Dear Mr President

Per your request, this document distills and organizes some of the concepts and arguments presented at our last meeting.

This is a good time to initiate military action against Venezuela in an effort to effect regime change in that country and to assure that a subsequent administration there will be sympathetic to American goals and interests.
Venezuelans, both in country and in exile, are tired of the present regime, which is corrupt and brutal and has totally mismanaged that wealthy nation’s economy. Venezuela’s own neighbors fear the Maduro clique and the instability they represent which threatens the entire region. Even our own political opposition agrees that it would be best for everybody if they just went away. Any action to overthrow the Maduro government and replace it with one more under our control and direction would be welcomed by all parties, even those which might publicly oppose that effort for their own political reasons.

Because of these considerations, and because of our ability to project military power readily into the Caribbean Basin,
it will easy for us to conduct a limited action to secure this goal. The Venezuelan armed forces are in a high state of neglect, a full invasion would not be necessary. Air and naval assets could quickly dismantle any organized resistance that might materialize, while a few Marine battalions stationed on ships offshore could quickly be inserted and withdrawn if it became necessary to put “boots on the ground” to crack any unexpected defending units that might survive the initial assault. Even in the unlikely event a local insurgency arose to challenge us, we would be in and out before it could get organized. The nation would quickly be governed by Venezuelans sympathetic to our interests and grateful for our help.

Foreign response to our action would be predictably hysterical, but mostly based on a hatred of us, not any particular love for the Maduro regime. They will do nothing. The same can be said for other nations in our Hemisphere. They have no love for this dictator either, and they have little in the way of military, economic or diplomatic power ready to deploy. They might squeal, but they would do nothing, knowing that cooperating with us could be very beneficial to their own interests.

The collateral benefits for us would be obvious, and immediate. Even though we are energy self-sufficient, a quick development and a bringing back on line of Venezuelan petroleum reserves would only make us more so. Our subsequent de facto control of Venezuelan oil would also allow us the option of flooding the world with that product, severely damaging oil profits for Russia, hostile Middle Eastern states, or any other producers that might present a threat to us. It would also provide us the ability to reward energy-poor states that chose to align themselves with our goals.

Our own energy industry, and those of our allies, would profit mightily by investing to reconstitute Venezuelan oil infrastructure, thereby assuring their current loyalty and support for our policies. It would also allow us to deny those potential benefits to our adversaries. China is much further away from the Caribbean than Texas, and we can expect to continue our control of the Panama canal for the foreseeable future.

The only potential geopolitical obstacle to these activities would be opposition by Russia, but we are assured that our current understanding with Mr Putin, that he respect our legitimate interests in the Americas in return for our acquiescence to his in Europe, will ensure his cooperation.

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If I may add a comment of my own, let us not be deterred by any fear that our justifications for this policy are in any way reminiscent of those put forth by a previous administration for American intervention and regime change in Iraq. We have learned from other’s mistakes, we know better.

We can also take comfort, in the event a public justification is required for this action, that the very real threat of illegal drugs will be much easier to demonstrate to the American people than were “weapons of mass destruction”.