Why the United States Really Acted on Venezuela

By Corey Ribotsky

Most people are being told the same story: Nicolás Maduro is an illegitimate dictator, Venezuela became a narco-state, and the United States finally decided to act. That story is not wrong — but it is not the real reason. It is the version that fits into a headline. The real reason is much simpler, far more serious, and far less ideological.

It comes down to distance, weapons, and leverage.

Venezuela is very close to the United States. Much closer than people realize. Caracas is roughly 1,300 miles from Miami — closer than Los Angeles is to New York. By comparison, China is more than 7,000 miles away, and Russia’s power centers are thousands of miles farther. Distance matters in national security. The closer a hostile power is, the less time you have to react, detect, or defend.  A Russian or Chinese weapon would take depending on the type of intercontinental ballistic missile approximately thirty-five to forty-five minutes to reach certain United States cities and possibly longer depending on proximity.   Placing similar weapons in South America shortens that time roughly in half since Caracas is geographically closer.    

Now layer in alliances. Over the past decade, Venezuela aligned itself tightly with Russia, China, and Iran — three countries the United States treats as strategic adversaries. That alignment wasn’t symbolic. It involved military cooperation, intelligence sharing, infrastructure projects, and energy deals. When that happens this close to U.S. territory, it triggers alarms regardless of who is in charge of the Venezuelan government.

The fear was not that Venezuela already had nuclear weapons. It was that Venezuela could host them — or host other strategic systems like missiles, long-range radar, air defense platforms, or intelligence facilities. Those systems do not need to be permanent to be dangerous. Temporary basing, rotational deployments, or covert infrastructure would be enough to force the United States to fundamentally rethink its defenses.

This is not paranoia. The United States has been here before. During the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly pushed the world into nuclear war — not because the Soviet Union was new, but because it placed weapons close to U.S. shores. That lesson never left American defense planning. Geography creates red lines. Venezuela crossed one.

So where does oil fit in?

Venezuela sits on one of the largest oil reserves in the world. That oil was originally developed with American companies, American capital, and American infrastructure. For decades, it helped stabilize global energy markets and reduced dependence on Middle Eastern supply. When Venezuela broke from the U.S. and aligned with America’s rivals, that oil became something else entirely: currency.

Oil can be used as payment without cash. It can fund military cooperation, intelligence sharing, and weapons access quietly. Cheap oil is the perfect bargaining chip for a sanctioned regime. You don’t need dollars if you can offer energy. And energy buys influence.

This is the part that gets lost in public debate. The United States did not act because it wanted Venezuelan oil for profit. It acted because it did not want hostile powers trading weapons, access, or strategic positioning in exchange for oil — right next door. The oil is not the prize. It is the lubricant.

Drug trafficking, meanwhile, is the easiest part of the story to sell — and the least important strategically. Countries have tolerated drug routes for decades without triggering invasion. Even the United States once worked with leaders who were deeply involved in trafficking when it suited broader interests. Drugs alone do not cause regime confrontation.

What changes everything is when drug networks, weak state control, hostile alliances, strategic weapons risk, and proximity all overlap. Venezuela became a place where foreign actors could move people, equipment, money, and influence quietly — closer to the U.S. than any Middle Eastern battlefield.

That is why backlash has been so intense. People remember Iraq. They remember exaggerated threats and moral language that collapsed later. Skepticism is justified. But this situation is fundamentally different. Iraq was far away. Venezuela is not. China can be deterred across oceans. Russia can be deterred across continents. A hostile-aligned Venezuela compresses all of that distance into the Caribbean.

So, the simple truth is this:

The United States did not act because Maduro is a bad man. There are many bad men in power around the world. It did not act because drugs flow through Venezuela. Drugs flow through many countries the U.S. does not invade. It acted because Venezuela, sitting very close to home, aligned with adversaries who could use oil as payment to place strategic or nuclear-adjacent assets in America’s backyard.

Everything else — democracy, sanctions, indictments, moral outrage — came afterward.

When national security experts look at a map, politics and ideology fade quickly. Distance does not. The closer a potential threat is, the less time there is to detect it, assess it, and respond. That reality has guided U.S. defense policy for decades. A foreign power positioning strategic weapons within a short flight of American airspace is a risk Washington has never been willing to tolerate — regardless of who happens to be in charge in Caracas.