Because the U.S. navy escalates its posture round Venezuela—with naval deployments within the Caribbean, B-52 overflights, deadly strikes on alleged drug boats, and confirmed CIA covert operations—advocates of regime change are reviving a harmful analogy. Many have pointed to the US’ 1989 invasion of Panama and toppling of dictator Manuel Noriega as proof that swift, surgical operations can get the job achieved.
In personal conversations with a number of present and former U.S. officers, they’ve nodded towards this parallel. Venezuelan opposition chief María Corina Machado, who simply final month was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, has appealed to the US for assist combating what she calls Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s “struggle.” When requested about putting Venezuelan territory, U.S. President Donald Trump has refused to rule it out, saying, “Properly, you’re going to search out out.”
Because the U.S. navy escalates its posture round Venezuela—with naval deployments within the Caribbean, B-52 overflights, deadly strikes on alleged drug boats, and confirmed CIA covert operations—advocates of regime change are reviving a harmful analogy. Many have pointed to the US’ 1989 invasion of Panama and toppling of dictator Manuel Noriega as proof that swift, surgical operations can get the job achieved.
In personal conversations with a number of present and former U.S. officers, they’ve nodded towards this parallel. Venezuelan opposition chief María Corina Machado, who simply final month was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, has appealed to the US for assist combating what she calls Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s “struggle.” When requested about putting Venezuelan territory, U.S. President Donald Trump has refused to rule it out, saying, “Properly, you’re going to search out out.”
The comparability between Panama in 1989 and Venezuela in 2025 is seductive. It is usually essentially flawed. The 2 instances are completely different on almost each structural and operational stage. Mistaking the U.S. historical past in Panama for a template for U.S. motion in Venezuela right now may result in a chronic counterinsurgency.
The USA didn’t invade Panama in 1989. It attacked it from the within. On the time, almost 13,000 U.S. troops had been completely stationed within the nation—a vestige of the U.S. function in overseeing the Panama Canal. When President George H.W. Bush gave the order to start Operation Simply Trigger on Dec. 17, 1989, it required deploying 14,000 further troops by air. However almost half the invasion pressure was already on the bottom, pre-positioned and intimately conversant in their targets.
Noriega had as soon as been a U.S. intelligence asset, however he grew to become more and more hostile to U.S. pursuits all through the Nineteen Eighties. After Noriega nullified the Could 1989 presidential elections received by opposition candidate Guillermo Endara, the Bush administration grew to become satisfied that solely navy pressure may restore Panama’s democracy.
For months earlier than Bush’s orders to invade, U.S. forces performed workout routines via Operation Sand Flea—rehearsals disguised as pressure safety drills—that decreased the Panamanian Protection Forces’ (PDF) readiness to reply to U.S. troop actions. Because the U.S. Military official historical past data, “workout routines had been run with such frequency that the enemy grew to become desensitized to fast actions of troops.”
By December 1989, U.S. intelligence knew Noriega’s command nodes in addition to PDF unit tendencies and key officers. Operation Simply Trigger known as for simultaneous strikes on two dozen PDF targets to sever their command-and-control capabilities earlier than they might arrange resistance. At round 1 a.m. on Dec. 20, it labored. Main fight operations concluded inside 5 days, and Noriega surrendered on Jan. 3, 1990. By Jan. 12, the operation was over.
Venezuela is a very completely different story. The USA has no ahead presence, no in-country basing, no treaty rights, and no comparable intelligence infrastructure. Current U.S. strikes—helicopters close to Trinidad and Tobago, warships in worldwide waters, bomber patrols—might sign Washington’s resolve. However they don’t assist undertaking energy into a rustic that lacks an current U.S. foothold.
The authentic 1988 U.S. plan in Panama known as for gradual navy buildup over 22 days. After Noriega nullified the Could 1989 elections, Bush changed the top of the U.S. Southern Command. Gen. Maxwell Thurman compressed the timeline to a few days and shifted to a shock technique. That plan labored as a result of infrastructure to help it already existed. In Venezuela, it doesn’t.
Though the US had each benefit in Operation Simply Trigger, it wasn’t a cold endeavor. The PDF fought tougher than anticipated: On simply the primary day of the operation, an estimated 19 U.S. troops had been killed and 99 wounded. Panamanian casualties included 300 to 500 civilian deaths.
Battle in Venezuela could be a lot deadlier—partly as a consequence of geography. Panama is way smaller than Venezuela, at simply 75,000 sq. kilometers. Venezuela is 12 instances bigger—and twice the scale of Iraq, which consumed U.S. forces in counterinsurgency for almost a decade. Furthermore, the place Panama is a slim isthmus, Venezuela encompasses huge savannas, the Andes Mountains, the Amazon rainforest, and a number of main city facilities. This numerous terrain would complicate navy operations at each stage.
Manpower poses one other downside: Not like the PDF, Venezuelan forces and their allies can’t be decapitated in a weekend. In December 1989, the Panamanian navy numbered 12,800 personnel—however solely 4,000 had been combat-ready. The PDF was a personalistic equipment constructed round Noriega and his small circle of allies. Management was centralized in Panama Metropolis. When U.S. forces struck, they destroyed the PDF’s command backbone in three hours. The PDF’s centralized construction meant the US may neutralize it earlier than it may mount guerrilla insurgency.
Venezuela’s safety structure, against this, is layered and resilient. The nation’s navy, the Bolivarian Nationwide Armed Forces, numbers between 130,000 and 160,000 energetic personnel. The Maduro regime additionally has cultivated parallel constructions designed to stop fast navy collapse. The Bolivarian Militia, comprised of reservists, claims greater than 1.6 million members. And pro-government paramilitaries generally known as colectivos quantity roughly 100,000. They’re decentralized and ideologically dedicated to Maduro’s celebration and function with substantial autonomy in city neighborhoods as rapid-response enforcers deployed towards the opposition.
Then there are nonstate actors. Colombian guerrilla teams—dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Nationwide Liberation Military—preserve a presence in Venezuela’s border areas, controlling drug smuggling in addition to unlawful mining of gold and different minerals.
The variations don’t cease on the bottom. In 1989, Panama had no significant air defenses, permitting U.S. plane to function freely. However Venezuela may briefly contest the skies. The Venezuelan Military operates S-300VM Antey-2500 long-range surface-to-air techniques able to participating plane at ranges as much as 200 kilometers. The navy additionally fields S-125 Pechora medium-range techniques and Igla-S man-portable air protection techniques. After years of poor upkeep, these techniques’ operational readiness is unclear.
However even degraded defenses impose danger: Any critical U.S. air marketing campaign towards Venezuela would require it to suppress enemy air defenses through direct strikes that might escalate to open warfare.
On Dec. 19, 1989, hours earlier than Operation Simply Trigger started, the U.S. deputy chief of mission stationed in Panama invited Endara, the winner of the Could elections, and his two operating mates to a secret assembly. Thurman briefed them on the standing of the operation and provided them their elected places of work. Simply earlier than midnight, a Panamanian decide administered their oaths.
Thus, when U.S. forces struck at 1 a.m., Panama had a functioning various authorities. Endara’s administration offered political legitimacy to the invasion and started dissolving the PDF. This rapid succession was important: Operation Simply Trigger led to regime change, not occupation.
Venezuela has no equal authorities in ready. Machado has been compelled into hiding. Opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González, who received final 12 months’s election in accordance with unbiased counts, fled the nation after the Maduro regime issued a warrant for his arrest. The political opposition stays divided about how one can confront Maduro: Some favor negotiation, others road mobilization, and but others navy defection.
A U.S. occupation or appointed transitional council would rework Venezuelan liberation into imperialism—and supply Maduro’s remnants with a nationalist trigger for resistance.
In 1989, the US confronted minimal worldwide blowback to its invasion of Panama: The Chilly Battle was ending, the Soviet Union was collapsing, and Latin American governments weren’t ready to problem Washington militarily or economically. The Group of American States condemned the invasion, however the US confronted solely rhetorical penalties. Panama itself, traumatized by civilian casualties and destruction, finally accepted Endara’s authorities.
In 2025, the geopolitical chessboard is crowded. China has deepened its financial presence throughout Latin America via infrastructure investments, port operations, and monetary partnerships. Whereas Trump has infected U.S. considerations about Chinese language affect on the Panama Canal, the broader sample of Chinese language engagement complicates unilateral U.S. navy motion within the area. Russia and Iran additionally preserve safety relationships with Venezuela. Latin American governments, even these hostile to Maduro, stay deeply skeptical of U.S. navy intervention.
None of that is to say that the U.S. navy lacks the aptitude to topple Maduro. In 1991, Iraq fielded what was thought-about the fifth-largest military on the planet, but the U.S. floor marketing campaign that liberated Kuwait lasted simply 100 hours. The argument right here is structural, not doctrinal. Army capabilities and operational circumstances are distinct variables. Venezuela is just not Panama, and the circumstances that enabled Operation Simply Trigger’s fast success don’t exist right now.
The Panama analogy persists as a result of it’s emotionally satisfying for U.S. hawks: swift motion, minimal value, ethical readability. However Washington can’t invade its approach to desired outcomes in Caracas. A U.S. occupation of Venezuela would final years, with the chance of a steady, democratic nation rising near zero. Pretending in any other case isn’t technique—it’s nostalgia.
