The second session of the Virtual Routes Colloquium Winter/Spring series hosts Louise Marie Hurel from Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) with Jason Healey from Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs as discussant.
Recent operations in Venezuela and Iran illustrate a growing US appetite to signal when cyber capabilities are used in military operations. On 3 January 2026, US forces conducted Operation Absolute Resolve, a multi-domain operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Senior officials referenced “layering different effects” from Cyber Command to “create a pathway” for the operation, while President Trump alluded to the Caracas blackout as the product of “a certain expertise.” These statements were unusually revealing, yet fundamentally ambiguous. This presentation examines what can — and cannot — be assessed about the role of cyber capabilities in Operation Absolute Resolve. Rather than tell it primarily from a US-centric perspective of delivery, it situates the operation against Venezuela’s pre-existing context. Rather than treating the Caracas blackout as a straightforward case of offensive cyber effects, it explores the challenges posed by multi-domain operations where cyber, electronic warfare, and kinetic tools are deliberately layered. It reflects on what this ambiguity means for attribution, deterrence signalling, and how adversaries and allies will draw lessons from a case where opacity, rather than clarity, may be the point.
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