Name? Jordan Goudreau
Westphalian identity? US American
Age? We don’t really know as there is no Wikipedia article about him (yet) but we assume he is anywhere in his 40s or 50s.
Why is he in the news? He is the “mastermind” behind the latest attack on President Maduro in Venezuela. Operation Gedeon failed horribly, resulting in a few deaths or arrested mercenaries and a huge win for Maduro as he can present himself as the protector of Venezuelan sovereignty.
Why do we care? This proves once again what we are preaching day in and day out, the importance of individuals in International Relations. Aside from all wild speculations about the US’s or Guaidó’s involvement (we do not speculate at RAIA Group), what we see here is, if anything, a sad attempt by a wannabe Rambo mercenary who watched too many war movies to “liberate” the people of Venezuela. Combining this with Javier Nieto Quintero, a former member of the Venezuelan Military did nothing but add another egomaniac thinking he can save the world on his own to the equation.
Why should you care? In case you are planning to overthrow any government in your neighbourhood, please do not announce it on Twitter while you are doing it. Nor should you target a heavily guarded harbour when you have 2000 kilometres of land border to Colombia difficult to control. We could go on but will not due to security reasons (So psst, this is classified).
Who else cares? The Venezuelans, this sad idea of an attempt did not help them in any way. What it did do was stabilise Maduro even more and delegitimize Guaidó as a mercenary-using-coup-planner.
Any further comments? This incident is perfect for Maduro to cover up the 40+ people that have died in a prison riot last week. No time to explain failures concerning that, we have to talk about the glorious work by the security and intelligence forces in preventing this attack.
