2nd Fleet Focus: Venezuela Mobilizes Military

This is hardly surprising, Chavez never skips a beat in grabbing a headline. If we didn't import so much of our oil from Venezuela, this wouldn't be worth close observation.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered his country's embassy in neighboring Colombia to close and told his military to move tank battalions to the border after a Colombian air strike into Ecuador, an ally of Venezuela.

``This could be the beginning of a war,'' Chavez said in comments broadcast today by state television. ``We are on alert, and we'll support Ecuador in any circumstance.''

Colombia launched an air strike yesterday on an Ecuador camp of Colombia's biggest guerrilla group to kill one of its leaders, Raul Reyes. Diplomatic relations between Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe have unraveled since Uribe withdrew his support for Chavez's negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to secure the release of hostages.

Right before Hurricane Katrina, Chavez called the training of the USS Bataan (LHD 5) with Mexico the potential invasion of Venezuela by the United States, so anytime I read a comment by Chavez that says "beginning of a war" I think of the boy who cried wolf.

CNN is also reporting 10 tank battalions have been ordered to moved to the border. The rush to react by American citizen observers is hard to watch. I've even read people try to call into action the Rio Treaty, also known as the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance which is a defense treaty between several nations of this hemisphere. It is suggested if Venezuela invades Columbia, the US is obligated under treaty to respond. Ironically, Chavez is invoking the same treaty on behalf of Ecuador. If there is ever a treaty that defines the futility of defense treaties in the modern era, the Rio Treaty is the posterchild.

Isn't it interesting, several days ago the US took out a terrorist inside Pakistan, and even though Pakistan was pissed we attacked a terrorist target in their territory, Americans thought it was the right thing. Further to the irony, this is exactly the position of the Obama campaign to deal with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

In this case we have a case where Columbia attacks a FARC leader, recognized as a terrorist by the US government. This is basically the same position of the US against Al Qaeda. We should not be surprised there are some unhappy a nation hit a target in a neighbor though, so the outrage was all but mute.

Israel hit Gaza today, killing as many as 80. We are seeing predictable patterns. We are actually seeing consistency. Clearly despite 9/11, no one really does all it can to 3rd world countries, including in Africa, South America, the Middle East, and SE Asia, to stop supporting non-state military actors, what we generally term terrorists even though they represent insurgencies. Anyone who claims the US is being consistent on that front needs to explain the PKK. The advocacy that takes up for either side in this issue highlights the lack of strategy by the US government. Who is ready to defend Columbia, and watch the price of gasoline go up? Who is ready to watch Chavez topple the government in Columbia? Would America really watch Germany invade Poland again 70 some off years later?

We expect the Navy to be dispatched to quietly, it is unlikely we will see a headline from the Navy, rather we'll learn from a Pentagon leak as the media rushes to give away intelligence regarding US troop movements. The news will play directly into the Chavez propaganda campaign once the leak occurs.

From solely a Navy perspective, this will be very interesting to observe. We believe, as many do, the next CNO will either be Adm. James Stavridis or Admiral William "Fox" Fallon.

Adm. Fallon was seen as a peacemaker in his time in the Pacific, and is now seen as the premier warfighter in his role for CENTCOM. Adm. Stavridis has a reputation solely of that as a peacemaker. If this situation develops into something, or is prevented from doing so in some way, this strikes us as one of the those tests the rest of Adm. Stavridis career may be judged by.