Securing the Oil: The Real Stakes Behind Western Operations in Venezuela and Syria

As of early 2026, Western military activity has intensified across several resource-rich regions, reshaping global geopolitics in ways that are difficult to separate from energy interests. High-profile operations in both South America and the Middle East show that security and narcotics enforcement are being used to justify direct or indirect control over some of the world’s most valuable oil and gas reserves.

In January, U.S. forces carried out a surprise operation in Caracas known as Operation Absolute Resolve, resulting in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. The pair were flown to New York and are now held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, facing charges that include narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation, and weapons offenses.

While the case has been framed as a long-awaited law-enforcement action, President Donald Trump has been unusually direct about the broader objective. “We’re in the oil business,” he said, announcing that the United States would effectively “run” Venezuela until what he described as a proper transition takes place. Trump stated that American oil companies would be deployed to rebuild the country’s “rotted” energy infrastructure and confirmed that the U.S. intends to be “reimbursed for everything we’ve spent” by extracting a “tremendous amount of wealth from the ground.”

Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world, estimated at roughly 300 billion barrels.

A similar logic appears to be unfolding in Syria. The United Kingdom and France conducted a joint airstrike on an underground facility near Palmyra. The UK Ministry of Defence said the target was an ISIL weapons cache located in an area with no civilian habitation. The strike, however, came amid tension over Syria’s hydrocarbon assets.

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Approximately 90 percent of Syria’s oil reserves and more than half of its natural gas fields are located in the northeast, a region controlled by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. The United States has maintained roughly 900 troops in the area, a presence that Trump has previously justified by saying the mission was to “secure the oil.” In recent months, the U.S.-led coalition has reinforced its bases in northern and northeastern Syria with additional personnel and air-defense systems, citing threats from Iran-aligned militias.

While the SDF continues to extract oil from these fields, production exists in a legal gray zone under international sanctions, reinforcing perceptions that military protection is being used to shape post-war economic outcomes while keeping rival powers such as Russia and Iran out of the energy sector.

These operations have prompted growing concern among international legal scholars and foreign-policy analysts, who argue that they represent serious infringements on state sovereignty. In Venezuela’s case, the country functions primarily as a transit corridor for narcotics rather than a major producer, and that substances driving the U.S. overdose crisis, particularly fentanyl, are not identified as originating there in recent DEA threat assessments.

Taken together, the actions in Venezuela and Syria suggest a transactional approach to foreign policy. In Venezuela, the United States appears prepared to directly manage national wealth to offset military costs and stabilize energy markets on its own terms. In Syria, Western forces maintain a military foothold to ensure that hydrocarbon resources remain outside the control of geopolitical rivals, even as the conflict’s legal and humanitarian dimensions remain unresolved.

The pattern has many to question whether the line between enforcement and exploitation has been deliberately blurred.

The strategy resembles a private security firm that seizes control of a failing gas station: while claiming to be there only to remove a corrupt manager, it immediately begins repairing the pumps, guarding the property, and collecting revenue to pay for its own presence.
In both theaters, energy, not enforcement, appears to be the enduring constant.

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