Augusto Manzanal Ciancaglini
Political Scientist
The means to secure security are linked to the consolidation of a superpower: over-the-horizon operations, which rely on air strikes, the use of drones, and the deployment of special forces, now represent the United States’ preferred course of action. All of this falls within the strategic concept of offshore balancing, with which the American thalassocracy intends to use its allies as a shield to prevent any rival power from developing regional dominance. In this way, the US armed forces only intervene directly when strictly necessary and at the lowest possible cost.
Within this framework, counterterrorism campaigns, surgical strikes, and sustained military pressure at sea have intensified during 2025: after a year in which Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Iran, and Nigeria were bombed, the flagship event of this Administration arrives in 2026: the removal of the Venezuelan head of state, Nicolás Maduro, in a lightning military operation preceded by a large naval buildup.
Just hours before the attack, Maduro had been visited by the Special Representative of the People’s Republic of China for Latin America and the Caribbean. The message is clear.
Within the logic of not attempting to suddenly supplant a regime of more than 25 years, the most curious thing is that, amidst espionage, betrayals, weariness, attrition, and hardship, a shaken Venezuela maintains a kind of zombie system, where the anti-imperialist Bolivarian rhetoric barely attempts to conceal a shameful vassalage: Chavismo rots in its own juices. The flags of bewilderment wave timidly in a plea toward the void, as do those of the hackneyed yearning for a Spanish-style transition.
Strategic, military, and intelligence sophistication is embraced by the crude political pragmatism of half-heartedly disguised hypocrisy or the explicitly reprehensible: gifts that are recycled and brutally transparent objectives. The situation of the state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) is a metaphor for how difficult it is to revive this country; removing its petty dictator is much easier than extracting its wealth and its democracy.
The United States had, to a certain extent, neglected Latin America because, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its ideological proposal, no country in the region could pose a considerable threat, beyond the handful of rivals and the shifting rhetoric depending on the political party in power.
Chinese penetration, in addition to other issues such as drug trafficking, immigration, and the Russian presence, compels a focus of influence here, underscoring the motives of the Monroe Doctrine; the Panama Canal is the best example. In this context, diplomacy is embodied in a face with clear intentions: from Pompey to Mark Antony. However, Latin America, as well as Greenland and the Arctic, is simply a reflection of the key point on the planet in relation to the rivalry between the United States and China. This place is not the Middle East, where the fragmentation of power, the delegation of authority to allies, and the weakening of enemies are finally relegating them to a secondary role. Nor is it this Europe, which is seeking greater cohesion in the face of the Russian threat, the strengthening of NATO, and US demands disguised as disdain. Washington also needs to rest here, leaving the Europeans to block Russian pressure without neglecting the southern flank, given that jihadism has found its most suitable environment for survival in the instability and state weakness of the Sahel.
The relentless monitoring of what the White House issues has ensured that even now the National Security Strategy generates interest: naturally, in this strategy, the Indo-Pacific remains “the decisive theater of economic and geopolitical competition in the 21st century.” Thus, it is made clear that US forces must pay special attention to the First Island Chain, a strategic line that runs through Japan and the Philippines, and in which Taiwan represents a “vital geographic choke point,” since its control is fundamental to regional stability. Here is the space to prowl through waters claimed by China and erect a barrier to the Pacific.
This maritime containment has more layers of defensive depth, and the Second Island Chain offers a recent example of the importance of every corner in this area; the United States is planning to modernize Palau’s main port to facilitate access for its warships, which is intended to increase its military deployment capacity in the Western Pacific. All this while straining the ties between this small country and the Asian giant. On the other side, the game is also being played out on a minuscule scale: Diego Garcia, a platform vital panoramic view passes from hand to hand, only to remain in the same fist.
China is on the move: its commercial tentacles overlap with infrastructure investment and the cultivation of the debt trap, thus entangling themselves in the ports; a restless United States observes it from every choke point, its overwhelming superiority in aircraft carriers and bases palpable. Meanwhile, the Pax Americana unfolds as a bewildering, unruly spectacle.
Despite the contortions of the present, as long as the situation in the Atlantic-Pacific is not as volatile as in the Indo-Pacific, there are more rare earth elements on the horizon than one rare earth element.