Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on July 25, 2017.

 

We Americans are really good at getting sucker-punched. From Pearl Harbor to Sputnik to 9/11 and the Syrian civil war, we constantly ask ourselves, “Hey, how’d that happen, and why didn’t we prepare for it?”

Well, a new fist is hurtling out of the not-too-distant future. It’s the Venezuelan civil war.

Recently, a stolen police helicopter attacked the Venezuelan Supreme Court with grenades and automatic weapons. While no one was hurt, the incident should serve as a wake-up call for the entire Western Hemisphere, including the United States. The attack demonstrates a quantum escalation of the hunger-fueled conflict that has consumed the country for close to a year. Hunger is the key word. Hunger is the most basic of human suffering. Remember that rising food prices helped fuel the Arab Spring, which has left the world with a chaotic, fractured, refugee-hemorrhaging Middle East.

Read the full piece at The Hill.

 

Max Brooks is an author, public speaker, MWI non-resident fellow, and senior resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Art of Future Warfare project. He is the author of World War Z and The Harlem Hellfighters.

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of West Point, the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or any agency of the US government.

 

Image credit: andresAzp