Home Field Advantage in War
more significant than in football
I certainly hope that the Trump administration does not attempt to force the issue in Venezuela with an intervention by US armed forces. Simply in terms of the practical challenges of such a conflict, home field advantage is a bitch. The only successful counterinsurgency war I know of in the past 75 years* was fought in Sri Lanka. A small island. Fought for years. Devastating. There’s no assurance it’s over forever.
Russia only “won” in Chechnya after a damn nightmare, by compromising and making a deal with the head of the largest Chechen insurgency in 2003. Vengeful locals blew him to pieces with a bomb in 2004, but his son, Ramzan Kadryov, is currently in charge there. The Chechens had to compromise, too. They’re subject to being drafted into the Russian Army. But Russia knows better than to lean too hard on the home field.
Total population of Chechnya: 1.43 million. Chechnya is the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. About 70% of the size of New Jersey. The Russian armed forces couldn’t militarily defeat a local UW insurgency waged by separatists of a nation of a mere 6300 square miles, on Russia’s national border.
The territory of Venezuela is over 350,000 square miles. Even given that over 7 million refugees have emigrated en masse into Colombia, the population is still 20 million.
This is also why Putin has no serious interest in grabbing the rest of Ukraine, much less the rest of Europe. I think even a dunce should realize that in the 21st century, faced with the undying hostility of the locals, Foreign Territory annexed by armed conquest and occupation is the booby prize of geopolitics. It’s just plain bad for business.
Unless you want a perpetual low-intensity armed conflict, out of some ulterior motive or another. There are some business interests who benefit from that situation.
[*pro-military interventionist scholars and wonks are perennially fond of pointing out the example of Malaysia c.1949, as “proof” that “unconventional warfare counterinsurgency strategy” can succeed. It’s the only example they have.]
True, but the Trump administration - especially Trump himself - all are motivated by delusions and self-interest. Do they give a fork if American soldiers die in a senseless war? Not at all, especially if such a war allows them to line their own pockets. Venezuelan war/Ukrainian peace: both are opportunities to enrich Trump, Kushner, Witkoff, etc. and all their other cronies.