Richard Fernandez on the Air Defenses

Wretchard is making the same point I was thinking about earlier, but better and with greater detail.

Venezuela had a Russian-supplied integrated system focused on protecting Caracas and strategic sites. This included long-range, medium-range, short-range, and point-defense systems, supplemented by anti-aircraft guns and fighter interceptors. 

They had around 12 batteries of S-300VM (approximately 1–2 divisions sapid effective against aircraft, cruise missiles, and some ballistic threats up to 200–250 km. Medium-range: Buk-M2E (SA-17 Grizzly) systems, with 9–12 batteries up to 45–50 km. Medium/short-range: S-125 Pechora-2M with dozens of units for low-to-medium altitude threats.  Short-range/point defense:  Tor-M1/Tor-M2E (up to 10 systems in some reports) and possible Pantsir systems. They had 5,000 MANPADS Russian Igla-S for low-flying threats like helicopters and cruise missiles. 

Anti-aircraft artillery: Over 400 pieces, including 200+ ZU-23-2 23mm twins and 114+ 40mm Bofors L/70 (some modernized). 

Aerial component: Su-30MK2 Flanker fighters (around 20–21 operational) for interception, with limited F-16s (few airworthy due to maintenance issues). 

All that proved useless or was neutralized on January 3, 2026 practically instantaneously.

He is always worth reading. 

The Glorious Revolution

In 1688 the heretofore subjects of the English King James II elected to remove him from power, as of course they had a right to do. This is generally known as "the Glorious Revolution" because it was relatively nonviolent (not quite completely so, but surprisingly so). 

Thomas Macaulay's account of the Revolution in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second exemplifies the "Whig history" narrative of the Revolution as a largely consensual and bloodless triumph of English common sense, confirming and strengthening its institutions of tempered popular liberty and limited monarchy. Edmund Burke set the tone for that interpretation when he proclaimed: "The Revolution was made to preserve our ancient indisputable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty."

Today's revolution was even less bloody than that, apparently; I haven't heard any casualty figures from the other side, but we seem to have lost no ships and no fighting men. That's shocking given that the raid was conducted with helicopters over a nation with many, many surface to air missiles. That, combined with the surprise and the lack of leaks from "government sources speaking anonymously because they lacked authority to talk to the press" suggests that some genuine progress has been made since the Afghan withdrawal in military leadership and coherence. 

However, it also suggests a strong performance by the clandestine service. While of course I can't prove it, the striking likelihood is that our clandestine service under the present leadership is more capable both of penetration of a hostile regime and of keeping its own secrets. 

Let us hope this all remains as bloodless as possible.

UPDATE: The NYT reports some 40 Venezuelans may have died in the action; they also confirm a successful and lengthy clandestine operation to map and prepare for the raid.

In August, a clandestine team of C.I.A. officers slipped into Venezuela with a plan to collect information on Nicolás Maduro, the country’s president, whom the Trump administration had labeled a narco-terrorist.

The C.I.A. team moved about Caracas, remaining undetected for months while it was in the country....  It was a highly dangerous mission. With the U.S. embassy closed, the C.I.A. officers could not operate under the cloak of diplomatic cover. But it was highly successful. Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a news conference that because of the intelligence gathered by the team, the United States knew where Mr. Maduro moved, what he ate and even what pets he kept.

That information was critical to the ensuing military operation, a pre-dawn raid Saturday by elite Army Delta Force commandos, the riskiest U.S. military operation of its kind since members of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 killed Osama bin Laden in a safe house in Pakistan in 2011.

The result was a tactically precise and swiftly executed operation that extracted Mr. Maduro from his country with no loss of American life, a result heralded by President Trump amid larger questions about the legality and rationale for the U.S. actions in Venezuela.

Mr. Trump has justified what was named Operation Absolute Resolve as a strike against drug trafficking.  

Although we usually talk about the Abbotobad raid as a military raid, officially the SEALs who carried it out were placed in the temporary command of the CIA for the purpose. This was to cover a legality: the legal authority to do it isn't military, but the Agency's. You may remember a similar plot device in the movie Sicario, where the Agency has to get a fig leaf of an FBI agent in order to establish a 'joint task force' that can operate inside the United States (normally, CIA employees aren't armed inside the United States except for training, and to provide security and such; and indeed, relatively few of them are armed even outside of the borders; in the movie, CIA SAD (now SAC) wanted to run an operation just a bit within the border, so they needed a fig leaf). 

I keep expecting to learn that some similar legal fig leaf was deployed here -- there was an FBI agent along on the raid, apparently, which is being described as a law-enforcement matter in pursuit of indictments in US Federal Court. So far, however, I haven't read of that being the case; the NYT piece says the FBI HRT was there in case he was needed to negotiate a surrender. It would only be a fig leaf in any case, but I'm surprised if it were omitted because it's the kind of thing that is usually done by the lawyers.

"Possession of Machine Guns"

It is a very strange casus belli, to claim that a foreign leader broke our laws in his country. Of course, the NFA is itself an unconstitutional violation of the Second Amendment which should have no legal force in any event: thus, there's even less reason to try to enforce it on a foreigner in his own nation.

The War Powers Resolution doesn't seem to forbid this since the action began and ended so quickly -- well within the timelines the law sets up. That ship probably sailed with the Libyan overthrow in any case; Secretary of State Clinton quite openly declared the Obama administration wasn't going to bother with it. 

This sets up a kind of loophole, I guess, presuming that you can win your wars quickly enough. Many a war has begun under the presumption that it would end quite quickly -- it is said that picnickers came out to watch the first battle of Manassas (also known as the first battle of Bull Run). Not every war expected to be short and easy has turned out so.

The Women of Iran

I’ll go to this war, if he means it. I’ll die in it gladly.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

It’s probably fine for Manhattan, collectivism instead of rugged individualism. Well, no, it’s not. But it’s their problem rather than ours. 

I was surprised to realize that I cared about New York City on 9/11. Maybe I don’t, still. 

Hogmanay

Happy New Year.

Imagining the Alternative

It's easy to complain about the things that a given administration gets wrong; they're actual, after all, and their mistakes therefore have consequences. Still, it's helpful to think on how things would have gone wrong had the other side won, too. I feel obligated to write in opposition to the many things I disagree with; but I would have disagreed even more, I expect, had things gone the other way. 

A mild self-reproof: it's hard to remember how much worse it could have been, since it isn't. It's important to try to keep it in mind all the same.

Requiescat in Pace, Ms. Bardot

Openness to New Experiences

AVI sometimes accuses me of this, with fairness. Today for our late Sunday breakfast I made applewood-smoked bacon and fried eggs, but I decided to try DL Sly's take on biscuits (see the comments to the Southern Biscuits post). Just to be fair to Lodge Cast Iron's Dutch oven cookbook, and because I was making bacon instead of sausage, I decided to try their recommended packet gravy as well. I baked the biscuits in a Dutch oven, pictured.

The chief difference in Sly's family biscuits and mine is the lack of any kneading or folding. As a result, the biscuits are very much like my mother's spoon biscuits: my grandmother, who taught me, was my paternal grandmother; my maternal grandmother never made biscuits because she made them for my maternal grandfather one time when they were first married and he laughed at them, so she never once made them again for him again in her entire life. (He taught me to make bacon; my paternal grandmother made it daily, but it’s his method of baking it in the oven that I use.) As a result, my mother's biscuits were learned after she married and was majoring in home economics in college (apparently a thing one could do in those days; she later transferred her major to education and became a career teacher).

These biscuits are excellent for gravy-and-biscuits because the zero kneading and folding means that they have almost no gluten in them. They are thus extremely tender to the fork. They are less suitable than mine for making an egg-and-bacon sandwich, as they lack the fluffy layers that keep them from falling apart as easily. Depending on the meal plan, however, they might be a great choice.

The packet gravy was not a good recommendation: I stand by my earlier condemnation of it, now on empirical grounds. It is not a third as good as the from-scratch sausage gravy, and it isn't even particularly easier to make because you still have to mix the packet with cold water before then stirring it into boiling water. If you're going to do that much, go all the way and have the full and delicious experience. 

Still, you know, you try new things and some of it works, some of it doesn't. The biscuits were great; the packet gravy was not. Live and learn.