Drones under the Moonlight: A Venezuelan Analysis of America’s Intervention of January 3 as It Happened

Abstract

This article offers an eyewitness, Venezuelan account of the United States’ January 3 military intervention to extract Nicolás Maduro, situating the operation within a longer history of U.S. hemispheric dominance. It asks how this unprecedented drone- and airpower-based assault reshapes Venezuelan politics, regional dynamics, and the emerging global order. Combining narrative testimony from Caracas with historical context, the piece argues that the intervention revives a Roosevelt Corollary-style logic of policing Latin America while simultaneously legitimizing a more anarchic, sphere-of-influence world. The article concludes that only a transition that empowers Venezuela’s democratic actors can render the intervention legitimate in terms of sovereignty, human rights, and freedom.

To many Venezuelans, America’s intervention on January 3 came as a total shock. Even though a powerful Armada had been stationed for months right at our doorstep, we had been tirelessly exposed to a psychological campaign intended to sow doubts about an impending attack. So when the military offensive was actually unleashed, it came as a surprise. I was woken up at 2 am by the sound of a ferocious explosion, which shook my house and the bed on which I was sleeping. At first, I thought it was an earthquake. After a second raucous explosion, I ran out to the terrace and saw a pillar of smoke and fire coming from the direction of Fuerte Tiuna, the capital’s main military base. It was there, relatively close to where I live, where the main showdown to capture Maduro took place.

Looking up at the sky, I heard the sound of military planes and drones literally fill the air. They seemed to be everywhere, flying languidly, almost leisurely, and completely unopposed over the clear moonlit skies of Caracas. It all seemed surreal. The drones were mostly invisible, but they sometimes turned a light on for three seconds, making their positions and flight paths discernible. In the lapse of an hour, I heard numerous bomb explosions in different parts of the city, as well as the sound of helicopters and machine gun fire. Soon the smoke and the smell of burnt gunpowder filled my house.

This highly coordinated military attack, which turned out to be an extraction operation to rid the country of the dictator Nicolas Maduro, would end up raising more questions than answers for most Venezuelans, especially as the situation in the country remained far from being resolved. But it would also pose significant implications for the region and the wider world as well, as it could define the way the Trump administration relates with other Latin American countries, and it could also herald in a new global order possibly more anarchic, made up of spheres of influence and the rule of naked and unrestrained power politics.

With respect to Venezuela, Trump’s news conference given hours after the events compounded the perplexity of many. We were now faced with the prospect of being “run” by the U.S. And as the usurper Maduro had been captured, new authorities were designated, which apparently would not include opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who had recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, nor Edmundo Gonzalez, the legitimate winner of the last presidential elections. We were told that negotiations were ongoing with representatives of the dictatorship, who were now supposedly an “interim transitional government.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio later clarified what seemed to be the following strategy of the U.S. administration: they would enforce an oil embargo that would bring the country to its knees, unless the Chavista leadership gave in to Washington’s demands.¹ Here seasoned Venezuelan observers can be forgiven for being skeptical. They know from years of experience that the ruthless Chavista leadership is more than willing to drive their fellow countrymen into total misery in order to stay in power. They know that the biggest centers of torture in the whole western hemisphere continue to operate undisturbed in Venezuela. And they know that the core Chavista leadership is practically an offspring of the Cuban Marxist revolutionary school, a group that has withstood and survived the longest embargo in human history. Now, after having been sworn in as the new president of the regime, Delcy Rodriguez openly called for dialogue and cooperation with the US.² It probably is a ploy to survive, to gain time, or to pursue a thaw possibly like the one agreed to between Raul Castro and President Barack Obama. But it certainly does not sound like capitulation, at least not yet. For that, Chavismo would have to stop being Chavismo.

On January 5, events in Venezuela continued to unfold and Trump warned of a second strike.³ This military intervention harkens back to the times of the early twentieth century, when the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904—asserting the US prerogative to police Latin America—was applied to the Western Hemisphere and, indeed, to Venezuela as well.⁴ When Theodore Roosevelt clashed with then dictator Cipriano Castro over the payment of debts, he seriously considered authorizing the Parker Plan, a military operation uncannily similar to the one enacted by Trump on January 3, which sought to capture and depose Castro, occupy the customs offices, and establish a provisional government in Venezuela led by the US.⁵ In the end, Roosevelt would refrain from carrying it out, but in 1908 he finally sent three destroyers to support a coup against his Venezuelan foe, whom he derisively called that “unspeakably villainous little monkey.”⁶

Today’s pretense to assert U.S. hegemony in the region, excluding any influence from competing powers such as China and Russia (or even Iran in the case of Venezuela), and resorting to coercive measures in order to extort the payment of debts or gain access to natural resources, is something that fits squarely with this doctrine. It is therefore not hard to imagine how this forceful stance will end up ruffling many feathers in the region. As Richard Haass pointed out, the latest events highlight the importance that the hemisphere has for Trump’s foreign policy, as stated in his recent National Security Strategy document of 2025.⁷ He might also focus in the near future on countries like Colombia and Mexico, for they are sources and transit points from where most drugs flow into the US.

Finally, as in the case of the Iraq War of 2003, this intervention could also set a precedent for other world leaders to think that they can do the same. By his actions, Trump is legitimizing the idea of a world devoid of rules and norms, as well as one where privileged spheres of influence exist. In this sense, the example set by the military attack on Venezuela could be deleterious, and possibly a harbinger of a more anarchic, unstable world.

As dawn broke out that morning of January 3, Caracas was eerily silent after the night’s traumatic events. I had never seen the capital so quiet in my life before. Certain sectors of the city were left without electricity due to the attack; and people mostly stayed at home. The only sound that one could hear was that of birds chirping away happily. Most Venezuelans who supported Maduro’s forceful extraction did not go out to celebrate on the streets of Caracas because the Chavistas were still in power.

For now, not much is clear. It appears that the regime may try to position itself as the main interlocutor, presenting itself as the power broker of Venezuelan politics. It clearly does not want to cede power. For the democratic forces, who instead want regime change, the risk is that of being left out, and of having the Chavistas legitimized in the country’s power structure. Most Venezuelans who yearn to recover their freedom would consider that unacceptable. It should therefore be clear to the Trump administration that the time has come for a decisive change, with the need to include democratic forces right from the get-go of the transitional phase. Only that way, that morning’s daring military attack would be wholly justified from Venezuela’s point of view, not only from the standpoint of the defense and vindication of its human rights, but also from that of its sovereignty and freedom.