Ed. note: Originally published in The Geopolitical Climate, a new Substack publication covering the two mega-trends of our time: geopolitical multipolarity and climate breakdown.
In the immediate run-up to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I and a collegue were arguing about the possibilities of conflict. I can’t remember my logic, but I (foolishly) contended it would not happen. He claimed it would, and that it was imminent. None of his arguments struck me as convincing or new, save one: that Russia had moved huge reserves of medical blood packs to the border. Blood packs are vital in any modern military campaign for performing life-saving transfusions on injured soldiers. Yet, these blood packs last only a month or so, and so you don’t move large quantities of them to the front unless you intend to use them pretty soon. This was solid and, unfortunately, correct logic that something was coming. The full-scale invasion began two days after that conversation.
These blood reserves were what complexity scientists would call a ‘weak signal’. An indication of a change in direction of a system that, at first glance, doesn’t seem to rise above the background noise of normal operations. Yet when studied for certain indicators, weak signals suggest a distinct direction of change towards a new phase of a complex system’s lifecycle. For geopolitics, weak signals are the key to understanding whether a conflict will explode or fizzle out, because the social, media, and political noise surrounding any emerging developments is often more confusing than it is indicative of the direction of travel.
Back to 2026, and Trump has just (after increasingly belligerent provocations) attacked Venezuela, kidnapped its president, and promised a further invasion and occupation of the country with open claims on its most vital natural resource.
It’s not as if there was no buildup. The current US administration has been blowing up Venezuelan boats (which may or may not be drug smugglers) and capturing oil tankers since September 2025. The US armada, which was docked off Trinidad in the preceding months to the invasion, is, by some estimates, the biggest US fleet ever assembled in the region. The rhetoric was just as aggressive, with the US’s intention of regime change being common knowledge—though this last point isn’t anything particularly new, as US-aligned and recognised ‘pretender presidents’ have been kicking around for a while.
However, the fact that this would blow up into an open (and apparently escalating) conflict was by no means a widely accepted conclusion. The mainstream press was, if anything, pretty muted on the subject. It might seem obvious in hindsight (and everyone will certainly claim it was), but think back to the brief Israel/US-Iran conflict in June of 2025. This saw missile strikes hitting capital cities, nuclear research facilities, and regional military bases. Hundreds died, and the rhetoric got pretty hot. Media coverage went histrionic, claiming this could be the start of WW3. And then nothing happened. Both sides claimed victory and went home with a vague ceasefire for this undeclared ‘12-day war’. The current protests in Iran might be part of the “Milosevic [effect]…(i.e., where a regime is toppled by its civilians in the months after a Western air strike)”, but my main point is that the general noise of both conflicts was comparable (and Iran arguably worse), yet the ‘weak signals’ below the surface pointed to different outcomes. So what pointed to Venezuela being different?
It’s the bond market, stupid
Bonds, the key ‘weak signal’ for the invasion/regime change/occupation of Venezuela was the bond market.
In the couple of months preceding the attacks, bond traders started buying up Venezuelan debt, the government bonds which the state issues to raise money for its operations, and then pays back to buyers (with a premium) when the bonds ‘mature’. Every country in the world does this, except for quasi-medieval polities like Afghanistan. Even the Burmese government-in-exile issues its own bonds. Bond traders, who buy them off the governments, will often sell bonds onto other traders who will then redeem them themselves.
Yet for ailing states like Venezuela, these bonds are ‘junk’ (a technical term). And due to political instability, economic crisis, or other issues, they aren’t expected to be paid back. Technically, the original buyers still hold the bond and are due their payments when they (if they haven’t already) mature. Yet the Maduro government, which issued them, had no intentions (and likely ability) to do so. So they were effectively worthless, like tickets for a bankrupt airline.
Then why were new (specifically US) traders buying up this junk debt at the end of 2025? The short answer: they expected a new regime that was more liable to repay them. Implying something bad was going to happen to the old one which, obviously, is what we just saw.
As far as ‘weak signals’ go, this was a pretty strong one. And I don’t say this just because I started writing (the first draft of) this piece mid-December 2025, a few weeks before the conflict kicked off. Now, I don’t presume markets can reliably predict war or conflict, but the sheer worthlessness of the bonds, and the deep insight bond traders need of government policy and machinery both suggested that someone, somewhere, was in the know and started the buying ahead of the regime change needed to turn these junk bonds into a valuable asset. That’s where I, and others, drew the conclusion that earlier provocations weren’t just empty bluster on the part of the Trump administration, and signalled real steps towards conflict intended at regime change.
What the real drivers behind the conflict are is still up for debate and, as is so often the case, may never be settled. Venezuelan oil—being the largest collection of reserves in the world—is likely a key answer, but is it because the US is running out? Is it because they don’t want China (which has been making economic inroads) to get there first? Or is it a more cynical ploy to launch a successful war to distract from an increasingly shaky economic picture at home? This won’t become truly apparent till the conflict reaches maturity, which Trump’s “We are going to run the country” implies might be some time yet.
Weak signals don’t necessarily help answer these questions. But they point out the direction of travel in a way that cuts through the massive noise that surrounds conflict. They’re less analytic and more predictive, not telling you why, but what. Like Russia’s frontline blood banks, the Venezuelan bond trade signalled that the preceding furore was headed in a specific direction. And in the increasingly chaotic, ill-defined mess of multipolar politics and climate chaos, reliably finding which ‘weak signals’ matter—and which signals are just noise—will be vital for navigating what comes next.
