Would the US intervene to defend Guyana from Venezuela?

Talks between Venezuela and Guyana on the Essequibo began yesterday, to avoid a military conflict between the two sides. In words everyone would like peace, but oil resources are tempting in Caracas.

The territorial dispute over the Essequibo region of Guyana dates back to the 1840s and was apparently resolved with the Paris Arbitral Award of 1899, but was reignited with the discovery of enormous energy reserves off its coast in the early 21st century. century.
The issue was exacerbated by Venezuela and its allies in 2022-23 for a variety of reasons and in ways that shattered years of bilateral and multilateral agreements and negotiations between the two states.

The US Southern Command put the new dispute in its sights, and the British government and the Commonwealth were urged to act. After all, Guyana is still part of this pact and the Commonwealth should intervene before the USA. In the meantime, however, the Southern Command has begun to conduct joint flight operations with the Guyana Defense Forces, sending a very clear message to Venezuela. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Guyanese President Mohamed Irfaan Ali that the United States would support Guyana's "sovereignty and our robust economic and security cooperation."

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro criticized Guyana for involving the United States, despite knowing that it was an inevitable consequence of the Venezuelan military buildup on the border with Guyana. But several large US energy companies are interested in the outcome, given their stake in one of the largest new oil fields in the world.

The conflict also has a global aspect: on the one hand it may be the first launch of the AUKUS alliance, created to contain Russia and China at sea, on the other it is clear that Russia and Iran, which in the past have also assisted militarily Venezuela, they want to use this conflict to distract the US from its commitment in Ukraine and Gaza.

The sudden re-emergence of the prospect of imminent military conflict between Venezuela and neighboring Guyana is therefore more a reflection of the broader strategies of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Iran, rather than a reflection of the Paris arbitration award of 1899 which it claims to be . Yes, there is a genuine component of Venezuelan nationalism and competition for territory, now that Guyana's oil and gas reserves in the disputed region are known to be among the most important in the world.

The fact that Venezuela faces a presidential election in 2024 is equally significant and requires that President Maduro campaigned on nationalist lines and on the promise that new energy hedges would boost the economy. But Venezuelans know that the country's vast energy reserves – much of it heavy oil rather than the light crude from Guyana's new fields – have been mismanaged by the Maduro government and have yielded little to Venezuelan voters.

Venezuela, also according to estimates by its Central Bank, has an inflation that will exceed 280% per year in 2023, even if this figure underestimates the real depletion of the national economy.

On 12 December 2023, President Irfaan Ali wrote to the Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, to firmly outline the discussions that would take place in Kingstown, St. Vincent, in which the President of Guyana expected that CARICOM would maintain its support for Guyana, reiterating that the talks would not concern Venezuela.

Now how far can the US and UK go in supporting Guyana? First of all, despite belonging to the Commonwealth, London's direct intervention would be limited also because it is involved in too many areas for its economy: in fact the conservative government is already involved in Ukraine and must also look at its own borders. The Commonwealth, on the other hand, especially Canada, could make a greater commitment, also considering its greater proximity to the chessboard.

The USA is obviously watching for now, but could consider a possible defensive intervention in favor of Georgetown, and in this case the Southern Forces Command , based in Florida, would have the task of coordinating the participation of the Sixth Army , the Twelfth Force air force and the Fourth Fleet that have jurisdiction over that quadrant. These are forces that include F 35 and F 15 fighters, or A 10 attack aircraft, as well as National Guard forces and which could quickly deploy a significant force, also because they could use bases in the Caribbean.

From a military point of view, the USA would have no problem supporting the effort on multiple fronts. The problem would be budgetary, or rather convincing Congress to support the operation financially, but it would be easier to get the representatives to vote on an intervention in Guyana, given the direct oil economic interests, than in Ukraine.

However, it remains to be seen to what extent the USA would like to bring tension with China, so they could also reshape the intervention into harsh economic sanctions, perhaps more rigid than those recently lifted in view of the elections in Venezuela.

However, the best solution would be in the agreement between the two parties to be reached through the Si Vincent talks, perhaps by ceding the sale of unexploited and exploitable gas fields to Venezuela. We sincerely hope that common sense prevails, because what we don't want is another military conflict with all that comes with it.

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The article Would the US intervene to defend Guyana from Venezuela? comes from Economic Scenarios .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/gli-usa-interverrebbero-a-difendere-la-guyana-dal-venezuela/ on Fri, 15 Dec 2023 06:40:32 +0000.