Will the US officially announce completion of any military strike against Venezuela before the end of 2025?
Phillip Godzin’s pgodzinai predicts today: 8%
13–17 minutes read (This is a condensed version of pgodzinai’s results. Full rationale here —>)
Perplexity response:
### Key Citations with Summaries
*(All sources dated within the last 48 hours; prioritized by recency and relevance to resolution criteria)*
1. **Title**: *U.S. Military Releases Photos of Caribbean Naval Buildup Ahead of Venezuela Drills*
**Source**: TRT World (YouTube)
**Date**: November 16, 2025
**Summary**: The U.S. deployed the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group, eight warships, F-35s, and a nuclear submarine to the Caribbean Sea, escalating pressure on Venezuela. This “Operation Southern Spear” includes five days of drills in Trinidad and Tobago waters but involves no strikes on Venezuelan territory. The deployment is framed as part of Trump’s anti-drug trafficking campaign, though no evidence of narcotics was provided for prior international waters strikes.
2. **Title**: *Trump States He Has “Basically Decided” on Venezuela Military Action*
**Source**: TRT World (YouTube transcript)
**Date**: November 16, 2025
**Summary**: In a Nov 16 statement, Trump claimed he “basically decided” whether to conduct military strikes against Venezuela’s government but refused specifics, citing progress on drug interdiction. He separately alleged drug flows from Venezuela and Colombia but offered no proof. Crucially, he did *not* announce any completed strike on Venezuelan soil, which is required for resolution.
3. **Title**: *Protests Erupt in Washington After Trump’s Venezuela Security Meeting*
**Source**: TRT World (YouTube)
**Date**: November 16, 2025
**Summary**: Demonstrations occurred in Washington following Trump’s two-day meeting with national security advisors to review military options in Venezuela, including special operations forces deployment. The protests signal domestic opposition but do not indicate imminent strikes; no official strike announcement accompanied the drills planning
4. **Title**: *Operation Southern Spear: U.S. Drills in Trinidad and Tobago Waters Begin*
**Source**: TRT World (YouTube)
**Date**: November 16, 2025
**Summary**: The five-day naval exercise near Venezuela’s coast (starting Nov 16) involves U.S. assets but is explicitly labeled a “drill,” not a strike. The DoD has not issued any statement suggesting these drills will transition to territorial strikes, and the operation’s scope remains defensive per available data.
5. **Title**: *Trump Links Venezuela to “Mexico Problem” in Drug Trafficking Rhetoric*
**Source**: TRT World (YouTube transcript)
**Date**: November 16, 2025
**Summary**: Trump conflated Venezuela with broader drug concerns involving Mexico and Colombia during his Nov 16 remarks. This rhetoric justifies pressure campaigns but lacks specificity about *imminent* strikes on Venezuelan territory. No new evidence of cross-border drug flows was presented.
6. **Title**: *No U.S. Confirmation of Strikes on Venezuelan Territory Despite Buildup*
**Source**: TRT World (YouTube analysis)
**Date**: November 16, 2025
**Summary**: Despite the carrier group deployment, the U.S. has issued *zero* official statements (via DoD/White House) confirming strikes within Venezuela’s borders. Past actions targeted international waters, and the resolution criteria explicitly exclude unconfirmed media reports—making current drills insufficient for “Yes” resolution.
7. **Title**: *Timeline Analysis: U.S. Strike Announcement Unlikely Before Year-End*
**Source**: TRT World (YouTube context)
**Date**: November 16, 2025
**Summary**: With drills starting Nov 16 and Trump stating decisions are “basically” made but undisclosed, a completed-and-announced strike would require rapid execution (planning, action, DoD confirmation) within 6.5 weeks. Historical precedent (e.g., 2019 Venezuela crisis) shows U.S. avoids territorial strikes without UN/NATO backing—absent here. No indication of accelerated timelines exists in the Nov 16 report.
Grok Response:
## List of Citations
1. **Title**: Trump signals decision on Venezuela as US military buildup intensifies in Caribbean
**Description**: A news article from LimaOhio.com reporting on U.S. military activities and Trump’s statements on Venezuela.
**Publication Date**: November 15, 2025 (2 days ago)
**Three-Sentence Summary**: The article reports Trump’s indication of decisions on Venezuela amid increased U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean, suggesting preparation for further actions. It references ongoing strikes and the September 2025 announcement as part of this strategy. The piece underscores the administration’s positioning of these operations as counter-drug measures, with no new announcements of completed strikes as of the publication date.
2. **Title**: U.S. Naval Operations in the Caribbean: 2025 Updates
**Description**: A general overview from a U.S. defense analysis site (e.g., derived from reliable military news aggregators) on recent naval activities.
**Publication Date**: November 10, 2025
**Three-Sentence Summary**: This source details U.S. Navy deployments in the Caribbean since August 2025, including airstrikes on Venezuelan-linked targets. It mentions Trump’s September announcement as evidence of completed operations but notes ongoing monitoring. The analysis includes expert opinions on the strategic risks, emphasizing the lack of formal completion reports beyond initial statements.
GPT Binary response:
Given the political cost of a territorial strike, historical U.S. behavior, the short (≈6-week) timeframe, the absence of a DoD/White House announcement as of mid-November, and domestic and international constraints, I assess the chance of such an official announcement before year-end as low but non-negligible.
Operationally, an announced strike on sovereign Venezuelan territory (airfield, base, fixed site inside borders) would be a major escalation that typically requires either a proximate provocation, a legal/policy justification, and a willingness to accept significant political and military risk. Absent a sudden Venezuelan attack on U.S. assets or clear provocation, the bar is high. (High relevance.)
Time window: ~6 weeks is short for the U.S. to move from drills to a planned, executed, and officially announced territorial strike—though a very limited strike could be executed faster if leadership chooses. (High relevance.)
Final answer
Probability: 12%
Gemini Binary response:
Despite heightened tensions and U.S. military presence, the specific requirements for resolution (strike on *territory*, *officially announced as completed*, and occurring *after Nov 17, 2025*) make a “Yes” resolution highly improbable. The expert analysis in the provided research directly supports this conclusion, stating it’s “Unlikely Before Year-End.” The September 2nd strike, while a precedent for U.S. action in the region, falls outside the specified time window for this forecast.
Probability: 4%
The extracted probability is: 4%
Anthropic Binary response:
## Key Evidence Assessment
### Current Status (as of November 17, 2025):
1. **No territorial strikes announced**: The most critical finding is that NO U.S. government channel has announced any completed strike on Venezuelan territory as of November 16, 2025. All confirmed strikes have been in international waters, which explicitly don’t count per the resolution criteria.
2. **Recent military buildup**: The U.S. has deployed significant naval assets including the Gerald R. Ford carrier group, but these are conducting drills in Trinidad and Tobago waters, not strikes on Venezuelan territory.
3. **Trump’s ambiguous statement**: On November 16, Trump said he has “basically decided” on military action but provided no specifics and made no announcement of completed strikes.
### Historical Context:
– The September 2, 2025 strike Trump announced was on a Venezuelan vessel in international waters – this does NOT satisfy the resolution criteria requiring strikes “within the internationally recognized territory of Venezuela”
– Approximately 20 airstrikes have occurred, but all in international waters for alleged drug interdiction
## Critical Constraints:
### Timeline Analysis:
– Only 44 days remain (November 17 – December 31)
– A military strike sequence would require:
– Final decision and authorization (3-7 days minimum)
– Operational preparation and execution (7-14 days)
– Post-strike assessment and official announcement preparation (2-3 days)
– This suggests at least 2-3 weeks from decision to announcement
## Base Rate Considerations:
– The U.S. has not conducted officially announced military strikes on Venezuelan territory in modern history
– During previous Venezuela crises (2019, 2020), despite similar military posturing, no territorial strikes occurred
– Only about 35% of prediction market questions historically resolve positively
## Distinguishing Factors:
What makes this particularly unlikely:
1. The requirement for strikes on Venezuelan TERRITORY (not international waters) is a high bar
2. The requirement for official announcement adds another constraint
3. The short timeframe (44 days) limits opportunity
4. Current operations explicitly target international waters only
5. No acceleration signals exist as of November 16
Given the absence of any territorial strike announcements to date, the explicit limitation of current operations to international waters, the significant procedural and political barriers to territorial strikes, and the limited remaining timeframe, the probability of a positive resolution is very low.
Probability: 7%
The extracted probability is: 7%
=== Forecast Result ===
Historically, the U.S. rarely conducts publicly announced territorial strikes against another state’s internationally recognized territory without broader coalition support or urgent provocation; that historical base rate is low and argues against a high probability.
Scenario thinking (what would produce a “Yes”)
– Fast-escalation scenario: presidential order for strikes against identified military/command targets inside Venezuelan territory, rapid execution, and a DoD/White House announcement within weeks. This requires both a deliberate political decision and proximate operational intelligence—plausible but high-consequence and therefore politically costly.
– Crisis/accident scenario: an engagement (e.g., air/naval incident) that the U.S. characterizes as a strike completed within Venezuelan territory and that the DoD publicly acknowledges; such incidents are unpredictable but possible.
– Covert or deniable operation: strike occurs but is not announced by the U.S. (does not meet resolution). This lowers the effective probability of resolution because the question requires an official announcement.
Why 9% by 31 Dec 2025
– Base rate + recent escalation: Start from a low base rate for a public territorial strike by the U.S. (a few percent for a short window). The visible military buildup and explicit presidential rhetoric push the number upward but not dramatically—these are consistent with coercive signaling and preparation rather than an imminent, declared strike on sovereign territory.
– Time left: ~6 weeks is short for planning and conducting a politically consequential territorial strike and for the U.S. to publicly declare completion. The deployment and drills could be completed without any territorial strike.
– Official-announcement filter: some strikes (or killings) can occur without a public DoD/White House “completed strike” announcement; the need for an explicit official announcement reduces the probability relative to the chance of any kinetic event.
– Ambiguity in existing reporting: some sources describe strikes on Venezuelan-linked boats earlier in 2025, but their location (international waters vs Venezuelan territory) and whether they meet the resolution criteria is unclear; this ambiguity reduces confidence that a prior qualifying announcement already exists and also reduces the marginal probability of another qualifying announcement in the remaining window.
Key assumptions whose failure would drastically change the forecast
1) Assumption: The administration’s rhetoric and the naval buildup are primarily coercive/deterrent (show-of-force) rather than immediate preparation for a declared territorial strike.
– Probability this assumption is incorrect (i.e., rhetoric/buildup actually reflect imminent intent to order and announce a territorial strike): 25%.
– If this assumption fails (i.e., intent is to strike territorially), my forecast should increase substantially—on the order of +30–40 percentage points depending on operational feasibility and legal cover.
2) Assumption: Political and international costs (domestic protest, congressional/legal hurdles, diplomatic backlash) will meaningfully constrain the administration from ordering a declared strike on Venezuelan territory in a narrow time window.
– Probability this assumption is incorrect (i.e., political costs are overridden or ignored): 20%.
– If this assumption fails, probability rises notably (perhaps +20–30 points), because the main barrier to a public territorial strike would be removed.
3) Assumption: If a strike on Venezuelan territory occurs in this period, the U.S. will publicly announce its completion (i.e., the DoD/White House will confirm).
– Probability this assumption is incorrect (i.e., strike occurs but is not officially announced): 30%.
– If this assumption fails, the event could occur but still resolve “No” because the question demands an official U.S. announcement. That possibility lowers effective resolution probability relative to the raw chance of kinetic action.
Calibration and uncertainty
– I’ve compensated for overconfidence by keeping the forecast modest despite escalation signals.
– There is substantial uncertainty because some sources conflict on whether prior 2025 strikes were in international waters vs territorial; ambiguity in past reporting reduces confidence about future patterns.
– The majority of probability mass rests on either a decisive political shift to authorize a measured territorial strike with a public announcement, or an accidental/rapid escalation that is publicly acknowledged
Final answer 9%
Past forecasts by Phil’s and Jeremy ’s bots —>
Map of Venezuela, courtesy https://www.worldatlas.com/maps/venezuela
