In the hit musical “Hamilton,” George Washington is depicted telling Alexander Hamilton, after a contentious cabinet meeting, “... winning (the war) was easy, young man. Governing’s harder.”
That thought should be front and center for the Trump administration right now.
Thanks to impressive planning and coordination, the U.S. military strike on Venezuela early Saturday, in which American soldiers captured and extracted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro, was spectacular. Its precision made a difficult task seem easy, although it surely wasn’t.
The U.S. said it suffered no casualties. The number of dead on the other side is not known but believed to be in the dozens.
The audacity and success of the mission reportedly earned grudging, although only privately expressed, respect from top Russian officials. The Guardian quoted the pro-Kremlin and militarily connected Telegram channel Dva Mayora saying this was how Russia hoped the initial attack on Ukraine had gone, though the unlawful invasion of Ukraine is hardly the same as executing an arrest warrant, albeit in a foreign country.
As history has shown, conflicts are judged over a much longer timeline. President George W. Bush learned the hard way that declaring “mission accomplished” too soon can backfire. Not long after he did so, the Iraqi insurgency stepped up and a sectarian war ensued. U.S. soldiers in Iraq were in for a much longer conflict.
An impressive mission
The raid on Venezuela could not have been a surprise for even casual observers. For months, President Donald Trump had been ordering American flotillas into waters near the Caribbean nation. The U.S. had attacked several boats that were alleged to be carrying illegal drugs for export to the United States or elsewhere. Maduro was apparently given several chances to voluntarily leave office.
However, the raid was handled with such precision that opposition forces offered little effective resistance. The 150 U.S. aircraft involved neutralized Venezuela’s air defenses, allowing helicopters to deliver troops that captured and removed Maduro and his wife, all within about two hours and 20 minutes.
In statements after the attack, Trump said the United States would now be “running” Venezuela for a period of time, helping it to transition to a democratic state. He offered few details, other than that U.S. oil companies, whose assets were stolen by Venezuela, would somehow help rebuild that nation’s wealth.
But not long after Maduro’s ouster, Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was sworn into office as president. Rodríguez initially had claimed, with defiance, that Maduro was the nation’s only rightful leader. Later, after threats from the White House, she softened her stance and said she was willing to collaborate with the Americans.
It’s unclear why Trump chose to accept Rodríguez rather than the man many believed actually won the most recent election, Edmundo González Urrutia. The future governance of the country remains in flux and is unknown.
Is it nation building?
The arrest of Maduro puts Trump in an unfamiliar place. He campaigned against so-called “nation building” and “forever wars” started by his predecessors who overthrew despotic rulers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, he faces a task that is at least as challenging.
Resistance groups are bound to defy American forces. Transparency International ranks Venezuela 178th out of 180 nations in terms of corruption. That means corruption is deep-seated in the nation’s bureaucracy and will be difficult to eradicate. Doing so could take years.
Ominously, Trump has hinted about operations similar to the Venezuelan attack in Colombia, Cuba and even Mexico. He has once again threatened to annex Greenland.
Maduro was a tyrant who had no legitimate claim to office in Venezuela. No one should shed a tear for his ouster. The U.S. military, meanwhile, did much on Saturday to strike fear in any enemy who might want to provoke a fight with America.
But the long game — bringing lasting peace to a nation that has suffered from corruption for decades — takes time and resources.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell once famously said about ventures in foreign lands, “If you break it, you own it.”
The U.S. has now broken Venezuela. Regardless of how right that decision may have been, there are no shortcuts from here. Leaving that nation to the wiles of a new generation of tyrants would be the worst of all outcomes.