A Containment Strategy for Venezuela

A little more than two months after Venezuela’s presidential election, the regime of Nicolás Maduro has yet to release any evidence to support its claim to victory. Instead, Caracas has brutally repressed its political opponents and civil society. None of this comes as a surprise. What is surprising is the utter failure of international diplomacy to compel Maduro to negotiate with the opposition, despite credible evidence that he lost by a landslide.

Nine Latin American countries, Canada, the European Union, and the United States have denounced the regime’s electoral fraud and subsequent crackdown, but they have been powerless to compel Maduro to enter talks with the opposition, let alone to accept a peaceful transfer of power. Both the United Nations and the United States have ceded leadership over the crisis to Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico—countries whose leftist heads of state are thought to have more ideological leverage with Venezuela’s self-proclaimed socialist government. But even Brazil, a rising power that prides itself on its diplomatic prowess, has struggled to bring Maduro and his cronies to the negotiating table. Maduro has declined to take calls from Brasilia and has met demands for official vote tallies with mocking silence. 

The international response to Maduro’s power grab has, thus far, been characterized by piecemeal expressions of concern by individual countries. This will not suffice. Neither will the kind of broad sanctions that outside actors have relied on for a quarter century to try to dislodge a succession of abusive Venezuelan governments. It is time, instead, for a broad coalition—including Latin American countries, the United States, Canada, and the European Union—to adopt a much more coherent and well-coordinated long-term policy of constructive containment.

Although the consequences of Maduro’s fraud are borne first and foremost by the long-suffering people of Venezuela, there are underestimated spillover effects: with Maduro at the helm, Caracas is an asset to a rogues’ gallery of autocratic governments, including those of China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, and Russia—all of which rushed to recognize Maduro’s fraudulent victory. The regime is also deeply involved in transnational crime, including narcotics and gold trafficking. Venezuela’s accelerating descent into criminality and dependence on nefarious alliances demands the creation of a broad-based diplomatic and legal cordon sanitaire around the country. Going forward, a coalition of democratic countries must keep the world’s attention on Venezuela, impose targeted sanctions on the regime in Caracas, and create divisions among regime insiders and enablers—all the while maintaining channels for potential dialogue between Caracas and the political opposition.

POINTS OF VULNERABILITY

After World War II, the United States pursued a policy of containment to prevent the spread of communism. In his 1947 Foreign Affairs article, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” the diplomat George Kennan argued that because the Soviet Union was a consolidated authoritarian state, the United States would have to exercise patience. A change in “the internal nature of Soviet power” would one day come. In the meantime, Kennan proposed, the United States should check Moscow’s expansionist tendencies through a policy of “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment.”

Applying the philosophy of containment would help shift the United States’ otherwise fruitless Venezuela policy. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have tried a variety of strategies to induce regime change in Venezuela. All have come up short. Typically, these U.S. measures, such as recognizing the interim presidency of Juan Guaidó, in 2019, focused on a decisive moment of regime change or political transition. Often, they have suffered from excessive optimism and a lack of coordination with international partners.

By contrast, a coalition-based policy of constructive containment would seek to limit the regime’s actions and exploit its weaknesses over the long run. Although a political transition should remain the North Star for any credible Venezuela policy, the Venezuelan regime has proved more resilient than its political opposition and many outside observers had anticipated. For years, an emboldened Maduro has flouted democratic norms, maintaining power through repression and brazen electoral theft. Now, increasingly isolated from the democratic world, his regime will likely deepen its contacts with Russia and other autocratic allies, as well as its involvement in transnational crime. As avenues close for the Maduro regime to conduct international commerce, it is likely to plunge ever deeper into drug trafficking, illicit mining, and other criminal activities. And it may prove more willing to cross state lines in pursuit of political opponents, as when, in February, it allegedly abducted and murdered a dissident member of the armed forces who was living under political asylum in Chile.

Like the Soviet Union, however, Maduro’s regime has points of vulnerability and internal contradictions that may well lead to its own collapse. The election in July and its aftermath only exacerbated these weaknesses. Today, Maduro, a widely detested leader, rules not by popular mandate but by brute force and caprice. And his security forces, who are tasked with the nasty business of defending a tyrant from his own compatriots, earn as little as ten dollars per month. This is not a sustainable situation for Maduro and his allies.

Maduro’s inner circle has been reduced to only the most loyal and complicit. But a concerted effort on the part of democratic governments can hasten rebellion lower down the chain of command. Rather than imagining and planning for horizontal splits within the governing coalition, the West’s policies should focus on vertical fissures—that is, on harnessing the growing frustrations of the security forces and business community. The likelihood of such rifts will increase as the regime encounters greater international isolation and a faltering economy.

STRONGER TOGETHER

During the Cold War, the United States spearheaded the containment of the Soviet Union, but Washington also built alliances capable of contributing to and benefiting from the strategy. Containment of Venezuela will require leadership from multiple countries. Brazil’s and Colombia’s efforts to mediate between Maduro’s government and the opposition have floundered, and their desire to appear neutral in the name of dialogue has vitiated their ability to act on principle. And Washington’s past policy failures in Venezuela, such as its ultimately unsuccessful recognition of Guaidó’s interim government in 2019, have complicated its ability to lead alone.

Because no one country is poised to influence the Maduro regime, the current crisis demands collective leadership. In August, the United States, Canada, and 20 other countries signed the Declaration of Santo Domingo, urging Maduro to cease repression and initiate negotiations aimed at a political transition. With its moral clarity and record of leadership, this informal coalition is well placed to create a more sustainable, structured program of containment. It can start by organizing a high-level multinational summit that would bring together the signatories to the Declaration of Santo Domingo and the European Union. Rather than fixate on regime change, the participating countries should lay out a series of short-, medium-, and long-term goals.

The first of these should be to sustain international attention on Venezuela. Maduro is currently buying time and waiting out the news cycle, hoping that Venezuela fatigue sets in shortly. (Even some in the private sector have expressed a desire to move on; last month, Chevron, the last major U.S. oil company in Venezuela, said that the world should continue to support Venezuela’s pumping of oil and gas.) The act of uniting a broad coalition of democratic countries would help keep the world’s attention on the unlawful international activities of the regime. It would also raise the reputational risk for foreign companies that continue to operate in Venezuela.

A single, decisive moment of sweeping democratic transition is not likely to happen in Venezuela.

The creation of a separate body dedicated to monitoring Caracas’s crimes—against its own people and internationally—will also be vital. The coalition should support the establishment of an informal international body of scholars and legal experts to track and report on the regime’s transnational illicit activities and domestic violations of human rights. This independent group should report its findings to organizations tasked with combating organized crime in the Western Hemisphere, such as the U.S. Department of Defense’s Southern Command, European security agencies, and neighboring countries’ security networks. Venezuela’s crimes are hidden in plain sight, but the evidence is currently fragmented and not linked to a broader cohesive response; an independent body could provide regular public updates and trigger punitive actions by individual countries or multilateral organizations. Such a body would also coordinate with neighboring countries and affected governments in the Americas and Europe, as well as the Organization of American States and the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Independent Task Force on Venezuela, which documents human rights conditions in Venezuela.

The international coalition should also prioritize a campaign to pressure the International Criminal Court, which has been investigating Maduro and members of the security forces for crimes against humanity for nearly five years. Such a pressure campaign would help speed up those investigations, which will likely result in the court issuing indictments against Maduro and his associates. Indictments would prevent regime insiders, fearing arrest, from traveling to the 124 countries that are party to the Rome Statute. Since ICC indictments for crimes against humanity cannot be negotiated away by governments, an acceleration of the investigations would signal to the regime that its window of opportunity for a negotiated exit and the potential for amnesties is closing fast. Taking these steps immediately would reduce the leeway to operate that Maduro’s criminal networks currently enjoy, drain resources from the state’s repressive apparatus, and constrain the regime’s ability to commit extraterritorial kidnappings and assassinations—as well as deter it from annexing Guyana’s Essequibo region, which Caracas threatened to do last year.

CONTAIN AND CASTIGATE

In the medium term, the coalition should support Brazil’s and Colombia’s engagement with Venezuela. This would constitute the “constructive” component of containment, providing Maduro with openings to negotiate in good faith under the auspices of friendly nations. For now, Brasilia’s and Bogotá’s mediation efforts have failed to yield tangible results, and they, too, may grow exhausted and move on to other international concerns. The United States, a crucial partner to both countries, can play an important role by encouraging them to stay the course.

Leveraging its collective strength, the coalition should coordinate on additional targeted sanctions against individuals and firms within Venezuela. A consistent, visible international effort would remind Maduro supporters that the six years of his next term, which begins in January, is a long time to endure isolation and international opprobrium. Maduro’s associates already risk losing their visas to travel to the United States, Canada, and Europe, as well as their overseas bank accounts stuffed with ill-gotten gains. But several key individuals associated with the Maduro regime, such as Jorge Rodríguez, the head of the National Assembly, are not under travel and financial restrictions imposed by the EU or the United Kingdom. To signal broad international opposition to Maduro’s allies’ complicity in the regime’s fraud and repression, concerned countries should tighten and synchronize their sanctions.

The coalition should draw up a list of potential sanctions targets now. Even if not all those on the list are eventually designated, it will signal to regime insiders that the new era of containment and castigation is upon them. Additional sanctions would also have the effect of reminding opposition leaders that the world has not abandoned them. The prospect of additional sanctions also supplies many enlisted soldiers, national guard officers, and police officers reason to desert Maduro. The regime’s abuses will continue to affect the living standards and families of those in the security forces, raising the possibility that there may come a time when they decide not to carry out the orders of Maduro’s well-heeled cronies.

Over the long term, a policy of diplomatic and economic containment should seek to induce fractures not at the highest reaches of the Maduro inner circle but among lower-level officials and within the private sector. The regime’s corruption and politicization of the armed forces over the preceding quarter century have purged the military brass of any independence. But a sustained policy of constructive containment can disrupt the cohesion that exists among lower- and mid-level military officers, rank-and-file police officers, business elites, and even foreign collaborators.

A LONG ROAD AHEAD

Venezuela’s 2025 National Assembly elections, which are not yet scheduled, present another opportunity—and also a potential challenge. The Venezuelan opposition must first decide whether it will even participate and lend legitimacy to the process. Provided that the opposition is united in its decision, another electoral contest can serve as a moment for the opposition to marshal evidence of the regime’s criminality and to dial up internal pressure via street-level organizing. The presidential election this year unified the opposition, mobilized citizens, and demonstrated to the world the cynicism, failure, and criminality of the Maduro government. The opposition may have a hard time rallying disenchanted voters to the polls again, but if it succeeds in doing so, it will draw the world’s attention once more and underscore Maduro’s widespread unpopularity.

The truth remains that a single, decisive moment of sweeping democratic transition is not likely to happen in Venezuela. Placing hope in such an outcome will only result in frustration and fatigue. Instead, the contest should be seen as another stride within a larger strategy to contain the regime’s international illicit activities and ambitions, punish its power brokers and enablers, and claw back political space for the opposition.

Consistent, coordinated international pressure may yield opportunities for meaningful dialogue between the government and the opposition. But talks should be predicated on real commitments from Caracas to uphold international norms and human rights. In the past, superficial negotiations have allowed the regime to kick the can down the road and avoid accountability for its abuses. Any future talks must begin with Caracas’s recognition of the legitimacy and political rights of the opposition, as well as its acceptance of the need to reform Venezuela’s hollowed-out state.

For now, the leader of the opposition, María Corina Machado, remains in Venezuela and has vowed to continue to fight. Now it is incumbent on Latin America, the United States, and those in the world who defend democracy and human rights to put in place a comprehensive, multilateral strategy of containment and vertical regime fracture—well before Maduro’s farce inauguration on January 10, 2025. For Maduro, it will be a challenge to maintain his grip on power, for another six years, against the will both of his own people and of a united international opposition.