By Luis Manuel Aguana
“Geopolitics focuses on political power in
relation to geographic space. In particular, territorial waters and land
territory in correlation with diplomatic history. Academically, geopolitics
analyses history and social science with reference to geography
in relation to politics”
(see Geopolítics,
at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geopolitics).
Understanding
this broad definition, geopolitics is a discipline of political thought that
analyzes the political problems of countries from a global, broader
perspective, putting within the analysis the interests of other countries and
cultures, focusing the lens much higher than what we normally do with domestic
political analysis, allowing us to give a broader explanation that includes
variables that are not normally taken into consideration but that can have a
decisive influence on local events.
If we look
at it from the perspective of systems theory, analysing political events in a
country as a closed system, taking into account only internal variables is much
simpler than incorporating the outside world as an open system. And when
external variables, for different reasons, become more influential than
internal variables, you must necessarily open the system in order to be able to
find explanations for the behavior of the system as a whole. However, this does
not mean that the external variables prevail over the internal ones, but rather
that they become more representative of the general behavior, if you want to
know what the system will do in the future.
Once this
brief initial explanation has been made, geopolitical analysis of the situation
in Venezuela is already beginning to circulate, giving a high probability that
the weight of the external political variables is so determinant that the
influence of the internal variables on the total result becomes completely
negligible. In other words, whatever we do in Venezuela will prevail as a fatal
design whatever is decided outside of our country (see one of the best I have
read at https://doncorneliano.wordpress.com/2018/02/17/our-hemisphere-4-alea-iacta-est/amp/?__twitter_impression=true). And that, in my opinion, is a
mistake.
Certainly
the external variables due to their weight are indeed determinant but depend on
the internal ones, they are not independent. On what basis can I say that?
Things have not yet changed significantly, with foreign factors waiting for the
right triggers in Venezuela, and the first to be expected is that of the Armed
Forces. Many believe that the armed institution can bring about such a change
based solely on internal institutional and democratic factors. And I think that's a long way
from happening.
From my father,
Dr. Raúl Aguana Figuera, who educated several generations of officers in the
classrooms of the Military Academy of Venezuela-ANV and the former School of
Training of Officers of the Armed Forces of Cooperation-EFOFAC (today the GNB),
I learned a saying that is well known by all the military and that explains
itself: “The military is with the government until they stop being”. And until
now they are still with the regime as an institutional whole.
Whoever
maintains that an approach of change that comes from within and provokes an
internal rupture so that the Institution goes through with everything and
supplies and "stops being with the government", is rejecting the
degree of decomposition of the military Institution, product of the systematic
destruction of the Venezuelan Armed Forces carried out by Hugo Chávez Frías and
his fatal successor, when they changed an institution structured by a band of
politically indoctrinated militiamen, which makes it impossible to sustain
"the three fundamental pillars on which the organization, administration,
operation and unity of command of the FAN rest, such as DISCIPLINE, OBEDIENCE
and SUBORDINATION". Without these pillars it is difficult to think that
the solution of the problem comes only from a group that from within
"decides" to impose a new state of things by changing the
institutional whole (se in Spanish Doce Ejes y Un Destino: 10)
Institucionalización de las Fuerzas Armadas, en http://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2013/10/doce-ejes-y-un-destino-10.html).
It is hard
to believe that with this decomposition, a readjustment to the inner workings
of the Armed Forces as it happened in 1958, or in any of the break-up movements
that took place historically in the past -a traditional coup-, the regime will
be destroyed. If there is any possibility of that, it would be because the same
factors that control the institution do it -as happened in 2002- and even so,
it would be uphill, since the entire military institution is currently severely
guarded by a politically controlled intelligence structure as it is in Cuba,
something that did not happen in 2002, nor before 2002. Testimony to this is
the failure of the last military attempts made to make themselves known on the
networks, with an unknown number of officers arrested (or killed, we don't
know) in the last few hours, when trying to rise up against a regime that has
advanced without stopping a process of destruction of the country for almost 20
years.
The
military in our countries is the last frontier. That is why, if there is a firm
belief, both nationally and internationally, that nothing can be done in an
institutional way, they are called upon to take control of the situation. And
that's what seems to be happening now, where political and military groups are
actively negotiating a settlement, where each of them is making their own
"government plan" for after a supposed collapse of the regime,
seeking the external credibility required for their leaders in the
international community.
Please do
not misunderstand these remarks. I am as desperate as any Venezuelan for this
situation to change, but it is not by betting on despair, let alone taking
advantage of it, that a convenient change will be achieved for Venezuelans. And
I say this because the opinion of Venezuela seems to be divided between those
who want to take us to a continuous electoral slaughterhouse -the regime and
the collaborationist MUD- and those who are betting on a social explosion that
leads to a military solution, the latter being the scenario that is
synchronized with the design of the geopolitical analysis described at the beginning
of this article.
If the only
thing that is shown outside as a way out of the problem are the military,
because that is what has been sold, without having a political solution
that includes them institutionally, beyond a simple coup, the same thing will
continue to happen in recent days: more military prisoners and degraded.
A solution
must be found that makes all the military see the regime's support as unviable,
not just a handful of them, and this is only achieved by creating a political
mechanism that puts them as an institutional whole in that firing range. And
that mechanism, even if it wants to ignore the official opposition for petty
and group interests, or international opinion still does not know it, is to
consult with the Venezuelan people, as was done on 16J, the future that it
wishes for the Nation, as proposed by ANCO to the country (see An Alternative
Agenda for Venezuela, in Spanish http://ancoficial.blogspot.com/2018/02/manifiesto-gran-alianza-por-la-consulta.html).
If the external
variables, highly dependent on the internal ones, are correctly directed
towards that common goal, we will make that "until they stop being"
of the military saying, with a consequent change towards a democratic direction
of the country. It would be to place the inevitable external in function of the
internal possible, but under the control of all Venezuelans, consulting the
population the direction of change, and not under the design of any of the
interested groups and of which we only know their appetite for the power.
Otherwise the same change will happen irremediably but one will be change towards
an uncertain destiny, full of sectarian interests and highly unstable ...
Caracas,
March 8, 2018
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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