Maduro’s forces face renewed scrutiny as US tensions rise: ‘a fortress built on sand’

As tensions rise between Washington and the Maduro regime, experts told Fox News Digital that Venezuela’s military may look formidable on paper but is hollowed out by years of corruption, decay and political control. While they say Venezuela cannot stop a determined U.S. strike, any broader operation would be far more complicated than the White House suggests.

Isaias Medina, an international lawyer and former Venezuelan diplomat who denounced his own government at the International Criminal Court, described Venezuela as a criminalized state dominated by narcotrafficking networks.

“Venezuela today resembles a fortress built on sand wrapped around a criminal regime,” he said, adding that any hypothetical U.S. action would be “evicting a terrorist cartel that settled next door and not invading a country.”

Medina warned that Venezuela’s dense civilian population — also victimized by the regime — demands extreme caution. “The only acceptable approach is overwhelming bias toward restraint and longer operational timelines, forgoing targets that cannot be struck cleanly.”

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Soldiers of the Venezuelan army march with military vehicles during a parade as part of the Independence Day celebrations at Fuerte Tiuna in Caracas, Venezuela on July 5, 2023. (Pedro Rances Mattey/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

He said the military’s capabilities look better on paper than reality, with equipment rusting from lack of maintenance and thousands of politically appointed generals disconnected from an estimated 100,000 lower-ranking troops who may abandon their posts under pressure.

Rear Adm. (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation, told Fox News Digital that Venezuela’s most relevant threat lies in its air-naval systems — and even those could be quickly eliminated.

“You have to break this up,” he said. “There’s an air-naval part, which is most likely what could impact our strike operations,” including fighter jets, limited naval vessels and Russian-made surface-to-air missiles.

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Soldiers with their faces painted march during a military parade to celebrate the 205th anniversary of Venezuela’s independence in Caracas, Venezuela July 5, 2016. (Carlos Jasso/Reuters)

But Montgomery said the U.S. could quickly neutralize them. “Reasonably speaking, in the first day or two of a campaign plan, we can eliminate the air and maritime threat to U.S. forces,” he said.

Any U.S. plan targeting cocaine production would begin with “simultaneous strikes on the airfields, the aircraft and the air defense weapon systems to ensure that they don’t respond to any U.S. attacks on other assets.”

Asked whether Venezuela could retaliate after such strikes, Montgomery replied: “Not against an air campaign. No.”

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Members of Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard stand in formation as they carry out an increased security patrol along Lake Maracaibo amid rising tensions between Venezuela and U.S., in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on Oct. 26, 2025.  (Isaac Urrutia/Reuters)

Montgomery stressed that while air defenses can be eliminated quickly, a ground operation would be a far different story. “They have a small professional military… 65 to 70,000 people, many of whom probably don’t want — they didn’t join the army to fight,” he said. The country also maintains a massive militia, whose motivation would depend on loyalty to Maduro.

But geography and scale make a land operation a nightmare scenario. “Venezuela is probably twice the geographic size of California, 35 to 40 million citizens,” Montgomery said. “This would be a terrifically challenging ground campaign, especially if it turned into a counterinsurgency.”

He added bluntly: “Today, I would not do this. I do not recommend it.”

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A squad of Venezuelan Air Force K8W aircraft overflies during the 2025 Venezuela industrial aviation expo at the Libertador Air Base in Maracay, Aragua State, Venezuela, on Nov. 29, 2025. (Pedro Rances Mattey/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

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Montgomery does support an air campaign which he believes will be more efficient than the current naval tactics. He cited his experience commanding U.S. Navy counter-drug operations: “Every one of these 21 ships could have been pulled over by a mix of Navy and Coast Guard assets and helicopters.” But intelligence often proved unreliable.

Despite years of decay, Venezuela still possesses a large, uneven mix of military hardware. Analysts say it cannot stop a U.S. campaign but could complicate early phases.

Soldiers take part in a drill led by the Bolivarian National Armed Forces to train citizens in weapons handling, after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro deployed the military across communities nationwide as part of a national outreach initiative aimed at training both enlisted citizens and residents amid rising tensions with the United States, in Yagua, Venezuela, Sept. 20, 2025. (Juan Carlos Hernandez/Reuters)

Its inventory reportedly includes 92 T-72B tanks, 123 BMP-3 infantry vehicles, Russian Msta-S artillery, Smerch and Grad rocket systems, and an estimated 6–10 flyable Su-30MK2 jets. Air defenses include the S-300VM, Buk-M2E and Pechora-2M.

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Venezuela’s deepening ties with Iran, Russia and China continue to worry U.S. officials.

Jorge Jraissati, president of the Economic Inclusion Group, said “numbers show only 20% of Venezuelans approve of this regime,” warning that for more than a decade “there has been no respect for the will of the population” as Caracas aligns with “anti-Western regimes that destabilize the region.”