Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was helplessly captured by U.S. forces, once again laying bare the embarrassing underbelly of the communist bloc's intelligence and special operations apparatus that was legendary during the Cold War.
Cuban security personnel once regarded as among the world's best fell like leaves before the U.S. special operations forces' precision strikes. Since the Ukraine war in 2022, followed by Russia, Iran last year, and now Cuba this year, the low-tech, manpower-centric, old-generation intelligence networks have laid bare clear limits, prompting analyses in the international community that intelligence agencies and special forces in the communist bloc have devolved into "paper tigers."
U.S. President Donald Trump on the 6th (local time), referring to the operation to capture and extradite Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, said the United States "once again proved it has the most powerful military," adding, "Tactically it was excellent, and while we did not lose a single person, the other side lost many." The U.S. military deployed more than 150 air assets for the operation, and aside from one helicopter sustaining minor hits during the mission, there was no significant damage.
Trump said, "Unfortunately, it was mostly Cuban soldiers who died." Based on Venezuelan and Cuban government announcements, the official death toll from the operation was at least 56. Of these, 32 were Cuban special intelligence agents who protected Maduro at close range.
Cuba joined hands with the Soviet KGB during the Cold War and made a name for itself as an "exporter of espionage." After the Cuban Revolution in the 1960s, the Cuban intelligence service systematically learned related techniques as it repressed dissidents and protected the dictatorship. But the spycraft they had honed proved powerless before the precise information warfare mounted by U.S. forces.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Cuba's intelligence service failed to detect in advance the U.S. military's infiltration during the capture of Maduro. A manpower-centered surveillance system and outdated communications equipment could not cope with the U.S. integrated intelligence network that combines satellites, drones, and AI. U.S. intelligence authorities, disregarding Cuba's intelligence service, mapped out the operation with perfect knowledge of Maduro's mealtimes, sleeping habits, and even his bathroom routines.
Citing a U.S. military intelligence officer, the WSJ said, "When protecting a VIP, related information and movements are absolutely critical," adding, "If you become fixated on false assumptions and ideology, your judgment gets clouded." The suggestion is that Cuba's intelligence service either did not usually consider, or underestimated, the possibility that the United States would directly intervene to capture Maduro.
Intelligence agencies and special forces in the communist bloc have recently been piling up failures bordering on humiliating debacles at key sites. Russia sought to quickly seize Kyiv in the early days of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine but suffered a crushing defeat in that operation. Elite special forces units that should have played roles like U.S. Delta Force, such as the GRU and FSB, were deployed, but many operatives were lost due to insider leaks and exposed plans. Analysts say it proved that Cold War doctrines tailored only to assassination and infiltration do not work in information-centric modern warfare.
Iran is in a similar position. In recent years, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force that prop up Khamenei's theocratic system have been helplessly penetrated by Israel's targeted killing operations. In June last year, Israeli intelligence authorities assassinated senior commanders sleeping in their bedrooms in Tehran with precise drone strikes. The old-generation security net that relied on safe houses and cover identities was unable to respond to Israel's intelligence network, which roamed the Iranian heartland as if it were its own backyard.
Experts said this string of failures is not a temporary phenomenon. They cited ideology-centered organizational culture as the key reason for the decline of the communist bloc's special forces and intelligence agencies. Political loyalty overwhelmed expertise, entrenching a structure in which working-level staff cannot submit reports unfavorable to leadership. During the Maduro capture as well, confirmation bias—"Would the United States dare come to seize the Venezuelan president?"—clouded intelligence judgment.
A rigid structure that does not acknowledge failed operations also led to fatal misjudgments. In the communist bloc, admitting participation in a failed mission makes one a target for purges. Reports contain only what leaders want to hear, making honest intelligence analysis impossible.
They also failed to respond nimbly to rapid technological change. U.S. intelligence agencies use an integrated information system that unites satellites, communications interception, financial and consumer data, and AI analysis. While communist bloc agencies clung to analog-style tailing and surveillance, the West replicated every move of its adversaries through data.
In this operation as well, the United States broke the adversary's will to resist itself based on overwhelming information superiority. Military experts said the U.S. military poured all its capabilities not only into on-site combat power but also into the pace of fusion with intelligence agencies and strike precision. The U.S. military secured insiders at the core of Venezuela's government and watched Maduro's movements in real time as if in the palm of a hand. That was the backdrop for the "no-loss operation," with not a single U.S. casualty, during the capture of Maduro carried out in Venezuela's own backyard.
Cedric Leighton, a former U.S. Air Force colonel, told the WSJ, "Cuba's intelligence service was once an outfit that punched above its weight, but now it is trapped in outdated collection and faulty assumptions," adding, "The outcome of information warfare is not only about technology or manpower—it is about mindset, the ability to read a changed environment."