🌎 VENEZUELA IN THE GEOPOLITICS OF GLOBAL HYBRID WARFARE

By: Soc. Kelly Josefina Pottella Guevara

The recent intensification of the confrontation between the United States and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has transcended the framework of a peripheral bilateral conflict, representing an urgent case study on the operative manifestation of Globalized Hybrid Warfare. This tug-of-war, marked by coordinated movements in the military, economic, and cyber domains, has transformed Venezuela into the fulcrum through which major power politics seeks to redefine global hegemony, testing the integrity of the post-war international order.

The observed aggression in Washington's coercion is doctrinally supported by the National Security Strategy (NSS) of November 2025. Far from being an isolated tactic, this pressure is articulated as the execution of a hemispheric containment strategy under the "America First" principle, which demands the re-establishment of U.S. pre-eminence in the region. This unilateral imposition of a Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine on a sovereign state is perceived by analysts as a direct threat to the fundamental principles of international liberalism, marking a profound disruption of the norms governing global security.

Venezuela's role as a geopolitical pivot is critical. Its alignment with U.S. rival powers is not just a matter of ideological affinity, but a strategic vector for hegemonic counterbalance. The persistence of financial and supply routes for these adversaries through Caracas demonstrates a deliberate strategy to penetrate the U.S. sphere of influence with minimal costs, with the Venezuelan territory functioning as the fissure through which major power politics enters the Western Hemisphere. This alignment is underpinned by concrete agreements, such as partial integration into alternative payment systems (such as CIPS or SPFS) for crude oil sales and the transfer of surveillance and cyber-defense technology provided by China and Russia—key elements for Cyber-Physical Shielding and De-dollarization.

The confrontation has evolved into a war of instruments, in line with modern military strategy. The seizure of a Venezuelan crude oil shipment (PDVSA)—such as the one that occurred in 2024 under the jurisdiction of Houston courts—is part of a sophisticated Maritime Lawfare, which transcends a traditional economic sanction. The global legal and financial infrastructure is used as a weapon, generating Selective Financial Asphyxia. While its objective is economic, it operationally represents an act of war by other means. This instrumentalization of finance and law elevates the risk of economic contagion, affecting third countries that, by interacting with Venezuela, become collateral damage in the pursuit of systemic destabilization.

The response from Venezuela's allies underscores the globalized nature of the crisis. The immediate Asymmetric Reciprocity, manifested in the confiscation of an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman, confirms that the conflict in the Caribbean cannot be isolated. These acts are part of a strategic signaling mechanism: any move of coercion by Washington generates a similar or greater response at another critical point, significantly increasing the strategic cost of the containment policy.

On the military level, the escalation is consolidated with the reorganization of U.S. command structures under the Western Hemisphere Command (West-Hemcom). This unification is a clear political-military symbol of the priority given to resolving this regional crisis. However, this concentration of assets has significantly increased the probability of Uncontrolled Escalation. The recent high-operational-risk incident involving a civilian commercial aircraft and a military tanker near Venezuelan airspace is the most tangible proof that the margin for technical or tactical error is minimal, potentially triggering an involuntary conflict.

Internally, Endogenous Strengthening relies not only on financial diversification but also on the centralization of control over oil and mining resources, complemented by the articulation of a solid civic-military unit that acts as a pillar of political stability in the face of maximum pressure. This allows Caracas to concentrate its resources for systemic resistance.

The strategic outlook for the Venezuelan government is one of maximum pressure, with a lifeline conditioned on the global Realpolitik of its allies. Vulnerability lies in the transactional nature of this support. Therefore, the Venezuelan survival strategy centers on Endogenous Strengthening to build resilience and buy time. The goal is to postpone a Forced Coercive Negotiation until the political pressure generated by the current administrative cycle in Washington is mitigated, seeking to de-capitalize the "Transactional Triumph" pursued by the U.S. Two scenarios are emerging: Scenario A (Rupture): a critical drop in oil prices or an internal fissure in the civic-military unit could precipitate the Coercive Negotiation. Scenario B (Resilience): success in global De-dollarization or a less interventionist foreign policy change in the next U.S. administration would allow Caracas to emerge strengthened from the siege.

The combination of military concentration, the use of legal and financial tools as weapons, and the confirmation of Asymmetric Reciprocity, turn the tension in the Caribbean into a focus of global instability that demands an urgent re-evaluation of hemispheric stability. Nevertheless, the complexity of this war of instruments and the resulting economic contraction disproportionately impact the common Venezuelan citizen, limiting access to essential goods and deepening the internal humanitarian crisis—a cost often omitted in geopolitical calculations.