There was an article in Politico about the Trump administration pressuring the oil companies to go into Venezuela.
The interesting part for me was this, quoting a major oil company executive:
“Will the U.S. be able to attract U.S. oilfield services to go to Venezuela?” the executive asked. “Maybe. It would have to involve the services companies being able to contract directly with the U.S. government.”
So it might be a risk-free expedition for the oil services companies paid for by the US government.
It wouldn't surprise me if the US got control of receipts for Venezuelan oil, perhaps opening an account in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York similar to the "Development Fund for Iraq" established in 2003 with UN approval.
As is known now that money was disbursed with few controls. I could tell some stories about that. There was a lot of illegal and legal looting, the latter by contractors like KBR and Parsons taking advantage of cost-plus contracts without clear scopes of work.
I'd bet there are some drooling over the prospects.
Wow I'm sorry I missed this piece because it adds a lot — for instance, "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.”
To the extent there is a plan, and I use the word advisedly, my thought is that they intend to do nothing. With regard to oil, this strategy avoids any qualms industry might have about risking their capital and also solves their current problem, which is too much oil on the market. Both the industry majors and our "friends" in the Middle East, two large constituencies in Trump' s orbit, will soon benefit from less competition and higher oil prices. And they don't have to do anything.
I also think that the Trump regime will do little if anything to "run" Venezuela and will depend, instead, on the free market of stochastic violence to sort things out. But that is a whole different story than the oil.
Very interesting. I've been reading with great interest the Substack "Factory Settings," which shares in exhaustive detail the decisions and processes around encouraging semiconductor production investment in the US. Suffice it to say that the ridiculous Trump administrations not-even-back-of-the-napkin encouragement to invest in Venezuela's petrol industry does not hold water. A devastating comparison.
Sorry to link something like this, but some private military contractors are looking this over.. and all on the podcast that Jeffrey allegedly invested in its outset.
Mercenaries could unfortunately have a lot of options here. Keep an eye on Erik Prince in this, he has already been in and around Venezuela in the past.
"Government is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex." -Frank Zappa
As you may already know he also predicted the coming of a "fascist theocracy" and a day when the illusion of choice was to much hassle to maintain, the set and scenery get rolled away and you just see the blank wall behind the stage. Can you see the wall yet?
Because this is happening now--well into the 21st century which is an era of super-awareness due to internet 2.0 and rampant social media with all of its widespread immediacy (unlike the adventures in Panama and even Iraq)--I fear that this whole thing will give license to other errant leaders to grab the leadership of opponents in other countries and they will excuse themselves with a flippant: "American-does-it".
I am not an expert in international law and I don't know what international law says about this sort of thing--although it is possible that there is nothing specific or explicit about grabbing other countries' leaders and shipping them to prison in the likes of (my) Brooklyn. (Will some other leader try to grab Trump and imprison him elsewhere?) It is possible that here, in the international arena as in the domestic arena, Trump is taking advantage of gaps or grey areas in the law to get away with things. This is deeply distressing because the law--domestic or international--as imperfect as it is--is the one bulwark against Might-Makes-Right. But perhaps I am too naive for the first half of the 21st century.
Wonderful piece, John. Hard to imagine that this isn’t teeing them up for Greenland. I picked a strange week to read about Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm, and the politics of personality in the late nineteenth century, boy howdy.
Agreed. On Bluesky, someone shared Katie Miller's post on X of an image of Greenland fully covered in an American flag. And I had just started listening to Anne Applebaum's Autocracy, Inc., which I realize is belated but now seems timely. Given that Trump likes money and how power gets him more money, I'm curious how he hopes (plans?) to increase his own net worth from this endeavor. (Or maybe he won't in the way he planned. I wonder if he bought shares in oil companies prior to the attack and will be disappointed by their reluctance? Or maybe he has invested in the smaller companies that John suggested may take the leap.)
Social imperialism, or "wag the dog," has been a standard explanation of foreign policy adventures, from Revolutionary France in 1792 to French invasions of Algeria in 1830 and Indochina in 1887 to Germany's invasion of Belgium in 1914, etc., etc. While Trump's latest version is deplorable, I see it as preferable to a much worse alternative, namely a war or attrition with a large industrial power like Russia or China, one that would cost millions of lives. Sometimes the historian in me wonders whether bullying poor countries is what rich countries do to keep from fighting each other. I'm not trying to justify imperialism, just putting it into historical context.
Fascism is vice signalling manifest; "violence is good" because the spectacle of overpowering others *itself* makes them feel powerful, whether or not there may actually be power in the act.
I think in some sense, the "foreign war to distract domestic woes" may itself be too sensical a rationale for fascists (normal regime do that all the time). Much like the original quasi-Blackshirts at Fiume, maybe fascists do these foreign adventures & violent spectacles because they want to feel powerful in the only way they can understand power: to bully, to abuse, to violently "overpower" others
Long-time lurker, first-time subscriber. I am discomfited by my own ambivalence. My father was Venezuelan: once upon a time, he and his family lived in an oil camp near Lake Maracaibo. I still have distant relatives there. I am not surprised by the diasporic community’s reaction to Maduro’s ousting. Many of them are excited by the prospect of reuniting with loved ones. Maduro is simply brutal, and his defenestration is at least some sort of justice for the tens of thousands of Venezuelans who have been disappeared and executed. But I’m not quite ready to die on this hill in defense of American imperialism.
For show, performative, propaganda, sounds about right to me. Telling that he's already dismissing any democratic role for the opposition. And the economic logic seems both mired in the past and half-baked, per usual. It's a petty domination move that'll probably blow up in their faces at some point. Reportedly, over seven million have fled the country since 2015, looking for jobs and an escape from the political crisis. A lot of those people are probably happy to see Maduro go but extracting a bunch of Venezuelan oil wealth won't improve prospects in the country.
i know social media in general has reduced America to a free-range hog farm of low IQ slop slurpers, but if this nonsensical war actually buoys trump in the polls, i fear we've entered an unprecedented era of mass dipshittery
Trump is not shy of conflicts or war. However, Trump's mind was still open in 1969. He is therefore terrified of shipping any coffins to Dover Air Base. Which is why Denmark should be very worried about Greenland--the prospect of another "bloodless" military victory.
This might be a weird point, I'm not sure if I even buy it because it's a little close to the truly braindead "It's a distraction!" saying popular among Democratic politicians, but: the domestic MAGA faction, or at least its influencers, were fighting quite a bit recently, particularly over the Nick Fuentes-Tucker debacle and (on a smaller scale) the Erika Kirk-Candace Owens kerfuffle.
We know Trump's obsession with Venezuela, the "take their oil!" Iraq thing, etc., but I wonder if the admin convinced itself "we need to do something big to get our bickering factions on the same page again", and a military operation in Latin America against a hated Other works there. Miller obviously plays a role here, along with the weird panic about fentanyl/drugs playing a role in their immigration narrative. Not that any of this was thought out well (is much of anything well thought out in Trump 2.0?), but the Maduro abduction does have some 'wag the dog' quality to it.
The only thing re Trump that’s genuinely new is the shitting on the rule of law. Of course, he was preceded on that by the Roberts court starting long before Trump even announced in 2015. Also not-at-all new are his policies, such as they are, which is a mix of long time GOP goals and delusional garbage from RWNJ media.
Didn't Noriega "just say no" to George HW Bush, when he wanted to use Panama as a base for the invasion of Nicaragua? I seem to remember something about that...
As a side note, in the far-from-certain event that some Yanqui oil interests decide to take a chance on Trump’s petro-colony fantasy, the US will have to construct a police state far worse than Maduro’s to protect them from Bolivarist guerrillas. The usual grotesque poetry in that.
There was an article in Politico about the Trump administration pressuring the oil companies to go into Venezuela.
The interesting part for me was this, quoting a major oil company executive:
“Will the U.S. be able to attract U.S. oilfield services to go to Venezuela?” the executive asked. “Maybe. It would have to involve the services companies being able to contract directly with the U.S. government.”
So it might be a risk-free expedition for the oil services companies paid for by the US government.
It wouldn't surprise me if the US got control of receipts for Venezuelan oil, perhaps opening an account in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York similar to the "Development Fund for Iraq" established in 2003 with UN approval.
As is known now that money was disbursed with few controls. I could tell some stories about that. There was a lot of illegal and legal looting, the latter by contractors like KBR and Parsons taking advantage of cost-plus contracts without clear scopes of work.
I'd bet there are some drooling over the prospects.
Wow I'm sorry I missed this piece because it adds a lot — for instance, "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.”
To the extent there is a plan, and I use the word advisedly, my thought is that they intend to do nothing. With regard to oil, this strategy avoids any qualms industry might have about risking their capital and also solves their current problem, which is too much oil on the market. Both the industry majors and our "friends" in the Middle East, two large constituencies in Trump' s orbit, will soon benefit from less competition and higher oil prices. And they don't have to do anything.
I also think that the Trump regime will do little if anything to "run" Venezuela and will depend, instead, on the free market of stochastic violence to sort things out. But that is a whole different story than the oil.
David Salomon
Very interesting. I've been reading with great interest the Substack "Factory Settings," which shares in exhaustive detail the decisions and processes around encouraging semiconductor production investment in the US. Suffice it to say that the ridiculous Trump administrations not-even-back-of-the-napkin encouragement to invest in Venezuela's petrol industry does not hold water. A devastating comparison.
https://warroom.org/maduro-extraction-military-power/
Sorry to link something like this, but some private military contractors are looking this over.. and all on the podcast that Jeffrey allegedly invested in its outset.
Mercenaries could unfortunately have a lot of options here. Keep an eye on Erik Prince in this, he has already been in and around Venezuela in the past.
i think the garbled motives are fourfold:
1. principally content creation* and ensuring the ragebait flows; the spectacle must go on;
2. arbitrary rampage and brutish display for its own sake; the primal father reinscribing hierarchies of disposability;
3. gender insecurity and racial bloodlust (hegseth and miller);
4. settling old scores (rubio) and grubby wheeling dealing (oil).
*some proposed nomenclature via bluesky: governtaiment, clicktatorship, lolviathan, algorithmic plebiscite, etc
"Government is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex." -Frank Zappa
As you may already know he also predicted the coming of a "fascist theocracy" and a day when the illusion of choice was to much hassle to maintain, the set and scenery get rolled away and you just see the blank wall behind the stage. Can you see the wall yet?
Sounds right
Because this is happening now--well into the 21st century which is an era of super-awareness due to internet 2.0 and rampant social media with all of its widespread immediacy (unlike the adventures in Panama and even Iraq)--I fear that this whole thing will give license to other errant leaders to grab the leadership of opponents in other countries and they will excuse themselves with a flippant: "American-does-it".
I am not an expert in international law and I don't know what international law says about this sort of thing--although it is possible that there is nothing specific or explicit about grabbing other countries' leaders and shipping them to prison in the likes of (my) Brooklyn. (Will some other leader try to grab Trump and imprison him elsewhere?) It is possible that here, in the international arena as in the domestic arena, Trump is taking advantage of gaps or grey areas in the law to get away with things. This is deeply distressing because the law--domestic or international--as imperfect as it is--is the one bulwark against Might-Makes-Right. But perhaps I am too naive for the first half of the 21st century.
Ecuador raiding the Mexican embassy in 2024 fits this mold nicely also
Wonderful piece, John. Hard to imagine that this isn’t teeing them up for Greenland. I picked a strange week to read about Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm, and the politics of personality in the late nineteenth century, boy howdy.
Agreed. On Bluesky, someone shared Katie Miller's post on X of an image of Greenland fully covered in an American flag. And I had just started listening to Anne Applebaum's Autocracy, Inc., which I realize is belated but now seems timely. Given that Trump likes money and how power gets him more money, I'm curious how he hopes (plans?) to increase his own net worth from this endeavor. (Or maybe he won't in the way he planned. I wonder if he bought shares in oil companies prior to the attack and will be disappointed by their reluctance? Or maybe he has invested in the smaller companies that John suggested may take the leap.)
Social imperialism, or "wag the dog," has been a standard explanation of foreign policy adventures, from Revolutionary France in 1792 to French invasions of Algeria in 1830 and Indochina in 1887 to Germany's invasion of Belgium in 1914, etc., etc. While Trump's latest version is deplorable, I see it as preferable to a much worse alternative, namely a war or attrition with a large industrial power like Russia or China, one that would cost millions of lives. Sometimes the historian in me wonders whether bullying poor countries is what rich countries do to keep from fighting each other. I'm not trying to justify imperialism, just putting it into historical context.
I agree. When I heard about this I was thinking about the Iraq War like many people, but at least fewer people are probably going to die in this?
Fascism is vice signalling manifest; "violence is good" because the spectacle of overpowering others *itself* makes them feel powerful, whether or not there may actually be power in the act.
I think in some sense, the "foreign war to distract domestic woes" may itself be too sensical a rationale for fascists (normal regime do that all the time). Much like the original quasi-Blackshirts at Fiume, maybe fascists do these foreign adventures & violent spectacles because they want to feel powerful in the only way they can understand power: to bully, to abuse, to violently "overpower" others
Both at the time and in historical retrospect, the stagnation issue has been accepted as a reason for Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia.
Long-time lurker, first-time subscriber. I am discomfited by my own ambivalence. My father was Venezuelan: once upon a time, he and his family lived in an oil camp near Lake Maracaibo. I still have distant relatives there. I am not surprised by the diasporic community’s reaction to Maduro’s ousting. Many of them are excited by the prospect of reuniting with loved ones. Maduro is simply brutal, and his defenestration is at least some sort of justice for the tens of thousands of Venezuelans who have been disappeared and executed. But I’m not quite ready to die on this hill in defense of American imperialism.
For show, performative, propaganda, sounds about right to me. Telling that he's already dismissing any democratic role for the opposition. And the economic logic seems both mired in the past and half-baked, per usual. It's a petty domination move that'll probably blow up in their faces at some point. Reportedly, over seven million have fled the country since 2015, looking for jobs and an escape from the political crisis. A lot of those people are probably happy to see Maduro go but extracting a bunch of Venezuelan oil wealth won't improve prospects in the country.
Looks like a job for Paul Bremer.
i know social media in general has reduced America to a free-range hog farm of low IQ slop slurpers, but if this nonsensical war actually buoys trump in the polls, i fear we've entered an unprecedented era of mass dipshittery
Trump is not shy of conflicts or war. However, Trump's mind was still open in 1969. He is therefore terrified of shipping any coffins to Dover Air Base. Which is why Denmark should be very worried about Greenland--the prospect of another "bloodless" military victory.
This might be a weird point, I'm not sure if I even buy it because it's a little close to the truly braindead "It's a distraction!" saying popular among Democratic politicians, but: the domestic MAGA faction, or at least its influencers, were fighting quite a bit recently, particularly over the Nick Fuentes-Tucker debacle and (on a smaller scale) the Erika Kirk-Candace Owens kerfuffle.
We know Trump's obsession with Venezuela, the "take their oil!" Iraq thing, etc., but I wonder if the admin convinced itself "we need to do something big to get our bickering factions on the same page again", and a military operation in Latin America against a hated Other works there. Miller obviously plays a role here, along with the weird panic about fentanyl/drugs playing a role in their immigration narrative. Not that any of this was thought out well (is much of anything well thought out in Trump 2.0?), but the Maduro abduction does have some 'wag the dog' quality to it.
The only thing re Trump that’s genuinely new is the shitting on the rule of law. Of course, he was preceded on that by the Roberts court starting long before Trump even announced in 2015. Also not-at-all new are his policies, such as they are, which is a mix of long time GOP goals and delusional garbage from RWNJ media.
Again: Only the lawless is new.
Didn't Noriega "just say no" to George HW Bush, when he wanted to use Panama as a base for the invasion of Nicaragua? I seem to remember something about that...
As a side note, in the far-from-certain event that some Yanqui oil interests decide to take a chance on Trump’s petro-colony fantasy, the US will have to construct a police state far worse than Maduro’s to protect them from Bolivarist guerrillas. The usual grotesque poetry in that.
I guess I don't find Donald's "honesty" on this to be as refreshing as some.