The Maduro Raid Was a Strategic Victory and a Tactical Success

By Noah Rothman

Monday, January 95, 2026

 

The invasion of Iraq “continues to weaken the United States,” the legacy Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung observed 20 years on from the invasion. The demolition of Saddam Hussein’s regime had discredited “conservative internationalism,” rendered America incapable of leading global opposition to land grabs like Vladimir Putin’s adventurism in Ukraine, and made it “more difficult to mobilize the global South” against revisionist powers. The paper attributed those consequences to the psychological malaise America’s experience in Iraq imposed on its citizens — a crippling insecurity NZZ’s contributors did not welcome.

 

So-called “Iraq syndrome,” a variant of its far more debilitating cousin “Vietnam syndrome,” was apparent in the GOP’s internal debates over the prudence of confronting Putin in Ukraine, NZZ correspondent Christian Weisflog wrote. Ronald Reagan’s victory in Grenada chipped away at post–Vietnam War weariness, and George H. W. Bush eradicated it with his successes in Panama and the first Gulf War. By contrast, America in the Joe Biden era seemed attached to its post-Iraq diffidence. Biden had no stomach for America’s commitments abroad, and his Republican opponents appeared to feel the same way. The quick and relatively bloodless military victories that made “Vietnam syndrome” a thing of the past were hard to envision in the spring of 2023.

 

What a difference a president makes.

 

Operation Midnight Hammer, which set the Iranian nuclear program back by years and laid the groundwork for the existential threat to the mullahs currently convulsing Iran’s streets, was a remarkable raid. It featured the most advanced ordnance dropped from state-of-the-art platforms. It involved complex information security, deception, and synchronization. It demonstrated that America can still engineer speedy military victories and take maximum advantage of the shifting geopolitical conditions those successes unlock. But for all the acumen displayed by U.S. armed forces during that operation, the incursion into Venezuela that resulted in Nicolás Maduro’s capture was even more sophisticated.

 

The operation began in August with the deployment of a CIA team to Caracas. There, U.S. clandestine assets collected information, tracked Maduro’s travel patterns, and cultivated human sources on the ground inside Venezuela — a heartening revelation given the reports indicating that America’s unreliability had made our would-be partners abroad reluctant to put themselves at risk. That information was critical to the success of the raid, which was conducted by U.S. Army Delta Force commandos who had practiced the operation for months at a scale replica of Maduro’s safehouse. Those ground operations were supported by 150 U.S. air assets — including electronic warfare aircraft, attack helicopters, and stealth drones.

 

The president said in the raid’s wake that “the lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have,” and he seems to have divulged a real U.S. capability. Venezuela’s state-run electricity provider subsequently denounced the “criminal attack” on the state’s grid. U.S. forces neutralized dozens of the Cuban intelligence and military officials with whom Maduro surrounded himself before absconding with the despot himself. U.S. forces suffered no fatalities in the operation. American troops suffered only minor casualties, and no U.S. platforms were lost in the engagement.

 

While the raid successfully decapitated the Venezuelan government, it did not, however, result in regime change. For now, the Chavista junta that has governed the country since 1999 remains intact, and it is not clear that the Trump administration considers that outcome unacceptable. Statements produced by Trump administration officials in the wake of Maduro’s ouster are sometimes in conflict. Depending on the principal speaking at any given moment, America is prepared to work with Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodríguez. Or, American officials will “run” the country themselves — and without even a modest U.S. military footprint on the ground in Venezuela.

 

Sometimes the legitimate Venezuelan opposition, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado, seems to enjoy the confidence of Trump officials. At others, she is dismissed as a marginal figure who lacks the requisite “respect” to succeed Madruo. Sometimes, it seems the administration is inclined to hand the state over to American oil interests, all of whom are lining up in the expectation that Venezuela’s nationalized resources will soon be back on the market. The tactics the U.S. used to bring Maduro to justice were impressive and straightforward, but the strategy those tactics were designed to advance is nowhere near as clear.

 

And yet, Operation Absolute Resolve was also a strategic success. The signal America sent to anti-American great powers and rogue states alike with the raid is a sobering one.

 

Maduro’s fall presents the communist Chinese with a comprehensive embarrassment. As Nikkei’s Ken Moriyasu reported, America now threatens China’s access to a source of foreign oil that might offset Beijing’s reliance on Iran. The raid took place while a Chinese delegation was on the ground in Caracas — indeed, within hours of the Chinese mission’s meeting with the Venezuelan strongman. Beijing is fit to be tied over the insult to their diplomatic personnel — a rare emotive display that betrays the People’s Republic’s outrage over the setback to its efforts to establish reliable outposts in the Western Hemisphere. “Over the past 24 hours, China’s regional calculations have gone out the window,” the Hudson Institute’s Michael Sobolik told Moriyasu.

 

Beijing has been further humiliated as a result of the failure of its “anti-stealth” radar systems, which Taiwanese media dismissed as “expensive ornaments.” Those systems proved no obstacle to U.S. forces, nor did Russia’s anti-air defense network. “Experts had warned that Venezuela’s layered air-defense network could complicate U.S. air operations,” the Financial Times reported. “But it apparently presented little or no resistance to the US strike that captured President Nicolás Maduro.” In much the same way Iran’s air defense systems were quickly decimated by Israeli and U.S. forces in June 2025, Russia’s S-300 anti-aircraft systems were turned into scrap over the course of 20 minutes. It is not that these Russian and Chinese assets are unimpressive. U.S. tactics and equipment were simply superior.

 

The operation made a big impression on the sources who contributed to an after-action report published by Beijing’s preferred megaphone, the Global Times. “The key to the success of the mission was that the US forces held the absolute superiority in terms of military might,” its dispatch read. The indications that the U.S. penetrated and turned key elements of Maduro’s security apparatus have rattled Beijing. “This further demonstrated that the biggest weakness of a fortress often lies within it,” said Chinese military affairs expert Zhang Junshe.

 

The trajectory of Venezuela’s political evolution is by no means assured. Indeed, it is not obvious that the administration had any plan for the day after Maduro was ousted. The administration’s critics are correct to note that Operation Absolute Resolve was the beginning, not the end, of the project on which the U.S. has embarked in Latin America. But while America’s strategy in Venezuela is ambiguous, a number of strategic successes are flowing from the demonstration of U.S. tactical superiority and resolve.

 

Today, America’s enemies are a little more nervous, and those at home and abroad who regard the U.S. as a spent force that should retreat from the global stage are a little quieter. It’s hard to argue with success.