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How Intelligence, Politics, and Foreign Interests Shaped America’s Religious Movements

By Freddie Ponton | 21st Century Wire | December 30, 2025

Christianity is back at the centre of American life, but not necessarily in the way most believers imagine. Churches are fuller, Christian language saturates politics, and faith-based identity has become a mobilising force once again. Yet beneath this revival lies a more unsettling reality: for decades, U.S. government agencies have treated religion not as sacred ground, but as strategic terrain.

This is not theory. During the Cold War, the U.S. State Department and intelligence agencies, most notably the CIA, recognised theology, doctrine, and religious institutions as instruments of influence. Faith was studied, guided, and at times quietly reshaped to serve geopolitical aims. The goal was rarely to destroy belief outright; rather, it was to domesticate it, align it, and render it strategically useful.

DOCUMENT: CIA’s use of journalists and clergy in intelligence operations – Select Committee On Intelligence Of The United States Senate One Hundred Fourth Congress, Second Session, July 17, 1996 (Source to download full pdf: US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence)

Initiatives like the Doctrinal Warfare Program illustrate the scale of this engagement. Churches with mass followings, moral authority, and transnational reach were not simply tolerated; they were targeted for influence. Orthodox congregations in the U.S. and abroad were monitored to ensure alignment with Western interests. Catholic seminaries became conduits for doctrinal shaping, funding networks, and leadership development favourable to U.S. objectives. Even Protestant and Evangelical movements, decentralised and spontaneous, were quietly steered through cultural engagement, philanthropic networks, and selective amplification of certain voices.

Sincere people seeking truth, purpose, and transcendence found themselves caught in influence systems they neither designed nor understood. Their worship, community, and faith became tools in a broader psychological and cultural battle they never consented to.

Doctrinal Warfare: When Theology Became a Battlefield

The CIA’s Doctrinal Warfare Program, particularly its work with Roman Catholic institutions, offers a rare glimpse into how intelligence agencies approach faith. Unlike cinematic portrayals of spies manipulating events, this program operated through subtler, more effective channels.

Influence was exerted via:

  • Funding pipelines and philanthropic foundations, directing resources to seminaries, clergy travel, and publications
  • Theological conferences and academic exchanges, creating opportunities to propagate ideas aligned with U.S. interests
  • Publishing houses, journals, and media networks, shaping what doctrines and interpretations were elevated
  • Selected intermediaries, often clergy or theologians, who could subtly shift discourse without appearing coerced

The program’s goal was not to dictate belief directly but to frame the boundaries of acceptable belief. Anti-communism, Western liberal ideals, and American exceptionalism were integrated into theological narratives. Over time, certain interpretations were elevated while others, particularly liberationist, socialist, or anti-Western emphases, were sidelined.

This structural influence was not limited to Catholics. Orthodox churches in the diaspora, particularly in Eastern Europe and North America, were monitored for political alignment. Protestant and Evangelical networks, decentralised and emotionally charged, presented different challenges. Leaders resisted hierarchical oversight, yet strategic use of media, donor support, and conferences quietly aligned these movements with larger political and global objectives.

The CIA and allied agencies like the Israeli MOSSAD also monitored global religious developments, from Latin America to Africa, mapping networks of clergy, seminaries, and youth movements. Influence became a form of psychological warfare: it did not coerce, but conditioned; it did not command, but subtly steered. And it thrived where people least expected manipulation, within trusted communities, sacred spaces, and moral authority.

VIDEO: David Wemhoff discusses his book John Courtney Murray, Time/Life, and the American Proposition: How the CIA’s Doctrinal Warfare Changed the Catholic Church. (Source: thkelly67 | Youtube)

Calvary Chapel, Charismatic Leaders, and the Power of Movements

Few movements illustrate both the promise and vulnerability of modern American Christianity like Calvary Chapel.

Founded in the mid‑1960s by Chuck Smith in Costa Mesa, California, Calvary Chapel emerged amidst the counterculture and the Jesus Movement. Smith welcomed surfers, hippies, and spiritual seekers alienated by both secular culture and institutional religion. Informal, emotionally open, culturally adaptive—and extraordinarily successful—it grew from a small congregation into a network of more than 1,800 churches worldwide.

Despite the ongoing debate about whether Calvary Chapel was created by individuals controlled by intelligence agencies or by charismatic individuals, the movement demonstrates a lesson intelligence agencies recognised decades ago: youth-driven religious networks are powerful instruments of social, political and cultural influence.

Figures like Lonnie Frisbee, a magnetic and unconventional evangelist, helped ignite the Jesus Movement and played a decisive role in Calvary Chapel’s early expansion. Frisbee’s countercultural persona, preaching on beaches, leading communal outreaches, and drawing thousands of young converts, was a force institutions could admire, attempt to understand, but never fully control.

Similarly, Paul Cain, a prophetic figure in charismatic networks, influenced theological subcultures with a focus on vision, revelation, and spiritual authority. According to reports, Cain was also a consultant to the Paranormal Division of the Central Intelligence Agency and the FBI. Like Frisbee, Cain became controversial, not because he was a confirmed intelligence operative, but because charismatic authority challenges hierarchical control, making it both influential and unsettling.

Calvary Chapel and these figures illustrate a key pattern: movements can grow organically, capture attention, and mobilise communities, making them valuable, and sometimes threatening, to political and intelligence structures. While the direct manipulation claims and the CIA militant connection remain debatable, historical examples like the Doctrinal Warfare Program prove that states do seek to shape religious institutions at scale, often through indirect methods rather than overt control, hence the lack of evidence thereof.

From Pews to Power: Evangelical Politics, Israel, TPUSA, and the Cost of Capture

By the late 20th century, Evangelical Christianity had evolved into a political powerhouse. Networks that began as spiritual awakenings now functioned as engines of political mobilisation, with youth-oriented, media-savvy outreach bridging the gap between churches and the political arena.

TPUSA and Charlie Kirk

Organisations like Turning Point USA (TPUSA) drew from these ecosystems, churches, conferences, campus ministries, and donor networks that had been shaped by decades of cultural, doctrinal, and ideological influence. Faith-language blended seamlessly with nationalism, free-market rhetoric, and civilizational anxiety, mobilising millions of voters.

The 2024 U.S. presidential election highlighted the real-world impact: Evangelical networks were decisive in returning Donald Trump to the White House. For believers, this was framed as a moral imperative or spiritual duty. For observers, it revealed how religious movements could be strategically leveraged within political frameworks.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk, co-founder of TPUSA, shocked the nation and intensified national reflection. While there is no direct evidence ( at least not yet), linking churches or religious movements to the attack, the public reaction underscores a critical truth: powerful social networks rooted in faith become conduits of influence, whether intended or incidental.

As unsettling as it may be for the US government, it is worth noting that an intense social-media rift has emerged between TPUSA and podcaster Candace Owens, with competing narratives and accusations fueling distrust of official accounts surrounding the Charlie Kirk killing at UVU. Interestingly, some critics, Candace Owens among them, contend that the assassination of Charlie Kirk carries the hallmarks of a sophisticated intelligence-style operation, raising uncomfortable questions about whether certain figures within TPUSA may have been more deeply entangled in the events than the public has been led to believe. A decentralised, global network of self-styled citizen journalists is currently crowdsourcing footage, timelines, and open-source data, arguing that gaps and inconsistencies warrant deeper scrutiny beyond mainstream reporting. This phenomenon has amplified public pressure on agencies such as the FBI and on TPUSA to clarify unanswered questions and reconcile discrepancies in their account of the events of September 10, 2022.

Much like the unresolved shadows that followed the JFK assassination, Charlie Kirk’s killing has placed intelligence agencies, the military,  the FBI, and even foreign actors like Israel at the center of a fraught public controversy, not through proven culpability (at least not yet), but through the swirl of suspicion and unanswered questions that inevitably surround the death of a defining religious and political figure in the American conservative sphere, leaving many to ask whether this is coincidence or something more troubling left unexplained.

Christian Zionism and Israeli Influence

No discussion of modern Evangelical power is complete without considering the strategic relationship between U.S. Evangelicals and the State of Israel.

This alliance is public and well-documented. Evangelical Christians, especially in the United States, became one of the most reliable pro-Israel voting blocs, influenced not just by policy arguments but by theological frameworks, Christian Zionism, which frames Israel as divinely central to biblical prophecy.

Israeli political leaders and advocacy organisations have cultivated this alignment via:

  • Pastors’ conferences in Israel
  • Evangelical media networks and tours
  • Donor networks and lobbying partnerships

Organisations such as Christians United for Israel (CUFI) mobilise millions of voters, influence Congressional votes, and amplify foreign policy priorities. During the Trump administration, these networks helped drive decisions like the Jerusalem embassy relocation, Iran policy shifts, and strengthened U.S.-Israel alignment.

Yet this partnership is not uncontested. Younger conservatives and Evangelicals, particularly those aligned with independent thinkers like Charlie Kirk, increasingly question whether faith-based loyalty to foreign policy interests undermines America-first priorities. This generational tension highlights a growing divergence within conservative Christianity: between inherited religious-political alliances and emerging calls for national sovereignty, prudence, and domestic priority.

Moreover, the case of Turning Point USA illustrates how foreign influence can intersect with faith-based movements to shape political power. TPUSA’s open alignment with pro-Israel advocacy networks, from educational trips and conferences to donor engagement, demonstrates how theological and ideological commitments can be leveraged to advance strategic interests. This organisational alignment and associated messaging reveal a clear pattern of external actors using popular religious and political networks to sway domestic policy and voter priorities in the United States. This dynamic mirrors broader trends seen in movements like Calvary Chapel, where charismatic leaders and faith communities, intentionally or not, become conduits for shaping societal and political behaviour, highlighting how belief can be instrumentalised as a tool of influence. Believers are constantly reminded by pastors such as Garid Beeler, of VISION Calvary Chapel in Irvine, CA, that they need to unconditionally embrace the so-called God’s plan for Israel, which in their eyes legitimises Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and the subsequent genocide, on the basis that the Lord specifically gave the Hebrews the land thousands of years ago.

Believers as Collateral in the Machinery of Influence

The story of institutional capture is not about disloyal Christians or malign churches. It is about power exploiting vulnerability.

The State Department, CIA, and allied actors like Israel did not invent faith crises, but they mastered the art of steering movements. They understood that belief motivates action, doctrine shapes identity, and institutions built on trust are uniquely vulnerable to manipulation.

Jay Dyer’s analysis, which we are featuring today, frames this landscape without demonising believers: faith itself is not the enemy, but it has been treated as a resource, managed, redirected, and at times hollowed out by forces whose goals are strategic, political and financial, rather than spiritual.

If Christianity is to withstand this era with integrity intact, it will require discernment, humility, vigilance, and, of course, the ability to separate the Gospel from the machinery of power. The war was never against believers, but belief, as an institution, has been under attack all the same.


Jay Dyer 
writes about the historical and geopolitical factors of state and private interference in ecclesial and religious affairs…

Institutional Capture Explained: The State Dept, CIA & Orthodox, Roman Catholic & Protestant Churches

The notion of state interference in the life of the Church is well known to students of Church history: Arian Emperors, Imperial support for iconoclasm, the Frankish and Germanic control of the papacy, as well as the investiture controversy should all come to mind. These famous scandals demonstrate the persistent cunning on the part of the state to install, influence and control religiosity in the realm, and to students of geopolitics this should also come as no surprise. What is odd, however, is that when this concept arises in modern discussions, it is relegated immediately to the domain of “conspiracy theory,” unless of course you are talking about the KGB and NKVD relationship to Russian clerics in the 20th century.

It only turns out to be a “conspiracy theory” when one points to the US State Department, the CIA, various foundations, NGOS and academic institutions (often closely linked to the intelligence apparatus) – all of whom openly seek to alter and change Orthodox theology, as well as the theological positions of the Roman Catholic and Protestant communions. First, it is worth noting that missionary work is a classic espionage cover: Obviously, I don’t mean all missionaries are spies, but that it has famously been a useful cover for espionage work, which is precisely why Russia has recently banned groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientology. These entities can be used as a form of soft power or even more covert intelligence operations. Similarly, classic cover for foreign operations of this sort has used aid organisation cover, such as the Red Cross or USAID.

In fact, even mainline publications regularly report this fact, though it seems to be lost on so many, especially among the intelligentsia who pride themselves on grasping the practicality of realpolitik. Christianity Today writes:

“Many of America’s first spies were missionaries or came from missionary backgrounds. Often enough, they were the only Americans who had lived abroad—not just among locals but as locals. While other American spies learned about the world through books and couldn’t really grasp its full range of quirks and complexities—“like tourists who put ketchup on their tacos,” as Sutton puts it—missionaries spoke several languages and knew the subtle differences between local dialects. They understood local cultures and faiths from the ground up and knew intuitively how to navigate between them. They knew, in short, “how to totally immerse themselves in alien societies.” But they always identified first and foremost as Christians and as Americans, and when they were called to serve the nation, they did not hesitate to do so.”

This was not unique or new; Orthodox monastic spies were also used by British intelligence in the infamous case of “Father Dimitrios”:

“The story of Father Dimitrios, or David Balfour, who turned out to be a British spy in pre-World War II Greece, is a fascinating yet relatively little-known chapter in modern Greek history.”

Father Dimitrios, the monk with the voice of an angel, turned out to be a spy for the British Intelligence Service. That’s a shame because the mission and wartime actions of the British priest could make a nail-biting spy novel or film.

From 1937 to 1939, the English spy, wearing his priest’s robes and his long, bifurcated beard, performed his ecclesiastical duties close to Greece’s royal family. His relations with King George II, the successor to King Paul and Princess Frederica, were especially close. His access to the royal palace undoubtedly gave him access to valuable information.

British Intelligence must have learned a great deal about the Greek royal family during these crucial prewar years. King George II was a paternal first cousin of Queen Elizabeth’s husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.

Members of the royal family often confessed to their beloved priest. At the same time, Balfour, under the cover of Father Demetrios, forged important acquaintances with high-ranking military officers and politicians with the blessings of the palace.

During World War 2, for example, dozens of missionaries were using their clerical cloaks as their espionage cloak, spying for the Allies. Time Magazine explains:

“His [Protestant Missionary Alfred Eddy] most audacious undertaking included a plot to “kill,” as he described it, “all members of the German and Italian Armistice Commission in Morocco and in Algeria the moment the landing takes place.” In a straightforward and matter-of-fact memo, he told OSS head William Donovan that he was targeting dozens of people. He additionally ordered the executions of “all known agents of German and Italian nationality.” Never one to mince words, he called the proposal an “assassination program.”

To orchestrate his bloodthirsty plot, Eddy hired a team of Frenchmen. He planned to frame the executions as a “French revolt against Axis domination.” “In other words,” he explained to Donovan, “it should appear that the dead Germans and Italians were ‘the victims’ of a French ‘reprisal against the shooting of hostages by the Germans and other acts of German terror,” and not an OSS operation.

At about the same time that he was recruiting French hitmen, he wrote to his family about the sacrifices he was making for Lent. He described the Easter season as “abnormal” this year. “I am certainly abstaining from wickedness of the flesh,” he confessed. With his wife thousands of miles away, that was not too difficult. “I haven’t even been to a movie since Lisbon, I don’t overeat anymore, and I allow myself a cocktail at night, but never before work is all done.”

And,

“American intelligence leaders had stumbled upon the fact that missionaries make great spies. They have excellent language skills, they know how to disappear into foreign cultures, and they are masters at effecting change abroad. But while missionary spooks believed that their wartime work was necessary, they also wrestled with the moral ambiguities inherent in their actions.”

This is just one example among countless, but it serves to illustrate the point – in this case, the supposed man of the cloth is engaged in assassination missions. A fortiori, the US Government would also see the power in utilising religion for the promotion of Americanism. During the Cold War this was ramped up to extreme degrees as CIA operatives and strategists like C.D. Jackson allied with media magnate and Skull & Bonesman Henry Luce – of Time Magazine, to recruit various prominent academics and Jesuits like John Courtenay Murray to help ensure the Vatican and in particular the Second Vatican Council, would include in its dogmatic degrees new doctrinal statements that were amenable to Americanism. This unique style of interference was even highlighted by a congressional investigation in 1996 into the CIA’s use of ministers and journalists here (including Peace Corps Volunteers).

This was combined with separate operations from Helliwell, Angleton, Donovan & Colby to utilise Opus Dei, the Vatican Bank and drug running for black operations funding in the now infamous Operation Gladio, which also saw the See of Rome aligning itself with organised crime to supposedly “save the world from communism.” However, as Catholic lawyer David Wemhoff has demonstrated in his masterful and unparalleled 800-page, vastly sourced tome, John Courtney Murray, Time/Life Magazine and the American Proposition, Jackson’s now declassified “Doctrinal Warfare Program” led the Roman Church into the hands of new masters at the US State Department and the CIA.

Indeed, this is precisely why Pre and Post-Vatican 2 popes, from Pius XII to Paul VI to John Paul 2 were meeting with Colby, Kissinger and William Casey on a consistent basis during the Cold War. And, if you are a perceptive reader, you can already piece together the blackmail and compromise operations that the world has seen through the Epstein saga were simply a window into how these institutions were similarly blackmailed and compromised, which is why there have been so many scandals in the Roman Church concerning pedo crimes, and likely relates to why Benedict resigned.

In regard to the Protestant Churches, the Rockefeller family is quite proud of, and openly brags about their influence and dominance of the Protestant religious world, through their donations and tax-free foundation offerings. These offerings, of course, come with strings attached, such as the decision to push the newly formed “social gospel” concept of the early 20th century. Eventually, the Rockefellers were creating entire seminaries and universities dedicated to the promotion of David’s influences from Keynesian/Fabian and Austrian economic theory, as well as Malthusianism and eventually technocracy, through the recruitment of Zbigniew Brzezinski after the publication of his seminal 1970 text, Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era.

Few know David Rockefeller himself spent time in intelligence work and transferred this knowledge of networking and banking operations into his business ventures, as he discusses in his Memoirs. In fact, Brzezinski’s book also includes chapters discussing the role of the Post-Vatican 2 Roman Catholic Church in the promotion of Americanism and technocratic hegemony. It should also be noted that the Rockefellers didn’t merely have an interest in steering the Protestant and evangelical churches into liberalism and modernism, but also set their sights on Rome and Orthodoxy, as Wemhoff notes.

For the Orthodox World, the price of siding between two thieves came at a high cost, as the Orthodox England blog notes, concerning the place of the Russian Orthodox Church between the KGB and the CIA. Similarly, it has recently been declassified that the OSS placed pressure on the Patriarch of Constantinople, as the CIA said:

“In an OSS interoffice memo dated March 26, 1942, an intelligence agent named Ulius L. Amoss wrote this to a fellow OSS agent named David Burns:

The Archbishop was extremely pleased at having met and lunched with you. He has told me that the entire facilities of his organisation are at our disposal. He put it in these words: “I have three Bishops, three hundred priests and a large and far-flung organisation. Everyone under my order is under yours. You may command them for any service you require. There will be no questions asked, and your directions will be executed faithfully. Please tell Mr Burns for me that this is so.”

A month later, on April 25, the 56-year-old Greek Archbishop attempted to enlist in the U.S. Army. He was turned down.

A few weeks after that, on May 14, Ulias Amoss, the same intelligence agent who wrote the March 26 memorandum, wrote a letter to Athenagoras, thanking him for the Greek Archdiocese’s ongoing cooperation, saying, in part, “The care with which your Bishops and Priests have cooperated has impressed everyone and the report that, perhaps, as many as a hundred thousand names will be returned to us is astounding.” On the same day, William J. Donovan himself — the head of the OSS — also wrote to Athenagoras, “The reports and descriptions of Greek-American youth of military age so kindly undertaken by you are coming in in splendid volume. The care with which Your Grace has managed this important service is of great interest to our armed services, and I wish to express my deep appreciation for your loyal and patriotic assistance.”

This special relationship with US intelligence never ended and continues to this day as the backdrop to the actions of the Phanar and GOARCH in the US:

“Archbishop Elpidophoros, the head of the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, was the honoured guest at the National Intelligence University in Maryland earlier this week, where he delivered an address to the U.S. intelligence community.

The university brings together faculty and students from all 18 of the nation’s intelligence communities.

As the Greek Archdiocese notes, the Archbishop’s talk on “Russia’s Weaponisation of Religion in the Ukraine Conflict” was the first-ever address from a GOARCH leader to the U.S. intelligence community. At the same time, the Patriarchate of Constantinople has a long history of cooperation with the U.S. intelligence community, as detailed in documents released by the CIA.”

While it may seem like a far-off footnote in a dusty history book on Byzantium or the Borgia Papacy, the reality of state and private interference (and control!) in religion is a stark reality. The goal of the state is the maintenance and projection of power, simply put. Religion is a tremendous force for control and power in the world, both good and evil, but for the state, religion is simply another domain of human culture for the projection of power, and in today’s world, that is most often projected as soft power.

If you have not read Joseph Nye’s famous essay on Soft Power, I recommend it hereUnderstanding soft power gives a window into the attitude of the power elite and their perspective on religions and sects as tools – pawns on the grand chessboard, to use Brzezinski’s terminology. One need only think of Brzezinski’s own recruitment and usage of what would become Al Qaeda in the Soviet War in Afghanistan in Operation Cyclone – the usage of a radical religious sect for US objectives – as a classic example.


SEE MORE: Honduras: The Making of a Controlled Democracy

December 31, 2025 Posted by | Book Review, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Venezuela under siege: Why US escalation could destabilize an entire region

By Leila Nezirevic | Al Mayadeen | December 28, 2025

Washington’s confrontation with Venezuela has entered a dangerous new phase. What began years ago as sanctions aimed at pressuring President Nicolás Maduro’s government has now escalated into naval interdictions, oil tanker seizures, and open discussion of military action — a shift that risks destabilizing not only Venezuela but much of Latin America.

In recent weeks, the United States has intensified its campaign by intercepting Venezuelan oil shipments at sea, effectively enforcing what officials describe as a “blockade” of sanctioned vessels. Caracas has denounced the move as piracy and a violation of international law, while Washington frames it as a legitimate enforcement of sanctions and a counter-narcotics operation.

Yet behind the legal arguments and political messaging lies a deeper strategic shift, one that signals a return to a more coercive US posture in Latin America, with potentially profound consequences.

To understand the implications of this escalation, alngside current regional developments and historical precedents, this article draws on an in-depth interview with veteran journalist and leading Latin America expert Richard Lapper.

A sharp escalation at sea

The most visible sign of Washington’s new approach has been its actions in international waters. US naval forces have seized and disabled Venezuelan oil tankers accused of violating sanctions, while additional vessels remain under surveillance. These measures go beyond financial penalties and diplomatic pressure, marking one of the most forceful uses of maritime power against Venezuela in decades.

Caracas has condemned the seizures as an illegal blockade and accused Washington of weaponizing sanctions to strangle its economy. Venezuelan officials argue that the actions violate international maritime law and set a dangerous precedent for global trade.

Legal experts remain divided. While the US claims it is acting within the scope of sanctions enforcement, critics argue that interdicting vessels in international waters — especially without multilateral backing — risks undermining established norms of freedom of navigation.

Richard Lapper, also an author of several books, including Lula!: The Man, The Myth and a Dream of Latin America, is blunt in his assessment. “This is a breach of international law,” he says. “But I don’t think that really matters for the Trump administration. This is about exerting power.”

The return of the Monroe Doctrine

According to Lapper, Washington’s Venezuela policy reflects a broader reassertion of hemispheric dominance reminiscent of the Monroe Doctrine — the 19th-century principle that Latin America falls within the United States’ exclusive sphere of influence.

For decades, US policy toward the region oscillated between overt intervention and softer approaches centred on democracy promotion and economic reform. That balance now appears to be tilting decisively toward coercion.

“This is a fairly clear restatement of a traditional US approach,” Lapper explains. “It says: this is our region, and we are going to exert our power.”

He points to recent US involvement in Honduras as emblematic of this shift. Washington strongly backed political actors aligned with its interests, even when they carried significant legal and ethical baggage. In doing so, the US signalled that strategic loyalty now outweighs democratic credentials.

From sanctions to military pressure

For years, sanctions were Washington’s primary tool against Venezuela. Initially justified as a way to pressure the Maduro government toward democratic reforms, the measures expanded to target the country’s oil industry — the backbone of its economy.

While sanctions inflicted economic pain, they failed to dislodge Maduro. Instead, Venezuela’s political system hardened, opposition forces fragmented, and millions of citizens left the country.

Now, sanctions are being reinforced by overt military pressure.

Trump has publicly refused to rule out armed conflict with Venezuela. While a full-scale invasion remains unlikely, Lapper, warns that limited military escalation is a real possibility.

“I don’t think war in the sense of large ground troop deployments is likely,” he says. “But significant military escalation — including drone strikes or targeted attacks on government assets — could happen.”

Such an approach would mirror recent conflicts elsewhere, where technologically advanced militaries sought to degrade adversaries without committing troops on the ground.

Yet Venezuela is not a small or easily controlled state. It is geographically vast, with difficult terrain and powerful non-state actors operating in rural areas.

“Venezuela is a big country,” Lapper cautions. “It would be very difficult for any external power to secure control of the entire territory.”

Drugs, terror labels, and political framing

Washington has justified some of its actions by framing Venezuela as a major hub for drug trafficking, alleging links between senior officials and organized crime networks such as the so-called “Cartel of the Suns.”

There is little dispute that narcotics pass through Venezuela en route to North America. The question is whether this justifies the current escalation — or whether it serves as political cover.

“You have to take the drug stuff with a pinch of salt,” Lapper says. “A lot of drugs do go through Venezuela, but to what extent Maduro himself is at the centre of this is highly contested.”

He notes the inconsistency of US drug policy, pointing to cases where Washington has quietly abandoned its tough stance when political interests demanded it.

“It’s a convenient wrapper for the policy,” Lapper argues. “But the real objective is regional domination.”

A changing political landscape in Latin America

The escalation against Venezuela is unfolding amid a broader political realignment across Latin America. After the so-called “pink tide” of left-wing governments in the early 2000s, the region has swung sharply to the right.

Conservative and far-right leaders now dominate in countries such as Argentina, El Salvador, and Chile, while left-wing governments face mounting pressure elsewhere.

“These are the leaders setting the regional mood,” Lapper says, pointing to figures like Argentina’s Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. “Not the Lulas and Chavezes of the past.”

This shift has two implications. First, it reduces regional resistance to US pressure on Venezuela. Second, it creates an environment in which hardline security approaches are politically fashionable.

Ironically, however, overt US intervention can still backfire. In Brazil, for instance, perceived external interference has boosted nationalist sentiment and temporarily strengthened President Lula’s standing.

Venezuela’s economic collapse: Sanctions 

One of the central debates surrounding Venezuela concerns responsibility for its economic collapse. Washington argues that sanctions are a response to authoritarianism and corruption. Caracas insists that sanctions themselves are the root cause of suffering.

“Sanctions make things worse, Venezuela was producing three million barrels a day in the late 1990s,” Lapper notes. “Now it produces around a million. It used to be a major force in OPEC. It isn’t anymore.”

However, he also pointed out that even without sanctions, Venezuela would face deep structural challenges. With sanctions, those challenges have become existential.

Humanitarian fallout and migration pressures

The human cost of Venezuela’s crisis is staggering. Roughly one-fifth of the population has left the country, creating one of the largest displacement crises in modern history.

Escalating sanctions and blockades are likely to worsen this trend.

Within Venezuela, reduced oil revenues mean fewer imports, higher inflation, and deeper reliance on informal and illicit economic activities. Outside the country, neighbouring states struggle to absorb waves of migrants.

Brazil, which shares a long land border with Venezuela, has a direct interest in preventing further destabilisation. It has attempted to mediate politically, but with little success.

“Brazil wants stability,” Lapper says. “But its soft diplomacy hasn’t been effective.”

As conditions deteriorate, migration pressures are likely to intensify — not only toward neighbouring countries, but eventually toward the United States itself.

International allies and a shrinking safety net

Venezuela is not entirely isolated. Cuba remains its most important security ally, receiving subsidized oil in exchange for intelligence and political support.

Russia and China provide diplomatic backing, but neither appears eager to dramatically escalate its involvement.

“I don’t see Russia or China rushing to Venezuela’s aid,” Lapper says.

If US pressure cuts off oil supplies to Cuba, the effects could be destabilizing across the Caribbean. Cuba is already facing severe economic strain, with blackouts and protests becoming more frequent.

The risk, analysts warn, is a cascading crisis affecting multiple states simultaneously.

Lessons from past US interventions

History offers sobering lessons. US military interventions in Latin America have had mixed results at best. While short operations in Panama and Grenada succeeded tactically, longer engagements — such as Haiti — produced prolonged instability.

Elsewhere, particularly in the Middle East, US interventions over the past three decades have often exacerbated conflict rather than resolving it.

“The US does not have the staying power,” Lapper says. “There isn’t domestic support for long, messy interventions.”

That reality limits Washington’s options.

Sanctions alone have failed. Full-scale invasion is politically untenable. High-tech, limited strikes remain a temptation — but one fraught with risk.

What lies ahead for Venezuela?

Looking toward 2026, Lapper sees no easy resolution.

“I don’t see the end of the Maduro regime at the moment,” he says. “Escalation would have to be quite significant for that to happen.”

The most likely scenario, he argues, is continued stalemate: a current government clinging to power, an economy under siege, and a population increasingly forced to flee.

“There’s a lot of explosive material piled up in Venezuela,” Lapper observes. “But right now, there’s nothing to blow it up.”

Whether Washington’s escalating pressure will eventually trigger change — or simply deepen chaos — remains an open and deeply consequential question.

December 28, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

The Geopolitical Imperative Behind US Policy Toward Venezuela

By Leanna Yavelskaya | Ron Paul Institute | December 21, 2025

In the intensifying great-power competition of the 21st century, Venezuela has emerged as a pivotal battleground in the Western Hemisphere—a proxy arena where the United States confronts the encroaching ambitions of China and Russia to preserve its historic regional dominance.

Conventional explanations for Washington’s unrelenting pressure on Caracas, citing resource acquisition or counternarcotics imperatives, crumble under scrutiny amid America’s strategic primacy, energy independence, and the broader architecture of multipolar rivalry.

US policy toward Venezuela is fundamentally a defensive maneuver in the superpower contest, aimed at denying Beijing and Moscow a strategic foothold in America’s backyard. Venezuela’s vast oil reserves—the world’s largest—might superficially suggest energy motives, yet the United States, now the globe’s top petroleum producer and exporter, no longer depends on Venezuelan heavy crudes. Sanctions have deliberately slashed imports, while any genuine resource priority would favor diplomatic normalization over confrontation. Historical US behavior reinforces this: when energy security truly matters, Washington opts for pragmatic deals, not escalation. The current standoff, therefore, serves deeper geopolitical ends—blocking rival powers from entrenching influence proximate to US shores.

The counternarcotics rationale fares no better. Venezuela transits cocaine but plays minimal role in the fentanyl epidemic ravaging America. Washington’s dollar hegemony and financial levers could dismantle trafficking networks without military brinkmanship, yet global drug flows persist due to strategic tolerances. Venezuela’s marginal position in this trade renders anti-drug rhetoric an inadequate justification for the extraordinary measures deployed, including naval blockades and tanker seizures.

The core driver is Venezuela’s alignment with US adversaries, transforming it into a potential forward base for China and Russia in the Americas. Beijing has poured billions in loans-for-oil, infrastructure projects, and discounted crude purchases—securing long-term resource access while propping up the regime against Western isolation, even as recent US escalations test this lifeline. Moscow has supplied arms, intelligence, and diplomatic shielding, positioning Venezuela as a counterweight to US hegemony, much as it leverages proxies elsewhere. These partnerships challenge enduring American doctrines: the Monroe legacy rejecting extra-hemispheric powers in the Americas, and Cold War precedents like the Cuban Missile Crisis, where Soviet encroachment provoked crisis.

No US administration—Democratic or Republican—has tolerated a peer rival gaining decisive leverage in Latin America. The Trump administration’s 2025 campaign, with carrier groups, strikes on vessels, and a declared blockade of sanctioned tankers, underscores this zero-tolerance posture amid Maduro’s disputed reelection and pleas for Russian and Chinese aid. Venezuela embodies the frontline of eroding US unipolarity: proximity magnifies threats, just as China dominates the Indo-Pacific or Russia its near abroad.

This is no mere bilateral dispute over democracy or drugs—it is a superpower clash over spheres of influence in a fragmenting world order. Caracas’s geopolitical pivot toward Beijing and Moscow directly contests Washington’s hemispheric primacy. The United States will not permit rival superpowers to consolidate enduring control on its doorstep, a contest that will shape power balances in the Americas and beyond for decades. As great-power rivalry intensifies, Venezuela’s fate signals whether the US can stanch encroachment in its traditional domain or cede ground in the new multipolar era.


Leanna Yavelskaya is a freelance civilian journalist who focuses on geopolitical analysis, with particular emphasis on Eastern Europe.

December 22, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Sinophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

Western media peddle Russia’s ‘abduction’ of Ukrainian children to prolong the proxy war

It is not Moscow, but rather the Kiev regime and its backers who are using children as “pawns of war”

By Finian Cunningham | RT | December 18, 2025

It’s not clear if the Trump administration wants to genuinely resolve the proxy war with Russia, or if it is merely trying to extricate itself from the mess Washington helped instigate. But one thing is clear: the major Western European capitals are desperate to keep the war going.

Various pretexts are being used to frustrate a diplomatic process. NATO-like security guarantees to Ukraine pushed by Berlin, London, and Paris are likely to be a non-starter for Moscow. So too are moves by the Europeans to use Russia’s seized wealth as a “reparations loan.”

Another issue that Europeans are dredging up is the allegation that Russia has abducted Ukrainian children. This emotive issue has support in Washington among the hawkish anti-Russia factions in the US establishment opposed to Trump’s diplomacy with Moscow.

Earlier this month, the European states sponsored a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly calling on Russia to return all Ukrainian children that it is alleged to have forcibly relocated from Ukrainian territory during the past four years of conflict. The president of the UNGA is former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

An article published by the Washington DC-based Atlantic Council contended: “The issue of abducted Ukrainian children is especially relevant for Ukrainians as they debate painful political compromises, territorial concessions, and security guarantees premised on Western assurances. If world leaders cannot secure the return of the most vulnerable victims of Russia’s aggression, how could Ukrainians trust that those same leaders can prevent Russia from reigniting the war or committing new atrocities?”

In other words, the allegation of child abduction is being made into a condition for Russia to fulfill for the diplomatic resolution of the conflict.  The trouble is that the condition is impossible to fulfill because the allegation is so vague and unfounded. Russia has denounced the accusation that it forcibly relocated Ukrainian children as a “web of lies.”

In March 2023, the Hague-based International Criminal Court indicted Russian President Vladimir Putin, along with Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, of war crimes related to the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Moscow is not a member of the ICC and rejected the charges as null and void.

Still, however, the Kiev regime and its Western sponsors continue to level the accusations. The Western media, as usual, serve to amplify the narrative despite the lack of evidence.

At the recent UN General Assembly debate, British representative Archie Young stated: “Today is a moment to reflect on the plight of Ukrainian children who have become victims of Russia’s illegal invasion. We all have an obligation to protect children and must not allow Russia to use them as pawns of war. According to the government of Ukraine, corroborated by independent mechanisms, more than 19,500 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported to Russia or within the temporarily occupied territories.”

Note how the British official peddles a series of disputable claims that are transformed into normative facts by the Western media’s repetition.

It is not Russia, but rather the Kiev regime and its Western backers who are using children as “pawns of war.”

Moscow has openly stated that up to 730,000 children have been relocated to the Russian Federation since hostilities erupted in February 2022. Most of the children are accompanied by parents and come from the territories that seceded from Ukraine in legally held referenda.

Of the nearly eight million people who fled Ukraine, the largest share of them – an estimated 35% – have taken shelter in Russia. The second and third biggest host countries for Ukrainian refugees after Russia are Poland and Germany. But the European governments and media are not accusing Warsaw or Berlin of “child abductions.”

In a war zone affecting millions of people, it is absurd to make out that displaced families and their children are being kidnapped. The vast majority of people have willingly sought shelter within Russian territory to escape the violence on the frontlines – violence that has been fueled by NATO states pumping hundreds of millions of dollars’ and euros’ worth of weapons into Ukraine.

Moscow points out that the figure of 20,000 to 35,000 that the Western governments and media claim for children “abducted by Russia” is never substantiated with names or identifying details.

Russian authorities say that the Kiev regime has provided the names of just over 300 individuals. Moscow has endeavored to return individuals where it is mutually requested, although some of the identities provided by the Kiev regime have turned out to be adults or they are not present in Russian territory.

In the chaos of war, it is all too easy to throw around vague numbers and exploit the imprecision for propaganda. The European governments and media are doing that and embellishing the emotive issue with dark claims that Russia is sending masses of Ukrainian children to “re-education camps” for “indoctrination.”

One of the main sources for such claims is the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. It has produced unverified reports that Russia has sent 35,000 Ukrainian children to hundreds of brainwashing centers all across Russia to erase their national identity.

A major supporter of the Yale research group is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This association strongly suggests that the group is a CIA-sponsored propaganda tool. But the US and European media regularly cite the research and amplify its claims as reliable facts.

The exploitation of children for war propaganda is a staple of Western intelligence agencies and the media.

A classic case was in Vietnam in the 1950s and 60s when the Western media were replete with horror stories of the Viet Cong torturing Vietnamese children, as recounted by James Bradley in his book, ‘Precious Freedom’. The supposed communist guerrillas reportedly stabbed Vietnamese children with chopsticks in their ears so that they could not hear the Bible being preached. Such alleged atrocities were widely published by the Western media to whip up public support for the US military deployment “to save Vietnam from evil communists.” But it was all CIA-orchestrated lies. More than three million Vietnamese were killed in a war based on American intelligence and media lies.

A re-run of the psychological operation today is the lurid claims that Putin’s evil Russia has kidnapped tens of thousands of children for brainwashing in detention camps. Some reports even claim Russia has sent the children to North Korea.

The Western media are doing their usual service of peddling war propaganda and ensuring diplomacy is rendered impossible because Russia is portrayed as monstrous.

Finian Cunningham is an award-winning journalist and co-author of Killing Democracy: Western Imperialism’s Legacy of Regime Change and Media Manipulation. For over 25 years, he worked as a sub-editor and writer for The Mirror, Irish Times, Irish Independent and Britain’s Independent, among others.

December 19, 2025 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Policies From The Bi-Parisian Foreign Policy Establishment Led To Trump’s Venezuela War

Trump’s Escalation In Venezuela Is Just A Continuation Of A Longstanding Regime Change Campaign

The Dissident | December 18, 2025

Trump is currently escalating a regime change war with Venezuela to overthrow its president, Nicolas Maduro. He has sent what Julian Assange described as “the largest U.S. pre-invasion buildup since the Iraq war” to the Caribbean and and has killed 95 people in strikes on boats in the Caribbean, under the false pretext of fighting drug traffickers, but with the real intention- as Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, admitted– of “blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle”.

The Trump administration has also authorized covert CIA action to overthrow Maduro and announced a “complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of Venezuela”, which amounts to siege warfare on the people of Venezuela, given the fact, as Economists Jeffery Sachs and Mark Weisbrot have noted, that “nearly all of the foreign exchange that is needed to import medicine, food, medical equipment, spare parts and equipment needed for electricity generation, water systems, or transportation, is received by the Venezuelan economy through the government’s revenue from the export of oil”.

While this has been widely reported, what has been mostly ignored is the fact that Trump’s policy is nothing new and is only an escalation of a bipartisan regime change policy in Venezuela that has been ongoing since 1999.

In this article, I will document the longstanding regime change campaign from the U.S. foreign policy establishment that led to Trump’s current escalation.

The Bush Administration’s Regime Change Campaign Against Hugo Chavez.

The regime change campaign in Venezuela did not start with the current Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, but with his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, who was elected president of the country in 1999, and whom the Bush administration repeatedly tried to overthrow.

According to leaked documents, the U.S. gave $15 million to USAID and instructions to carry out a program to undermine Hugo Chavez when he first got elected, which included “penetrating Chavez’s Political Base”, “dividing Chavismo”, and “isolating Chavez internationally”.

This ramped up in 2002, when the International Republican Institute (IRI), a subsidiary of the CIA cutout NED, was given $300,000 from the Bush administration to train opposition politicians to carry out a coup against Chavez.

As Mother Jones reported, “In April 2002, a group of military officers launched a coup against Chavez, and leaders of several parties trained by IRI joined the junta. When news of the coup emerged, democracy-promotion groups in Venezuela were holding a meeting to discuss ways of working together to avoid political violence; IRI representatives didn’t attend, saying that they were drafting a statement on Chavez’s overthrow. On April 12, the institute’s Venezuela office released a statement praising the ‘bravery’ of the junta and +commending the patriotism of the Venezuelan military.”

The coup was briefly carried out against Chávez after members of the U.S.-backed Junta began firing snipers on pro-Chávez protestors and then manipulated the footage to make it look like Chávez’s forces were firing on opposition protestors.

As CounterPunch documented:

On April 11th, 2002, the Venezuelan opposition activated snipers who fired on a largely pro-Chávez crowd that had gathered near Miraflores Palace to defend the president from the threat of an approaching and aggressive opposition march. Film footage from the ensuing gun battle was inserted into a pre-fabricated media strategy which sought to convince the Venezuelan population that government supporters were responsible for the deaths, and that they had acted directly on the orders of Chávez himself

That the opposition planned to slaughter innocents is clear from the fact that the public statement by members of the high military command, which cited a specific number of casualties and urged Chávez to resign, had been filmed long before the deaths had even taken place. That the role of the media was paramount is clear from the revelation that this pre-filmed statement was recorded at the house of opposition journalist and host of 24 Hours, Napoleón Bravo.

According to CNN journalist Otto Neustadtl, the opposition planned the false flag massacre before carrying it out, saying, “On the night of the 10th (of April 2002, one day before the coup), they phoned me and told me Otto, a video of Chavez is coming tomorrow, the 11th, the demonstrators will be diverted to Miraflores (presidential house) there will be some dead, and there will be a statement from a group of 20 military high command, asking the president to resign. In the morning of the 11th (of April 2002), they told me everything goes as planned, a video is coming, some dead are coming, and the military will speak out. I was there with the military that was giving the statement against President Chavez. I was there at least two hours before the first death occurred. In that rehearsal, they talked about the dead when the first death had not occurred”.

Strangely, as journalist William Van Wagenen has documented, false flag sniper massacres were again carried out during several future U.S. regime change operations.

The coup against Chavez was soon reversed when his supporters took to the streets and demanded he be reinstated as president.

After the coup was reversed, the Guardian reported that the Bush administration knew of and supported the coup in advance, noting that the Bush administration official Elliot Abrams, “gave a nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup” and added that, “officials at the Organisation of American States and other diplomatic sources, … assert that the US administration was not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it, presuming it to be destined for success.”

The Guardian reported that the Bush administration “immediately endorsed the new government under businessman Pedro Carmona”, adding “visits by Venezuelans plotting a coup, including Carmona himself, began, say sources, ‘several months ago’, and continued until weeks before the putsch last weekend. The visitors were received at the White House by the man President George Bush tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Otto Reich”.

After the 2002 coup, the Bush administration tried to force a referendum against Hugo Chavez in 2004 through its paid assets on the ground.

The referendum was pushed for by the U.S. asset María Corina Machado, and her NGO, Sumate, which was, “financed by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), all three of which are known across Latin America for their attempts to destabilize progressive governments under the guise of ‘democracy promotion’.”

In a recent profile on Machado, CNN noted, she “gained widespread attention in 2004 after participating in a failed effort to recall Venezuela’s then-President Hugo Chávez”.

The regime change attempt again failed, with Hugo Chavez winning by 59 percent, but the U.S.-funded opposition apparently faked exit polls to make it look like Chavez lost the referendum.

The U.S. Carter Centre, which monitored the referendum, noted at the time that, “the opposition cited the exit poll contradicting the official results and expressed their deep skepticism” and “the opposition rejected the results, primarily because opposition’s exit polls carried out throughout voting day suggested the Yes vote (to remove Chavez) would prevail” but noted that, “the machines were extremely accurate. Only one-tenth of 1 percent variation between the paper receipts and the electronic results was found, and this could be explained by voters taking the paper receipts or putting them in the wrong ballot box,” and concluding that, “the Carter Center has found no evidence of fraud”.

Obama Administration Continues Regime Change Against Maduro

After Hugo Chavez died in 2013, his successor, Nicolas Maduro, was elected, and the Obama administration continued the regime change attempt through a paid propaganda campaign to swing the Venezuelan national assembly to the opposition, funding violent riots and putting crushing sanctions on the country.

Leaked documents reported on by Jacobin magazine show that the Obama administration gave $300,000 to the National Democratic Institute, the democratic wing of the CIA cutout NED, in order to, “mobilize a voter database that identified and targeted swing voters through social media” in the run-up to the 2015 national assembly elections.

Jacobin noted that, “indeed, in December 2015, the opposition won a majority in the Venezuelan National Assembly for the first time since Chávez came to power in 1999” and noted, “the NDI claims credit for the opposition’s success, writing that this strategy ‘ultimately played an important role in their resounding victory in the 2015 election’ and that a ‘determining factor in the success of the coalition in the parliamentary elections of 2015 was a two-year effort prior to the elections”.

Under the Obama administration, the U.S. asset María Corina Machado and her U.S.-funded Sumate helped stir up riots in the country that lasted for years.

As journalist Michelle Ellner reported, “Machado was also one of the political architects of La Salida, the 2014 opposition campaign that called for escalated protests, including guarimba tactics. Those weren’t ‘peaceful protests’ as the foreign press claimed; they were organized barricades meant to paralyze the country and force the government’s fall. Streets were blocked with burning trash and barbed wire, buses carrying workers were torched, and people suspected of being Chavista were beaten or killed. Even ambulances and doctors were attacked. Some Cuban medical brigades were nearly burned alive. Public buildings, food trucks, and schools were destroyed. Entire neighborhoods were held hostage by fear while opposition leaders like Machado cheered from the sidelines and called it ‘resistance.’

In 2015, Obama absurdly labeled Venezuela a “threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” and placed crushing sanctions on Venezuela, which eventually killed at least tens of thousands of people, if not hundreds of thousands.

Trump’s First Term Sanctions and Coup Attempts.

The sanctions on Venezuela increased under the Trump administration, killing at least tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Venezuelans.

Economist Mark Weisbrot noted in the LA Times that:

In Venezuela, the first year of sanctions under the first Trump administration took tens of thousands of lives. Then things got even worse, as the U.S. cut off the country from the international financial system and oil exports, froze billions of dollars of assets and imposed “secondary sanctions” on countries that tried to do business with Venezuela.

Venezuela experienced the worst depression, without a war, in world history. This was from 2012 to 2020, with the economy contracting by 71% — more than three times the severity of the Great Depression in the U.S. in the 1930s. Most of this was found to be the result of the sanctions.

Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs revealed that the sanctions killed 40,000 people from 2017 to 2019, and in 2020, the UN expert Alfred de Zayas found that the sanctions had killed 100,000 people since 2015.

Also in 2020, the UN documented that, “the economic blockade of Venezuela and the freezing of Central Bank assets have exacerbated pre-existing economic and humanitarian situation by preventing the earning of revenues and the use of resources to develop and maintain infrastructure and for social support programs, which has a devastating effect on the whole population of Venezuela, especially those in extreme poverty, women, children, medical workers, people with disabilities or life-threatening or chronic diseases, and the indigenous population”.

Along with Trump’s continuation of Obama’s starvation sanctions on Venezuela, he also attempted multiple coup attempts in the country.

The Trump administration recognized Juan Guaido- an unelected U.S. asset in Venezuela- as the official president of the country and sent him $52 million through USAID to set up a fake “interim government” intended to force Maduro from power.

Trump also appointed the aforementioned Elliott Abrams- one of the architects of the 2002 coup- as the Special Representative for Venezuela, and Abrams attempted to funnel weapons to the opposition in Venezuela disguised as humanitarian aid, a repeat of a strategy he enacted in Nicaragua under the Reagan administration.

In 2020, the Trump administration ran another failed coup against Maduro, this time by training defectors from the Venezuelan military in Colombia for a coup attempt.

Describing the Trump administration’s regime change policy during his first term, U.S. Senator Cris Murphy admitted, “First, we thought that getting Guaidó to declare himself president would be enough to topple the regime. Then we thought putting aid on the border would be enough. Then we tried to sort of construct a kind of coup in April of last year, and it blew up in our face when all the generals that were supposed to break with Maduro decided to stick with him in the end”.

Biden’s Attempt To Kidnap Maduro.

A recent AP investigation found that in 2024, a U.S. DHS agent named Edwin Lopez, with “permission from his superiors” in the Biden administration, attempted to bribe Maduro’s pilot, Bitner Villegas, to kidnap Maduro and bring him to the U.S.

Reportedly, Lopez told Villegas that, “in exchange for secretly ferrying Maduro into America’s hands, the pilot would become very rich”.

Lopez apparently offered Villegas a “$50 million reward” to kidnap Maduro and bring him into U.S. custody.

When Villegas responded to the proposal, saying, “We Venezuelans are cut from a different cloth, the last thing we are is traitors,” Lopez made thinly veiled threats against his children, with the AP reporting that, “Lopez tried one last time, mentioning Villegas’ three children by name and a better future he said awaited them in the U.S.” saying that Villegas added, “The window for a decision is closing, soon it will be too late”.

While Trump is carrying out a serious escalation of the regime change policy, it is worth remembering that it is an escalation of a longstanding regime change policy that has continued through the Bush, Obama, first Trump, and Biden administrations.

December 19, 2025 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

US strikes three vessels in Eastern Pacific, killing eight

Al Mayadeen | December 16, 2025

The United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced that it launched deadly strikes on three vessels allegedly involved in drug trafficking in international waters in the Eastern Pacific, resulting in the deaths of eight people.

The strikes were carried out on December 15, under the orders of US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, according to an official statement posted on X.

“Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted lethal kinetic strikes on three vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters,” SOUTHCOM said.

The military reported that all individuals killed were adult males: three aboard the first vessel, two on the second, and three on the third.

While the US claims the targeted vessels were engaged in narco-trafficking, no verification of the alleged links to terrorism or drug networks has been provided for any of the 26 boats it struck. Critics, lawmakers, and legal experts have denounced the strikes as illegal under international law.

Part of a broader Trump-led coercion campaign

The latest strikes come amid a wider US military campaign launched by US President Donald Trump targeting so-called drug smuggling routes in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, including areas near Venezuela.

According to US officials, American forces have struck more than 20 vessels as part of the campaign, with at least 90 suspected drug smugglers reported killed so far. The operations represent a significant escalation and a marked departure from previous US approaches, which traditionally relied on interdictions, arrests, and prosecutions rather than direct military force.

Although the strategy has been widely criticized for its effectiveness in addressing the opioid epidemic in the United States, particularly given that Venezuela is not a source or transit hub for drug trafficking routes to the US, Trump and senior administration officials have continued to level baseless accusations against Caracas. Additionally, Washington has transferred an expansive force to the Caribbean, including its most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford.

Legal controversy and international concerns

“Our operations in the Southcom region are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict,” Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson told reporters earlier this month.

Critics, however, have questioned the application of the Law of Armed Conflict outside a declared armed conflict, particularly in international waters and against individuals not formally designated as combatants. Under the United Nations Charter, the use of force by one state against another, including against that state’s vessels on the high seas, is generally prohibited unless the target has conducted an armed attack or the action is authorized by the UN Security Council or undertaken in legitimate self-defense.

Legal analysts have pointed out that there is no credible evidence presented to suggest that the vessels struck were engaged in an armed attack against the United States, meaning the strikes lack a clear legal basis under international law.

Another major issue arose from a controversial September strike in the Caribbean, in which US forces hit a suspected drug-smuggling vessel. After the initial attack, which killed the majority of those aboard, surveillance reportedly showed two survivors in the water.

According to multiple accounts, the operation’s commander authorized a second strike on those survivors, based on a directive that those on board should be left with no survivors. Legal experts and lawmakers have warned that targeting individuals who are no longer actively resisting or posing an imminent threat, “hors de combat” under international humanitarian law, is a war crime and violates both the Geneva Conventions and customary law prohibitions on denying quarter.

December 16, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

The Rise of the Isaac Accords: How Israel is Redrawing South America’s Political Landscape

This is not neutral cooperation. It is political conditionality.

By Freddie Ponton | 21st Century Wire | December 15, 2025 

Foreign influence in the Global South rarely arrives in uniform. It comes disguised as ethics, stability, and shared values, only revealing its true cost once the rules are set. In Latin America, such a transformation is now underway. A new architecture of alignment is being quietly assembled, presented as moral course correction but functioning as a geopolitical filter. At its core lie the Isaac Accords, a project deliberately modelled on the Abraham Accords. Where the latter normalised Israel’s position in the Middle East through elite deals brokered by Washington, the Isaac Accords aim to reorder Latin American politics by locking governments, economies, and security institutions into Israeli and U.S. strategic orbit.

The Accords are not simply about Israel’s image or diplomatic isolation. They operate as a filter of legitimacy: governments that align are embraced, financed, and promoted; those that resist are marginalised, sanctioned, or framed as moral outliers. Venezuela, long aligned with Palestine and the broader Axis of Non-Alignment, sits squarely in the crosshairs.

This article examines how the Isaac Accords function in practice, why figures such as Javier Milei and María Corina Machado have become central to their rollout, and what this strategy reveals about Israel’s ambitions in South America, not as a neutral partner, but as an active geopolitical actor working in tandem with U.S. power.

The Isaac Accords: A Latin American Reboot of the Abraham Model

The Isaac Accords did not emerge in a vacuum. They are consciously modelled on the Abraham Accords, which rebranded Israel’s regional integration in the Middle East as “peace” while bypassing Palestinian self-determination entirely. The lesson Israeli and U.S. policymakers appear to have drawn is simple: normalisation works best when imposed from above, through elite alignment, financial incentives, and security integration.

The Accords are administered through a U.S.-based nonprofit, American Friends of the Isaac Accords, and financially seeded through institutions closely linked to Israeli state and diaspora networks. Their stated aim is to counter antisemitism and hostility toward Israel. Their operational requirements, however, reveal a far broader ambition.

Countries seeking entry are expected to:

  • Relocate embassies to Jerusalem, recognising Israeli sovereignty over a contested city
  • Redesignate Hamas and Hezbollah in line with Israeli security doctrine
  • Reverse voting patterns at the UN and the OAS, where Latin America has historically voted in favour of Palestinian rights
  • Enter intelligence-sharing agreements targeting Chinese, Iranian, Cuban, Bolivian, and Venezuelan influence
  • Open strategic sectors: water, agriculture, digital governance, security, to Israeli firms

Israel’s own diplomats have described the Isaac Accords as a way to pull “undecided” Latin American states into Israel’s orbit at a moment when European public opinion has become less reliable. In other words, the Global South is being repositioned as Israel’s strategic rear guard.

The role of Javier Milei in Argentina illustrates how this model operates. Milei has not merely improved relations with Israel; he has embraced it as an ideological reference point. He has pledged to move Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem, framed Israel as a civilisational ally, and positioned himself as the Isaac Accords’ flagship political figure.


Co-Founder and Chairman of The Genesis Prize Foundation Stan Polovets presents prize to 2025 Laureate Javier Milei on June 12 in Jerusalem. (Source: American Friends of Isaac Accords)

That role was formalised in 2025 when Milei became the Genesis Prize Laureate, an award frequently described as the “Jewish Nobel Prize.” The Genesis Prize is not politically neutral. It is explicitly awarded to figures who strengthen Israel’s global standing and its ties with the diaspora. Milei’s decision to donate the prize money directly back into the Isaac Accords ecosystem symbolised how moral recognition, political allegiance, and financing now operate as a single circuit.

This is alignment rewarded, visibly, materially, and publicly.

As reported by AP in August, the Isaac Accords are set to extend to Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and potentially El Salvador by 2026, as stated by the organizers, the American Friends of the Isaac Accords.

Recent New York Times reporting situates Brad Parscale’s involvement in the Honduran election within Numen, a Buenos Aires–based political consultancy he co-founded with Argentine strategist Fernando Cerimedo, highlighting how transnational firms operate beyond traditional regulatory scrutiny. Critics warn that Numen’s methods reflect a broader global political influence ecosystem that often draws on data-driven targeting, psychological profiling, and digital amplification techniques associated with Israeli-linked political technology and messaging firms that have operated in elections worldwide.

When combined with U.S. political endorsements, strategic pardons, and offshore consulting structures, this model raises serious concerns about how advanced data analytics and covert messaging infrastructures are used to shape voter behavior in vulnerable democracies, eroding electoral sovereignty while remaining largely insulated from accountability.

Venezuela, Palestine, and the Manufacturing of Illegitimacy

If the Isaac Accords require a moral antagonist, Venezuela fulfils that role perfectly.

Since Hugo Chávez severed diplomatic relations with Israel in 2009, in response to Israel’s assault on Gaza, Venezuela has positioned itself as one of Palestine’s most consistent supporters in the Western Hemisphere. Chávez, and later Nicolás Maduro, framed Palestinian resistance not as terrorism but as an anti-colonial struggle, aligning Venezuela with much of the Global South rather than the Atlantic bloc.

Under the Isaac Accords’ logic, this position is intolerable.

Opposition to Israel is no longer treated as a political stance but as evidence of extremism or antisemitism. Zionism and Judaism are deliberately conflated, allowing criticism of Israeli state policy to be reframed as hatred. This narrative provides the moral justification for isolation, sanctions, and, potentially, regime change.

Le prix Nobel de la paix décerné à Maria Corina Machado - Français Facile - RFI
Maria Corina Machado in Venezuela, Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Source: AP – Matias Delacroix)

Into this context steps María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition figure most warmly received by Israeli and U.S. political networks. Machado’s alignment with Israel is not rhetorical or recent. In 2020, her party, Vente Venezuela, signed a formal inter-party cooperation agreement with Israel’s ruling Likud Party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu. The agreement committed both parties to shared political values, strategic cooperation, and ideological alignment.

This is a remarkable document. It ties a Venezuelan opposition movement directly to a foreign ruling party, well before any democratic transition, and signals how a post-Maduro Venezuela is expected to orient itself internationally.

DOCUMENT: Vente Venezuela signs cooperation agreement with Israel’s Likud party – Agreement signed by María Corina Machado and Eli Vered Hazan, representing Likud’s Foreign Relations Division (Source: Vente Venezuela)

Machado has since gone further, pledging to:

  • Restore full diplomatic relations with Israel
  • Move Venezuela’s embassy to Jerusalem
  • Open Venezuela’s economy to privatisation and foreign investment
  • Align Venezuela with Israel and the United States against Iran and regional leftist governments

Her narrative rests on a crucial claim: that Venezuela itself is not anti-Israel, only its government is. According to this framing, Venezuelans are inherently pro-Israel and pro-West, their “true” preferences suppressed by an illegitimate regime.

In a November interview with Israel Hayom, Machado asserted that “The Venezuelan people deeply admire Israel.”

This argument is politically useful and historically thin. Venezuelan solidarity with Palestine predates Maduro and reflects a wider Latin American tradition of identifying with colonised peoples. To erase that history is to deny Venezuelans their own political agency.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has repeatedly accused the Venezuelan government of fomenting “anti-Israel” and anti-Semitic rhetoric. Yet, a closer look tells a different story. Caracas’ statements are largely expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination, combined with pointed criticism of Israeli state policies. By framing these positions as attacks on Jews or Israel itself, the ADL distorts the narrative, turning principled political stances into a perceived moral failing. This tactic underscores a broader pattern in which international organizations can paint Global South governments as rogue actors whenever they resist the gravitational pull of Israeli and U.S. influence, subtly laying the groundwork for diplomatic pressure or intervention.

DOCUMENT: Mini report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, accuses Venezuela of fuelling an incendiary anti-Israel and anti-Semitic environment.(Source (ADL)

Security, Economics, and the Cost of Obedience

Beneath the moral language of the Isaac Accords lies a familiar architecture of control: security integration, economic restructuring, and ideological discipline.

Israel is a leading exporter of surveillance technologies, border systems, cyber-intelligence platforms, and urban security tools, many developed under conditions of occupation and internal repression. In South America, these systems are marketed as solutions to crime and narcotrafficking, but their real function is often political: expanding state surveillance capacity during periods of transition.

Security cooperation creates dependency. Once intelligence-sharing, training, and doctrine are integrated, political autonomy narrows. Policy divergence, particularly toward China, BRICS, or non-aligned partners, becomes risky.

The economic dimension is equally strategic. Israeli firms are deeply involved in water rights, desalination, agrotechnology, digital governance, and infrastructure, sectors that determine long-term sovereignty. These investments are typically tied to privatisation, deregulation, and long-term concessions, transferring control of strategic resources away from the public sphere.

Venezuela is the ultimate prize. A post-sanctions transition would open one of the world’s most resource-rich economies to restructuring. Machado’s commitment to rapid privatisation aligns seamlessly with this vision, raising an unavoidable question: who benefits from “democracy” when it arrives pre-packaged with foreign economic priorities?

This strategy is inseparable from U.S. power. The Trump administration’s framing of global politics as a permanent war on terror and narcotrafficking, a framing echoed by figures like Marco Rubio, has provided cover for sanctions, covert operations, and extrajudicial violence across the Caribbean and Pacific. Israel’s partnership reinforces this logic, supplying both technology and moral framing.

Conclusion: The Global South and the Right to Choose

The Isaac Accords are not simply about Israel’s diplomatic standing. They are about reordering South America’s political horizon at a moment when the Global South is rediscovering multipolarity.

Israel’s role in this process is active, strategic, and consequential. Through political patronage, economic leverage, security integration, and narrative control, it is shaping which governments are deemed legitimate and which are disposable.

For South America, and the wider Global South, the warning is familiar. When alignment is framed as morality, dissent becomes deviance. When sovereignty is conditional, development serves external interests. When history is rewritten, intervention soon follows.

Non-alignment was never about isolation. It was about the right to choose. That very right, today, is being quietly renegotiated, and the cost of refusing may soon become very clear.

December 15, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Honduran president accuses Trump of ‘election manipulation’

Al Mayadeen | December 10, 2025

Honduran President Xiomara Castro accused US President Donald Trump of direct interference in her country’s presidential elections, condemning what she termed election manipulation in Honduras’s disputed presidential race.

The controversy centers on the November 30 presidential election, where vote counting has been plagued by repeated computer system failures that have delayed final results. Trump-backed conservative Nasry Asfura currently holds 40.53 percent of votes, followed closely by right-wing candidate Salvador Nasralla with 39.16 percent, according to the National Electoral Council. Both candidates significantly outpace Castro’s left-wing Libre party candidate, Rixi Moncada.

Nasralla has challenged the results as fraudulent, claiming he actually leads by 20 percent and demanding a comprehensive recount. Speaking at a rally, Castro praised voters’ determination but alleged the election was marred by threats, coercion, manipulation of the preliminary results system, and tampering with voter intentions.

Castro specifically accused Trump of interference, noting his threats of consequences if Hondurans voted for Moncada. Trump openly endorsed Asfura as a “friend of freedom” while dismissing Nasralla as merely “pretending to be an anti-communist.”

In a stunning move, Trump also pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a 45-year US prison sentence for facilitating the trafficking of hundreds of tons of cocaine.

More than a week after voting concluded, thousands of ballots with irregularities await review. The Libre party has called for total election annulment and urged protests, while election officials have until December 30 to declare a winner under Honduran law. The Trump administration maintains the election was fair and rejects calls for annulment.

Trump’s unprecedented election meddling

Trump’s involvement in Honduras represents an extraordinary breach of diplomatic norms. Days before the election, he issued explicit warnings that the United States would cut off financial support if Asfura lost, stating on Truth Social that the US would not throw “good money after bad” if a candidate he deemed “communist” took power.

The Trump administration employed Cold War rhetoric, labeling Moncada and Nasralla as “communists” or “borderline communists” allied with Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. Beyond aid threats, Trump leveraged the possibility of mass deportations and blocking remittances, which constitute approximately 25 percent of Honduras’ GDP.

Moncada noted that text messages were circulated warning voters that December remittances would not arrive if the wrong candidate won, creating panic in a population heavily dependent on these funds.

The impact proved measurable. Ricardo Romero Gonzales, who runs an independent polling company, reported that Nasralla held a nine-point lead before Trump’s endorsement. After Trump intervened, the candidates reached a virtual tie. Roughly one-third of Hondurans have family in the United States, making Trump’s threats particularly potent.

José Ignacio Cerrato López, a 62-year-old retiree, told the New York Times that he initially planned to vote for Nasralla but switched to Asfura after Trump’s statement. “Trump said he was going to make things worse,” Cerrato López explained, citing fears about deteriorating bilateral relations.

The Trump corollary: A new doctrine of hemispheric control

Trump’s Honduras intervention exemplifies what his 2025 National Security Strategy terms the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. Unlike the original 1823 doctrine preventing European colonization, Trump’s version asserts US rights to intervene directly in Latin American domestic politics to prevent influence by “non-Hemispheric competitors,” specifically China, or ideologies deemed hostile to US interests.

Under Castro, Honduras severed ties with Taiwan and established relations with China in 2023, opening the door for Chinese infrastructure investment. By backing Asfura, Trump aims to install a government that will reverse or freeze these projects, viewing Asfura as the “checkmate” to Beijing’s regional influence.

A pattern of historical intervention

Trump’s interference continues a century-long pattern of US meddling in Honduras, often called the quintessential “Banana Republic” due to historical dominance by US fruit companies.

During the 1980s Reagan administration, Honduras became known as “USS Honduras,” serving as the staging ground for the proxy war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. The CIA trained Battalion 316, a death squad responsible for kidnapping, torturing, and disappearing nearly 200 activists.

More recently, the 2009 military coup against President Manuel Zelaya, who had moved closer to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, received tacit US support. While the Obama administration officially condemned the coup, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused to designate it a “military coup,” allowing aid to continue.

December 10, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

The National-Security Establishment’s Message to Americans

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | December 9, 2025

It’s easy to assume that with its drug-war killings in the Caribbean, the Pentagon is sending a message only to Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro: “We can kill your citizens with impunity and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it.”

In actuality, however, the Pentagon is sending the same message to the American people: “We can kill anyone we want, including American citizens, and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it.”

There are lots of commentators in the mainstream press pointing out the manifest illegality of intentionally, knowingly, and deliberately killing people on the high seas who U.S. officials are saying have violated the U.S. government’s drug laws. They are pointing out that the killings amount to state-sponsored murder. Under U.S. law and under the U.S. Constitution, federal officials are not permitted to kill people who are suspected of violating drug laws. Law-enforcement personnel are required to instead take them into custody, secure a grand-jury indictment, and prosecute them in a court of law, where they have the right to a lawyer, a jury trial, and other procedural guarantees.

But remember: This isn’t the DEA we are talking about. This is the U.S. national-security establishment — that is, the Pentagon, the vast military-industrial empire, the CIA, and the NSA— we are talking about. Once they become a law-enforcement agency for the drug war, everything changes. That’s because they are not bound by the same rules as regular federal law-enforcement agencies. They are not bound by any rules whatsoever. That’s what the Pentagon is reminding every American with its drug-war killings in the Caribbean.

Once the U.S. government was converted into a national-security state after World War II, the new national-security establishment — specifically, the Pentagon and the CIA — automatically acquired the power of assassination. Recognizing this reality, the federal judiciary made it crystal clear that it would never enforce the Constitution against the Pentagon’s and CIA’s omnipotent power to assassinate people, including American citizens.

Thus, no one could do anything about the national-security establishment’s plots to assassinate people like Congo leader Patrice Lumumba, Cuban president Fidel Castro, Dominican Republic leader Rafael Trujillo, Chilean general Rene Schneider, and, more recently, Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.

There was also nothing that anyone could do about the coups that would very possibly leave foreign leaders dead, such as Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh, Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz, and Chilean president Salvador Allende.

There was also nothing anyone could do about the national-security’s establishment’s participation in international assassination rings, such as Operation Condor.

The message has always been clear: “We can kill anyone we want, and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. Our power over you is total and complete. Accept it and get used to it.”

The message became clearer when they took out President John F. Kennedy, who had taken them on, and then crammed down American throats the “lone-nut, magic-bullet” theory of the assassination, which was always about as lame, inane, and ridiculous as labeling drug-war suspects “terrorist enemy combatants” or, for that matter, the use of scary WMDs to justify a war of aggression against Iraq, or some “attack” on the United States in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify a deadly, destructive, and senseless war in Vietnam. But Americans have always been expected to buy it all, no matter how ludicrous, and many of them deferentially have.

More recently, we shouldn’t forget their assassinations of Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman. They were American citizens, not foreigners. It was another powerful message to the American people: “We can kill anyone we want and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Accept it, embrace it, and get used to it. And don’t forget to thank us for our service.”

It’s probably also worth mentioning the federal judiciary’s deference to the authority of the national-security establishment to take American citizens into custody simply by labeling them as “suspected terrorists,” torture them, incarcerate them for the rest of their lives without a trial, and, no doubt, even execute them. That’s what the Jose Padilla case was all about.

So what if those drug-war killings in the Caribbean are illegal, as those commentators in the mainstream press are saying? What difference does it make? Everyone, and especially the national-security establishment, knows that nobody can do anything about it. That’s the powerful message that the U.S national-security establishment is sending to the American people: “We can illegally kill anyone we want, including Americans, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. We are in charge. We have total and complete control over you because we can kill you whenever we want, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.”

After all, who is going to prosecute the Pentagon and CIA killers? The Justice Department? Don’t make me laugh. The Justice Department is subordinate to the Pentagon and the CIA. The Congress? Again, please don’t make me laugh harder. Congress has long deferred to the power and majesty of the national-security establishment, especially when we consider the large number of loyal and “patriotic” military veterans and CIA officers serving in Congress. The federal judiciary? When have they ever done anything about the national-security establishment’s assassinations or, for that matter, its torture and indefinite detention camp in Cuba?

Make no mistake about it: As comforting as it might be to Americans that those illegal drug-war killings are taking place “over there” against Latin American foreigners, the fact is that the national-security establishment’s omnipotent power to kill suspected “narco-terrorists” extends to everyone right here in the United States. When the right time comes to demonstrate this point to American citizens, my hunch is that we will see lots of shocked, frightened, deferential, silent, dependent, and even supportive American sheep.

December 10, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump files for divorce from NATO over Ukraine

By Larry Johnson | RT | December 6, 2025

It is one thing to produce a written national security strategy, but the real test is whether or not US President Donald Trump is serious about implementing it. The key takeaways are the rhetorical deescalation with China and putting the onus on Europe to keep Ukraine alive.

The 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) of the US, released by the White House on December 4, 2025, marks a potentially profound shift in US foreign policy under Trump’s second administration compared to his first term as president. This 33-page document explicitly embraces an ‘America First’ doctrine, rejecting global hegemony and ideological crusades in favor of pragmatic, transactional realism focused on protecting core national interests: Homeland security, economic prosperity, and regional dominance in the Western Hemisphere.

It critiques past US overreach as a failure that weakened America, positioning Trump’s approach as a “necessary correction” to usher in a “new golden age.” The strategy prioritizes reindustrialization (aiming to grow the US economy from $30 trillion to $40 trillion by the 2030s), border security, and dealmaking over multilateralism or democracy promotion. It accepts a multipolar world, downgrading China from a “pacing threat” to an “economic competitor,” and calling for selective engagement with adversaries. However, Trump’s actions during the first 11 months of his presidency have been inconsistent with, even contradictory of, the written strategy.

The document is unapologetically partisan, crediting Trump personally for brokering peace in eight conflicts (including the India-Pakistan ceasefire, the Gaza hostage return, the Rwanda-DRC agreement) and securing a verbal commitment at the 2025 Hague Summit for NATO members to boost their defense spending to 5% of GDP. It elevates immigration as a top security threat, advocating lethal force against cartels if needed, and dismisses climate change and ‘net zero’ policies as harmful to US interests.

The document organizes US strategy around three pillars: Homeland defense, the Western Hemisphere, and economic renewal. Secondary focuses include selective partnerships in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Here are the major rhetorical shifts in strategy compared to the previous strategies released during the respective presidencies of Trump (2017) and Biden (2022):

  • From global cop to regional hegemon: Unlike Biden’s 2022 NSS (which emphasized alliances and great-power competition) or Trump’s 2017 version (which named China and Russia as revisionists), this document ends America’s “forever burdens” abroad. It prioritizes the Americas over Eurasia, framing Europe and the Middle East as deprioritized theaters.
  • Ideological retreat: Democracy promotion is explicitly abandoned – “we seek peaceful commercial relations without imposing democratic change” (tell that to the Venezuelans). Authoritarians are not judged, and the EU is called “anti-democratic.”
  • Confrontational ally relations: Europe faces scathing criticism for migration, free speech curbs, and risks of “civilizational erasure” (e.g., demographic shifts making nations “unrecognizable in 20 years”). The US vows to support the “patriotic” European parties resisting this, drawing Kremlin-like rhetoric accusations from EU leaders.
  • China policy: Acknowledges failed engagement; seeks “mutually advantageous” ties but with deterrence (e.g., Taiwan as a priority). No full decoupling, but restrictions on tech/dependencies.
  • Multipolar acceptance: Invites regional powers to manage their spheres (e.g., Japan in East Asia, Arab-Israeli bloc in the Gulf), signaling US restraint to avoid direct confrontations.

The NSS represents a seismic shift in America’s approach to NATO, emphasizing “burden-shifting” over unconditional alliance leadership. It frames NATO not as a values-based community but as a transactional partnership in which US commitments – troops, funding, and nuclear guarantees – are tied to European allies meeting steep new demands. This America First recalibration prioritizes US resources for the Indo-Pacific and Western Hemisphere, de-escalating in Europe to avoid “forever burdens.” Key changes include halting NATO expansion, demanding 5% GDP defense spending by 2035, and restoring “strategic stability” with Russia via a Ukraine ceasefire. While the US reaffirms Article 5 and its nuclear umbrella, it signals potential partial withdrawals by 2027 if Europe fails to step up, risking alliance cohesion amid demographic and ideological critiques of Europe. When Russia completes the defeat of Ukraine, the continued existence of NATO will be a genuine concern.

The strategy credits Trump’s diplomacy for NATO’s 5% pledge at the 2025 Hague Summit but warns of “civilizational erasure” in Europe due to migration and low birth rates, speculating that some members could become “majority non-European” within decades, potentially eroding their alignment with US interests.

Trump’s NSS signals a dramatic change in US policy toward the Ukraine conflict by essentially dumping the responsibility for keeping Ukraine afloat on the Europeans. The portion of the NSS dealing with Ukraine is delusional with regard to the military capabilities of the European states:

We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation… This lack of self-confidence is most evident in Europe’s relationship with Russia. European allies enjoy a significant hard power advantage over Russia by almost every measure, save nuclear weapons.

As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, European relations with Russia are now deeply attenuated, and many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat. Managing European relations with Russia will require significant US diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.

It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia, as well as to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state.

The Ukraine War has had the perverse effect of increasing Europe’s, especially Germany’s, external dependencies. Today, German chemical companies are building some of the world’s largest processing plants in China, using Russian gas that they cannot obtain at home. The Trump Administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition. A large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of democratic processes. This is strategically important to the United States precisely because European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis.

Not surprisingly, this section of Trump’s NSS has sparked a panicked outcry in Europe. European leaders, including former Swedish PM Carl Bildt, called it “to the right of the extreme right,” warning of alliance erosion. Analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) praise its pragmatism, but flag short-sightedness, predicting a “lonelier, weaker” US. China views reassurances on sovereignty positively, but remains wary of economic pressures. In the US, Democrats, such as Rep. Jason Crow, deem it “catastrophic” for alliances, i.e. NATO.

Overall, the strategy signals a US pivot inward, forcing NATO allies to self-fund security while risking fractured partnerships with Europe. It positions America as a wealthy hemispheric power in a multipolar order, betting on dealmaking and industrial revival to sustain global influence without overextension.

Larry Johnson is a political analyst and commentator, former CIA analyst and member of the US State Department’s Office for Counterterrorism.

December 6, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The U.S. pressure strategy on Venezuela and the reconfiguration of power in the Americas

By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 2, 2025

The growing tension between Washington and Caracas once again sheds light on the role of the United States in the continent and on the nature of the hybrid threats employed by the White House when it faces governments that reject its strategic dominance. Although a direct military operation against Venezuela has not yet been confirmed, there are clear indications that the U.S. keeps this possibility open — or at least uses it as an element of geopolitical coercion. To understand the current scenario, it is essential to examine the interaction between structural factors, such as the Monroe Doctrine, and contextual variables linked to the present orientation of U.S. foreign policy.

Objectively, one cannot rule out that the U.S. may consider specific, even if limited, military actions against Venezuela. Closing the airspace, increasing electronic warfare operations, or intensifying airstrikes against vessels near Venezuelan waters may function as preparatory steps within a typical hybrid war model. However, a large-scale ground incursion would be extremely unlikely. Venezuela’s geography — marked by dense jungles, mountains, and vast areas that are difficult to access — makes any prolonged occupation a strategic gamble of high cost and low probability of success. Moreover, the existence of a civilian militia numbering in the millions would act as a force multiplier of resistance, raising the political and military price of an intervention.

Thus, if Washington does in fact opt for military measures, it would likely take the form of selective airstrikes, limited amphibious operations in the Caribbean, or acts of sabotage against critical infrastructure. It would be less a conventional war and more a calibrated effort of attrition — typical of U.S.-supported regime change campaigns since the post–Cold War era.

However, the current pressure on Caracas cannot be interpreted merely as an automatic continuation of the Monroe Doctrine, as many mainstream analysts often claim. Although this principle — which historically legitimized U.S. domination over the hemisphere — remains an ideological backdrop, the contemporary context demands a different analytical lens. The international system is undergoing an accelerated transition toward multipolarity, and Trump’s United States, aware of its relative loss of influence, has begun to recalibrate its strategic priorities.

In this scenario, Latin America reemerges as a zone of “geopolitical compensation.” Faced with the relative decline of U.S. influence in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and even the Asia–Pacific, Washington seeks to reaffirm its dominance in the Americas as a way to maintain internal cohesion and external relevance. The hostility toward Venezuela must be understood within this strategy: it is not primarily about oil, nor ideology, but about structural repositioning in a world where the monopoly of Western power is eroding.

This move also directly serves the interests of the U.S. military–industrial complex, which requires permanent tension hotspots to justify high levels of funding. By reinforcing the narrative that “threats” are emerging within the western hemisphere itself, Washington legitimizes expenditures, mobilizes regional allies, and attempts to prevent Latin American countries from deepening ties with Eurasian powers.

Yet this posture may generate the opposite effect. The U.S. insistence on treating Latin America as its “strategic backyard” tends to accelerate the region’s search for autonomy. There is already an observable rise in South–South cooperation, integration efforts among Latin American states, and the growing willingness of local governments to diversify their geopolitical partnerships.

Venezuela, despite its internal difficulties, symbolizes part of this process. Resisting external pressure has become not only a matter of state survival but also a sign of the new distribution of power in the international system. The aggressive U.S. stance reveals, paradoxically, not its strength, but its difficulty in accepting the emerging multipolar configuration that is consolidating across all continents.

December 2, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Maduro Delivers Defiant Message After Trump Told Venezuelan Leader to Flee

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | December 1, 2025

On a phone call held between Donald Trump and Nicolas Maduro, the President ordered the Venezuelan leader to flee his country. Following leaks about the phone call, Maduro issued a defiant public address.

The Miami Herald reported on Sunday that during the phone call held last week, Trump told Maduro, “You can save yourself and those closest to you, but you must leave the country now.” The sources said Trump offered Maduro and his family safe passage from Venezuela only if he offered his immediate resignation.

The Venezuelan leader appears to have rejected Trump’s deal. On Sunday, at the end of his public remarks, Maduro chanted that Venezuela is “indestructible, untouchable, unbeatable.”

Over the past week, the concerns that the US could begin military operations inside Venezuela have peaked. Washington has engaged in a massive military buildup in the Caribbean. The Pentagon has destroyed about two dozen boats in the region, claiming the vessels were carrying narcotics.

Multiple outlets have reported that the White House is discussing expanding operations into Venezuela. Trump added to the fear of a new war when he told troops on Thanksgiving the operations inside Venezuela would “begin soon” and posted on Truth Social that Venezuelan airspace was closed.

Officials told the Miami Herald that the call was a last ditch effort to avoid a war in Venezuela.

The strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific are unconstitutional, illegal, and war crimes. Expanding the strikes to inside Venezuela, or conducting a regime change in Caracas, would shatter the constraints the Constitution places on Presidential war powers.

December 1, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment