Back in 1991, when Clinton was running against George HW Bush, his political strategist came up with a slogan to exploit the recession that had just kicked in: “It’s the economy, stupid!” Meaning that apprehending the problem should be a no-brainer. Over the last few years, I have been pointing out there is a method to Maduro’s sabre-rattling madness over Essequibo: “It’s a hybrid war being fought in a gray zone, stupid”. If we accept this proposition, then our response should be focused on dealing with Maduro’s various tactics to occupy Essequibo.
We have been focusing on his military threat to invade Essequibo, and his episodic massing of troops at our border has emphasised that particular threat. The March 1 intrusion of his naval patrol boat into our EEZ to threaten the Exxon FPSO was simply his latest variant of that tactic. Our diplomatic appeal to our allies and the international community has elicited salutary responses ranging from an explicit warning by the US: “Venezuelan naval vessels threatening ExxonMobil’s floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit is unacceptable and a clear violation of Guyana’s internationally-recognized maritime territory. Further provocation will result in consequences for the Maduro regime. The United States reaffirms its support for Guyana’s territorial integrity and the 1899 arbitral award”, to cancellation of Chevron’s oil licence; a combined naval exercise by the US, Netherlands and France; G-7 condemnation, and reiteration of US support by Ambassador Nicole Theriot.
However, as we have reiterated, while we cannot discount Maduro’s pressing the military button, he would have calculated that the cost of a military invasion might be too high. Raising the Venezuelan-created “border controversy”, which is part of their strategic culture, causes Venezuelans to react in a jingoistic and nationalist fashion whenever they are made to feel that the territorial integrity of their country is threatened. Deploying the hybrid warfare option while operating in a gray zone allows him to have his cake and eat it too. As such, we must continue with the rejigging of our forces under training by the US SFAB.
The Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFAB) are a US Army innovation to deal with the reality of hybrid wars in the gray zone, which used to be handled by US Special Operations Forces. The SFAB organize, train, equip, and advise foreign security forces like ours to face threats by wannabe regional hegemons like Venezuela.
Last year, I suggested one option in rethinking our military doctrine and force structure: creating a professional irregular force to augment our present conventional forces with one that is specifically selected, organized, educated, trained, equipped, and supported for asymmetrical operations against Venezuela in our jungle terrain. This force should be ethnically representative of our populace. We should also continue to strengthen our alliance with the US: creating in Essequibo a military base to which our allies can have access etc. But we must counter Maduro’s non-ballistic hybrid tactics.
The US 2020 Defence Strategic Update describes the gray zone as “activities designed to coerce countries in ways that seek to avoid military conflict…(using) paramilitary forces, militarisation of disputed features, exploiting influence, interference operations, and the coercive use of trade and economic levers.” This could have been written specifically to describe Maduro’s post-2015 actions against us.
We compliment the Government for taking seriously Maduro’s follow-up on his legislative action a year ago to convert Essequibo into “Guayana Esequiba”, and to now elect a Governor on May 25. We should not miss the twist of his knife, that this falls one day before our independence anniversary.
We cannot claim to be misinformed of Maduro’s intentions. After satellite images showed Venezuelans building a bridge to our half of Ankoko Island, which they have occupied since 1966, the Venezuelan Strategic Operational Commander of its National Armed Forces (FANB), Major General Domingo Hernández Larez, revealed that the move was the start of operations to implement the annexation of Essequibo. “Engineers of the territorial defensive system complied crossing the Cuyuni River through the campaign bridge to bring harmony and progress to our territory of the Guyana Essequibo State. Machinery will pass, we will build schools, universities, health centres, supply centres, interconnection tracks, commerce and many other productive projects in favour of our fellow Essequibans”.
Our new policy of screening Venezuelan “immigrants and refugees” must be tightened, since we do not want to wake up one morning and find that a majority has voted in Essequibo to be part of Guayana Esequiba. Let us learn from the Baltic States’ halting of Russian infiltration.
