Venezuela

Flag of Venezuela

**Venezuela** Officially the **Republic of Venezuela** is one of the richest countries on the South American continent. Venezuela is a Federal Presidential Republic, with a government system similar to the Pacific States, but with a notable lack of a house of representatives for the lower classes. Venezuela did not fight in any of the regional wars, however its copious amounts of money compared to the rest of the region would allow Venezuelan support to be a massive contributor to the success of the Liberal forces in South America. Venezuela was formed on the 13th of January 1830 after the collapse of Gran Colombia. Venezuela, predictably, did not fight in the Second Weltkrieg, however its sources of oil to the Entente would be a massive contributor in the naval theater. Venezuela is a member of Mexico's alliance and thus it aligns with the Entente.

## History

Venezuela in 1936 was in the interesting situation of transitioning into an Oil State, as well as it began to be stuck in the mindset of such a nation with the idea that no matter what, the oil must flow. This would end up becoming very beneficial for Venezuela after the beginning of the Black Monday Crisis witch would see Venezuela do something opposite of what most expected it to do. Venezuela would end up decreasing prices of oil making Venezuelan oil far cheaper than anywhere else in the world and soon most of North America became dependent on the substance, especially the Entente and the factions of the Second American Civil War, who needed oil in order to run navies, tank forces, and aerial operations. This allowed Venezuela to actually profit off of the global crisis as the sudden spike in the need for oil given the outbreak of widespread warfare would see more money pour into the coffers of the Venezuelan state. This richness would also see a rapid spike in support for the liberal Democratic Action party, and the Venezuelan Democratic Party. In the Election of 1941 the Democratic Party would win and Isías Medina Angarita would be elected president of Venzuela. He would continue the policies of the previous regime, hoping to use oil as a diplomatic tool to get better trade concessions. A frequent buyer of Venezuelan oil would be Canada and the French Republic who would grow a depdence on it in 1943 as most sources in the middle east were cut off due to the Commune's submarines making trade in the Mediterranian difficult. Venezuela would continue to grow richer and richer until its GDP per capita surpassed that of even Mexico and Brazil as Venezuela's stats continued to go into the green. By 1945 Venezuela was by far the richest nation in South America, and just behind Mexico for the spot at the top of Latin America. However another election was held this year and the even more radical liberal Democratic Action party have its candidate win with Rómulo Betancourt becoming the new president of Venezuela. He would begin encacting several reforms turning Venezuela into a more representative and democratic state, as he wished to emulate the success of Canada and New England via reforming the government. This also came with a general liberalization of the Church within Venezuela, firmly destroying the remnants of any Integralist movement within Venezuela. While he would be successful for making lives good for the people and all of his other wonderful achievements, he would end up being caught by the bell and in 1947 another election would take place, in witch he would be replaced by another even more radical president, Rómulo Gallegos. What was surprising about this election is the fact that it was completely free and fair and had little to no meddling by the current regime witch would allow for such radical change. Rómilo has been attempting to turn Venezeula into a Representative democracy, but the outbreak of the Ecuadorian-Peruvian War to the south woke Venezuela from its economic high isolation, and Venezuela would use its money to buy mercenaries to go help Ecuador. Along with other injections of cash, all of this allowed Venezuela to become the main funder of Ecuador's victory over Peru. Venezuela's future seems to be that of a good one with oil making a lot of money and the populace supporting the local government. However talks of a military coup have been slowly rising and as tensions continue to rise, Venezuela may become a flash point. Especially if say,,, oil prices crashed and oil no longer became profitable.

## Military

Venezuela's military is mostly a hodgepodge of different irregular units witch all together make up a fairly untrained but very versatile force. Venezuela's army is notorious for this, however Venezuela has enough money to buy mercenaries despite them being far rarer in the modern world, however these allow Venezuela's army to keep some sort of organization. Venezuela's navy is mostly comprised of sold Entente vessels witch they retrofitted into a more modern state. However they are still old compared to modern warships, and they're fewer of them. Venezuela has also bought a small air force witch it hopes to expand to help its fellow democratic Latin American countries.