THE HAGUE – Venezuela is entirely absent from the Netherlands’ new Strategic Monitor for Defense, despite Dutch intelligence services warning that political and military developments in the South American country could have consequences for Curaçao, Aruba and the wider Kingdom.
The Strategic Monitor, prepared by the Clingendael Institute and submitted to the parliaments of the Netherlands, Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten on September 1, examines international developments and threats expected to influence Dutch defense policy through 2031.
However, Venezuela is not mentioned in the report.
The omission stands in sharp contrast to assessments produced by the Netherlands’ own intelligence and security services.
In its annual report covering 2025, the Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) specifically addressed Venezuela and warned that developments there, combined with increasing tensions between Venezuela and the United States, were creating concerns “in and about the Caribbean part of the Kingdom.”
The MIVD and General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) have been jointly monitoring political and military developments in Venezuela as well as potential spillover effects affecting the Kingdom.
For Curaçao and Aruba, developments in Venezuela have particular relevance because of their geographical proximity to the Venezuelan coast.
The Kingdom Security Strategy 2023–2029 also explicitly identifies Venezuela when assessing potential risks to the Caribbean territories.
That strategy points to migration flows from Venezuela, particularly toward Curaçao and Aruba. It also highlights the competing geopolitical interests of the United States, Russia and China in the region and warns that this competition could have consequences for the Caribbean part of the Kingdom and therefore the Kingdom as a whole.
Defense itself has acknowledged the Caribbean dimension of the Netherlands’ security environment.
Earlier this year, the ministry identified “unrest in the Caribbean region” among the security challenges confronting the Netherlands. The Dutch naval station ship deployed to the Caribbean also monitors developments affecting security around Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire.
Nevertheless, the new Clingendael Strategic Monitor directs its geographical attention elsewhere.
Russia and European security occupy prominent positions, together with the North Atlantic and Arctic regions, Europe’s southern periphery and developments in the Indo-Pacific.
The Caribbean countries themselves are virtually absent from the substantive security analysis.
Curaçao and Aruba are mentioned in administrative material accompanying the monitor because copies were submitted to their parliaments. Sint Maarten similarly received the document. But the individual security circumstances of the three autonomous Caribbean countries are not separately examined.
Even references to the Caribbean are extremely limited. The region appears substantively only once, toward the end of the report, in a future scenario concerning technological advances in predicting and potentially influencing extreme weather patterns.
The absence of Venezuela is particularly striking because the Strategic Monitor is connected to a legal requirement for periodic external assessments of trends and threats affecting the vital interests of the Kingdom—not solely the European Netherlands.
The difference between the Strategic Monitor and other Dutch security documents therefore leaves an important question for the Caribbean countries: how prominently will their specific security environment figure in the strategic decisions that ultimately determine the future capabilities and priorities of the Dutch armed forces?
For Curaçao and Aruba, that question is especially relevant when the security developments closest to their shores are already being monitored by Dutch intelligence services but are absent from one of the documents intended to help shape the Netherlands’ future defense strategy.