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this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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Guyana doesn't even have an army, and the size of their defense forces is of 3000 men, Venezuela's active personnel is something around 300.000, furthermore Venezuela has complete air superiority. If this becomes a battle of attrition it is simply because Guyana decides to align itself with imperial power that may give them some support, if they do this, it will be a blood bath carried out by their leaders in a war that cannot be won, for land that was stolen and it is not theirs.
Guyana does not maintain a standing military, but has the ability to raise more people through conscription measures outlined in their constitution.
They also do not need to commit to total war, as Brazil has begun the mobilization of troops along the in support of Guyana.
Further, air superiority is all but completely useless in jungle settings, as the US painfully learned in Vietnam and Cambodia, or with the Japanese during WW2.
Venezuela will destroy Guyana and themselves in a pointless war of attrition over oil and gold.
Brazil mobilized troops so that Venezuela doesn't invade Guyana through Brazil's border, since it is the easiest way, it is not supporting Guyana at the moment. I highly doubt Guyana can conscript much troops, and even if they do they are untrained men without the proper equipment, even if Venezuela is less successful at conscription they could still get 100.000 men more and that's already half the population of Guyana if we keep in mind the other 300.000. There's not amount of support imperialist can give for this war to end in favour of Guyana.
Brazil also has no need to pointlessly escalate the conflict, and with Lula’s warning to avoid “foolish gestures”, it doesn’t look like they’d be very favorable to Venezuela if they attempt to seize the region by force. 130,000 men and an armored brigade is a massive and costly amount of troops to mobilize if it wasn’t supposed to be warning.
The battle lines don’t look very favorable either. Either Venezuela launches amphibious assaults into the most heavily defended and populated parts of Guyana, goes through Brazilian land along the floodplains, or marches through hell on earth by pushing through endless mountainous, inhospitable jungle.
That last one is a defensive army’s wet dream. Guerrilla fighters do not need a massive amount of training, manpower, and weaponry to wreck havoc on an enemy in that sort of terrain.