Caracas is a city on edge, its streets echoing with the barked orders of soldiers and the uneasy shuffle of civilians clutching unfamiliar rifles. Over the past two weeks, Venezuela has become the epicenter of a rapidly escalating confrontation between Nicolás Maduro’s embattled regime and the United States, with ordinary Venezuelans caught squarely in the crossfire.
The spark for this latest crisis was a series of U.S. Navy strikes in the Caribbean earlier this month. According to the BBC and The New York Times, those strikes—part of a new, muscular American campaign against drug trafficking—destroyed several boats suspected of smuggling narcotics, killing at least 17 people. The White House described the operation as targeting a “designated terrorist organization engaged in narcotrafficking,” insisting that intelligence confirmed the vessels were bound to “poison Americans.”
Venezuela’s Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino, didn’t mince words, calling it an “undeclared war.” President Maduro, facing a crisis of legitimacy at home and growing international pressure, responded with a dramatic move: activating the Bolivarian National Militia. Originally created by Hugo Chávez in 2009, the militia is now being thrust into the spotlight—but not as a force of trained patriots. Instead, as the BBC reported, many of the new recruits are senior citizens and public-sector workers, some of whom had never even handled a firearm until this month. State television aired images of these uneasy conscripts fumbling with rifles, their fingers on triggers as soldiers hurriedly drilled them in “revolutionary resistance.”
“This is a true military revolution!” Defense Minister Padrino declared during a televised event, according to the Associated Press. But the reality was less inspiring. In Caracas’s Petare district, streets were blocked off for mass drills in weapons handling and first aid. The spectacle was less about empowering citizens and more about manufacturing the appearance of nationwide loyalty—and, critics argue, padding out the body count in the event of U.S. intervention.
Former President Trump, who has redeployed naval forces to the Caribbean for what the U.S. calls a counter-narcotics operation, seized on the moment. On September 23, 2025, he posted footage of the militia drills on Truth Social, labeling the Venezuelan militia a “very serious threat.” One widely shared video showed a woman awkwardly running with an AK-style rifle while troops shouted for her to “aim at Trump.”
But this is not the Second Amendment in action. As Ammoland and the BBC both emphasized, the Venezuelan government tightly controls who gets the guns and how they’re used. Civilians are not being armed to defend themselves or their rights—they’re being conscripted as tools of the state. A pro-government slogan spray-painted on a Caracas wall summed up the regime’s message: “If you mess with Maduro, you mess with the neighborhood.”
The broader context is a regime fighting for survival. Polls cited by Panterra research and The New York Post reveal that more than half of Venezuelans expect Maduro to be gone within six months, and most view his 2024 election as fraudulent. Yet the militia’s mobilization serves a grim strategic purpose: making any U.S. intervention look like a massacre of civilians, thereby deterring direct action and shoring up Maduro’s grip on power.
On the other side of the Caribbean, the U.S. response has been shaped by a hawkish inner circle. According to The New York Times, Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio has spearheaded efforts to remove Maduro, labeling him an “illegitimate leader” and a “fugitive from American justice.” The Trump administration, relying on intelligence from the CIA, has steadily built up a force of over 6,500 troops in the region by late September 2025. The Pentagon is reportedly planning further operations inside Venezuela, aimed at disrupting drug trafficking and tightening the vise around Maduro, though these have not yet been greenlit by the White House.
Rubio and his allies argue that Maduro’s regime is a “terrorist organization and organized crime organization that have taken over a country.” The U.S. Justice Department’s 2020 indictment of Maduro and other officials on drug trafficking charges is a cornerstone of their case. The administration recently increased the reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest and conviction to $50 million. In a fiery speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump declared, “We’ve recently begun using the supreme power of the United States military to destroy Venezuelan terrorists and trafficking networks led by Nicolás Maduro. We will blow you out of existence.”
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan opposition is quietly preparing for a possible transition. Pedro Urruchurtu, an adviser to opposition leader María Corina Machado, told The New York Times that plans are in place for the first 100 hours after Maduro’s potential ouster, including a transfer of power to Edmundo González, the opposition candidate in the disputed 2024 election. Independent monitors and The Carter Center found that roughly 70 percent of Venezuelans voted for González, but the military’s loyalty to Maduro has remained steadfast.
Diplomacy, however, is not entirely off the table. Richard Grenell, Trump’s envoy to Venezuela, has argued against a full-blown regime-change operation, warning that it could entangle the U.S. in a prolonged conflict. Grenell, who has successfully negotiated the release of American hostages and brokered agreements on deportations, insists that “there is still time for diplomacy.”
Venezuelan officials, including Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and Foreign Minister Yván Gil, have echoed this sentiment in interviews with The New York Times. Rodríguez denied Venezuela is a major drug producer or exporter, attributing U.S. actions to a thinly veiled regime-change agenda. Gil warned that a large conflict could trigger “excessive migration” and economic collapse, destabilizing the entire region. Both officials emphasized their willingness to discuss economic and diplomatic issues—but made clear that Maduro’s exit was not negotiable.
International law experts have raised concerns about the legality of U.S. strikes, noting that force without the host country’s consent or U.N. Security Council approval is generally prohibited. The Trump administration maintains the attacks are justified as self-defense, citing the devastating toll of drug overdoses in the U.S., though most fentanyl comes from Mexico, not Venezuela, according to the DEA and United Nations reports.
As the standoff continues, the fate of Venezuela hangs in the balance. Civilians, many of them untrained and unwilling, are being thrust into the front lines of a conflict not of their making. The U.S. administration faces its own internal debates, torn between military escalation and diplomatic engagement. And for millions of Venezuelans, the promise of real change—whether through ballots or bullets—remains heartbreakingly out of reach.
In the end, what’s unfolding in Venezuela is not a story of citizen empowerment, but of a nation’s struggle for survival amid external pressure and internal decay. The world watches, holding its breath, as the stakes grow higher by the day.