Interview by Vazha Tavberidze
In his interview with Radio Free Europe’s Georgian Service, historian and political analyst Georg Eickhoff takes us inside one of the most dramatic geopolitical moves in recent memory: the extraction of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and the rise of Delcy Rodríguez as acting president. Drawing on years of experience in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Latin America—and close ties with Venezuelan democratic leaders—Eickhoff explains what really happened, why it matters, and what it could mean for the world.
From the challenges of rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industry to the high-stakes chess game between the U.S., China, and Russia, Eickhoff offers a historian’s perspective on a world where raw power politics is making a comeback. He also warns that Europe, long removed from the frontlines of global strategy, now faces a test of its own relevance—and its survival may depend on how it responds.
A barrage of questions – what exactly happened, where are we now and what’s next?
What happened was that the dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife, who is also a veteran politician with great influence over him as well, were extracted in a stunning military operation that impressed public and military experts alike. Militaries worldwide, and other countries that would want to try to accomplish something like this—take out presidents—the president of Russia definitely would like to do this in Ukraine, and he cannot. He tried and he failed. So President Trump is competing with these kinds of people, and he managed to do so. But where are we now? He helped to install the vice president as acting president, Ms. Delcy Rodriguez, together with her brother; again, it’s like a family business, both long-time Maduro loyalists, key members of his team. So we have continuity in this dictatorship now, with the support of the American government, although the American government says we have leverage over them. Mr. Trump said we run the country. The Secretary of State Rubio was asked what that meant exactly, and he explained a little bit more technically, but not in too much detail. Well, we have leverage. We tell them what they shall do. And this is not very convincing, because the rhetoric around the swearing-in ceremony for Rodriguez yesterday was decidedly anti-American, as it has been for decades now—this has become a time-honored Latin American tradition. Mrs. Rodriguez speaks Venezuelan Spanish with a Cuban accent; Venezuelans perceive that she speaks more with Cubans than with Venezuelans, and her message was—give us Maduro back. The belief within the Chavista movement, which might be 10–20% of the population, is still that Maduro will come back. Trump made a big mistake, because now we have a global hero called Maduro. This had a galvanizing effect. And of course, in many countries of the world, everybody who dislikes Donald Trump amplifies that messaging. What is next? Trump says this government will obey me. It doesn’t look like that yet; how will Mrs. Rodriguez balance obeying Trump with retaining her followers in her own country? She is now forced to say one thing and do the opposite.
What do the US demands entail?
They want stability; they want public order at a low cost. They are not able to establish it themselves. Trump has to find somebody who ensures security and safety and the conditions to rebuild the oil industry. And obviously, the big thing is to deny the use of Venezuelan oil by China and others—but basically, it’s against China. Venezuelan oil production is very low at the moment. It’s a third of what it was historically, due to mismanagement and many reasons. But in the future, in five years, in ten years, it should be possible to bring Venezuelan oil back to the market. It’s an uphill battle; it’s not easy to rebuild the Venezuelan oil industry. And now the pledge there is—apparently Mrs. Rodriguez promised Mr. Trump that they will rebuild the oil industry and that American industries will be very involved in all this. Now you have to look at it from a geopolitical point of view. America is an exporting country; it doesn’t need Venezuelan oil. What it needs is to make sure there is no scenario in which China can get this oil. This is the big picture. Much like with Greenland, Trump’s goal is to avoid having the resources—minerals in Greenland, oil in Venezuela—available to China in this upcoming conflict that seems to be all but inevitable. We are heading to a bipolar world. China will eat up Russia, because Russia is spending its energy in Ukraine and will fail. This is China’s bet on the Russian war against Ukraine and Europe: that they will lose this war and fall into the hands of China. And China will colonize Russia and use its energy and resources, and this will be the base for the conflict with the US in 10 years, in 15 years. So this current government in Venezuela—the life expectancy of this issue is counted in days. The issue of oil, however, should be counted in decades.
Why did the White House bet on a Maduro VP, as opposed to the opposition, which would probably also cater to their every whim?
Trump himself used the word respect. He said that the opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, does not have the respect that is needed. Whose respect are we talking about? Obviously, the respect of the armed forces of Venezuela. I think it’s a misjudgment by Washington. I am not sure whether Mrs. Rodriguez will have it, and for how long, because she has to obey Mr. Trump now. The armed forces of Venezuela are highly corrupt and very limited in their capacity, as we saw: the personal security of Mr. Maduro was Cuban. Thirty-two Cuban officers from his personal security were killed during the extraction. Cuba admitted this for the first time, because they had been denying that they were in Venezuela, but now you have 32 acknowledged casualties.
As for the opposition, there is strong support for Mrs. Machado on a small institutional and organizational base. And among the diaspora—9 million Venezuelans are living outside Venezuela, most of them because they fled the regime.
The question now is: who can provide the political framework that is necessary to ensure stability and rebuild the oil industry? The Trump administration’s first bet is continuity of the dictatorship. Many oil countries are run not by democracies, but by authoritarian governments. But will this be enough for Venezuela? Or, rather, will Ms. Rodriguez be able to deliver? And this is the space in which Mrs. Machado will maneuver. She will continue to offer Washington what she sees as the better option for its hemispheric policy. She would love to be aligned with Trump, if he is willing to align with her. Mrs. Rodriguez and Mrs. Machado are, in a sense, competing to offer this: an alignment of Venezuela, including its oil industry, with U.S. hemispheric policy.
Let’s look at worldwide impact of what happened in Venezuela. Who are the winners and losers of all of this worldwide?
The big loser is China, as the world is preparing for the big conflict between China and the US. China is eating up Russia, and the United States is distancing itself from Europe. The big winner is the US. The success of the operation in Venezuela was more visible and decisive than the earlier bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. They wanted to extract the president. They managed it, and he is in a prison in New York right now. This is a big message: If we want to do something, we do it and international law, UN outcries, and such don’t matter. This is a return to pure power politics—not even realism; it was just a demonstrative show of force, of military capability and skill. So Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin see this guy in Washington doing things that they cannot do. Trump is telling the world, “I can do whatever I want to do.” This is a different world than a year ago, with Biden negotiating Ukraine in Minsk, or whatever.
Doesn’t this also untie the hands of other powers worldwide, that deem themselves great powers, to try and pull something similar? They will act more brazenly, they will be less wary of consequences.
Putin tried that in Georgia in 2008 and was told to stop near Tbilisi. Then he tried Ukraine. He was imagining something quick: take Kyiv, kill Zelensky, take the airport in Hostomel. It was a crushing defeat, and then the SVO turned into a quagmire for him. I lived for three years in Russian-occupied Luhansk, working for the OSCE. What I see is that Russia will be defeated in Ukraine. It will not obtain its war aims there. China has a different approach. They are very articulate in their will to reunify China, to conquer Taiwan. And they will try. It’s just that the time has not come yet. They will evaluate what the United States is doing now, this hemispheric policy that Trump symbolizes through Venezuela. Talking about Greenland is kind of an invitation to tell China, try and do it with Taiwan, if you dare. But that’s how Putin already tried and failed. So I don’t buy the argument that Xi and Putin needed Trump’s example to be bad now. No, they were bad before.
Does it change the rules of how the great game among great powers is played?
No, this is not new. This happened a lot in the 20th century. It happened a lot in the 19th century. So we are just going back to something that happened before. And we know that Mr. Xi—the Chinese—think in centuries. The new tsar of Russia thinks in centuries. Trump is a bit different. He tries to do something similar. He might not think in decades, but he puts gold in his office. This is his substitute for imperial attire. These imperial attitudes have become the norm again, and the smaller countries will have to adapt.
For me, as a German, the key question is: what will the European Union do? It’s still an open question. The national security strategy paper of the US says, well, Europe somehow is over. I don’t think it’s over, but it has to get its job done now—defense, but also productivity, fertility, all these things. Europe is an old and tired society, and now it has received this wake-up call, of course. What happened in Venezuela, what will happen in the next days in Greenland—and Europe has to wake up. It has to define whether countries like Georgia and Ukraine are important and relevant for Europe. I’m convinced they are, because Europe will only survive in this conflict between China and the US if it uses its soft power, if it builds its prosperity, if Europe understands the foundations of its own prosperity. And this means that it has to be an ally of Georgia, Ukraine, and other countries under threat, like Moldova.
What awaits Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, just to look at Russia’s neighborhood, what it considers its exclusive “sphere of influence”?
This will be a realignment of many countries, there are some countries that have little choice because they don’t have an alternative and a neighbor, but not everything is territory. So I see a big, big task for Europe to offer an alternative of culture, freedom, modernity, prosperity to the rest of the world.
And if it’s not able to or fails?
If it is not able—if Europe cannot get the job done—then that means the return of the old order. For centuries, one country and nation would be a colony of others. We have not even had one century without colonialism as the dominant scheme of interaction between states. We will go back to this. I think there was an over-optimism about democracy and freedom for decades, and now we pay the price because we didn’t understand the foundations of freedom and democracy, which are, among other practical things, defense and the cost of defense, paying taxes for defense, and enlisting or carrying the burden of mandatory military service.
As a historian by training, I know that war is the normal state, not peace; colonialism is the norm, not freedom. So all these things—prosperity, freedom, national self-determination—require a lot of work. And if you don’t do it, you don’t have it. They are not granted.
