Why a U.S. intervention in Venezuela would repeat a century of harm
Student research spotlight by Connor Trousil
This research-based op-ed was originally written for HUMA 180: Encountering Humanities Research, in December 2025.
Recently, the United States has been steadily increasing its . Officially, these ships are patrolling for drug traffickers, but talk of a full-scale land invasion is growing louder. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump , telling his cabinet, “We’re gonna start doing those [air] strikes on land, too. You know, the land is much easier.” Before we watch a return to the long and bloody history of U.S. interventionism in Latin America, we should remember what that history has taught us: mistakes like this leave communities shattered and lives lost.
The United States government has launched a campaign to curb drug smuggling in the Caribbean, carrying out a series of strikes on alleged Venezuelan smuggling vessels. Since early September, the U.S. military has . But Washington now appears to be escalating its approach to what it calls “narcoterrorism.” President Trump has been calling for the removal of President Nicolas Maduro, and on Saturday ordered the . These actions have alarmed officials at the United Nations, who warn the strikes may . Even within the United States, has introduced a resolution to block any military action against Venezuela without congressional approval.
A history of catastrophic intervention
These actions by Washington are hardly unprecedented. Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has repeatedly intervened in Latin America, often with devastating consequences. In 1954, the CIA supported a coup against Guatemala’s democratically elected government, helping that killed more than 200,000 civilians. In Brazil and Chile, the U.S. backed military coups that led to brutal dictatorships lasting for decades. Although these operations were framed as efforts to “restore stability,” historians agree they were driven by a desire to and to contain leftist movements during the Cold War.
The current administration’s justification of a “war on drugs” and a possible regime change echoes the same language the United States used throughout the Cold War: a threat is identified, instability is invoked, and military intervention is presented as the only responsible course of action. The label has changed from communism to narcoterrorism, but the underlying logic remains the same. As in Guatemala or Chile, Washington insists it is acting to protect regional security, yet the strategy again relies on escalating force in a country already facing internal division and crisis. This return to familiar rhetoric and tactics is troubling, given how often these missions have escalated in the past and how rarely they’ve produced the stability promised.
Consequences of violence
A military intervention in Venezuela would be catastrophic for civilians both inside the country and across the region. Past U.S.-backed operations in Latin America produced decades of , mass displacement, and generational trauma. Today’s situation shows worrying parallels. After a strike on an alleged smuggling vessel, survivors were reportedly killed in a , raising serious questions about due process and the legality of Washington’s actions. If the United States expands these operations onto land, the risk of civilian casualties, unlawful killings, and refugee displacement would only grow.
I urge readers to call on their governments and media to reject escalation and to prioritize diplomacy, transparency, and civilian protection. Instead of walking into another intervention, we should be insisting on multilateral negotiations, targeted sanctions and reforms, and meaningful humanitarian support for Venezuelans. As some members of the U.S. Senate have already argued, no military action should proceed without full democratic oversight, and without legal or moral justification. If we want to avoid repeating the mistakes that have scarred so much of Latin America’s past, we must speak up now before another preventable tragedy occurs.