Recently, a very dear friend and squadron mate from Vietnam sent me an article by Judd Garrett titled 4-Dimensional Chess. I read Garrett often because he is insightful and has a strong grasp of history.  I largely agree with his central premise: Donald Trump views today’s global struggle not as a series of isolated crises, but as a converging axis of Islamism, communism, and modern totalitarianism—an unholy alignment centered on China Iran, and Russia.

This alignment has been consolidating since the fall of the Berlin Wall, united less by shared ideology than by one common objective – weakening and ultimately displacing the Western-led international order.  And in that effort, the United States remains its primary obstacle.

Venezuela has emerged as a forward ‘operating base’ for lack of a better term in this rising alignment in our hemisphere.  Long before Maduro’s apprehension, Caracas was drawn into Beijing’s global leverage campaign through China’s Belt and Road Initiative—not as development assistance, but as strategic access to resources, infrastructure, and political influence.

In fact, a Chinese delegation was reportedly in Caracas advancing agreements that would have deepened China’s long-term leverage over Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and mineral wealth. While not formal “control,” such arrangements would have given Beijing preferential access and significant influence over the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

Trump, first and foremost is a businessman, and understands that energy leverage translates into geopolitical power.  Chinese dominance over Venezuelan oil flows would have expanded Beijing’s influence in the Western Hemisphere, distorted global energy markets, and indirectly blunted Western sanctions on Russia by stabilizing and subsidizing Moscow’s war-time economy.

At the same time, revenues moving through opaque Venezuelan channels have historically intersected with Iranian-aligned networks, including Hezbollah-linked financial and logistical operations.  This is the classic “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” arrangement.  Different regimes, different tools, different doctrines, but a shared target: the Western democratic order.

Cuba’s role in this architecture is often underestimated but critical.  For decades, Havana has functioned as the region’s intelligence hub and ideological incubator, exporting security services, repression techniques, and regime-survival expertise to client states like Venezuela.  Unlike China or Russia, Cuba specializes not in projection but in permanence—embedding advisors, training internal security forces, and preventing internal collapse.

In this division of labor, Beijing supplies capital and infrastructure; Havana provides internal enforcement; and the Iran-Russia axis exploits the resulting instability.  Together, they form a self-reinforcing ecosystem of authoritarian power operating in our own backyard.

Add Venezuela’s role as a narco-state, and the picture sharpens further.  Drug trafficking is not merely criminal—it is strategic.  It corrodes Western societies, funds transnational crime, and undermines civic institutions.  A Chinese-backed, Cuban-secured, Iranian-aligned Venezuela would have ensured that this flow continued largely unchecked.

Venezuela’s mineral wealth—gold, coltan, bauxite, and others—also matter to Beijing’s long game.  These resources are essential to modern electronics, batteries, military systems, and emerging technologies.  China’s Belt and Road Initiative was never primarily about roads; it was about leverage and choke points.

Seen through this lens, confronting Maduro was not regime change for its own sake, but an effort to disrupt a rapidly forming strategic trap.  China was expanding economic control through debt and infrastructure; Iran was extending proxy influence; Russia sought an economic lifeline; and Cuba served as the regional intelligence and enforcement arm.

Venezuela’s oil wealth, mineral resources, and geographic proximity made it the linchpin of this Caribbean alliance.  Meanwhile, preventing hostile  powers from establishing a strategic platform in our hemisphere is not foreign adventurism; it’s national defense.

Since Barack Obama’s election, democrat foreign policy has often resembled a game of checkers rather than chess—with predictable results.  Red lines drawn and ignored, Libya destabilized and left in disarray, Afghanistan abandoned chaotically, and repeated conciliatory gestures toward Iran and others.  Then came Donald Trump who understand that in the real world such matters demand a leader with the experience, clarity, and resolve to see geopolitics for what it is – a four-dimensional chessboard.

Could Venezuela erupt into chaos, absolutely, but this was an action that had to be taken or this evil alliance was going to continue getting a free ride while it set up shop right in our backyard.