Run the Board
We have the Big Mo’
The President elected in 2028, whether a Republican or Democrat, needs to enter office in a much stronger position relative to the CCP. To accomplish this, Washington must act while it has momentum. The opportunity to push back Beijing’s decision cycle by a half-generation presents itself.
Venezuela
The capture of Maduro was important not because of effects in Venezuela, but because it communicates through action how Washington can execute coercion and military operations in novel ways.
The operation against Maduro did not target the authoritarian state as a gestalt, as many IR academics see states. Instead, it simply targets the authoritarian individual at the head of the state. This is the point of maximum coercion against authoritarian/totalitarian regimes, since they accumulate an undue amount of power in the hands of the central leader.
Again, we want to reiterate why this approach was novel. Washington did not feel the need to pursue a traditional strategy aimed at affecting traditional measures of total-state leverage. It aimed at the point of maximum leverage - the authoritarian leader himself.
This novel coercive message was communicated clearly to China, Russia, Iran, Nicaragua, Cuba, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Belarus, Burma/Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Of these regimes, only China and Russia have the means to defend themselves from this approach - maybe.
Washington issued a clear coercive message designed to compel Maduro to step down. When Maduro refused and demanded Washington “come get him,” the US military came and got him in a couple of hours.
This type of coercion is effective because it hurts the CCP and Putin exactly where they are most lacking - allies and partners. Operation Absolute Resolve showed that the US is capable of deposing any member of Beijing or Moscow’s weak alliance network, even in the face of support and military hardening.
Moving Forward
It is imperative that Washington runs the board during this small window of opportunity before the new Cold War disintegrates into WWIII. Putin is entirely consumed in Ukraine, while Xi has purged nearly all his senior PLA officers. This leaves a window of time where both Beijing and Moscow have severely handicapped their ability to respond.
The US should immediately apply pressure to Nicaragua, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Burma/Myanmar, and Cambodia in a sequential campaign to remove their authoritarian leaders and destroy the authoritarian global alliance network.
The severe degradation of this network will force the CCP General Secretary (Xi) to issue a new estimate of the 全局, or global situation, to the CCP. It will also likely force the CCP PLA Central Military Commission Chairman (also Xi) to issue new Military Strategic Guidelines (MSGs) to the PLA.
These instructions will force a step change and take time to trickle down through the bureaucracies in both the CCP and the PLA, burning precious time as they are ingested and slowly enacted. This bureaucratic process will likely push Beijing off its internal timelines by about 5 years, or half a generation. Russia will be further enervated in its downwardly mobile spiral as a great power.
This is the best opportunity to avoid a Taiwan campaign since the 1995/96 Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. Godspeed.
You have been noticing America's "tested institutional framework for the transition of power"....no?
The sequencing argument here is compelling. Targeting authoritarian leaders individually rather than entire state apparatuses is efficient, but it hinges on one assumption: that the removal itself doesn't create more chaos than leverage. Venezuela showed the execution capability, sure. But I'm skeptical that running Nicaragua, Cuba, and Iran in sequence actually buys Washington 5 years. The CCP reads this as escalation, not intimidation, and teh bureaucratic delays might get offset by accelerated contingency planning.