (04:46)

Yeah. Sort of moving away from like the whole oil question. I’m wondering, what do you guys think this is going to mean for countries like Taiwan? Because I mean, we went in, we violated a country’s sovereignty. You know, we captured their leader. And I mean, you can think that Maduro is a horrible, horrible person, which he is. I mean, you know, he tortured his people. He collapsed the country economically, socially and democratically. Yeah, that’s another big one. He is a horrible guy, but at the same time, I think we can agree that, you know, violating another country’s sovereignty and just sort of taking their leader sets a pretty bad precedent.

Nicholas Perrin (05:17)

Democratically. Yeah, it’s kind of, you know, the “rules we set out are for thee, not for me” sort of thing. But I think it could also provide some soft security to other countries if we’re willing to do operations like this in Venezuela. It could be like, I don’t know, a scare tactic. That might also have been what it was intended to be.

Drew Garfinkel (05:37)

Yeah, it’s super hypocritical.

Adam Watson (05:51)

Right. I’m wondering what this could mean for China, because China is heavily invested in the rules-based international order. They’ve been slowly increasing their presence in that. And the U.S. is similarly intertwined in the international order. I’m wondering if, given the lack of criticism just on the fundamental ideas of the capture of Maduro, will this embolden China to go into Taiwan and maybe take them or remove their government and install a friendly one? What do you guys think that could do?

Drew Garfinkel (06:31)

We’ve kind of been wagging our finger at China and Russia, and then we turned around and did the same thing in Venezuela. So it’s like what I was saying before: We’re setting a precedent, a dangerous precedent. And while I think there’d be a lot of consequences to an invasion of Taiwan, I don’t know if that will happen. Don’t get me wrong, China could realistically wipe out Taiwan, like, tomorrow if they wanted to. But the global implications of that would—they wouldn’t do it because of that, in my opinion.

Nicholas Perrin (07:06)

I mean, I kind of push back against that. China will have the capabilities very soon, but for now they won’t because of the potential of damaging Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing, which China is not able to replace on its own. And they definitely won’t be able to support—like, get it from the United States, for example—and it would also, like, crash the global economy and, therefore, China’s economy, because China is a very export-heavy nation. So they won’t be able to do it yet, but potentially soon.

Adam Watson (07:39)

Yeah, that’s what I’m sort of talking about when I say that China is so interconnected. Like, if they were a completely isolationist country—no exports, no imports, they made everything themselves—they would not have to worry. But because, you know, they’ve been gradually increasing their global presence since the late ’90s, you know, they’re in a position where they sort of need to play ball when it comes to the rules-based order. But again, this brings me back to my concern. I mean, if we’re just openly violating the U.N. Charter here and, you know, violating the nation’s sovereignty and bombing its capital and killing 40 of its citizens, you know, I mean, what is that? What kind of signal is that going to send to other countries?

Nicholas Perrin (08:23)

So have you guys heard about the potential—unproven, but like testimony—about sonic weapons used in Venezuela?

Adam Watson (08:33)

I have not.

Drew Garfinkel (08:34)

Me neither.

Nicholas Perrin (08:34)

Okay, well, basically, there was—once, I think this might have been only one soldier from Venezuela, could have been multiple—but he basically said that the United States used some sort of weapon that caused, like, noses and ears to bleed, like put people on the ground. And it was kind of his claim that that’s part of how the U.S. suffered no casualties during that operation. It’s unproven, and the White House hasn’t said anything about it as far as I’m aware, but I just thought it was helpful to point out, especially if we’re worried about international law and the potential, like, human rights discussion about sonic weapons.

Adam Watson (09:20)

Right. Yeah, I mean, until the Pentagon and the White House put out the full details of the operation, I think it’s going to be pretty hard to tell what happened. But I mean, yeah, that could be an interesting point of discussion later on down the road.

Nicholas Perrin (09:37)

And I think, I mean, I think like, what do you think is the constitutionality of this operation? Like, do you think it violates any U.S. laws?

Adam Watson (09:48)

Yeah, so it looks like it probably was against the Constitution. And that’s according to a couple of legal scholars from, like, the Brennan Center. But the main reason it looks like it’s unconstitutional is because he did not inform Congress about this operation beforehand, which he is supposed to do. And this was an offensive, not defensive, action. That’s another thing. And it just sort of looks like he violated the War Powers Act and went outside of his constitutional mandate because the power to wage war is an Article I power, so it’s the power of Congress, not of the president. So yeah, looks like it probably was probably unconstitutional, ignoring the fact that it was against international law.

Nicholas Perrin (10:32)

What do you think the future of Venezuela will be? Like, do you really think there’s going to be a democratic, like, transition period? Do you think the United States will supervise that? Do you think they’ll even try to push for that?

Adam Watson (10:46)

Okay, well, here’s what I think. So first of all, we did not get rid of Maduro’s regime; we got rid of Maduro. And his oppressive regime is still in place. So I don’t know what the whole point of that was, if it seems like it was just to grab Maduro and to just leave his regime in place. And I think the reason that is—and again, this is just all in my opinion—is because we want to be able to deal with, you know, that government to be able to get the oil rights and to be able to set up U.S. oil companies in Venezuela. As for a democratic transition, you know, it’s hard to say because Trump discredited the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, saying she doesn’t have the respect of the people.1 So I think that might be, you know, tricky to tell. I mean, there might be an election, there might not be; who knows what’s going to happen. I mean, when you have things like this, like with Libya, like with Iraq, it’s always hard to tell in the first couple of weeks how it’s going to play out because in the first couple of days, first week or two of those operations, it looked like we had, you know, it was a terrific success, all that stuff. And then Iraq collapsed, and then, you know, Libya collapsed. And, you know, it’s always hard to tell long-term what’s going to happen in the first couple of weeks. But that’s what I will have to say. I think it’s way too early to tell what’s going to happen. I would like for there to be a transition, but it’s hard to say.

Drew Garfinkel (12:09)

Yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking—that it’s kind of too soon to call what happened. Like a week ago, a little bit more than a week ago. So to see the impacts of that, we’ll have to wait a bit, but now I’m going to be hopeful here. I think this could be good for Venezuela. Because you know, Maduro—he was an awful guy, awful dictator. So if the U.S. plays it right, I’m hoping that things can go well for Venezuela.

Nicholas Perrin (12:45)

Yeah, and I think the—well, not really rhetoric, rhetoric isn’t the right word to use here—but like the talk of the United States turning the Venezuelan vice president, you know, into a kind of a puppet ruler could be a good thing short-term in the hopes of democratic restoration. But I do worry that it’s just going to become, you know, a play for the oil at the end of the day.

Adam Watson (13:16)

All right, thanks for listening to “Simplifying the State.” We’ll be back next week with our next episode. Make sure to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you’re listening to this, and on Instagram. We’ll see you guys next time.

Music Attribution: “The World Is Ours” by Zane Little, used with permission, courtesy of freemusicarchive.org.