Having removed Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela through military force, the United States is now the decisive external actor shaping Venezuela’s near-term political and economic trajectory.

Much attention will focus on the legality of the operation, on Maduro’s fate in U.S. courts, and on how other major powers respond. Those debates will play out in Washington and abroad. But they are unlikely to determine what happens inside Venezuela itself.

What will matter there is more prosaic and more unforgiving: whether authority is exercised and obeyed; whether basic services function; whether armed actors are managed rather than unleashed; and whether the United States can avoid being drawn into an open-ended commitment whose costs exceed its benefits. The success or failure of the intervention will turn not on declarations or press briefings, but on observable behavior in six concrete areas.

Test 1: Can the U.S. Establish Real Control Over the State and Security Forces?

Real authority is not conferred by announcements or titles, but by compliance. Who issues orders, and who obeys them? Who controls airports, ports, borders, courts, and payment systems? Who can move money, fuel, and people?

Claims that Venezuela’s newly installed Acting President, Delcy Rodríguez, will do what is needed “to make Venezuela great again” will become meaningful only if the post-Maduro authorities can actually exercise control. The first test is not reform or legitimacy, but whether authority runs downward from Rodríguez through the security services and state institutions in ways that are both effective on the ground and consistent with the authority the United States has asserted over the transition.

Key indicators to watch include whether military and police units take and execute orders under revised command arrangements; whether courts and prosecutors act on instructions issued after the transition rather than reverting to prior practice; whether customs authorities process exports and imports under new lines of authority; and whether PDVSA and its counterparties conduct operations in a manner consistent with the expectations of the United States and its enforcement regime. Control will be demonstrated by routine compliance, not by ceremonial appearances.

The specific individuals and institutions that remain in place and in practice control the country’s security represent the core paradox of the intervention: the people most capable of preserving order are those most implicated in the system the United States claims to be dismantling. Most relevantly, they include Diosdado Cabello, the minister of interior, justice, and peace, and Vladimir Padrino López, the minister of defense.

Cabello controls the internal security apparatus: police forces, intelligence services, and political enforcement mechanisms that maintain order in Caracas and other major cities. He also has deep ties to informal armed groups and political enforcers that operate outside formal command structures. From an operational standpoint, sidelining him risks immediate instability. From a legal and political standpoint, working with him forecloses any credible claim that the United States is facilitating a lawful or accountable transition. Given existing U.S. sanctions and his U.S. indictment, there is no plausible path to normalization that leaves him at the center of internal security.

Padrino López, also indicted and sanctioned by the U.S., presents a different but equally consequential dilemma. He is widely regarded as the institutional glue holding the Venezuelan armed forces together. Fragmentation of the military would almost certainly lead to violence, criminalization, and loss of territorial control. The United States cannot easily partner with him, or other military and security officials implicated in narcotrafficking. But it also cannot ignore Padrino López and his associates without risking military disintegration.

The problem extends beyond individuals to institutions. Venezuela’s intelligence and counterintelligence bodies—the SEBIN and the DGCIM—have been central to political repression and U.S. indictments have accused their leaders of shielding illicit networks. They are also repositories of coercive capacity and institutional memory. Leaving them intact risks continued abuse and criminal protection. Dismantling them risks intelligence collapse, retaliation against defectors, and the emergence of ungoverned spaces.

This contradiction sits at the center of the transition. A functioning Venezuelan state requires internal security and military cohesion. The actors most capable of delivering those outcomes are also those the United States has spent years defining as criminal adversaries. Managing that tension—deciding how much continuity to tolerate, for how long, and at what cost—is likely to prove more decisive than any election timetable.

Test 2: Can Authority Gain Acceptance Among the Public, Elites, and Political Actors?

Legitimacy is often judged differently by different groups, and for different reasons.

For the public, legitimacy is usually judged by how safe people feel and by whether they have sufficient food, fuel, electricity, and the ability to live without fear. In Venezuela’s case, these benchmarks were already badly eroded before the removal of Maduro. Power outages, fuel shortages, food insecurity, and the collapse of public health services have been endemic. A spike in crime, the persistence of armed groups, renewed shortages, or visible corruption among new authorities would all signal continuity rather than change. Protest levels, migration flows, and the expansion of informal or black market activity will provide early and unforgiving indicators.

For elites—business leaders, regional officials, and military officers—legitimacy typically depends on predictability, protection of assets, and credible assurances about the future. If property rights remain unclear, contracts are reopened arbitrarily, or sanctions exposure persists without guidance, elites may hedge, delay cooperation, or quietly obstruct implementation. Regional officials may comply formally while withholding initiative. Military officers may remain passive rather than supportive. In Venezuela’s degraded institutional environment, even small signals of unpredictability or retribution could reinforce a wait-and-see posture that slows recovery and weakens central authority.

Legitimacy also depends on political factors—who feels included in emerging arrangements, and who feels excluded or under threat. Over time, it can turn on whether elections are promised and plausibly organized; whether amnesties, prosecutions, or hybrid arrangements are announced; and whether these steps are perceived as credible rather than cosmetic. Elections announced without clear timelines, security guarantees, or administrative capacity may be read as empty gestures. Conversely, sweeping promises of accountability without a workable judicial framework may provoke resistance from those who still command coercive power. Venezuela’s courts and electoral institutions were compromised long before the intervention, and rebuilding confidence in them is not a short term task.

In addition, the absence of visible planning is itself a legitimacy risk. Venezuela was already in crisis when it entered this U.S.-forced transition. There has been little public evidence of advance preparation to address the most acute humanitarian, economic, and governance failures. Without early, credible signals that basic problems are being anticipated and managed, authority may be judged not against abstract ideals, but against lived experience. When a foreign power purports to be controlling a transitional government, patience is likely to be short.

Early warning signs of failure include a rapid resurgence of out-migration; visible non-cooperation by Venezuelan officials; persistent shortages of fuel or electricity; and continued reliance on informal or armed intermediaries to maintain order.

Test 3: Can the Economy Function Under a New Reality?

Venezuela is not starting from a normal baseline. IMF analysis estimates Venezuela’s economic collapse at over 75 percent in real terms between 2013 and 2021, the largest recorded for a non-conflict country.

The central constraint remains oil. Production today is far below historical levels; in 2024, Reuters reported average output of roughly 952,000 barrels per day, with exports of about 805,500 barrels per day. Even if sanctions were relaxed tomorrow, Venezuela’s ability to “pay for itself” quickly is limited by physical realities: much of its crude is heavy and sour, requiring upgrading and refining capacity that Venezuela largely lacks in working condition. Most refineries have fallen into disrepair, with some operating at only 20–30% of capacity amid chronic underinvestment.

Venezuela’s economy also requires clear guidance on who is in charge and what they are empowered to do, with the blessing of both the U.S. and Venezuelan governments. Private actors—banks, insurers, traders—will not engage unless the rules are clear and durable. Restoring and monetizing production also requires quick access to diluents and inputs, upgrading of export infrastructure, and credible governance over PDVSA contracting and payments. Early monitoring should focus on whether payments can be processed through reputable channels; whether lawful oil liftings resume; and whether fuel, power, and basic imports begin moving through normal commercial mechanisms.

Economic recovery requires a sequence: macro stabilization; restoration of basic services; a staged oil rehabilitation plan tied to spare parts and operators; and governance arrangements that reduce theft while permitting legitimate contracting. Inflation remains punishing, with official year-on-year inflation reported by Maduro at 48% for 2024, while the IMF estimates Venezuelan inflation at about 270% for 2025 and predicts a shocking 682% for 2026. Recovery will not be possible without an end to hyperinflation and reliable access to essentials.

Funding is the hard edge of the problem. Oil revenues alone are unlikely to cover immediate humanitarian and infrastructure needs at sub-1 million bpd production levels, especially given heavy-sour discounts and reinvestment requirements. Options narrow to a few channels: sanctions relief or tightly scoped licenses; monitored revenue mechanisms such as escrow or trust arrangements; limited multilateral or bilateral financing conditioned on governance and recognition; and private capital, which will not arrive without enforceable contracts and protection against expropriation and sanctions whiplash.

If these pathways are not made coherent quickly, economic constraints will override political design. The state will remain cash starved, service delivery will lag, and any transitional authority—especially one perceived as foreign directed—will be judged not by promises but by whether daily life in Venezuela is visibly improving.

Test 4: Can Armed Actors and Criminal Networks Be Contained and Reduced?

The removal of a regime does not dissolve the armed groups and illicit networks that flourished under it. It merely forces them to renegotiate. How that renegotiation is handled often determines whether a transition stabilizes or slides into violence.

Venezuela enters this phase with a large security sector and a wide penumbra of armed actors. Public estimates suggest 100,000-120,000 personnel in the regular armed forces, supplemented by the National Guard, national and local police, intelligence services, and a range of irregular or semi-official armed groups. Beyond these are criminal networks involved in drug trafficking, illegal mining, fuel smuggling, and extortion—activities that expanded as the formal economy collapsed and that helped sustain regime cohesion when legitimate revenues fell.

This creates a familiar disposal problem. Armed actors who are excluded wholesale from the new order face a stark set of choices: prosecution, exile, or unemployment.

The United States has confronted this dilemma before. In Iraq, the decision to dissolve the army and purge security institutions removed a large, armed population from the state with no transition plan, fueling insurgency and contributing to the later emergence of ISIS. Afghanistan followed a different path. Over two decades, successive administrations alternately tolerated and sidelined militias without a coherent disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration strategy, leaving armed networks intact and the state chronically weak. The common lesson is that having a credible DDR strategy from the outset matters.

DDR will certainly matter in Venezuela. Much of its security apparatus is implicated in corruption, human rights abuses, or illicit economies. Neither Venezuelan society nor the United States is likely to accept its continued dominance of public life. Yet removing these actors en masse risks creating a large, armed, and aggrieved population with incentives to resist or defect into criminality. In practice, DDR is slow and politically fraught. It requires funding, administrative capacity, and credible guarantees, as well as differentiation among rank-and-file soldiers, police, intelligence operatives, and irregular forces. Without realistic reintegration options—jobs, pensions, retraining, or relocation—DDR programs tend to stall or fail.

Hard choices arise most sharply with the most culpable leaders. The options are well known: prosecution, conditional amnesty tied to exit or cooperation, exile to third countries, or quiet marginalization. Each carries tradeoffs. Prosecutions may satisfy legal imperatives but risk provoking resistance. Amnesty may stabilize the short term but undermine legitimacy. Simply telling armed actors to disappear without protection or livelihoods has repeatedly produced violent spoilers.

Criminal networks further complicate the picture. Illicit markets rarely vanish when regimes fall; they adapt. Disrupting trafficking and smuggling without providing alternative authority or income risks pushing these networks toward open violence or deeper entrenchment, particularly in border regions and resource-rich areas.

Key indicators to watch will therefore include whether credible DDR programs are announced and funded; whether rank-and-file personnel are offered viable paths back into civilian life; whether senior figures exit, are prosecuted, or remain in place; and whether violence declines or merely shifts geographically. Developments outside Caracas will be especially revealing.

The central lesson from prior U.S. interventions is not that accountability should be abandoned, but that disposing of armed actors faster than the state can absorb or neutralize them has repeatedly produced instability. Venezuela will test whether the current administration knows how to apply it.

Test 5: Are Humanitarian Conditions Improving Fast Enough to Sustain Legitimacy?

Humanitarian performance is not an abstract moral metric; it is a political one. For most Venezuelans, legitimacy is experienced in daily, tangible terms: whether the lights stay on, whether water runs from the tap, whether food can be bought with wages, whether hospitals function, and whether cash is available to transact at all.

Venezuela enters this period from a position of acute deprivation. Electricity supply remains unreliable across much of the country, with recurring outages outside major urban centers and periodic system-wide failures. Water service is similarly precarious: many households receive running water only intermittently, sometimes once every few days or weeks, forcing reliance on storage, trucked water, or unsafe sources. Fuel shortages persist despite the country’s oil reserves, constraining transport, food distribution, and access to work. Food insecurity remains but rampant and central. The country’s health care system has been assessed by humanitarian organizations as being “inoperative,” unable to meet even basic Venezuelan health care needs and contributing to rising mortality rates among the country’s children.

Migration trends remain the clearest aggregate signal. According to UNHCR, some 7.9 million people – nearly one-quarter of the country’s entire population — have already fled the country. Continued outflows would indicate that daily conditions remain intolerable or are worsening. Stabilization—or even limited return—would suggest that households believe basic survival is becoming more viable.

If humanitarian conditions do not improve perceptibly, public patience will be short. In a country already exhausted by years of crisis, legitimacy will be judged not by intentions or promises, but by whether daily life becomes more survivable.

Test 6: Can the U.S. Define and Execute an Exit Strategy?

The most important question is what by its nature must be the final one: what is the exit strategy?

Several end states are conceivable. Elections could be organized under external security guarantees. Existing institutions could be used as a form of indirect rule. Control could be concentrated around oil infrastructure while political ambiguity persists elsewhere.

Each path has failure modes: electoral processes without security collapse; indirect rule breeds corruption; resource-first strategies generate resentment and insurgency. The United States’ own political tolerance—for casualties, costs, and scandal—will ultimately constrain all options.

U.S. officials and supporters of the operation have suggested—explicitly or implicitly—that Venezuela’s oil wealth can offset the costs of intervention. This claim deserves careful scrutiny.

The question is not whether Venezuela has oil—it does—but whether its oil assets can be converted into usable new revenue, on what timeline, and under what constraints. If oil revenues cannot be mobilized rapidly and transparently, the assumption that the intervention can pay for itself will fail.

The United States would then face a choice this administration has repeatedly promised to avoid: whether to commit to the sustained political, security, and economic effort required to consolidate control and prevent the re-emergence of criminal and armed networks, or to disengage before those objectives are secured. Calling this something other than nation building will not change its demands or its costs.

Jonathan M. Winer, a former senior State Department official, is a member of The Steady State. The Steady State is a nonpartisan organization of more than 280 former senior national security professionals from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security which advocates for constitutional democracy, the rule of law and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.