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.