On January 3, 2026, U.S. forces removed Nicolas Maduro from power in Operation Absolute Resolve. This essay exists because two operators, Forrest Heath III and Ross Garlick, CEO and CFO of Colombian internet provider Somos Internet, predicted that outcome months earlier over breakfast in Mexico City. They were building a business next door to Venezuela and had direct conversations with people inside the country. Their read: every faction wanted Maduro gone, but collective action was impossible because defectors faced death. U.S. intervention was the only credible circuit-breaker.
The sourcing here is what matters. This is not think-tank analysis or pundit speculation. Heath and Garlick run active ethernet infrastructure across Latin America, including microPOP nodes rented out of restaurants and vacant retail. They have skin in the region's stability. Their optimism about American intervention, formed before it happened, was grounded in conversations the foreign policy press was not having.
The essay that follows, co-written with Garlick, maps what could go right in post-Maduro Venezuela. That framing alone is worth the read. Most coverage is forensic, not forward-looking. If you want to understand the economic and geopolitical upside of a Venezuela reset, and why Latin America is becoming a serious U.S. energy and manufacturing partner, this is the piece to read in full.
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