Days before US forces carried out the January 3, 2026 raid that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, geopolitical strategist George Friedman was already warning that Venezuela itself was not the central issue for Washington. In a discussion published by Geopolitical Futures, Friedman argued that while Maduro mattered, the true strategic concern for the United States in the Western Hemisphere remained Cuba, a country he described as weakened, unstable, and once again edging into a closer security relationship with Russia.
Friedman framed the situation not as a narrow anti-drug or regime-change operation, but as part of a much older American strategic imperative: dominance of the Caribbean basin. Control of the Caribbean, he said, is inseparable from US economic security, particularly because the Gulf of Mexico handles a large share of American imports and exports. From Cuba, Friedman noted, both the eastern and western approaches to the Gulf can be disrupted, a vulnerability that has haunted US planners since the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis.
In that context, Friedman argued that Cuba’s renewed defense ties with Moscow, revived amid tensions over Ukraine and Russian missile deployments, elevated Havana’s importance once again. While Cuba no longer poses the ideological or military threat it once did, he said, its geography alone makes it strategically dangerous if aligned with a hostile great power. For Washington, keeping Russia out of the hemisphere remains a core objective.
Venezuela, in Friedman’s analysis, plays a supporting but crucial role in this equation. Venezuelan oil, he said, has been sustaining Cuba’s economy, providing roughly 40 percent of its energy needs and helping prevent a deeper collapse. Cutting or disrupting that flow, whether through sanctions, interdictions, or political pressure, could sharply intensify Cuba’s existing energy and social crisis. Friedman suggested that Cuba is already experiencing significant societal strain and that a sudden energy shock could push it toward a broader political rupture.
From a US perspective, Friedman argued, this creates both opportunity and risk. On one hand, Cuba’s weakness could open the door to political change at a moment when the regime is economically fragile and increasingly isolated. On the other, Washington has little appetite for a mass exodus of Cuban migrants, even as it recognizes that instability on the island is already driving large numbers to leave. Stabilizing Cuba, he said, is in the American interest, but stabilizing it while it remains aligned with Russia and supported by Venezuelan oil runs counter to US strategic goals.
Friedman went further, suggesting that if there were ever a moment when Washington might quietly favor regime change in Cuba rather than Venezuela, this would be it. He described a scenario in which the United States seeks to apply pressure from multiple directions, using control of the Caribbean to isolate Havana economically and strategically, while maintaining the capability to intervene should an internal political crisis emerge. Venezuela, in this framework, becomes a means rather than an end.
When asked directly about the US objective in Venezuela, Friedman acknowledged that Washington wants to limit the influence of drug cartels and sever their access to US markets, goals he described as reasonable and long-standing. He also pointed to Maduro’s close ties to both criminal networks and Russia as a complicating factor. But he was explicit that removing Maduro, while desirable from a US standpoint, was not fundamental to American security.
“What is fundamental,” Friedman argued, “as it turns to the Western Hemisphere, is the situation of Cuba.” He described Cuba as a former Soviet outpost that once brought the United States to the brink of nuclear war and warned that even in its diminished state, the island’s alignment choices still matter disproportionately. By placing Cuba under pressure from both north and south and justifying that pressure through anti-cartel and anti-smuggling operations, the United States could pursue its strategic goals without framing the conflict purely as an ideological confrontation.
Friedman also linked the Caribbean strategy to broader questions about Latin America’s economic future. He argued that sustained development across the region is incompatible with economies dominated by drug trafficking and cartel power. While Venezuela is not the primary source of drugs entering the United States, he said, cartel money distorts political systems and undermines economic rationality throughout the hemisphere. Marginalizing these networks, even if they cannot be eliminated entirely, is essential to any vision of a more stable and prosperous Latin America.
