but would Canada help the Dutch?
yeah I didn’t get this one either.
According to the US state dept, nearly 1 million US citizens visit Aruba alone each year. If you figure a 1 week vacation, that’s 20,000 US citizens on vacation at the time of the Venezuelan invasion. If Chavez didn’t repatriate them all, instantly, unharmed, the USA would without a doubt get involved.
You would deliberately drop an oil tanker into the Caribbean Sea?
One reason I am sure the Dutch do not have a formidable military is precisely becasue they are in NATO, so although an somewhat interesting theroetical discussion, the chances of zero NATO involvement is , well, zero.
i forgot about the tourists,
lets say all tourists and non dutch nationals were evacuated before
still no NATO ,but I like the idea of asking Surinam for help, how long before we could’ve set up a basecamp there?
Well did they even get nominally involved in the Falklands War (honestly a question, don’t know the answer)
No other country materially supported the UK in that war.
The NATO agreement does not include, as the subject of collective self defense, the Falkland Islands. It’s geographically specific in what’s supposed to be protected; Europe, North America, Turkey, and island possessions in the Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer. Which, looking at a map, doesn’t include Aruba, Curacao et al. They’re too far south.
Of course that geographic specification is just what they are required to help protect, it certainly does not mean that NATO countries could or would not help.
Oops, entirely my fault.
See, I figured you had some complicated Great War chain-of-events scenario in mind. You know, Venezuela attacks the Netherlands; as a result, Canada and Denmark form an alliance for mutual support, which upsets the balance of power in the Baltic and pushes neutral Sweden and Finland into an alliance with Russia to counter-balance the Danish-Canadian power bloc, then Russia decides that the Netherlands would form a more valuable ally than Venezuela while the Netherlands has pulled out of NATO in favor of their new Russian allies (since the Americans and the other Europeans are standing by and doing nothing), so the upshot is that the islands are re-taken by a joint Dutch-Finnish-Russian-Swedish force (with Russia doing most of the heavy (sea)lifting, of course).
Of course then the U.S. and China…
They, uh, become entangled when India opportunistically invades Pakistan with tactical nukes.
Yeah, entangled…
They could. But the initial strike would still limited to the troop capacities of the Dutch LPDs. The liners won’t be much use until after some docks have been captured. Alternatively they could use some transport helicopters for troop transfers, but as far as I can tell the Dutch don’t seem to have any. And while I’m sure they could scare some up, unpracticed helicopter troop transfers from the Fiesta deck are probably not advisable.
In any case the Dutch should be really leery of sending unarmed civilian craft into enemy waters. Especially when the enemy has rough naval parity and air dominance. That seems like a good way to get a lot of soldiers killed and lose a few liners in the process. The reason the British could get away with it was that they were in a vastly superior position than the Dutch would be.
An oil tanker carrying stolen Dutch oil? Oh yeah, I would sink that sucker in a heartbeat.
Does Venezuela’s air force have the capability to launch anti-ship missiles? That would have a big effect on any naval force the Dutch send down that way.
A good point about public opinion on the isles being a big factor. The Falklands citizens were undoubtedly pro-British and wanted no part of the Argentine junta. If the people of those islands hated Chavez, or were mistreated in any way, there’s no way the Dutch could just seek a diplomatic solution. Those are Dutch citizens, who they are honor bound to protect. It goes to the core of a nation’s honor.
I would imagine that should Venezuela not be persuaded to vacate the islands peacefully, a coalition of U.S, Netherlands, and Colombia forces, perhaps with logistical support from England and France who also have interests in the region, would be created under American leadership to remove them, maybe with full United Nations support.
UN support would not be forthcoming. China and Russia would undoubtedly side with Chavez.
NATO has more legitimacy than the UN, IMO, and I think that at the very least NATO has legitimacy where it counts: in Europe and North America. While the views of the Third World are important, there isn’t much democratic legitimacy to back them up. NATO has full democratic legitimacy.
GlobalFirePower.com ranks Venezuela at #38 (the clog dancers aren’t listed) with:
Total Navy Ships: 23
Merchant Marine Strength: 62 [2008]
Major Ports and Harbors: 4
Aircraft Carriers: 0 [2008]
Destroyers: 0 [2008]
Submarines: 2 [2008]
Frigates: 6 [2005]
Patrol & Coastal Craft: 82 [2005]
Mine Warfare Craft: 0 [2008]
Amphibious Craft: 15 [2005]
AIR FORCE
Total Aircraft: 515 [2005]
Helicopters: 92 [2005]
Serviceable Airports: 390 [2007]
4 frigates (Destroyers), 2 Frigates, 2 landing platform docks, 4 submarines, 10 mine hunters, 4 support ships and various others for grand total of 55. circa 10000 man personnel
If the scenario is no Nation assists either side I like Chavez’s chances, naval invasions are difficult and require overwhelming Dutch air superiority which I don’t see. Despite their poor track record it makes political sense in the grand scheme of failing despotic ponzi regimes.
Perhaps a Dutch military offensive with covert American assistance? I’m going to guess that the US has submarines and drones which are effectively invisible to whatever miliatary hardware that Venezuela possesses. I can envision a scenario where the US uses a couple of submarines and/or drones to to provide cover for the Dutch invasion force but publicly denies any involvement.