Ignorance is Strength

Or, Where is the intel? What is the strategy?

(Gun boats ahoy!)

CIA Director Dan Ratcliffe joined the US President at the January 3, 2026, press conference to announce the operation to capture Nicolas Maduro and bring him to the United States to face criminal charges. The work of his and other components of the US intelligence community was praised by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, in outlining the details of the operation. Good tactical intelligence was clearly a key to the success of the operation in understanding Maduro’s movements, his security detail (comprised, it would seem of Cubans, many of whom were killed), and the nature of his fortified house.

Ratcliffe said not a word. He may or may not be one of Trump’s tribunes designated to “run” Venezuela.

However good the tactical intelligence provided by the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the National Geospatial Agency, one missing dimension of this exercise in quasi-regime change is surely the strategic intelligence picture.

For one thing, US intelligence assessments of the linkages between the Maduro government and drug and criminal cartels, are not, it would seem, in alignment with Trump administration claims. The argument that Maduro is a “narco-terrorist” directing criminal operations into the United States for subversive purposes is central to the Trump administration’s express rationale for its actions.

The US National Intelligence Council (NIC) does not see things this way. The NIC represents the highest-level strategic intelligence estimates body for the US intelligence community. It brings together the national intelligence officers who lead on regional and functional issues to produce coordinated assessments that combine the perspectives and available intelligence of all the agencies in the US system. ^[1]

The NIC prepared a study of Venezuelan regime ties to the criminal gang Tren de Aragua (TDA) in April 2025. While its reports are prepared for senior policy-makers and are usually highly classified, this one was declassified and released in response to a freedom of information request on May 5. ^[2] It caused a mighty stir.

Among the conclusions reached in the NIC report were these:

· The small size of TDA (Tren de Aragua) cells, its focus on low-skill criminal activities and its decentralized structure make it “highly unlikely ” that TDA coordinates large volumes of human trafficking or migrant smuggling;

· Maduro regime leadership probably sometimes tolerates TDA’s presence in Venezuela and some government officials may cooperate with TDA for financial gain;

· Venezuela’s security services lack the capacity to fully control Venezuelan territory;

· The Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States;

· The Intelligence Community has not observed the regime directing TDA, including to push migrants to the United States, which would probably require extensive [redacted] coordination and funding between regime entities and TDA leaders that we would collect;

· The intelligence record indicates that Venezuelans have migrated voluntarily, often at great personal risks, to flee political instability and near-collapse of Venezuela’s economy;

· FBI analysts agree but assess that “some” Venezuelan government officials facilitate TDA members’ migration from Venezuela to the United States and use members as proxies;

· Venezuelan intelligence, military and police services view TDA as a security threat

The NIC assessment also cast doubt on some reports relied on by US law enforcement because of concerns that they involved fabrication by people detained for criminal activity in the US or caught entering the country illegally. ^[3]

The Trump administration shot back against its own intelligence community report. The Director of National Intelligence, the deeply unqualified Tulsi Gabbard, who is responsible for the NIC, decided to openly shoot the messenger by firing the top two NIC officials. ^[4] In an Orwellian turn, the firings were justified by Gabbard’s office as a response to the weaponization and politicization of the intelligence community. ^[5]

Trump’s reigning Latin America hawk, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, also weighed in. He denounced the NIC report as wrong , while suggesting that a separate FBI report had got the whole story right. ^[6] At the time of Rubio’s statement, this FBI assessment was not publicly available, although it was referenced in the NIC study. It became open to scrutiny as part of a lawsuit heard by a federal court in Texas over the government’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport supposed TDA gang members to a Salvadoran prison. ^[7]

The FBI memo contains two key “takeaways”:

· “some Venezuelan Government officials likely facilitate the migration of Tren de Aragua members to the United States to advance the Maduro regime’s objective of undermining public safety in the United States

· “some Venezuelan government officials likely use TDA members as proxies for the Maduro regime in an effort to destabilise Chile, Ecador, Peru, Columbia and the United States.”

It may be that US senior officials, like Marco Rubio, read no further, or paid little attention to the qualified language of the assessment. Had they done so, they may have noted that the FBI sourcing for some of these “takeaways” was weak and limited (to a small total of 7 sources). The FBI stated that it had only “medium confidence” in its assessments and noted that it “considered lowering its confidence in the assessments due to the primary sources who were one-time contacts with indirect access and who may have been motivated by the perceived possibility of a favourable immigration decision.”

To its credit, the FBI did consider the alternative hypothesis, namely that the TDA “expansion” into the US and other countries was not actively planned or centrally supported by the Venezuelan government. They considered this hypothesis “equally plausible” with the main finding of their analysis, but ultimately “deemed the primary assessment to be more likely.” With such a finely balanced outcome to the assessment, one has to consider the political environment at play, and the possibility that, yes Tulsi, politicisation ultimately tilted the assessment. In any event, it was hardly a slam dunk case.

The US intelligence community’s broader outlook on the threat posed by drug cartels and transnational organised crime groups featured in the March 2025 annual threat assessment produced for Congress by, guess who, the Director of National Intelligence. The section on Foreign Illicit Drug actors focused on Mexican and Columbian- based transnational criminal organizations. There was no mention whatsoever of Tren De Aragua, or of any role played by the Maduro government. Nor was Venezuela listed as a principal adversary of the United States—that billing went to China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. There was no mention of any strategic concern about Russian or Chinese involvement in Venezuela or indeed in Latin America. ^[8] No mention of Venezuelan oil as a vital strategic asset for the United States.

What the US intelligence community does know about Venezuela is that it is a failed state.

The picture of the threat posed to US homeland security by the Maduro government is not a product of any comprehensive assessment by the US intelligence community, but entirely a reflection of the Trump administration’s adoption of a more interventionist and imperial policy towards the Western hemisphere in general, rooted in the so-called Trump corollary to the 19^th century Monroe Doctrine.

This new approach was firmly established in the National Security Strategy (NSS) published by the White House in December 2025. ^[9] Doubts swirled in some quarters that Trump would follow any script, or possessed any strategy. Those doubts should be put to rest in the aftermath of the strike on Venezuela and the capture of Maduro.

The NSS was the script for the Venezuelan action and was the strategy, in plain view. It served as the final act telegraphing US intentions towards Venezuela, following a substantial US military buildup in the region, the strikes against alleged drug boats and the imposition of a naval blockade to stop the export of Venezuelan oil on sanctioned shadow-tanker ships.

As Trump’s acolytes, such as Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, like to remind the world, this is a President who means what he says and takes action on what he promises. What the NSS said about American intentions with respect to the western hemisphere was crystal clear. It is also apparent that Trump loves his association with the Monroe Doctrine, and the colloquial tag attached to the so-called “Trump Corollary:”—the ‘Donroe’ doctrine.

The Trump corollary is succinctly, and menacingly, defined in the National Security Strategy. Here is how it reads:

“We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere ^[10] remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent mass migration to the United States; we want a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations; we want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations.” ^[11]

To put a further point to it, the NSS states that “the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe doctrine to restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region.” ^[12]

Yes, the NSS also talked about a “predisposition” to non-interventionism. But clearly, it’s a flexible concept. So is the Trump corollary. It can include use of military force, economic coercion, political influence, and assertive diplomacy to sort between friends, not-friends, and foes.

The Venezuelan operation is the first exercise of the Trump corollary. It won’t be the last. Removing Maduro was not a classic exercise in political regime change. Trump cares little about democratic outcomes in Venezuela. What the US intends, in line with the NSS, is economic regime change, to force a roll-back of the decades-old Venezuelan nationalisation of its oil industry, to open up Venezuelan oil resources to US control, and to block countries like Russia and China from having access to this energy supply. We will see how that goes—regime change of any kind in a failed state is a risky and unpredictable business. What costs this Venezuelan adventure imposes on the US and on every other dimension of its foreign policy, including its uncertain allegiance to a just peace for Ukraine, remains to be seen, but will not be good.

The National Security Strategy bears repeating as a warning about future US actions:

“we want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations.”

If this requires trampling over the principles of sovereignty or international law, so be it. This is a strategy that vaunts the exercise of power and American right.

Fair warning, as they say in auction houses.

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^[1] The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “The National Intelligence Council,” https://www.dni.gov/index.php/who-we-are/organizations/mission-integration/nic/nic-who-we-are

^[2] National Intelligence Council, Sense of the Community Memorandum, prepared under the auspices of the National Intelligence Officer for the Western Hemisphere, “Venezuela: Examining Regime Ties to Tren de Aragua,” 7 April 2025, https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/32f71f10c36cc482/d90251d5-full.pdf

^[3] Ibid

^[4] NBC, “Gabbard fires intel officials who oversaw memo contradicting White House claims on Venezuelan gang,” May 14, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/gabbard-fires-intel-officials-oversaw-memo-contradicting-white-house-c-rcna206918

^[5] Ibid

^[6] CBS News, “Rubio says intelligence community is incorrect in assessment of Tren de Aragua: They’re wrong,” May 18, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marco-rubio-intelligence-community-tren-de-aragua/

^[7] FBI Intelligence Assessment, “Venezuelan Government Officials Use Tren de Aragua to undermine Public Safety,” 23 January 2025, https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/cf81b6125042f40a/71f6f46f-full.pdf; New York Times, “F.B.I. memo sheds light on dispute over Venezuelan gang,” May 28, 2025,

^[8] Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Annual Threat Assessment of the US intelligence Community,” March 2025, https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2025-Unclassified-Report.pdf

^[9] For an analysis, see Wesley Wark, “Atlas Shrugs, and gets down to business,” December 7, 2025, https://wesleywark.substack.com/p/atlas-shrugs-and-gets-down-to-business

^[10] geographically defined as everything from the Arctic in the north to Tierra del Fuego at the southernmost tip of Latin America

^[11] The White House, “National Security Strategy of the United States of America,” (November 2025, published December 7), p. 5, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf

^[12] Ibid., p. 15