ABSTRACT
Our central argument in this book has been that in the 2000s, the United States and Venezuela have each represented a midlevel security threat to the other. Politically, each side poses threats and obstacles to the other’s vital foreign policy objectives, but despite the rhetoric of some key fi gures on either side, this threat is neither existential nor immediate. Economically, each party is capable of causing harm to the other (by disrupting the enormous fl ow of oil that unites the countries), but the incentives to do so are low given the high levels of oil dependency. For now, therefore, these nations have chosen to stay at this friend-enemy impasse.
