Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro is giving Russian and Chinese military forces the ability to better infiltrate the American mainland, a Republican senator warned Thursday.
“We’re going to have a problem whether we want to acknowledge it or not,” Florida Sen. Rick Scott said on stage at the American Enterprise Institute. “Once they have the foothold in Venezuela, they can come here by land eventually. Our southern border is very porous, as we know. With the right military assets, they can hit Florida or any place else.”
Scott, a member of the Senate Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, argued not just that “the United States must consider the use of military assets” to deliver humanitarian aid to Venezuela over Maduro’s objections. He raised the prospect of a full military intervention to overthrow the regime, saying that Venezuela has turned into an important theater of “great power confrontation” among the United States, Russia, and China.
“The Cubans, Russians, and Chinese see Venezuela as an economic opportunity, but more importantly, they see a chance to intimidate the United States, to be a thorn in our side,” Scott said in his speech. “Here’s the truth: We simply cannot allow our adversaries in Russia, China, or Cuba to gain a foothold in Venezuela.”
The United States and other Western democratic powers recognized opposition lawmaker Juan Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela in January, after Maduro claimed to have secured another term as president in an election that international observers condemned as fraudulent. The Venezuelan constitution gives the legislature the power to authorize “foreign military missions within the country,” but it has not yet made that request of the U.S., perhaps due to doubts about how Trump would respond.
“If the Venezuelan people, through their elected national assembly and their own laws and constitution, request assistance to restore constitutional government and democracy, we should be ready to answer that call,” Scott said.
Maduro has defied Western pressure with the assistance of Cuban security forces, as well as Russian and Chinese support. Russia, which startled U.S. officials in December by sending to Venezuela for military exercises two bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons, dispatched about 100 members of the military to repair Maduro’s S-300 anti-aircraft missile defense system after a nationwide power outage in March. That blackout exacerbated a humanitarian crisis that has driven millions of Venezuelans to seek food and medical treatment in neighboring countries such as Colombia.
“The United States needs to start considering the use of military assets to bring aid to the millions of starving and sick Venezuelans,” Scott said. “And I call on all of our allies and those supporting Guaidó to help us in this effort.”
[Opinion: Military intervention in Venezuela? It should be up to Congress]
Maduro-aligned forces blocked a U.S. effort to deliver humanitarian aid in cooperation with Guaidó in February. Maduro’s Russian-made air defenses raise the risks for any U.S. military operation over Venezuelan skies. And Scott acknowledged that American neglect of Latin America in recent decades has undercut intelligence-gathering in the region.
“If you look at the amount of military assets we have dedicated to this hemisphere, it’s pretty weak,” he said in discussion with Roger Noriega, an AEI visiting fellow and former assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere. “I think that’s why … you’re seeing Russia is going to continue to build up assets.”
Trump’s national security team shares that concern while recognizing that it has not been as “easy” to dislodge Maduro through diplomatic and economic pressure as some in the administration thought it would be.
“If China and Russia along with Cuba establish domination over Venezuela, I think American strategic interests will be harmed,” White House national security adviser John Bolton told talk radio host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday. “Look, our objective is a peaceful transition of power to Juan Guaidó and the opposition. But let’s not forget we’ve got between 40,000 to 50,000 American citizens in Venezuela. It’s our obligation to protect them.”
Scott allowed that a peaceful transition would be ideal, but he believes the crisis is more likely to degenerate into a conflict like the Syrian civil war. While he supports U.S. sanctions, he wants Trump to expand the toolkit to include military force if the sanctions fail to crack the regime.
“If embargoes and blockades can help, we should consider them,” Scott told the AEI audience. “And if military force on the part of the United States and our allies in the region is necessary to rid us of the scourge of Maduro and his thugs, then we absolutely cannot rule it out.“
