After the Capture: Six Tests the U.S. Must Pass in Venezuela

PHOTO CREDIT: US President Donald Trump posted this photo of Nicolas Maduro aboard the USS Iwo Jima on

Truth Social.

Having removed Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela through military force, the United States is now the decisive external actor shaping Venezuela’s near-term political and economic trajectory.

Much attention will focus on the legality of the operation, on Maduro’s fate in U.S. courts, and on how other major powers respond. Those debates will play out in Washington and abroad. But they are unlikely to determine what happens inside Venezuela itself.

What will matter there is more prosaic and more unforgiving: whether authority is exercised and obeyed; whether basic services function; whether armed actors are managed rather than unleashed; and whether the United States can avoid being drawn into an open-ended commitment whose costs exceed its benefits. The success or failure of the intervention will turn not on declarations or press briefings, but on observable behavior in six concrete areas.

Click Here to read the entire Washington Spectator Article, published January 12, 2026

Jonathan M. Winer is the former Special Envoy for Libya and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement and a Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow at MEI. He is a member of The Steady State.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 360 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines, including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs, and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.