36: Does history rhyme? Maybe not in general, but every so often there is a choice couplet: Maduro’s capture came 36 years to the day after the US arrested Panamanian president Manuel Noriega, a former CIA ally whose falling out with Washington led to his prosecution on drug charges. For more on that, see (and hear) Ian Bremmer’s explainer here.
26: The far-left Bolivarian Revolutionary Socialist movement, led first by Maduro’s charismatic predecessor Hugo Chávez, has held power in Venezuela for 26 years. Chávez won a (legitimate) election in 1998 and assumed power in 1999. Maduro took over after his death in 2013. As part of this morning’s operation to depose Maduro, the US reportedly conducted an airstrike on the mausoleum holding Chavez’s remains.
8 million: Since 2014, nearly 8 million Venezuelans – close to a third of the population – have fled economic crisis and political repression, making it one of the two largest refugee crises in the world, alongside Syria. Colombia alone has absorbed nearly 3 million. About 770,000 went to the United States.
It’s been just over 48 hours since US forces conducted a military operation in Caracas and seized Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, and the future governance of the country – and the US role in it – remains murky.
There have been several geopolitical shocks this year, yet none have stopped oil prices from plunging, showing how oil markets have become more risk tolerant.
In this "ask ian," Ian Bremmer analyzes Trump’s recent meeting with Zelensky and how close (or far) Russia and Ukraine are from a peace deal.