By José A. Amesty Rivera – Sep 15, 2026After January 3, 2026, an idea that emerged and that keeps circulating strongly deserves a serious discussion from the left. The idea is that Venezuela should have responded to the US military intervention with an open war, irrespective of the cost, and that, if necessary, it should have fought “to the point of self-immolation.”The phrase may sound heroic and evoke legitimate feelings of dignity, sovereignty, and rejection of imperialism. But one thing is to defend a country’s sovereignty, and another very different thing is to confuse sovereignty with the sacrifice of its people.From a serious Latin American leftist perspective, it must be said bluntly, a conventional war between Venezuela and the US would have meant a practically certain military defeat for Venezuela, and that defeat could have turned into a national catastrophe. It is not about surrendering to imperialism, but about distinguishing between resistance and political suicide.On January 3, 2026, the US carried out a military invasion against Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Reuters reported that the US had attacked the country and that Donald Trump even mentioned that the US government would administer Venezuela during a transition. The operation provoked international condemnation and concern at the United Nations due to the precedent that it set.But one thing is that aggression and another is declaring a conventional war against the US. The question must be asked with both feet on the ground, what would have happened?It is well known that the United States possesses enormous military superiority in aviation, naval power, satellite intelligence, drones, electronic warfare, logistics, precision weaponry, and military experience. Venezuela simply could not match those capabilities. Acknowledging this is not being “pro-imperialist”; it is recognizing a reality.The problem arises when some sectors talk about “resisting to the death” as if a war was a scene from a heroic movie where a few sacrifice themselves and the people ultimately achieve victory. Real wars do not work that way; the worker, the peasant, the teacher, the retiree, the child who needs a hospital, and the family that just wants to live in peace also die. In a real war, hospitals, roads, and electrical facilities are destroyed, transportation and jobs are paralyzed, food supply is interrupted, inflation rises, and mass displacements occur. For this reason, to those who speak of “immolation,” a simple question should be asked: who immolate themselves? It is almost never those who utter this slogan from an office or any other setting. Those who would self-immolate are the children of workers, the youth, the peasants, and the people, precisely those who have already endured years of crisis.We must learn some lessons from wars. Recent history offers examples that should be mandatory to analyze for any leftist who wants to seriously talk about imperialism.In Iraq, the US quickly won the conventional war of 2003, defeated the Iraqi army, and occupied Baghdad. But the military victory did not solve anything. The occupation, insurgency, and subsequent conflicts caused enormous human, economic, and social costs. The Costs of War project at Brown University has estimated over 940,000 direct deaths associated with post-September 11 US wars in various countries, in addition to indirect deaths caused by the destruction of healthcare systems, economies, and infrastructure. The lesson is not that Iraq should have surrendered; it is that a war can defeat an army and simultaneously destroy a society.Libya is even more relevant to the case of Venezuela because both countries possess enormous oil resources. Before the 2011 war, Libya produced around 1.7 million barrels per day. During the invasion, production fell drastically and its economy suffered a huge contraction. Even the murder of Gaddafi did not mean the end of the conflict; political fragmentation, militias, internal clashes, and disputes over control of oil ensued. Oil, therefore, does not protect a country from war. It can precisely turn it into a strategic target.In the case of Venezuela, what would have happened to its oil? Venezuela possesses some of the largest oil reserves in the world, but oil does not come out of the ground by itself. To produce it, specialist workers, electricity, pipelines, roads, ports, refineries, transportation, and infrastructure are needed. A prolonged war would have endangered this entire system. The contradiction would be enormous, those who wanted to defend sovereignty over oil could end up destroying the material capacity needed to produce it. And oil continues to have enormous geopolitical value. Reuters has reported that, after the January 3 operation, Washington sought to expand its access not only to Venezuelan oil but also to other mineral resources.Precisely for this reason, it was important to act intelligently. Strategic resources must be defended, not unnecessarily become victims of a war that Venezuela could hardly win.Another fundamental point is that a war would not have been a confrontation between “Chavistas and gringos.” It would have taken place on Venezuelan territory, where more than 30 million people live, where there are Chavistas, opposition supporters, people who do not vote, people tired of both sides, workers, farmers, students, retirees, and families who simply want to live in peace and raise their children. Would they all have to die to demonstrate a political position?This cannot be a leftist program. The left was born, among other things, to defend the life and dignity of workers and peoples, not to turn them into cannon fodder. Moreover, a prolonged war could destroy the state itself. And when institutions lose control of the territory, the void can be filled by criminal gangs, militias, paramilitary groups, drug trafficking organizations, or regional warlords. Venezuela is already facing problems related to illegal economies, armed groups, and complex borders. A war could hardly have improved this situation.The experience of Iraq and Libya also shows that there is a difference between winning a battle and winning a war, and an even greater difference between winning a war and rebuilding a country afterward.Let us hypothetically assume that after January 3, a significant part of the Venezuelan armed forces and civilian sectors had decided to continue the fight. In the initial stage, the main Venezuelan military capabilities would have been destroyed and strategic facilities attacked by the US. Oil production and the economy would have been decimated, and population displacements would have increased. Subsequently, a prolonged resistance based on sabotage, attacks, and local confrontations could have emerged. The US could win the major battles and still find it difficult to stabilize the country. But here comes a question that is often forgotten. Venezuela would also descend into chaos. Over time, an initially political resistance could fragment. Disputes over territories, smuggling, fuel trafficking, illegal mining, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, and disputes over resource control would emerge. What began as a struggle for sovereignty could end up becoming a struggle for territory.Likewise, neighboring countries would have strong incentives to seek a way out. Colombia and Brazil would face new waves of migration; other Latin American governments would push for negotiations, while powers like China and Russia would try to limit the expansion of US influence. Finally, Venezuela could find itself at a crossroads, either a political negotiation with international guarantees or a much more dangerous fragmentation, with a weakened state, millions of displaced people, and an oil economy unable to regain its previous capacity. Would it be a victory? We do not think so.Even if a prolonged resistance eventually forced the US to withdraw, one would have to ask, what would remain of Venezuela? Thousands, or potentially tens of thousands, dead, millions displaced, destroyed infrastructure, deteriorated hospitals and schools, a devastated economy, and a more violent society. We could not call this a revolutionary victory.On the other hand, if Latin American experience should teach us anything, it is that sovereignty does not consist solely in having an army. It also means having food, hospitals, schools, electricity, industries, workers, scientists, farmers, functional institutions, and an economy capable of sustaining the country, and all of this is also independence.A strategy that, in the name of independence, ends up destroying these capabilities would be contradictory. The defense of Venezuela should seek, above all, to protect the conditions that allow its people to continue living, organizing, and deciding their own future. For this, different forms of action may be necessary: popular resistance, the defense of sovereignty, the denunciation of imperialism, the solidarity of other countries, and international mobilization.But “to die before yielding” is not a political program, it is a slogan of desperation. A revolution that needs to destroy its own people to prove it is revolutionary has stopped asking for whom it is making the revolution.There is a Latin American left that deeply understands the word resistance. Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina know the meaning of facing enormous powers. But precisely for this reason, we should also know that human life has a political value superior to any slogan.Here we come to a more uncomfortable question, what is the Venezuelan government doing today after January 3? Is it surviving? Is it holding up? Is it negotiating? Is it trying to buy time? There is probably a bit of everything. After an aggression of such magnitude, politics ceases to be a matter of slogans and trivialities and becomes a matter of survival. Survival does not necessarily mean surrender. Resistance does not necessarily mean shooting. Negotiation does not necessarily mean betrayal.A government can try to preserve the institutions, the territory, the population, the economy, the oil industry, and international relations, while keeping the possibility open for Venezuela to decide its own destiny again. From this perspective, what some consider as “lack of radicality” could be a different form of resistance.The easy thing would have been to shoot and turn the country into a battlefield. The difficult part is avoiding it, not destroying the oil facilities, not provoking a new gigantic wave of migration, not handing the country over to the chaos of weapons, and not allowing a political confrontation to turn into a war among Venezuelans. This is also resistance.Perhaps it is even one of the most difficult forms, because it is much easier to say “until death” than to take responsibility for ensuring that millions of people have food, medicine, electricity, employment, and security. Of course, government decisions can and should be criticized. Government’s mistakes, negotiations, silences, and contradictions can be questioned. But we must be careful about demanding a war from the outside and from within, the costs of which would mainly be borne by all Venezuelans.The question should not be whether a government is willing to die. The question should be whether the people have the possibility to continue living, organizing, and deciding their own future. Comrades, we do not need martyrs, we need a future. Perhaps this is the difference between a left that only wants to be correct and a left that truly wants to transform reality.Delcy Rodríguez Has a Gun Pointed at Her Head – Does She Have Options?Heroism can produce martyrs. Politics should produce the future. Venezuela does not need to become a gigantic anti-imperialist tomb. It needs to be alive, sovereign, and capable of rebuilding itself. It needs its oil to finance education, health, housing, and infrastructure; for its working class to have a future; for its youth to be able to stay because they want to, and for sovereignty to be an economic, social, and political reality, not just a banner.Facing those who say that Venezuela should have responded to January 3 with a war to the point of self-immolation, the correct question is not who had more courage. The question is different: what strategy would have allowed Venezuela to preserve its sovereignty, protect its population and keep the possibility of rebuilding the country open? If a strategy can leave millions displaced, destroy the economy, paralyze oil production, devastate infrastructure, and turn the country into a permanent war zone, one must have the courage to say it, this is not a revolutionary strategy; it is a gamble on disaster, on chaos.The Latin American left must be sufficiently anti-imperialist to denounce a foreign intervention, but also sufficiently rational not to turn that denunciation into an invitation to collective suicide. Because the goal of a revolution should be for the people to live better, not to die with a heroic slogan on their lips.Iraq, Libya, and the endless wars of recent decades teach us that winning a battle can be relatively easy; rebuilding a country after having destroyed it can take generations.Venezuela does not need a lost generation, it needs to survive. And surviving, in certain historical circumstances, can also be a form of resistance. For this reason, perhaps the most important word today is not self-immolation, but patience. It is not about ignoring the problems or justifying every concession or every decision of the government. It is about looking at the forest and not getting lost in the trees; understanding that preserving the social, economic, and political forces of a country can be more important than satisfying the immediate need to prove who is more radical. We do not need to prove who is willing to die, we need to prove who has the ability to build.Venezuela needs a future. (Resumen Latinoamericano)Translation: Orinoco TribuneOT/SC/CD