November 2025

Venezuela: The Strike Window

Bottom Line Up Top
Targeted assassination of Nicolás Maduro (Hezbollah/Hamas-style strike): 25% probability in the November-January window. Limited kinetic incident in the Guyana-Essequibo region: 35% probability. Full-scale invasion remains unlikely at 15%.

The Stakes
Venezuela claims the Essequibo region—two-thirds of Guyana's territory—where ExxonMobil discovered 11 billion barrels of oil in 2015. The Stabroek Block offshore now produces 645,000 barrels daily for American companies (ExxonMobil, Hess, Chevron). Maduro held a 2023 referendum claiming 95% support for annexation; the international community backs Guyana's sovereignty. For Washington, this isn't about one oilfield—it's whether territorial seizure by force is acceptable in the Western Hemisphere.

The New Rules
Trump has established precedent: adversary leaders threatening U.S. interests are no longer untouchable. Hezbollah's Nasrallah (Beirut bunker strike), Hamas leadership (systematic elimination), and the 2020 Soleimani operation created a template. Trump faces zero domestic opposition on Venezuela—Democrats despise Maduro for rigging elections, Republicans want oil security. Even the typically anti-Trump deep state actively supports Caracas regime removal.

The operational window is closing. Recent Russian cargo flights delivered Pantsir-S1 and Buk-M2E air defense systems. Maduro's November 1 letter to Putin requested Su-30MK2 fighters, Bastion coastal missiles, and potentially Oreshnik hypersonic weapons. Russian Duma deputy Zhuravlev stated publicly: "Russia can supply Venezuela with the latest weapons... no international obligations restrict us." Once advanced systems are operational, a precision strike becomes exponentially more difficult and risky.

Why 25%?
Three factors elevate the probability: established precedent (Nasrallah/Hamas model), a closing strike window before air defenses harden further, and a permissive political environment with no domestic opposition and tacit regional acquiescence from Brazil and Colombia. Constraints preventing a higher assessment include the risk of Venezuelan retaliation against Stabroek operations (triggering the full invasion scenario nobody wants), uncertain succession dynamics (power rests with a triangle: Executive VP Delcy Rodríguez, Defense Minister Padrino López, and PSUV enforcer Diosdado Cabello—any fracture risks chaos), and potential regional blowback if perceived as naked U.S. imperialism.

Conditional Escalation
If Maduro orders naval interdiction of Guyanese waters or mobilizes forces toward the Essequibo border, assassination probability jumps to 50%. If Venezuelan forces fire on U.S., British, or Guyanese military platforms, the probability reaches 75%. The strike would likely be drone-based (MQ-9 Reaper with Hellfire) or naval cruise missile (Tomahawk) timed to Maduro's predictable public appearances.

Trajectory & Watchpoints

• Very High Confidence: Sustained brinkmanship through November without full-scale war
• Moderate Confidence: Limited naval or air incident in disputed waters
• Key Indicators: Russian cargo flights to Maiquetía Airport (air defense deliveries shorten strike window); Venezuelan naval movements toward Essequibo maritime boundary; Maduro's public appearance schedule (reduced visibility signals strike expectation); U.S. naval repositioning in Caribbean (Arleigh Burke destroyers, carrier presence); Brazilian or Colombian emergency diplomatic missions

Chile: The Pendulum Swings

Bottom Line Up Top
José Antonio Kast becomes Chile's next president with 65% probability, most likely confirmed via December 14 runoff. This election completes South America's rightward realignment.

The Shift
Chile's electorate, exhausted by 8.2% inflation and a 34% surge in violent crime since 2022, has abandoned Gabriel Boric's progressive experiment for Kast's law-and-order conservatism. The 2022 constitutional referendum (62% rejection of left-wing reform) was a warning shot; this election is the repudiation. Voters are choosing stability over aspiration, order over ideology.

A Kast victory creates an immediate pro-U.S., resource-nationalist axis with Argentina's Milei, controlling 36% of global lithium reserves. This reshapes hemispheric alignment as Washington seeks leverage against Chinese infrastructure dominance across Latin America. The Southern Cone's geopolitical center of gravity shifts decisively.

The Balance
Structural momentum favors Kast. Political fragmentation on the left, economic anxiety among middle-class voters, and the public security crisis create overwhelming Material and Ideological pressure for conservative restoration. The center-left's failure to unite behind a single candidate has cleared Kast's path to the presidency. This isn't merely electoral swing—it's civilizational recalibration, with Chile rejecting utopian reform for pragmatic governance.

Trajectory & Watchpoints

• High Confidence: Kast wins the presidency via December runoff
• Very High Confidence: First-round vote determines momentum; Kast above 43% makes runoff victory near-certain
• Key Indicators: November 16 first-round results; copper price movement (rally above $4.20/lb signals market anticipation of pro-business shift); public endorsement from Argentina's Milei (signals formal bloc consolidation); voter turnout above 70% (typically favors right in Chilean context)

G20 Johannesburg: The Civilizational Fracture

Bottom Line Up Top
The first G20 summit on African soil produces a vague communiqué while significant bilateral deals on critical minerals bypass the official framework, formalizing rather than bridging the North-South divide.

The New Reality
The G20 is no longer a negotiating table but a stage for competing civilizational visions. South Africa and the broader Global South arrive not as supplicants but as terms-setters, backed by Chinese infrastructure finance and Gulf sovereign wealth. The West's failed $100 billion climate finance pledge (actual delivery: $83.3 billion) shattered trust. Draft negotiating text reveals an unbridgeable gap: the Global South demands $1.3 trillion annually in grants and concessional loans; the West offers $200 billion in "private sector mobilization"—which means market-rate loans, not aid.

This is not negotiation. It is parallel system-building. The real action occurs in bilateral side-deals: China-South Africa battery supply chains, UAE-DRC cobalt arrangements, Brazil-led BRICS climate finance mechanisms. These frameworks bypass the G20 architecture entirely, rendering the official communiqué irrelevant except as diplomatic theater.

The American Problem
Trump's recent public threats against Nigeria over Christian persecution claims and his rhetoric about white South African farmers create a civilizational and racial subtext that African leaders cannot ignore. The United States now has active tensions with Africa's two largest economies—Nigeria (230 million population, largest economy) and South Africa (continental diplomatic anchor)—while China offers infrastructure investment without moral lectures. The optics are catastrophic for Washington's Africa strategy and hand Beijing a strategic gift.

Trajectory & Watchpoints

• Very High Confidence: Summit produces diplomatically polite but substantively hollow communiqué
• High Confidence: Significant bilateral mineral supply chain deals announced outside official framework
• Key Indicators: NCQG (New Collective Quantified Goal) final language—specific financial commitments versus vague "mobilization" rhetoric signals success or failure; G77+China joint statement signed by 100+ nations confirms unified Southern negotiating front; announced bilateral MoUs on lithium, cobalt, and rare earth supply chains; tone and substance of U.S. bilateral meetings with Nigeria and South Africa

Cassandra's Word

November 2025 captures American power in transition—not collapse, but recalibration from an unsustainable peak toward a more contested equilibrium. In Venezuela, Trump tests whether precision strikes can shape hemispheric order without invasion. In Chile, voters deliver Washington a strategic win through democratic means, creating a resource-rich conservative bloc. At the G20, institutional multilateralism fractures as the Global South builds parallel structures, and America's civilizational rhetoric alienates the very partners it needs.

The United States remains the world's dominant military and economic power, but its ability to set global terms unilaterally is normalizing. This is not the end of American primacy but its adjustment from omnipotence to mere dominance. The question is whether Washington manages this transition without triggering the chaos its overwhelming power once prevented. November suggests the answer remains uncertain.