Using Military Force Is Not The Way to Achieve Democracy in Venezuela
I have a new piece out at The Monkey Cage, using political science (and some history) literature to argue that using military force in Venezuela is not likely to lead to democracy. It's not a typical op-ed, in the sense that I am just bringing together a lot of work on the topic rather than making an argument solely on the Venezuelan case. So it's a very comparative argument.
The fact that Russia just sent troops to Venezuela adds to the uncertainty. That's not included in my article, but I see it as a basic deterrent against U.S. use of force. Attack Venezuela now and you might be engaging Russians. Chris Sabatini added that it might be aimed at keeping Venezuelans generals in line.
2 comments:
How do you get rid of a regime that controls its population by force (with local and foreign armies)? A regime that murders and imprisons its opponents (in the thousands), and is willing to starve its own population? How do you get rid of that? by talking? Do you even understand that these people are thugs and criminals? You cannot reason with these people, the opposition has been trying for many years. As every other thug in this world, they only understand one and only one language: brute force. How did reasoning and talking work out with Hitler, Saddam or Ghadaffi?
I have been irritated with the focus purely on the "leadership" when it comes to the military or civil government. All of these people are atop political structures and exists in a web of relationships such that although we might prefer to think of them as venal people thinking only of themselves 100% of the time, they influence and are influenced by the people around them of dissimilar status, and are quite likely to have altruistic, for whatever that's worth, purposes for their strategy.
Focusing on the random general distracts from convincing the general's accountant, the general's niece, the random muscle they pull from the barrios...
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