Analisis de petroleo venezuela

SUMMARY

Venezuela accused Colombian forces of violating its territory Aug. 9 amidst heated tensions between the South American neighbors. The accusation by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is hardly unprecedented. But despite ongoing Venezuelan rhetoric about Colombia and plans for an expanded U.S. military presence there, Caracas’ principal security concern is much closer to home. Like manySouth American countries, its primary concern is controlling its own territory. And though Chavez continues to placate his military with ever-expanding arms purchases from Russia, the solutions to these challenges are generally not the high-tech weaponry he has been buying.

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ANALYSIS

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused Colombia of entering Venezuelan territory Aug. 9, and saidthat the Venezuelan military will prepare for armed conflict with its neighbor. The accusation comes as tensions have been heating up between the two South American countries resulting from ongoing negotiations between Colombia and the United States that may result in increased U.S. access to Colombian bases. An enlarged U.S. presence in Colombia has led many South American leaders to expressconcern, but none have been quite as vocal as Chavez. Chavez has gone so far as to reiterate Venezuelan plans to purchase more arms from Russia — this time, tanks — to bolster Venezuela’s defenses against Colombia.

However, despite this uptick in tensions (which closely resemble the ratcheting of bilateral friction between Colombia and Venezuela in March 2008) Venezuela’s relative geographicisolation from regional competitors means that Caracas’ principal security challenges are far more likely to come from domestic sources than from neighboring Colombia or the United States. Venezuela’s most pressing threats will normally come from within, which reduces the strategic relevance of Venezuela’s extensive, high-end arms purchases from Russia.

The primary goal of the government in Caracas isthe survival of the ruling regime, which it achieves by maintaining territorial integrity and control of Venezuela’s primary resource: oil. The regime relies on oil revenues for its survival. However, despite Chavez’s embattled rhetoric, the least likely threat to Venezuela is outside invasion. The most likely challenge to Venezuela will instead come from within — from either widespread civildestabilization, or fractures inside of the government. STRATFOR examines these threats in order of least to most likely.

GEOGRAPHY AND INVASION

Mountains, heavily forested areas, and vast distances between major population centers divide Venezuela and Colombia from one another. To the south, the Amazon basin separates Venezuela from the core of Brazil. These immense swaths of dense,uncontrolled territory actually serve as substantial buffers for Venezuela (as well as the rest of South America), hindering the effectiveness of conventional military invasion by neighbors where the forest is most dense. This is a sharp contrast to the North European Plain (for example), which was a focal point of military conflict for most of the last millennium, principally because the lack of geographicbarriers between continental powers facilitated massive, industrialized warfare. In contrast, the actual threat of an armed land invasion of Venezuela from abroad is quite limited.

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This is not to say that Venezuela does not have conventional defensive concerns like territorial integrity. Oil is the lifeblood of Venezuela — not to mention Hugo Chavez’s regime – and protecting the oilfields in the Lake Maracaibo basin and the Orinoco river valley is of fundamental importance for Caracas. The Orinoco basin is comparatively well insulated by surrounding dense vegetation and immense swaths of largely unoccupied land in the interior of the country. However, Maracaibo is hard up against the Colombian border and along the coast, and is more vulnerable geographically.

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