Venezuela

[Flash]

Despite a few helicopters getting roughed up, the raid displays some excellent planning. Military experts are stunned at how easily the CHICAP supplied air defense system was carved up to a point that even Taiwanese commentators are piling on. There was nothing easy about this operation, but it is a wonderful example of exceptional staff work and operational execution.

I don't think I'd read too much into that, a good driver in a Toyota can still beat an idiot in a Ferrari if they can't drive worth a damn. As a matter of fact the New York Times has an article out today about their Russian-made systems not being hooked up or parked in storage.

In short, the Venezuelan military’s incompetence appears to have played a big role in the U.S. success. Venezuela’s much-touted antiaircraft systems were essentially not connected when U.S. forces entered the skies over Venezuela’s capital, and they may not have been working for years, former officials and analysts said.

 

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“Russia’s own war demands in Ukraine may have limited its ability to sustain those systems in Venezuela, to make sure they were fully integrated,” Mr. de la Torre said.

In fact, two former American officials argued that Russia may have quietly allowed the military equipment it sold Venezuela to fall into disrepair, to avoid greater conflict with Washington. If the Venezuelan military had shot down an American aircraft, they said, the blowback on Russia could have been significant.

You get your sphere, we get ours?

Moscow had signaled to Washington that it would give the Americans unfettered influence in Venezuela in return for a free hand in Ukraine, according to Fiona Hill, who ran Russian and European affairs on the National Security Council during the first Trump administration.