Anatoly Kurmanaev

There are calls to seize some of the tankers and use them as storage facilities.

There are calls to maybe put armed soldiers on top of the tankers and let them accompany all the way to China.

Venezuela's gunboats have already been escorting tankers inside Venezuelan waters.

There are calls to maybe expand them and let these gunboats go into international waters also.

of course, increasing the risk of confrontation with the U.S.

military.

It's a period of extreme tension and extreme fear inside the Venezuelan government right now.

That is the calculation.

In the last few weeks, we have seen Trump officials becoming increasingly explicit about their aims.

Susie Biles, the White House chief of staff, said that the U.S.

is going to keep blowing up boats until Maduro cries uncle.

Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, said on Fox News that Maduro needs to be gone.

The calculation is that the economic pressure, economic pain,

is going to make Maduro's hold on power untenable, but it's going to lead to an internal uprising, an internal coup by factions of the military that will ask him to leave or eliminate him.

That's right.

There are few historical precedents for when economic pressure leads to regime change.

Governments adapt.

And when economy shrinks, people become more dependent on the government, not less.

Government is holding a bigger share of a shrinking pie.

You know, I grew up in Russia.