{O} n December 3, Venezuela’s authoritarian regime held a referendum regarding its claim over a territory known as El Essequibo.
El Essequibo is an oil- and mineral-rich region slightly larger than the State of Georgia but with a population of just 128,000 people. This territory has been controlled by the country of Guyana since the Paris Arbitral Award of 1899, which is an arrangement that Venezuela has never accepted, pointing out irregularities in the decision-making process. Despite Venezuela’s complaints, tensions never escalated between the two countries, especially since a 1966 agreement between the United Kingdom (Guyana was then a British colony) and Venezuela to commit to a peaceful resolution to the territorial dispute.
The status quo changed this fall when the Venezuelan regime began beating the nationalist drum against Guyana, claiming that Guyana has been “violating international law” by authorizing foreign oil companies such as the American multinational corporation ExxonMobil to execute resource explorations in the area. Since 2015, oil companies have discovered sizeable oil reserves in El Essequibo. ExxonMobil has successfully drilled more than 40 wells in the disputed territory, enabling it to produce 600,000 oil barrels per day. This rate of production is expected to increase, as the company just approved new investments in the territory.
Venezuela’s renewed interest in El Essequibo led to this month’s referendum, during which, the regime of Nicolás Maduro claims, 10 million Venezuelans voted in favor of annexing the region (with a voter turnout greater than 50 percent). Although some reports indicated empty polling stations nationwide, contradicting Maduro’s claims, most opinion polls show that a significant majority of Venezuelans, myself included, consider El Essequibo to be a legitimate Venezuelan territory — even if we disagree with the idea that military intervention is the way to claim it.
Days after the referendum, Maduro ordered a series of aggressive measures, such as issuing Venezuelan identity cards to the residents of the region, mandating the Venezuelan national assembly to declare the territory a new province known as “Guayana Esequiba,” and designating the territory as a military zone.
These measures resemble the actions Russia has taken since 2014 to illegally annex Ukrainian regions, from Luhansk to Crimea. Although Venezuela and Guyana reached an agreement last week to not use force to resolve the Essequibo dispute, many analysts are raising the question of whether the Maduro regime’s actions will amount to the annexation of El Essequibo, possibly sparking a military conflict in South America.
In my view, Maduro doesn’t intend to annex El Essequibo. The regime is using the issue as a distraction from Venezuela’s real problems and as a negotiation tactic with the international community. Nevertheless, the real problem is that, if Maduro actually wants to pursue annexation, there is essentially nothing preventing him.
Geopolitics doesn’t boil down to a statesman’s intentions; several structural and institutional constraints constantly shape his actions. From geography to geo-economics and military capabilities, these limitations on power are the bedrock of sustained peace among nations. A sound foreign-policy analysis of the Venezuela–Guyana situation should therefore refrain from conjectures about Maduro’s intentions, especially since these can quickly change. Instead, we should assess the capabilities of the Venezuelan regime as well as the international context.
From a military perspective, the Guyanese forces are extremely weak, despite the government’s declaration that it will defend the country “by all and any means whatsoever.” To illustrate, Guyana’s defense forces have only about 4,000 active and reserve personnel in comparison with Venezuela’s 350,000-strong military.
From a diplomatic standpoint, the international community may condemn Maduro’s actions and express solidarity with the Guyanese people, but democratic nations are likely to take minimal action in the event of a conflict in South America, particularly given the ongoing crises in Gaza and Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Guyana’s president, Irfaan Ali, on December 6 to reiterate America’s “unwavering support for Guyana’s sovereignty,” adding that Guyana and Venezuela should respect the 1899 arbitral award “unless, or until, the parties reach a new agreement, or a competent legal body decides otherwise.” However, the Biden administration would most likely focus its actions on protecting the interests of Exxon and other oil companies operating in the region. Consider the precedent: Biden decided to lift sanctions on Maduro’s regime just two months ago for no reason other than pleasing corporate interests (which might have contributed to the worsening of the regime’s behavior and the deterioration of democratic conditions in Venezuela).
Based on these initial observations, it appears that there are no significant obstacles barring Maduro from annexing El Essequibo. And while my assumption is that he ultimately does not want to annex it, he will surely face pressure from his autocratic partners such as Russia and Iran, who are keen on destabilizing the Western Hemisphere.
Without any true impediments to military conquest and with multinational companies lobbying the U.S. to resume commercial relations with Venezuela, the Venezuelan–Guyanese crisis provides Maduro with enormous leverage for negotiation with the U.S. and international institutions — leverage that he could use to extract major concessions from the international community.