Washington Has Painted Itself Into a Corner on Venezuela

Eduardo A Gamarra

 

For much of the past year, U.S. policy toward Venezuela has oscillated between pressure and pragmatism, threats and talks, sanctions and selective waivers. But as 2025 draws to a close, that oscillation has largely ended. Washington has maneuvered itself into a narrow policy corridor in which limited military strikes now appear not only possible but increasingly likely—less because they are strategically optimal than because alternative paths have been politically foreclosed.

This is a dangerous place to be.

The United States faces three broad options in Venezuela today: a negotiated transition, a campaign of limited military strikes to catalyze regime collapse, or a far more consequential full-scale intervention. Of these, a negotiated settlement remains the most desirable outcome—for Venezuelans, for regional stability, and for U.S. interests. Yet it is also the least likely. Through a combination of maximalist rhetoric, an escalating military posture, and the progressive dismantling of diplomatic off-ramps, Washington has made compromise politically toxic and diplomacy structurally fragile. What remains is a strategy of coercion that assumes force will succeed where talks have failed.

That assumption deserves closer scrutiny.

The appeal of a negotiated transition is clear. Venezuela’s crisis is not only political but also humanitarian, economic, and social. Any sustainable recovery will require institutional continuity, buy-in from segments of the state apparatus, and international legitimacy. Negotiated exits—however imperfect—have historically reduced the risk of civil war, state collapse, and prolonged insurgency. They also offer the only plausible mechanism for addressing Venezuela’s intertwined challenges: migration, organized crime, sanctions relief, and economic reconstruction.

Yet negotiations require two conditions that no longer exist. First, they require credible incentives. Over the past year, Washington has repeatedly signaled that concessions—particularly in the oil sector—are temporary, reversible, and subject to domestic political veto. This has eroded U.S. credibility as a negotiating partner. Second, negotiations require a minimum level of trust that commitments will be honored. That trust has collapsed on both sides. Caracas views Washington as intent on regime removal regardless of concessions; Washington views Caracas as incapable of complying with any agreement that threatens the regime’s survival.

The result is a diplomatic dead zone. Talks may continue in the shadows, mediated by third parties or private actors, but they no longer drive policy. They are contingency plans, not strategy.

In this vacuum, limited military action has emerged as the default option—not because it promises a clear end state, but because it meets multiple political imperatives. It signals resolve. It aligns with a counter-narcotics narrative that frames the Venezuelan state as a criminal enterprise. It avoids, at least initially, the costs and liabilities of occupation. And crucially, it allows Washington to claim that escalation is measured rather than reckless.

But limited strikes are rarely limited in their consequences.

The underlying logic of this approach is that targeted force—against trafficking networks, regime-linked infrastructure, or security assets—will fracture elite cohesion and precipitate internal regime change. This logic rests on the belief that the Venezuelan state is brittle, that its security forces are transactional rather than ideological, and that pressure from above will trigger a rapid political unraveling.

History offers little comfort here. Regimes under external attack often respond not by fragmenting but by closing ranks. External pressure can strengthen hardliners, marginalize pragmatists, and reinforce siege mentalities. Even if strikes weaken specific nodes of the regime, they may also raise the cost of defection for insiders, who now face not only internal retribution but also external prosecution or exile.

Moreover, limited strikes risk creating strategic ambiguity without strategic control. Once force is used, Washington will own the escalation ladder, even if it does not control it. Retaliation need not be symmetrical. It may come through proxy actors, cyber operations, regional destabilization, or migration flows, weaponized as a form of pressure. Each response will generate new demands for “credible deterrence,” pulling policymakers further into a cycle they initially sought to avoid.

This is the essence of the corner Washington has painted itself into. Having defined the Venezuelan government as illegitimate, criminal, and irredeemable; having elevated the rhetoric of terrorism and war; and having adopted a visible military posture, inaction increasingly appears inconsistent with the declared intent. The credibility costs of restraint now rival the risks of action.

By contrast, a full-scale intervention remains unlikely precisely because its costs are obvious. Venezuela is not a permissive environment. Its collapse would almost certainly trigger mass displacement, factional violence, and prolonged instability. Regional partners, already wary, would resist involvement. Global competitors would exploit the crisis diplomatically and economically. Few in Washington truly want this outcome, and even fewer are prepared to own it.

And yet, limited strikes can be the road that leads there.

The danger is not that Washington intends a broader war, but that it has structured its policy on the hope that force will not require follow-through—that a calibrated use of violence will somehow produce political outcomes without demanding deeper engagement. This is a familiar temptation in U.S. foreign policy, and it has rarely ended well.

The tragedy is that this corner was not inevitable. A different sequence—clearer incentives, more disciplined messaging, and greater insulation of diplomacy from domestic politics—might have preserved a viable negotiation track. That window has not entirely closed, but it is narrowing rapidly.

If Washington proceeds down the path of limited strikes, it should do so with sobriety, not illusion. Force may degrade capabilities; it may shock the system; it may even accelerate elite calculations. But it is not a strategy for governance, legitimacy, or reconstruction. Those challenges will remain the morning after the first strike.

The central question, then, is not whether the United States can act, but whether it has adequately prepared for what comes next if action does not deliver the political collapse it anticipates. At present, the answer remains uncertain.

The negotiated settlement remains the least bad option. It is also the hardest to revive politically. But the alternative—a strategy driven by momentum rather than design—risks turning Venezuela into yet another case where escalation substitutes for strategy and where the absence of good options leads policymakers to choose the one that feels unavoidable.

Corners, once entered, are difficult to exit.