VIPS MEMO: What Wider War in Venezuela Would Bring

Russia, and possibly even China, would feel obligated to enhance military support in response to a missile, air, or even drone strike on sovereign Venezuelan territory. Escalation would be almost inevitable.

Nicolas Maduro in 2017. (Jeso Carneiro, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)

November 5, 2025

ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY (VIPS)

SUBJECT: What Wider War in Venezuela Would Bring

Dear President Trump:

We are deeply concerned about where the United States seems to be headed in its Venezuela policy and urge you to demand that the Intelligence Community give you clear, unfiltered, “truth-to-power” analysis, as well as covert action options in Venezuela.

Flying blind into an unprovoked war against a Latin American government, even one weakened by years of U.S. “maximum-pressure” sanctions, risks a conflagration that could draw Russia into the conflict and offers zero probability of establishing a legitimate, pro-U.S. successor government.

We see a classic storm of politicization brewing in the Intelligence Community, to which we devoted our careers, as a result of blatant pressures that it give you the “right” answer – fabricating or exaggerating a pretext for direct military intervention in Venezuela.

The State Department’s cancelation of views that don’t coincide with its own, and the intelligence community leadership’s firing of senior analysts whose classified, honest analysis contradicted unfounded Administration allegations that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro controls the Tren de Aragua gang and is using it to attack the United States have chilled collectors’ and analysts’ willingness to provide you unbiased, neutral, accurate intelligence.

We have seen this before – during numerous intelligence and foreign policy debacles, including the fake allegations about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And we remember the disastrous consequences for the country and its leaders.

There is room for some debate on the rationale for some sanctions on Venezuela. Maduro’s management of elections has been correctly questioned, for example. But U.S. opposition to the changes ushered in by the late President Chávez’s election in 1999 has been, for most of these 26 years, implacable.

The U.S. government, under Presidents from both parties, has imposed sanctions to paralyze the country’s economy; identified, trained, and funded opponents, including some who have resorted to violence similar to that we accuse the government of; and – even more important – has supported several failed attempts to overthrow the Chávez and Maduro Governments (with varying levels of involvement), including a blatant attempt to assassinate Maduro in plain daylight.

The results have been disastrous for U.S. interests.

• Maduro has been better at mobilizing support on the street than at managing the economy, but U.S. sanctions – aimed to destroy an oil industry that accounts for 90 percent of national revenues – have been the overwhelming driver of the exodus of millions of Venezuelans to neighboring countries and the United States.
• Popular exhaustion from U.S. sanctions and, more recently, fear of U.S. military attacks have indeed fueled desperation among some Venezuelan citizens – who might welcome peace even at the expense of a coup – but Washington policies have actually unified Maduro’s leadership team.
• The military officers, who the U.S. apparently is counting on to rise up, fear what U.S. justice and a successor government will do to them. The administration’s designation of Maduro as the capo of the Cartel de los Soles, the existence of which is unproven, and as a “narcoterrorist” as president of a country that produces no drugs and has no direct hand in their transport, is evidence to the military that Washington could eventually make up whatever “facts” it wants to hunt them down too.
• An opposition coalition did well in the last national elections, but the U.S.-favored faction and its leaders have split it so badly that it’s extremely unlikely that they will be able to unite the nation and government. Their rhetoric features pro-democracy slogans, but almost all serious analysts see little evidence that they would have the discipline to resist strong temptations to unbridled power – and revenge.
• U.S. “maximum-pressure” policies and saber-rattling in the Caribbean make us look like bullies throughout Latin America if not the world – a hegemon desperate to show it can act ruthlessly and with impunity in what it considers its backyard.
• The Administration has provided no evidence that the fast boats that it has destroyed were carrying drugs to the United States, while most evidence points to the conclusion that they were not. Although some Latin American governments haven’t concealed their dislike of Maduro, they are embarrassed that the United States resorts only to sticks, including threats of military attack, with no credible prospect of negotiations or carrots. They know history better than we do: What we do to their neighbors is in our arsenal against them eventually – if they ever dare to cross us. That fear makes for false allies.

Threats of coups and military intervention are the most counterproductive.

• Perhaps U.S. intelligence operatives are telling you that they have assets in place who can kidnap or assassinate Maduro in a lightning operation, but we suggest that you demand proof.
• C.I.A. apparently convinced then-National Security Advisor John Bolton that people in the military were ready to launch when U.S.-designated President Juan Guaidó called on them to rise up in April 2019 to complete the “final phase” of overthrowing Maduro. It was a massive failure.
• Caracas and each military command is Maduro’s territory, so anyone claiming to make clean recruitments right under his nose must demonstrate that they actually have.
• U.S. history in Latin America shows, moreover, that U.S.-instigated and supported coups do not lead to stability, democracy, or human rights. The same appears obvious if the overthrow is effected by U.S. special operations personnel and a figurehead is installed.
• Most dangerous, of course, is the prospect of war – a wider and/or “forever” war – with Venezuela and its foreign supporters. We believe that Russia, and possibly even China, would feel obligated to enhance military support in response to a missile, air, or even drone strike on sovereign Venezuelan territory and military and civilian installations. Escalation would be almost inevitable.
• U.S. warships off the coast are not immune to anti-ship coastal missiles. If just one pierced the Navy’s formidable air-defense systems, you may have to decide whether to mount another ill-advised, benighted, Bay-of-Pigs-type operation.
• Despite what others may tell you, this would be a singularly bad idea. We hope you know that in 1961 C.I.A. analysts were not asked for precisely the kind of intelligence assessment we believe you should require of the intelligence community now on Venezuela.
• Keeping C.I.A. analysts in the dark, then-C.I.A. Director Allen Dulles deceived President Kennedy by claiming the Cuban people would overthrow Castro once Dulles’s ragtag forces landed on the beach. Forty years later, one of George W. Bush advisers on Iraq predicted that the war would be a “cake walk”.
• U.S. boots on the ground would put U.S. men and women into an insecure environment, with armed popular resistance, and into another fundamentally political war for which they are ill-prepared. U.S. forces are good at destroying governments and structures but not establishing new ones. Our troops would be bloodied and humiliated – and, in our view, fail again.

We appreciate that individuals in your administration want to “win one” for you and, in doing so, advance their own political credibility.

But 26 years of failed policy toward Venezuela are not a sound foundation for making even bigger mistakes.

FOR THE STEERING GROUP

VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY (VIPS)

• Fulton Armstrong, National Intelligence Officer for Latin America (ret.)
• William Binney, NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (ret.)
• Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) and Division Director, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research
• Graham E. Fuller, Vice-Chair, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
• Philip Giraldi, C.I.A., Operations Officer (ret.)
• Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
• Larry Johnson, former C.I.A. Intelligence Officer & former State Department Counter-Terrorism Official (ret.)
• John Kiriakou, former C.I.A. Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
• Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., U.S. Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
• Edward Loomis, Cryptologic Computer Scientist, former Technical Director at NSA (ret.)
• Ray McGovern, former U.S. Army infantry/intelligence officer & C.I.A. analyst; C.I.A. Presidential briefer (ret.)
• Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council & C.I.A. political analyst (ret.)
• Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
• Coleen Rowley, F.B.I. Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
• Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.)/D.I.A., (ret.)
•  Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)
• Ann Wright, Col., U.S. Army (ret.); Foreign Service Officer (resigned in opposition to the war on Iraq)

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