US invasion of Venezuela 2026

A video of a combat mission involving an American helicopter, presumably a Bell AH-1Z Viper, has been released in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. Judging by the video, Venezuelan air defenses and air force are offering no resistance, suggesting, according to media reports, an elite conspiracy within the country. A destroyed Venezuelan Buk-M2E air defense system, manufactured in Russia and never used by the military, was recorded at the Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base. According to the latest reports, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were captured on Saturday morning by Delta Force, an elite US Army special forces unit.

 
In half a decade we can do similar ops with medium to low blowback as our economy and industry will be substantially stronger. In 10 years we can do anything we want.
We need to atleast drastically expand our air force and invest heavily in our spec ops units and develop tier 1, tier 2 spec ops units along with a spetsnaz like para brigade along with a psychological warfare unit to achieve even half of what the Americans achieved.
 
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We need to atleast drastically expand our air force and invest heavily in our spec ops units and develop tier 1, tier 2 spec ops units along with a spetsnaz like para brigade along with a psychological warfare unit to achieve even half of what the Americans achieved.


Hand over the reigns of intelligence in India to DIA from idiots of RAW and IB for starters.
 
What are the Chinese doing? Cmon Xi.. you gotta ban supply of REE or any product used in American weapons citing unethical use.
They did nothing when Iran was being bombed. And they're doing nothing while the US is taking away their Venezuelan oil.

And I bet they will continue to do nothing when US finishes its regime change in Iran and cuts off their Iranian oil too.

What happened to the 25yr agreement with Iran? They have always been a paper tiger.
 
The White House has told companies they must rebuild Venezuela's crude-pumping infrastructure if they want compensation for assets seized by Caracas.

By Ben Lefebvre, Zack Colman and James Bikales01/03/2026 02:35 PM EST


American oil companies have long hoped to recover the assets that Venezuela’s authoritarian regime ripped from them decades ago.

Now the Trump administration is offering to help them achieve that aim — with one major condition.

Administration officials have told oil executives in recent weeks that if they want compensation for their rigs, pipelines and other seized property, then they must be prepared to go back into Venezuela now and invest heavily in reviving its shattered petroleum industry, two people familiar with the administration’s outreach told POLITICO on Saturday. The outlook for Venezuela’s shattered oil infrastructure is one of the major questions following the U.S. military action that captured leader Nicolás Maduro.

But people in the industry said the administration’s message has left them still leery about the difficulty of rebuilding decayed oil fields in a country where it’s not even clear who will lead the country for the foreseeable future.

“They’re saying, ‘you gotta go in if you want to play and get reimbursed,’” said one industry official familiar with the conversations.

The offer has been on the table for the last 10 days, the person said. “But the infrastructure currently there is so dilapidated that no one at these companies can adequately assess what is needed to make it operable.”

President Donald Trump suggested in a televised address Saturday morning that he fully expects U.S. oil companies to pour big money into Venezuela.

“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure and start making money for the country,” Trump said as he celebrated Maduro’s capture.

It’s been five decades since the Venezuelan government first nationalized the oil industry and nearly 20 years since former President Hugo Chávez expanded the asset seizures. The country has some of the largest oil reserves in the world, but its petroleum infrastructure has decayed amid years of mismanagement and meager investment.

Initial thoughts among U.S. oil industry officials and market analysts who spoke to POLITICO regarding a post-Maduro Venezuela focused more on questions than answers.

The administration has so far not laid out what its long-term plan looks like, or even if it has one, said Bob McNally, a former national security and energy adviser to President George W. Bush who now leads the energy and geopolitics consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group.

“It’s not clear there’s been a specific plan beyond the principal decision that in a post-Maduro, Trump-compliant regime that the U.S. companies — energy and others — will be at the top of the list” to reenter the country, McNally said. He added: “What the regime looks like, what the plans are for getting there, that has not been fully fleshed out yet.”

A central concern for U.S. industry executives is whether the administration can guarantee the safety of the employees and equipment that companies would need to send to Venezuela, how the companies would be paid, whether oil prices will rise enough to make Venezuelan crude profitable and the status of Venezuela’s membership in the OPEC oil exporters cartel. U.S. benchmark oil prices were at $57 a barrel, the lowest since the end of the pandemic, as of the market’s close on Friday.

The White House did not immediately reply to questions about its plan for the oil industry, but Trump said during Saturday’s appearance at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that he expected oil companies to put up the initial investments.

“We’re going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which requires billions of dollars that will be paid for by the oil companies directly,” Trump said. “They will be reimbursed for what they’re doing, but it’s going to be paid, and we’re going to get the oil flowing.”

However, the administration’s outreach to U.S. oil company executives remains “at its best in the infancy stage,” said one industry executive familiar with the discussions, who was granted anonymity to describe conversations with the president’s team.

“In preparation for regime change, there had been engagement. But it’s been sporadic and relatively flatly received by the industry,” this person said. “It feels very much a shoot-ready-aim exercise.”

Venezuela’s oil output has fallen to less than a third of the 3.5 million barrels per day that it produced in the 1970s, and the infrastructure that is used to tap into its 300 billion barrels of reserves has deteriorated in the past two decades.

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All spent on Ukraine reimbursed.
 
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Not happening before 2050. And that too, depends on consistent India-First leadership at top.
No. In 10 years our industrial base will be far greater as will our economic power and leverage. The world will be too busy with China US tensions allowing us to take decisive steps in our neighborhood without fearing as much about the backlash. Both US and China would not want to antagonize India too much lest it join the other side.