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"Even without Mr. Maduro, the state remains a maze, comprising a sprawling web of overlapping intelligence services, paramilitary groups known as “colectivos” and regional bosses who compete for kickbacks. This fragmentation has been the ultimate insurance policy: It helped ensure that no single general or minister held enough unified power to lead a coup, while keeping every official tethered to the center through the shared need for protection and profit.

Mr. Trump has not said how the United States will begin to run Venezuela or when it will stop, except to say it will do so until “we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” Whatever is to come, the system that Mr. Maduro has overseen can’t be dismantled overnight. His followers, longstanding Chavistas or armed opportunists, could very well mount a prolonged insurgency — the type of war in which the population is held hostage, regardless of political preferences. It is very easy to create chaos and make a country ungovernable when the formal institutions are already broken. No matter who is in power, the path to healing the anxiety, distrust and isolation that have flourished over the past decade is not clear.

Venezuelans awaken each day with many different fears: that we or our family members will disappear, that hyperinflation will wreck our savings once again, that our migrant loved ones are not safe in the places where they sought refuge."