What the Capture of Nicolás Maduro Means for the United States

[00:00:00] I don't know what you guys are all [00:00:01] thinking about this situation in [00:00:03] Venezuela, but it's got me pretty [00:00:05] concerned. I mean, we just pulled Maduro [00:00:08] out what [00:00:10] about a week ago, maybe a little less [00:00:12] than last night or this morning. I just [00:00:15] saw that um Russian warships are showing [00:00:20] up, interfering with what we're doing. [00:00:23] China's really pissed. A lot of people [00:00:24] are worried that we're going to go into [00:00:27] another war. Should we be there? What do [00:00:30] you think? I don't know. I got mixed [00:00:33] feelings about it all. But um well, [00:00:36] here's some good news. Many of you know [00:00:39] Sarah Adams, my friend Sarah Adams, been [00:00:44] on the show several times, former CIA [00:00:45] targeter. Anyways, me and Sarah got [00:00:48] together over the break and decided we [00:00:51] thought it would be a good idea to start [00:00:52] a network. So Sarah's the first one in [00:00:56] my network. And the second piece of [00:00:58] content she's releasing has to do with [00:01:02] all things Venezuela. And if you missed [00:01:05] her first episode, which came out on [00:01:07] January 5th, in case you haven't [00:01:10] noticed, there's a lot of talk about [00:01:12] Somalia. Somalia here in the US, Somalia [00:01:15] overseas, Somalia land. Why are they [00:01:18] considered a country? Sarah covered it [00:01:21] all. It's called the watch floor. Check [00:01:25] it out on YouTube. We'll link it below. [00:01:27] Cheers. [00:01:28] >> This week, pretty much all the headlines [00:01:30] have been about Venezuela, [snorts] [00:01:33] about Nicholas Maduro, who clearly is a [00:01:36] fashion icon, about accountability, [00:01:39] collapse, capture, heck, kidnapping, [00:01:43] depending what your source of news is. [00:01:53] >> [music] [00:01:59] [music] [00:02:06] >> Venezuela didn't become important to the [00:02:09] United States overnight. It didn't [00:02:12] become a problem because of oil prices [00:02:14] or a governing ideology or even one [00:02:17] election cycle. It mattered because over [00:02:21] time it allowed itself to become [00:02:25] something far more dangerous than like a [00:02:28] poor or mismanaged country. It became a [00:02:31] permissive state, a place where [00:02:33] terrorists, hostile intelligence [00:02:35] agencies, [00:02:37] organized crime in sanctioned regimes [00:02:41] could work together with 100% immunity. [00:02:46] And while Americans argued about whether [00:02:49] we should care about Venezuela at all, [00:02:51] we beared the costs through drugs, mass [00:02:55] migration, intelligence costs, [00:02:58] counterterrorism, and counter narcotics [00:03:00] operations, and long-term geopolitical [00:03:03] damage. This episode isn't about [00:03:05] politics. It's about consequences, and [00:03:09] more importantly, it's about the costs [00:03:12] that you never see. When people hear the [00:03:15] term failed state, they imagine chaos, [00:03:19] no control, no systems, no functioning [00:03:23] institutions. That is not what Venezuela [00:03:27] became. They still had working systems, [00:03:30] right? Their airports still function [00:03:31] just fine. Ports still move cargo. The [00:03:34] government offices would still issue [00:03:37] documents. Banks process transactions. [00:03:40] The state didn't disappear. It chose [00:03:43] instead who it worked for and who it [00:03:46] worked with. That difference matters. [00:03:50] Venezuela [00:03:51] offered something these groups couldn't [00:03:54] get anywhere else. When I talk about [00:03:56] these groups, it's again those criminal [00:03:58] organizations, the terrorist groups, the [00:04:01] hostile intelligence services. Remember, [00:04:04] none of these organizations or [00:04:06] institutions want any sort of chaos that [00:04:12] causes risk to them. They want [00:04:14] predictability, right? Predictable [00:04:16] bribes, predictable access, and of [00:04:18] course, predictable outcomes. That's [00:04:21] what they were getting from Maduro's [00:04:23] government. That's how a country stops [00:04:25] being just a domestic problem and [00:04:29] becomes infrastructure for external [00:04:32] actors. again infrastructure. [00:04:35] So they never collapsed, but they became [00:04:40] something useful to the bad actors that [00:04:44] we care the most about. And once a state [00:04:47] becomes useful to the wrong people, [00:04:50] removing them is never simple. So once [00:04:53] you understand Venezuela as [00:04:56] infrastructure, [00:04:57] not chaos, the next question should be [00:05:00] infrastructure for