Editorial: Venezuela shows 2026 will be a “wild” year
The original intention of this editorial comment was to make a simple point: that politics in 2026 will more volatile and unpredictable than ever before. But no sooner had a draft been written, than events provided a violent confirmation of that basic idea.
On his Substack blog, US journalist, Seymour Hersh asked “What chaos will Trump unleash in 2026?” Hours later, he had his answer. On only the second day of the new year, US forces bombed Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, and kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. They are to be taken to the United States, to face trial over alleged drug trafficking.
The charges against Maduro have been in place for five years, but these are in reality a pretext: after all, a real drugs trafficker, former President of Honduras, Orlando Hernández, was pardoned by Trump only weeks earlier and released from his 45-year sentence in a US jail. The real aim of the military aggression against Venezuela is to engineer regime change.
The interests of the United States, especially in oil, have been blocked for decades, first by the regime of Hugo Chavez, and then following his death, by Maduro. Trump sees all politics in transactional terms and his real aim, like his proposed ‘peace-plan’ for Ukraine, is to get access for US companies to natural resources.
Oil is the prize, not ‘democracy’
In this case, it is Venezuelan oil reserves, which are the biggest in the world. At his subsequent press conference, Trump mentioned “oil” dozens of times – and protested the past seizure of “our” oil by “socialist” governments.
Like other western capitalist states, the USA has backed various pretenders to the Venezuelan presidency, although opposition spokesperson, María Corina Machado, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is for some reason out of favour with Trump. The hope of the White House is that without Maduro, the Caracas government will collapse and its military will back down to allow the installation of some US puppet – and the hope is that all of this will be accomplished quickly, smoothly and without any serious hitches.
“We are going to run the country until there is a transition”, Trump declared in his press conference. US oil companies will run Venezuelan oil facilities. Moreover, he added, “we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if necessary”.
This relatively limited US operation, styled Absolute Resolve, was based on overwhelming military superiority. But in this military intervention, Trump is taking a huge political risk. There are all kinds of scenarios that may unfold, many of which could come back to haunt him. Three months from now, what will be the upshot of this adventure? What will it have achieved? And how much will it have undermined Trump’s personal interests and those of the USA?
In the USA there is not likely to be much opposition from a largely supine Democratic Party, too spineless and tied to the interests of US capitalism to offer any meaningful protest to the events in South America. But a few weeks of waving the stars and stripes will not improve the living standards of the mass of voters who are increasingly disillusioned with Trump’s claim that things are getting ‘better’. Operation Absolute Resolve will not help Trump’s declining fortunes at home.
And this is with the best case scenario for Venezuela. If there is serious opposition in Caracas what will that mean for the US military operation? US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, claims to have spoken to Maduro’s vice-president, Delcy Rodriguez, who, he says, is compliant with the aims of the US. But what if she proves, after all, to be defiant?
What if there is local opposition to the US “running” the country? Even in the best case, how exactly will the USA “run” Venezuela? The biggest unknown factor is the reaction of the Venezuelan population to this national humiliation.
Even though Trump has replaced many of the top brass in the US armed forces with ‘hawks’ – and the Department of Defense has been renamed the Department for War – there is no certainty that they would consider putting US boots on the ground in Venezuela.
That is not because the generals would be opposed in principle to a military assault, but because it would have a potentially huge political cost, in terms of US casualties. Thirty five years ago, the US invaded Panama, a much smaller country, and one with a much weaker army. But even then there were 23 US service personnel killed and over three hundred wounded. How long would popular support for Trump the ‘peacemaker’ be sustained in the face of US casualties in Venezuela?
Globally, whatever happens next in Venezuela, Trump’s gamble on forced regime change will undermine US, diplomatically, politically and economically. Other Latin American presidents will be wondering who is next. Hints were given by Trump and Hegseth about the governments in Bolivia and Cuba, for example.
When the dust settles, across Asia, Africa and Latin America, political leaders will condemn the kidnapping of a serving head of state and despite the overwhelming preponderance of US military might, the real influence of the US will be diminished. Even ‘friendly’ European political leaders have condemned the US action.
The international labour movement will condemn the US military assault. Socialists have had serious criticisms of the Maduro government, but will oppose unreservedly the aggression against Venezuela. The National Education Union was one of the first trade unions in the UK to protest – but it will certainly not be the last.
As we enter 2026, the broad international picture is one where there is a continued relative decline of US imperialism and the rise of China as a huge economic power. Although that has not been happened yet, that relative shift will also be reflected in terms of military power. It is possible that a part of the reaction to the events in Venezuela – in the ‘back yard’ of the USA, as the White House would argue – may be paralleled by military provocations initiated by China against Taiwan.
In any event, Trump and his administration have amply demonstrated the highly combustible nature of modern politics and vindicated what BBC journalist, Laura Kuenssberg, wrote her review of 2025. Summarising the events of the last year, she commented, “2025 was a crazy year in politics. But 2026 could be wild”.
“Normal” she added, “retired many years ago”.
What is true of international politics – that it is more volatile and unpredictable than ever – is also true of national UK politics. The the most dramatic change in the UK this year is likely to be at the top of the Labour Party, although the precise course of events and the detail are impossible to predict, particularly given the divisions in the left between those in the Labour Party, Your Party and the Greens.
The May local elections, and elections in Scotland and Wales, are likely to confirm the demise of Starmer’s Labour Party and confirm the collapse of the Tories. This is despite the blatant gerrymandering of a further delay in four English authorities, and possibly others where councils have been allowed to consider delays. While Labour and Conservative votes in the past would have combined to be around four fifths of all votes in the past, the elections in May will confirm that the political ‘centre’ has collapsed.
A challenge to Starmer is very likely this year. Even the worst careerists in the PLP can read opinion polls, and few of them expected to be one-term wonders. If, as seems likely according to today’s polling, three quarters of Labour MPs are going to lose their seats next time around, these same former Starmerite loyalists will be forced to accept that a leadership challenge is the only ‘hope’ they have.
The volatility of UK politics is exacerbated by the volatility internationally. Capitalism world-wide is in its death throes, and that is why the political period in which we live is characterised by wars, revolutions and counter-revolutions. The decay and senescence of the ‘market’ system is evident in social, economic and political crises; it is evident in science, art and literature and in the growing differentiation in both wealth and income between a few hyper-billionaires and the mass of the planet’s population.
Through all the storms and stresses that lie ahead, Marxists will play an important role as activists, organisers and educators in the labour and trade union movement. Above all, we need to comprehend as best we can what is going on around us. The Dutch philosopher, Spinoza, once wrote, “I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them”. That is a good summary of our task today.
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