"Nicolas Maduro is chased out of office by a massive popular revolt but the Venezuelan military takes to the streets, turning its guns on the civilians who have brought him down. A palace coup sends Venezuela's authoritarian leader into exile, sparking a bloody power struggle between members of his disintegrating regime. Maduro or a key ally is assassinated by a US decapitation strike but as foreign soldiers commandeer Caracas and key airports and ports leftwing insurgents tighten their grip on the country's mineral-rich hinterlands"
"You'd have prolonged chaos with no clear way out, said Douglas Farah, a Latin America expert whose national security consulting firm was part of those 2019 strategising efforts. In all three of the discussion-based simulations, the upheaval triggered a fresh exodus of refugees across Venezuela's borders with Colombia and Brazil, as citizens fled skirmishes between rival rebel groups or foreign occupiers and loyalist troops."
US government war games in 2019 modelled three distinct post-Maduro outcomes: a popular uprising met by military repression, a palace coup producing exile and a bloody intra-regime struggle, and an assassination followed by foreign intervention that provoked insurgencies and loyalist guerrilla attacks. Each scenario produced widespread instability, fractured authority, and renewed mass displacement toward Colombia and Brazil. Military engagements and competing armed groups threatened infrastructure such as oil refineries, pipelines, ports and airports. Deployments of major US naval assets in Caribbean waters underscored international pressure and the geopolitical stakes surrounding any Venezuelan transition.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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