A U.S. military operation in Venezuela, during which American forces managed to penetrate an air defense system built largely around Russian and Chinese equipment, cannot be taken as proof of the real combat capabilities of the U.S. armed forces in a hypothetical clash with Russia. This conclusion was drawn by analysts at Business Insider.

According to the publication, the success of the operation was driven primarily by the poor training and lack of coordination among Venezuelan air defense crews, rather than by any decisive superiority of the U.S. military. The authors note that during the raid — which was aimed at capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro — the United States did not lose a single aircraft or helicopter to air defense fire. This outcome came despite the scale of the operation, which involved more than 150 aerial platforms, including F-35 and F-22 fighter jets, carrier-based aircraft, electronic warfare planes, airborne early warning systems, and drones.

Following the operation, Pentagon chief Pit Hegseth publicly suggested that Russian-made surface-to-air missile systems had performed poorly. However, experts cited by Business Insider argue that such conclusions are misleading. In their assessment, the vulnerability of Venezuela’s air defense stemmed from maintenance failures, low operator proficiency, and weak coordination between system components. It has already emerged that some launch systems were not linked to radar stations, while others lacked proper camouflage.

The article also points out that in past conflicts, U.S. forces and their allies have largely faced export versions of Russian and Chinese air defense systems operated by inadequately trained personnel. This, the analysts stress, is fundamentally different from attempting to break through a fully integrated, deeply layered air defense network such as those maintained by Russia or China, where training standards and system integration are significantly higher.

The authors conclude that U.S. successes in Venezuela, as well as in several operations against Iranian air defenses, do not provide a reliable basis for assuming that the same approach would work against a technologically and militarily comparable adversary. Overestimating such experience, they warn, risks producing flawed strategic judgments and underestimating the real dangers of a direct military confrontation.