The recent US operation to remove Maduro from power in Venezuela has all sorts of implications in the Great Power competition between the US, China and Russia. But one that hasn't received too much attention, at least in the popular press, is the military implications of the utter failures of the Venezuelan defences.

Venezuela in general and Caracas in particular, were protected by the best systems the anti-US world has to offer. The radar and early detection systems were supplied by China and were billed by China as 'stealth busters' ie they would render the US stealth technology obsolete. The anti-aircraft missile systems were supplied by Russia and were the most sophisticated they had to offer.

Caracas, therefore, was protected by the best the Sino-Russia coalition had to offer.

And it utterly failed in the face of US technological superiority which was able to completely disable the Chinese radar systems and arrive at Maduro's residence, effectively undetected. Not a single US plane was taken out even as the SAM batteries were obliterated.

China is (or was?) preparing to intensify the military pressure on the island nation of Taiwan. But the events in Caracas have added a whole new dimension to their calculations. The Chinese now know that their homeland would be highly vulnerable to US stealth incursion. A month ago they thought they had the technology to defeat stealth. They now know differently.

As one commentator noted, the combination of US stealth, B52 bombers, the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs and the Chinese Three-Mile dam, means China has the biggest glass jaw in history.

The Venezuelan raid has bought Taiwan a few more years of security from Chinese invasion while the Chinese go back to the drawing board on their military technology.

A good point that doesn't seem to have been canvassed by the "experts".

Interesting point mhaze.

mhaze,

You've made a series of assumptions that haven't been established, and once you remove them, the strategic conclusion doesn't hold.

You're assuming Venezuela's Chinese and Russian systems were fully operational, integrated, trained, and representative of peer-state defences. That's unproven. Export hardware in a degraded client regime is not a proxy for Chinese homeland defence.

You're also treating air defence as a single technology problem. It isn't. US penetration relies on electronic warfare, ISR, cyber, mission planning, and suppression of emitters. A failure under those conditions tells you little about how the same systems perform in a dense, layered, domestically controlled network.

From there, the Taiwan extrapolation simply doesn't follow. Different geography, doctrine, allies, warning time. Beijing has assumed US penetration capability for decades and plans around cost-imposition, not perfect denial.

And the "glass jaw" framing is rhetorical. Everyone knows critical infrastructure is vulnerable in total war. That's not a new revelation, and it doesn't collapse deterrence.

Yes, Venezuelan air defences failed. No, that doesn't demonstrate Chinese anti-stealth is a myth or that China's strategic posture has been exposed.

At most, it shows that poorly integrated client-state defences don't hold up against a US combined-arms operation. But that's been true for decades.

The weapons didn't work? delusional
Trump killed 100 people with his stunt.

Bond Collapse Forces U.S. REVERSAL As Investors CANCEL Treasuries For China RMB Debt
http://youtu.be/xkS1ndW-B-s

Hi AC,

"The weapons didn't work? delusional
Trump killed 100 people with his stunt."

How many have died in Putin's Ukrainian stunt? Over 1000 a day for nearly four years?

The questions to ask are "How well trained were the operators?" and "How well maintained was the equipment?".

Those questions could be revisited in Iran over the coming weeks. Tens of thousands of unarmed civilians murdered by the regime so far. Will Trump keep his word and step in?

"How many have died in Putin's Ukrainian stunt? Over 1000 a day for nearly four years?"

It's not Putin's Ukrainian stunt, it's an American Ukrainian stunt.

"The questions to ask are 'How well trained were the operators?' and 'How well maintained was the equipment?'."
Why are they the questions?
Choose some different ones.

"Those questions could be revisited in Iran over the coming weeks. Tens of thousands of unarmed civilians murdered by the regime so far. Will Trump keep his word and step in?"
Says who? And define 'step in'

'What is the cause of the conflict' Fester?
This is the most basic of questions, but one needs to ask it to centre and focus logical thinking.
To make sure one's thinking is well grounded moving forward.

Max Blumenthal : Did U.S. Policy Deliberately Harm Civilians in Iran?
http://www.youtube.com/live/U4n_E00yYus?t=120

2 minutes in, watch.

Here we have Scott Bessant openly stating that the fall in the Iranian currency was US 'economic statecraft'.

You think some baboon U.S. banker in on the plan didn't short the Iranian currency and make a profit on someone else's (the Iranian peoples) loss?
You think they would let a crisis or opportunity to make $ go to waste?
(No more than others would not allow the Bondi crisis go to waste.)

So what was the cause of the conflict in Iran?
- U.S. economic sanctions and interference leading to civil unrest?
Aided by Western intelligence assets (CIA and Mossad) inside Iran who sought to co-opt and transform peaceful protests into mass killings and blood flowing on the streets, because that's what you have to do, if you want success according to the regime change handbook.

For the most part, yes that's what happened.
But we can't forget there is a genuine water crisis in Tehran.

You know I'm against sanctions and overthrows.
For this exact reason - the same one you cite.
How many innocent people did you say were killed?
(Inflated numbers by Western NGO's and some more innocent than others, but I digress...)
In any case, regime change is a stupid game where innocent people get killed.

They shot and beheaded police in order to provoke a heavy handed government reaction, then use this reaction to deligitimise the government saying they're killing 'peaceful protesters'.

What sort of reaction would Albo get on the international news headlines if he started gunning down Palestinian protesters, how would he react if Palestinian protesters murdered 100 cops including beheadings?

It's all artificially manufactured and stage-managed strife Fester.

The Shah was visiting Israel wearing his skull cap and kissing the ring, I mean western wall.

How far separated are these intelligence assets that conduct these covert foreign actions in other countries from their domestic counterparts charged with preventing them in our own?

Five-eyes nations + Israel.
For all we know they encourage individuals to become extremist like the FBI does for entrapment, and then allow some attacks to happen when it's political useful to do so.

And I'm not saying that is what happened, but it could be.
That's the smell I get when they carry on about synagogue doors burning and the 'Iranian state sponsored it.'

'Do their synagogue doors not deserve to burn?'
(Not that I'd support it, but I don't really care either)

Smells like bs, lacks any evidence or logical sense that it'd be state sponsored.
A manufactured narrative to capitalise on a manufactured public reaction.

Don't you lot understand 'Problem, reaction, solution'?

"Don't you lot understand 'Problem, reaction, solution'?"

Hi AC,

My simple take is that the problem in Iran is from a regime that values its ideology above the lives of its people. I think that if you want peace you must value people more than your ideology.

Did you know that China is helping the Iranian regime? What does that say about how much the Chinese government values the Iranian people? Accomplices to murder?

More on the concerns from China and Russia....
http://tiny.cc/963y001

Much of the success of the US operation came from the coordination of the US space programme into the military. In large parts, real-time information around the Maduro operation was controlled by the US Space Force. These other nations are miles behind the US in that regard and are unlikely to catch up quickly.

An accident in Russia has destroyed one of its diminishing space launch sites and they will struggle to maintain any sort of launch capability in the near future. China is desperately trying to emulate SpaceX's successes with rocket relaunch but have repeated failed. Reports are that they are reverting to their old tactic of just trying to steal the technology in the face of an inability to duplicate it.

We are reminded of the history of these issues. Repeatedly over the decades we are told that the technology of whoever happens to be opposing the US is equal to or surpasses that of the US. But when there is a real world clash of those technologies eg Yom Kippur, the Six Day War, Desert Storm, the US technology proves to be vastly superior.

In those examples, we are always informed by the partisans that it wasn't really the technology that failed but the operators. I see some of the less informed here repeat that assertion.

But prior to the Maduro operation we were told that Caracas was completely protected by the best Sino-Russian technology available AND that the operators had been fully trained and probably supplemented by Chinese and Russia forces. Only after it all fails does the narrative change.

The US has an incentive to down-play the lead they enjoy. For purposes of pride China likewise.

But for the moment, following the events in Caracas, Taiwan is safe. Geopolitical events might change the equation, but the military equation remains the same.

Your link doesn't really change the core issue, mhaze. It mostly reinforces it.

The PJ Media piece you cite is celebratory narrative, not neutral analysis. It attributes the success of the operation to a "jaw-dropping" level of US space and cyber integration, but that capability didn't suddenly emerge in 2026. ISR dominance, cyber disruption, EW, SOF insertion, and space-enabled overwatch are institutional US strengths that predate Trump by decades

What the article actually describes is a combined-arms special operation against a degraded client state, not a revelation about peer-level warfare. Shutting down a national grid, jamming comms, suppressing air defenses, and inserting SOF under ISR cover says more about asymmetric advantage than about the intrinsic inferiority of Chinese or Russian technology.

On Russia and China specifically:

- Export systems in Venezuela are not proxies for homeland defenses.

- Operator competence, integration, maintenance, and doctrine still matter, whether one likes it or not. Dismissing that as "less informed" doesn't make it false.

- Space integration is not a US monopoly. China and Russia are actively pursuing counter-space, redundancy, and denial strategies precisely because they already assume US penetration capability.

The historical examples you cite (Six Day War, Desert Storm) actually underline the same point: US success flowed from doctrine, training, integration, intelligence, and coalition structure, not from a single technological silver bullet suddenly revealed in combat.

As for Taiwan, the extrapolation still doesn't follow. Different geography, different warning time, different alliance structure, different force posture. Beijing's planning has never assumed perfect denial. It assumes cost-imposition and escalation control. One raid in Caracas doesn't rewrite that.

In short, the article describes impressive US institutional capability. It does not demonstrate a sudden strategic exposure of China, nor does it show that "the military equation remains the same" in any simple sense.

At most, it confirms something already well understood: the US remains extremely good at projecting power against weaker, poorly integrated opponents. That's not new, and it doesn't justify the broader conclusions being drawn here.

Standard JD here... based on the fact there is imperfect knowledge he fills the gaps with what he wants to be true.

BTW..."The historical examples you cite (Six Day War, Desert Storm) actually underline the same point: US success...".

The US wasn't in the Six Day War. But it was, in part, a contest between the second best aircraft the US had to offer (Israel) and the best aircraft the Russians had to offer(Egypt and Syria), and the Russian systems were badly outclassed. Its funny when people have such a paucity of information but remain confident in their views.

mhaze,

That’s not a substantive response to the point I made.

Yes, the US wasn’t a belligerent in the Six Day War. The relevance of the example isn’t US participation, it’s that Western aircraft, doctrine, training, and integration decisively outperformed Soviet-supplied systems when tested in combat. That actually reinforces my point: outcomes reflected doctrine, integration, and operational execution, not a sudden revelation that one side’s technology was intrinsically “exposed.”

But more importantly, none of this addresses the core issue I raised.

Your linked article describes impressive US institutional capabilities that long predate Trump. It does not establish that Venezuela’s export systems were representative of Chinese or Russian homeland defenses, nor that a single special operation rewrites the military equation around Taiwan.

Calling that “filling gaps with what I want to be true” is just a way of avoiding the inference problem. If you think the conclusions do follow, spell out the causal chain. If not, the personal jab is just noise.

"In those examples, we are always informed by the partisans that it wasn't really the technology that failed but the operators. I see some of the less informed here repeat that assertion."

Trump administration admitted there were CIA assets in Venezuela before the Maduro kidnapping.
You bankrupt a nation with sanctions and then buy off the poorly paid and now corrupt military.
Give them a offer they can't refuse.
'Take the bitcoin and the citizenship, you wouldn't want anything to happen to your wife and children would you?
You d on't have any choice, stand down when we tell you to or we'll put it out there you are spying for us.
Don't feel bad you're not the only one.'

Are you saying U.S. stealth and intelligence was too good
Russian and Chinese radar (if applicable) and air defense was too poor.
Or that all the radar and air defense assets failed at the same time

"Are you saying U.S. stealth and intelligence was too good
Russian and Chinese radar (if applicable) and air defense was too poor.
Or that all the radar and air defense assets failed at the same time"

I'll reiterate.
* The US stealth, intelligence, multiple force coordination, and leadership was too good.
* The Chinese radar, that was proclaimed as being able to defeat stealth technology, utterly failed.
* Russia anti-aircraft missile systems, utterly failed, although to be fair to the Russians it probably partially failed because it relied on the failed Chinese radar.

All of that means that the Chinese confidence that their technology would protect the homeland in the event of a shooting war around Taiwan, is shattered. And therefore there probably won't be a shooting war around Taiwan in the near future.

Two more interesting bits of news out of China over the weekend.

* Xi Jinping has arrested (or, according to some reports, has unsuccessfully tried to arrest) one of the top generals in the PLA. When a nation's military fails this badly (ie in Venezuela), the generals are on the chopping block. This is especially so when the civilian leaderships relies utterly on the army to keep them in power. Mayhem within the military/civilian leadership usually means that external adventures are put on hold.

OTOH, when a government is under pressure and is loosing the faith of the people, a time-honoured solution is to create foreign crises to distract the people and generate national unity.

* The CCP has now admitted that the Chinese population is in decline with the numbers of births in free-fall. Given that the numbers out of the CCP are usually made rosier than the truth, it means that China has now become one of the few nations on earth with a fertility rate below 1. ie one birth per woman. That translate to each generation being half the size of the previous one, and therefore a rapidly aging demographic.
Unless the situation is reversed, its projected the Chinese population will be down to around 300 million by 2100.

In foreign policy terms, this means that China's race to become the world's hegemon has a time limit on it ie achieve it before the population declines so much that it can't ever be achieved.

mhaze,

You're reiterating conclusions, not addressing the inference problem that's been raised repeatedly.

No one is denying that US stealth, ISR, cyber, space integration, and force coordination were decisive in the operation. What's being questioned is the leap from that fact to claims about Chinese homeland vulnerability and Taiwan's near-term safety.

You keep asserting that Chinese "anti-stealth" radar and Russian SAMs "utterly failed," but you still haven't shown that:

- Venezuelan export systems were representative of Chinese homeland IADS
- they were fully operational, integrated, and free of prior compromise
- non-engagement, corruption, or pre-positioned intelligence assets can be ruled out
- a SOF raid against a sanctioned client state maps onto a cross-strait war scenario

Those aren't excuses. They're basic requirements for the conclusion you're drawing.

Adding PLA personnel issues or demographic decline doesn't fix that gap. It just widens the story. None of it establishes that a single operation in Caracas "shattered" Chinese confidence or meaningfully altered Beijing's Taiwan calculus, which has assumed US penetration capability for decades.

If you think the Venezuelan operation does justify that conclusion, the argument still needs to show how. Repeating the conclusion isn't a substitute for that step.

So what do we say about 2020 then?

In Venezuela, Americans Attempt to Stage a “Bay of Piglets”
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/in-venezuela-americans-attempt-to-stage-a-bay-of-piglets

"The Venezuelan military’s ambush last week of a small marine invasion force, consisting of several dozen Venezuelans and two American “freedom fighters” attempting to overthrow the government of President Nicolás Maduro, immediately had journalists and political observers drawing comparisons to the Bay of Pigs, the disastrous C.I.A.-backed maritime invasion of Cuba, in April, 1961."

Cracks are starting to show in the facade of America as it gets closer to collapse.

They lost the trade war to China.
What happened to Trumps huge tariffs, backs down to 25%
Spaks out threatening everyone including its own allies.
Yes they're going really well, not.

When's this Iranian attack.
Should be any day now.

I hope the U.S. and Israel don't attack Iran, but if they do I hope the Iranians level Israel and put a hypersonic missile through the flight deck of the Lincoln.

China makes 3 bln profit a day in it's trade surplus.

OK JD. I get your point. I just don't agree with it.

You assert that if we don't know all the data we can't reach any conclusions. (Although elsewhere you're happy to make 'scientific inferences' - it must be nice to have such 'flexible' 'standards').

We'll never know if the Venezuelans were fully prepared for the US attack or whether the Chinese, Russian and Cuban forces protecting Maduro were all that competent. Then again, neither will the Chinese.

The fact is that prior to the attack, the Chinese and the Venezuelans were supremely confident in their readiness and technology and they were rapidly disabused of that. I know you don't want to concede the superiority of the US technology and therefore conjure all sorts of scenarios where the technology worked and the operators didn't, but some of us prefer to live in the real world.

________________________________________________________________________

"China makes 3 bln profit a day in it's trade surplus."

That's true..... if you believe their claims. I don't.

It appears you don't get it, mhaze.

//You assert that if we don't know all the data we can't reach any conclusions.//

No, I'm saying that the strength of the conclusion has to match the strength of the evidence.

But you already knew that.

Drawing some conclusions from incomplete data is unavoidable, drawing sweeping strategic ones from a single operation against a degraded client state is optional.

You keep asserting that Chinese and Venezuelan confidence was "supreme" prior to the operation, but you haven't shown where that confidence was expressed, by whom, or how it maps to Chinese homeland defence planning. And "the Chinese won't know either" cuts both ways - uncertainty undermines certainty claims, it doesn't license them.

None of this denies US capability. It just rejects the leap from "US forces executed a highly effective combined operation" to "Chinese confidence is shattered and Taiwan is safe." That leap still hasn't been justified.

So it seems we're not disagreeing about facts so much as how much weight one event can reasonably bear.

"That leap still hasn't been justified."

Not to you.

But to me, based on history, its very much justified.

That's fair, mhaze.

//But to me, based on history, its very much justified.//

I'm asking whether the inference is justified by the evidence at hand; you're answering that it feels justified to you based on history.

We're just applying different standards.

Venezuela has Russian S-300 and Pansir S1, (both of which have their own radar) as well as Chinese radar.

Are you certain he wasn't already secured by traitors in his midst before the US helicopters flew in?

CIA setting up outpost in Venezuela
http://www.rt.com/news/631607-cia-base-venezuela-ukraine

This doesn't happen unless the current leadership was in on it.

China’s YLC-8B Radar Transfer to Iran Could Rewrite Middle East Airpower and End Stealth Dominance

http://defencesecurityasia.com/en/china-ylc-8b-radar-iran-anti-stealth-middle-east-air-defense/

'The reported deployment of China’s long-range YLC-8B anti-stealth radar in Iran signals a strategic shift in Middle Eastern air defense architecture, directly challenging U.S. and Israeli reliance on fifth-generation stealth aircraft and reshaping regional deterrence dynamics.'

>>Emerging intelligence claims that China has delivered multiple YLC-8B radar systems—each capable of detecting targets out to 700 kilometres—signal a strategic recalibration in Middle Eastern air defense architecture that directly challenges longstanding assumptions underpinning U.S. and Israeli stealth-centric strike doctrines against Iranian territory.<<