Venezuela as Pakistan: A Template, Not an Accident

Venezuela is not being punished. It is being re-made. Not into a liberal democracy. Not into a stable autocracy. Into something more useful. Into a Pakistan. By this, I do not mean a people or a culture. I mean a regime form (as what Bush did to Maduro’s earlier Iraqi doppelgänger): a state kept permanently unstable, permanently securitised, and permanently dependent; yet intact enough to sign contracts, police its population, and function as leverage against rivals. This is the form Empire prefers when it can no longer rule directly.

1) Why Venezuela Matters

Venezuela is not peripheral. It is inconveniently rich.

• The largest proven oil reserves in the world (over 300 billion barrels)

• Significant natural gas

• Large gold reserves

• Access to rare earths

• Control of the Caribbean–Atlantic corridor, close to major shipping lanes and the US mainland

A sovereign Venezuela is not a local problem. It is a potential pole. This is why it cannot be allowed to work. Donald Trump said the quiet part out loud: Venezuela has “all that oil.” It should be “ours.” The language was crude. The intent was orthodox. What matters is not the tone, but the continuity of aim.

2) Sanctions as a Weapon System

The process begins with attrition. You sanction a country for years (like Iran). You cut off refinancing. You block insurance, shipping, and payments. You crush the currency. You do it slowly, so it looks administrative rather than violent. Under that pressure, institutions decay. The army’s pay collapses. The civil service hollows out. The middle class leaves. At that point, protest becomes porous. Some anger is real. Some organisation is external. The distinction is meant to blur.

3) A Coup Without Tanks

Modern coups do not announce themselves. You do not need tanks in the street if you can induce structural obedience: a state that cannot stabilise its economy, cannot trust its security services, and cannot fund its own survival. When officers are unpaid and sanctions are permanent, betrayal stops being ideological. It becomes logistical. It becomes access to dollars. Economic warfare works because it turns loyalty into a luxury.

4) The Desired End State

The goal is not collapse. It is control without responsibility. A Pakistan-style Venezuela would have:

• elections, but no monetary sovereignty

• institutions, but no policy freedom

• ministers, but no leverage

• a flag, but no exit

The state survives. Governments rotate. But the country never escapes the box. It becomes governable only within limits set elsewhere. This is what “managed democracy” actually means.

5) Why Empire Prefers This Model

A Pakistan is useful. It is weak enough to pressure, strong enough to police. It generates crises on demand. It never becomes an example. A functioning, non-aligned, resource-sovereign Venezuela would be contagious across Latin America. A Venezuela trapped in permanent emergency inoculates the region against autonomy.

6) Trump Was Not the Aberration

There is a comforting fiction that this violence belongs to one man. Trump’s rhetoric was vulgar, not unique. He was a messenger with poor discipline. The policy predates him and will outlast him. Focusing on personality protects the system. The machinery does not care who speaks for it.

7) What the World Is Being Told

When this method becomes brazen, it is not just cruelty. It is communication. The message is: we can still do this. But the subtext may be darker: we have to do this. Secure empires rule quietly. They extract invisibly. They make domination feel like order. When they return to piracy, sanctions, seizures, spectacle, it often means the old tools are failing. Venezuela is not being turned into a warning by accident. It is being turned into a Pakistan by design.