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A Better Type of War

Entry 2425, on 2026-01-09 at 18:21:56 (Rating 4, News)

I think it is time to start the year of blogging with something good and controversial, unlike my usual stuff which everyone agrees with (I'm being sarcastic). So let's have a quick look at the "invasion" of Venezuela and the "kidnapping" of Venezuelan (ex?) president Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

The anti-Trump brigade jumped on this immediately and denounced it as an example of "fascism" or "colonialism" or "economic warfare", but are these claims fair? Well, I think we would have to say that controlling access to Venezuela's vast oil reserves is part of the reason this has happened, but there might be more commendable reasons as well.

Let's face it: the US has a reputation for getting involved in foreign politics and hasn't hesitated in the past to remove any leaders they didn't approve of, or to attack a country with minimal justification. Additionally, although many of the actual invasions went well, there is a frequent problem in establishing when the "mission is complete" and to organise a better form of government after the US forces have left. Iraq and Afghanistan are good examples of this problem we have seen in recent years.

As well as somewhat questionable outcomes, these wars have resulted in significant civilian casualties: hundreds of thousands in Iraq and tens of thousands in Afghanistan.

So how does what has happened in Venezuela compare? Well it's far too early to know whether any useful regime change might happen, or whether the new leadership there might be even worse than the current one, but at least I approve of one thing: the low number of casualties, especially civilians.

I quite like the concept of directly targeting problematic leaders and leaving the civilians and even military personnel relatively untouched. There is no reasonable doubt that Maduro was a terrible leader, and the exodus of millions of Venezuelans should clearly demonstrate that. Venezuela is an example of what happens when economic policies err to much towards socialism.

Note that I'm not saying that policies which might be described as socialist in intent are always bad; there is room for that type of thing to some extent in a fundamentally capitalist society, but when the basis for the economy has major Marxist elements to it, there seems to be only one outcome: tyranny, economic ruin, and general failure.

But is it the US's job to "fix" these problems when they arise? Well, that's the big question, isn't it. The US is often seen as the world's "police force" and is generally expected to help out in situations where more positive intervention us required, such as providing development money and disaster relief, so I guess we have to accept the more questionable aspects of this role as well.

And if they are going to intervene in "badly run" foreign governments then this targeted approach seem to be the way to do it. I also like the way Israel has done this to a lesser extent, with its attacks on terrorist leaders and the infamous 2024 Lebanon pager attacks on terrorists. While I am uncomfortable with any government killing any people for any reason, I would prefer a more direct attack on the genuine cause of the problem rather than a less targeted one.

And, yes, I know if you look at Gaza it doesn't look like the Israelis have been too successful in attacking just the "bad guys", but remember those terrorists deliberately located themselves in civilian areas, and despite this the civilian to military casualty ration in Gaza is remarkably low. Could Israel have done better? Well, sure, but they could have done a lot worse too.

If you don't like Trump's actions in Venezuela I invite you to compare them with the death and destruction brought about by Obama. The numbers are difficult to know exactly, but there were at least tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands, of civilians killed during his time as president. He also had more bombs dropped than anyone else, and conducted airstrikes in seven countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and Syria.

And, just for the record, some Mexicans referred to him as the "deporter in chief" after he had over 3 million illegal immigrants deported.

So whatever you think of Trump's actions, it could be worse, a lot worse, if Obama was still president. It seems to me that Trump really does prefer a better type of war!

Comment 1 (8519) by Anonymous on 2026-01-10 at 21:47:08:

How is killing people and stealing their resources a "better type of war"? Do you have no morals?

Comment 2 (8520) by OJB on 2026-01-10 at 22:20:57:

Well, I should respond with a couple of points. First, note above that I said "...I am uncomfortable with any government killing any people for any reason...", but second, also note that the word "better" is the comparative form of the word "good". It means this type of war (assuming it even is a war) which targets leaders rather than military or civilians is just better than the more traditional type. It might still be bad, but it is better than the alternative. See what I'm saying now?

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