By: Lt Col JS Sodhi (Retd), Editor, GSDN
On December 31, 2025 at 8.15 pm Venezuela Standard Time (VET) as the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores sat for dinner with Delcy Rodriguez, the Vice President and the Defence Minister Vladimir Lopez in in the Boyaca Room of the Miraflores Palace, the residence of the Venezuelan President, the atmosphere was tense, though it was the New Year eve dinner.
Little earlier in the day, at 5 pm VET when the Venezuelan President in his customary New Year address broadcast spoke to his nation, he expressed confidence that Venezuela was “in the best condition” to overcome external attacks and blockades. Clearly, it was a façade as Maduro knew that his time at the helm of the affairs since 2013 was now ticking.
After the sombre New Year eve dinner, as the Venezuelan President and his wife retired for the night to one of his 37 secret abodes, he had the uncanny feeling that the noose was tightening around him. Unknown to President Maduro, the US intelligence agencies were tracking his every move since July 01, 2025 using human intelligence and modern intelligence methods including space satellites and cyber tracking.
Just a week earlier on December 24, 2025 on Christmas eve, at 1.45 pm VET, the US President Donald Trump in a private telephone call had told Maduro that he had to step down as the Venezuelan President. But Maduro had refused, even as the US Naval blockade that had commenced on December 01, 2025 had been gaining strength and lethality with each passing day.
But Maduro’s luck wasn’t to last long. At 11.46 pm VET (10.46 pm EST) on January 02, 2026, President Donald Trump gave the go-ahead for the execution of Operation Absolute Resolve.
At 1.50 am VET on January 03, 2026, in one of the 37 secret abodes, Maduro in deep sleep sensed some movement in his room. As he switched on his bedside lamp and looked around in the room, he saw seven Delta Force soldiers of the US Military pointing their Sig Sauer MCX Spear Light assault rifles at him and his wife. Maduro woke his wife Cilia who was still fast asleep.
The First Couple of Venezuela were informed by the Delta Force sub-unit commander that they were under arrest and without any murmur, at 2.20 am VET, the Venezuelan First Couple were airborne in separate helicopters of the 160th Special Aviation Regiment of the US Military heading towards USS Iwo Jima, the US Navy warship after a brief halt in an undisclosed US military base.
At 1.37 am EST, General John Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Military got up from his chair and walked to the US President and after saluting him quipped “Operation Absolute Resolve Successful Sir”.
All present in the Situation Room in the West Wing of the White House monitoring Operation Absolute Resolve, clapped in euphoria and the US President got up from his chair and saluted back at General Caine.
The brilliantly executed Operation Absolute Resolve conducted by the USA in Venezuela has taught many lessons to the world.
Why countries face internal unrests and external interference
It is commonly taught in Indian families that internally if a house is weak, the outsiders take undue advantage. Hence, unity of families has immense value in India. On a larger scale, nations which face internal unrests like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal and countries facing external interference like Venezuela, Iraq and Libya have all few issues in common which result in internal unrest and external interference.
Unfair and manipulated elections: Whenever elections in any country are unfair and manipulated, the discord commences amongst the general populace. Many can’t speak up for fear of state crack-down, but the resentment only increases. Be it the Presidential Elections of Venezuela on July 28, 2024 or on May 20, 2018, both were rigged and Maduro continued as the Venezuelan President. The Presidential Elections held in Venezuela on April 14, 2013 after the death of President Hugo Chavez saw Maduro elected as the President for the first time with the wafer-thin majority of 1.49%.
But the first Presidential tenure of Maduro proved disastrous and in the face of certain defeat in the 2018 elections, Maduro manipulated the elections. Repeating the same act in the 2024 elections. Clearly, this proved the Achilles Heel for Maduro and the perfect platform for the US to intervene in Venezuela, as most nations in the world rejected the 2018 and 2024 election results of Venezuela. The famous adage says “Justice should not only be done, but seem to have be done”. Similarly, elections in any nation need to be totally fair and any doubts about its conduct must be answered by the authorities concerned to the last question possible.
Control of government institutions: The strength of a nation is directly proportional to the independence of its governmental institutions like the courts, election commission and other statutory agencies. For, whenever any citizen feels aggrieved on any pretext, he can approach the governmental institutions for justice. A common citizen who doesn’t have any connections whatsoever, has the only hope of the government institutions to hear his voice.
And if a citizen’s faith in the government institutions crumbles, the nation starts fragmenting within giving rise to internal unrests and external interference. Ever since Pakistan has been created as a nation in 1947, the government institutions have been compromised resulting in the nation having frequent internal strifes and external interference be it the USA or China who indirectly influence the day-to-day happenings in Pakistan.
Corruption: Every youth wants to excel in life and has great aspirations. When a level playing field is provided, the unsuccessful understand that in the era of merit, they were probably not fit enough to succeed. After all, Charles Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest still holds true. But survival and progress amongst a nation’s citizen has to be on merit. When corruption seeps in every possible facet of public interaction, resulting in lower meritocracy surging ahead due to money power, it increases frustration in the youth. Countries like Syria and Sri Lanka are deeply mired in corruption where merit has no value, only money rules the roost. Thus, a disgruntled population struggling against the ill-effects of corruption in daily life is an ideal recipe for internal unrests and external interference.
Nepotism: When the youth of a country combat real life challenges in pursuit of their dreams and desires, what hurts them the most is nepotism. Every person in the world wants to work hard. But when hard work doesn’t count and the family that one is born in gives unprecedent advantages in the journey of life, vexation in the country starts rising. And at an opportune moment, it explodes resulting in even toppling of the government. On September 04, 2025 Nepal saw unprecedented internal unrest as the common man started sharing videos and reels on social media under the hashtag NepoKids of children of prominent Nepali politicians enjoying life, while the average Nepali was struggling for his daily bread. Such was the ferocity of the protests that the Nepal government headed by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli had to resign on September 09, 2025.
Clearly, if the internal intent and policies of a country are fair, transparent and just, a nation will never see internal unrest and hence no external interference. Examples are the Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden and Iceland where the happiness index is the highest in the world with no cases of internal unrest and external interference.
Lessons from Venezuela for the world
Operation Absolute Resolve that was carried out in the wee hours of January 03, 2026 by the USA in Venezuela which resulted in the capture of its President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores was a brilliantly executed operation which apart from military lessons has taught many non-military lessons to the world.
Multi-domain operations: Modern warfare now encompasses six official domains-land, sea, air, cyber, electromagnetic spectrum & space and numerous unofficial domains which includes the half-front too. In short, anything that can be weaponised, will be weaponised.
While there are theories galore on what made Operation Absolute Resolve successful, no clear one domain has emerged as the only factor that made this operation a resounding success. How much weightage of success is attributable to each of the contributing factors in Operation Absolute Resolve, only Pentagon and President Donald Trump would know. And they both will never divulge.
But Operation Absolute Resolve has heralded the success of the Full Spectrum Operation Doctrine that was transcribed by the US in 2001. Till date only one country in the world ie China has claimed in 2014 that it is ready to fight a war in any part of the world in multi-domains. After Operation Absolute Resolve, the USA has become the second nation in the world to be ready for multi-domain operations which has been demonstrated effectively in a live-combat situation.
The future wars will have multi-domain warfare in full force and fury and the nations at war-risk will have to adequately prepare for the multi-domain warfare. Two nations at immediate war-risk are Taiwan in 2027 and India any time after 2030.
Era of Alliances: With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the USA’s seamless military operation in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of its President as Venezuela’s 30 million population is hapless and helpless and Ukraine’s 38.8 million population is devastated and distressed, the learning is that the era of strategic autonomy is over. It is now the era of alliances with defence pacts wherein an attack on one nation will be counted as an attack on all nations of the alliance.
Russia has not attacked any country-member of NATO as such a defence pact under Article 5 of NATO exists. Israel has not attacked Pakistan, the only Islamic nation with a nuclear weapon, as such a defence pact exists between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Nations facing the threat of war need to enter a military alliance without any further loss of time. No nation is prepared to face the military might of the three superpowers ie USA, Russia and China.
Hard Power-the need of the hour: The author in an earlier article published on August 31, 2025 had written that the three superpowers ie USA, Russia and China have divided the world into three parts and have formed an unofficial alliance which can be termed as Group of Three or G3. The assessment of the author proved correct with the publication of the US’ National Security Strategy 2025 which was released on December 04, 2025 which has stated that Russia and China are not the adversaries of the US and these three countries have their respective spheres of influence.
Thucydides, the famous Greek historian’s quote in 430 BCE “The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept” is as relevant in today’s era as it has always been centuries down the line. Nations which face the possibility of war in future have to prepare themselves economically and militarily. Dialogue and diplomacy are inconsequential in today’s era. Only hard power matters.
Media’s role: In any nation a free, fair and independent media plays the most important role in ensuring that a common citizen’s grievances reach the highest authority in land. When a common citizen finds that his voice is being heard, internal unrests don’t happen and subsequently no foreign interference takes place.
But when a nation’s media is controlled and curbed, the common citizen starts feeling suffocated and strangulated. Though it may take years or probably decades before internal unrests start in the country for the fear of those in power, but it will invariably happen someday. As a dormant volcano definitely erupts someday, so will the internal unrest in a nation start if a nation’s media is not free and fair.
Ever since the radicals seized power in Iran in the Islamic Revolution on February 11, 1979, the Iranian government since the last 47 years has stifled the media with an iron hand, but the unprecedented level of internal unrest that Iran has been seeing since December 28, 2025 till the time of going to press, has made President Donald Trump remark twice in the last 14 days that America will intervene in Iran if the protestors are harmed.
As reports are coming in of numerous fighter aircrafts being moved from the US and the UK to Israel and Russia vacating its embassy staff in Israel since January 07, 2026, the war on Iran is imminent. USA & UK know that this is the opportune time to strike in Iran, which is regarded as the biggest adversary for both the nations.
Had the Iranian media projected the woes and worries of its citizens in the last 47 years, neither the unrest in Iran would have commenced nor the USA and Israel been prepared to strike Iran.
The way ahead
Being ambitious is not wrong but stifling any opposition or critic is a sure recipe for disaster. Every global citizen wants to progress in life and independent governmental institutions and free media, immensely help a nation progress and prosper. Time has also come to be pragmatic of the geopolitical changes are happening at a rapid pace ever since President Donald Trump came to power for the second time on January 20, 2025.
Also, the era of peace ended in 2008 when Russia invaded Georgia and China became the world’s second largest economy in 2010 and started flexing its muscles militarily.
Nations across the world need to ensure that there is no internal unrest, for that will be the perfect recipe for external interference. The three superpowers is the USA, Russia and China are waiting for the opportune moment to gobble up territories.
About the Author
Lt Col JS Sodhi (Retd) is the Founder-Editor, Global Strategic & Defence News and has authored the book “China’s War Clouds: The Great Chinese Checkmate”. He tweets at @JassiSodhi24.
