I have adjusted my models in Venezuela to account for the bizarre and unpredictable behaviour of Donald Trump.
The air over the Caribbean is loud with signals — and none of them are random. What began as a show of presence has evolved into a layered, command-postured dance of deterrence and risk.
As of Thursday evening, U.S. bombers have circled the northern Venezuelan coast, Dutch patrol aircraft have tightened their loops over Curaçao, and Venezuela has dragged its Cold-War-era air-defence systems back into the daylight for the cameras. The pattern looks familiar: reconnaissance, signalling, positioning, denial. But the context has changed.
A Command Fracture
Inside the Pentagon, the theatre commander is on the way out. That resignation tells the rest of the story: policy is no longer moving through normal channels. Trump’s circle has compressed decision-making into a small, loyal core. Where previous administrations checked each move through layers of diplomacy, this one tests the water with hardware first and messaging later.
That shift introduces what I call Trump Uncertainty — the degree to which an individual leader’s impulses can override procedural inertia. Measured against past crises, the TU index tonight sits around 0.6 — high enough that the usual 72-hour cooling period may no longer exist.
The New Geometry
The current formation around Venezuela is not a static line; it’s a moving envelope. B-1 bombers fly racetrack patterns just outside the 12-nautical-mile limit, sometimes dipping close enough for radar echoes to blur into territorial space. An E-6B “Mercury” command aircraft is aloft over the southeastern U.S.—a sign that the strategic communications chain is live, ready to issue or receive real-world launch orders. Dutch patrol planes and coast-guard helicopters are sweeping the approaches to the ABC islands, effectively extending U.S. situational awareness southward under an allied flag.
From a distance this looks like routine coordination. Up close, it’s a rehearsal: tankers, command nodes, and search-and-rescue coverage all in place, as if the script for a limited strike is already written and waiting for a single signature.
The Maduro Response
Caracas has responded with theatre of its own. President Maduro stood before cameras to announce the deployment of thousands of Russian-made Igla-S missiles and to display Buk launchers on the coastal highway above La Guaira. The message is deterrence through spectacle—proof to his domestic audience that Venezuela can still reach into the sky. In reality, those systems threaten only low-flying aircraft; they cannot touch a bomber at twenty thousand feet or a cruise missile over the horizon. But they add one critical variable: human error. Each radar ping, each false lock, increases the probability that a jittery crew decides to press a button.
Where the Numbers Lead
Over the next twenty-four hours, expect more flights and no open fire. The pattern will stay theatrical: loud engines, silent weapons. Between twenty-four and forty-eight hours, the uncertainty curve steepens. If the President’s evening speech leans on strength or revenge, the aircraft already in theatre will not need further approval to act. If the message shifts to “stability” or “diplomacy,” the same planes will simply turn north and declare victory by absence of conflict.
Seventy-two hours out, one of two stories will dominate the headlines. Either Washington will call the exercise a success—proof that deterrence works when performed live—or it will be managing the fallout from a limited precision strike framed as “anti-cartel enforcement.” Both paths lead to the same strategic destination: a visible reminder that American power can touch any coastline within a day’s flight.
The Shape of the Next Dawn
This is deterrence as theatre, not invasion as policy. But the risk is real because the command chain is compressed, the incentives political, and the actors inexperienced in restraint. Every bomber orbit and every radar lock is now part of a live feedback loop where perception matters more than payload.
The next seventy-two hours will decide whether this remains a demonstration or becomes a data point in the next war college syllabus on escalation error. For now, the engines keep turning circles over warm water, and the world watches the horizon for the flash that says someone misread the script.
Hold on to your horses 🐎
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