The report by Marco Rubio in the Senate describes the Venezuelan collapse as a structural problem and proposes a managed transition, with stability as a prerequisite. He claimed that, for years, the Venezuelan tragedy was interpreted as an ideological excess issue: too much socialism, too much populism, too much polarization. That interpretation was convenient but also profoundly wrong. Venezuela did not collapse due to faulty economic doctrine but because the State ceased to fulfill its fundamental function and transformed into a criminal platform.
The capture of Nicolás Maduro in January 2026 closed a political cycle but did not resolve the central question: what happens when the leader falls, but the power structure remains intact? Recent history offers uncomfortable answers. In Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and large regions of Africa, the fall of authoritarian regimes did not automatically lead to functional democracies. Instead, it often resulted in prolonged interregnums where institutional vacuums were filled by informal networks, political mafias, or recycled elites.
In this context, the role of Delcy Rodríguez cannot be seen as transitional leadership but rather as continuity management. This is not a unique Venezuelan situation. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, numerous state apparatuses in Eastern Europe outlived their leaders and reassembled under new labels. In Romania, Bulgaria, or Ukraine in the 1990s, visible figureheads were replaced, concealing the persistence of security services, clientelist networks, and opaque political economies. The outcome was a “formal democracy” lacking effective rule of law.
The Balkans present an even more troubling parallel. In Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, the international community rushed into institutional processes — elections, constitutions, observation missions — without first dismantling war economies or criminal networks that emerged from the conflict. The result was superficial stability combined with structural corruption and chronic dependence on external tutelage. The lesson is clear: without dismantling real power first, electoral legitimacy becomes merely a facade.
For two decades, Venezuela was treated under the same ritualistic approach. The United Nations and a professional mediation circuit prioritized the process over results. Dialogue tables, technical missions, and statements substituted the essential question: who really controls the territory, resources, and coercion? This logic is not new. In various African countries — from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to South Sudan — international insistence on formal political agreements allowed armed elites to capture the State while symbolically fulfilling the requirements for external recognition.
This was not neutrality; it was a form of functional omission. In the name of sovereignty, impunity was tolerated; in the name of stability, institutional degradation was accepted. Comparative experience shows that these “language-managed transitions” rarely produce lasting democracies.
This internal dynamic was compounded by geopolitical instrumentalization. China acted in Venezuela as it has in several fragile African states: not as an agent of development but as a strategic creditor securing long-term assets, even at the cost of immediate social collapse. Iran, for its part, replicated a pattern observed in Lebanon or Syria: logistical and political insertion into weakened states to project power beyond its borders.
For years, chavismo presented itself as a national sovereignty project, ultimately executing one of the deepest sovereignty concessions in the Western hemisphere. The contradiction between rhetoric and practice was not accidental; it was structural. Like in many authoritarian regimes, anti-imperialist rhetoric hid a selective dependence on non-democratic powers.
The United States’ response after Maduro’s exit deliberately moved away from post-Cold War reconstruction manuals. There are no promises of grand aid plans or immediate democratization speeches. Instead, there is containment, damage control, and strict conditionality. This approach is more reminiscent of strategies adopted in the Balkans after the initial failure of liberal idealism than the maximalist interventions in Iraq or Afghanistan.
From a risk-averse choice perspective, this logic is understandable. When a society faces potential irreversible losses — territorial fragmentation, consolidation of criminal economies — imperfect solutions become acceptable. The history of Europe in the 20th century shows that ignoring that calculation leads to worse outcomes, not better.
None of this guarantees a successful democratic transition. The risk of “reformed authoritarianism” — economic liberalization without political democratization — is real and widely documented in Africa and Eurasia. But acknowledging this risk does not negate the starting point. Venezuela is not in a failed transition; it is in a absence of functional State.
The real challenge starts now. It’s not just about dismantling criminal networks but about rebuilding a notion of citizenship in a country where the State has, for years, been an instrument of plunder. As Antonio Gramsci wrote, interregnums are times of monsters. They are also moments of historic decision.
If the international community wants to avoid repeating the mistakes made in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Africa, it must abandon the comfort of democratic formalism and face an uncomfortable truth: democracy cannot be born where real power remains intact. The system making it impossible must first be dismantled. Everything else is just rhetoric.
@antdelacruz_