TOEING THE LINE: In Maduro's Venezuela, intimidation and a jumbled chain of command have kept soldiers from following the opposition's calls to revolt. REUTERS/Handout/Venezuelan presidency
Brian Ellsworth and Mayela Armas, The Guardian: The Maduro mystery: Why the armed forces still stand by Venezuela’s beleaguered president
Despite unprecedented poverty, crime and mass migration, the armed forces remain loyal to President Nicolás Maduro. Reuters explains how a military overhaul blurred commands, politicized the ranks and drafted troops into partisan activities.
One of the central mysteries of Venezuela’s slow-motion collapse: Why does the military continue to support Nicolás Maduro, the president who has led the once-prosperous South American country into poverty and chaos?
The answer, according to people familiar with Venezuela’s military structure, starts with Maduro’s late predecessor, Hugo Chávez, the charismatic caudillo who cemented strongman socialist rule in the nation of about 30 million people. In a series of actions that began in 1999, the former lieutenant colonel and one-time coup leader began taming the military by bloating it, buying it off, politicizing it, intimidating the rank and file, and fragmenting the overall command.
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WNU Editor: What Hugo Chavez did to the military, and continued on by Nicholas Maduro, reminds me of what Stalin did to the Soviet Army in the 1930s. He purged the ranks, installed NKVD intelligence officers in units, and promoted his closest allies to the top of the military even if they had no military experience. The end result was a Soviet Army that was dysfunctional and impotent that collapsed in the first week of the German invasion in 1941. I can the same about the Venezuelan military today. Dysfunctional and impotent, focused more on exploiting Venezuela to the benefit of those who run it, instead of protecting Venezuela itself.
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