Operation Absolute Resolve: How American Special Operations Forces Removed a Dictator

There was no prolonged firefight. No chaos bleeding into the streets. That tells you something about both planning and execution. Delta does not kick doors blindly. They prefer to arrive when the odds have already been bent in their favor. The Delivery System Every scalpel needs a steady hand. In this case, it came from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. The Night Stalkers do not simply fly helicopters. They insert certainty into places that were never meant to see it arrive from the air. Flying into a defended capital requires more than skill. It requires confidence that radars, reaction forces, and warning systems have been accounted for. That confidence came from an intelligence umbrella that included geolocation support, imagery, and indicators and warning from across the intelligence community. The birds went in low and controlled. The team went to work. The birds came back out. Sounds simple enough, but it’s not. The Muscle on the Perimeter The reported involvement of the 75th Ranger Regiment fits the profile. Rangers do not need to be inside the objective to shape the outcome. Their job that day was to deny the outside world a vote. Whether securing landing zones, holding quick reaction force posture, or sealing off avenues of approach, Rangers provide the hard edge that keeps a surgical operation from turning into a negotiation. Their presence suggests planners expected resistance and planned to smother it before it could form. That is not an escalation of force. That is professionalism. Invisible Architecture The assault force was lean. The support behind it was not. Reporting describes a massive joint umbrella providing air dominance, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and contingency response planning. Cyber and electronic effects shaped the environment. Venezuelan command-and-control nodes were suppressed or blinded before anyone on the ground had time to understand what was happening. This is how modern manhunting works. Precision at the point of contact, backed by overwhelming depth everywhere else. The Cuban Factor One detail matters more than most headlines admit. Cuban security and intelligence personnel were present and took significant casualties. Havana itself acknowledged dozens of losses. That tells you who Maduro trusted when he believed the threat was existential. It also tells you the raid punched through more than a ceremonial guard force. This was not security theater. This was a regime apparatus reinforced by a foreign intelligence service that misjudged the extent of its protection. One Way to Understand It Think of it like a professional kitchen during a brutal dinner rush. The only thing the diner sees is his plated food on the table. But, behind it stands an army. Prep cooks, line cooks, and expediters, all moving in rhythm. If one element fails, the dish won’t make it. It will languish under a heat lamp somewhere. Caracas was the main course. Delta made sure everything was delivered on time and on target. Hundreds on the prep staff cheered when they saw it happen. The Noriega Echo There is an unavoidable historical rhyme here. Thirty-six years to the day after U.S. forces pulled Maduro out of Venezuela, another strongman was removed without much of a prolonged campaign or negotiated exile. I’m talking about Manuel Noriega and Panama, of course. It was a different era, and some different tools were used, but the principle behind it was the same. When the United States commits its intelligence and special operations apparatus fully to a decapitation mission, the ending tends to be abrupt. The Takeaway This operation was not about spectacle. It was a surgical procedure, and it left a former president on a flight to justice and a capital city waking up to a new reality. For those who understand special operations, the lesson is clear. The most decisive missions rarely look dramatic from the outside. They look quiet. Boring, even. Until you realize what just disappeared. Maduro did not lose power in the streets of his beleaguered nation. He truly lost it during the intelligence-gathering phase, long before the night Caracas went dark.