Venezuela proudly bought Chinese “anti-stealth” radars like the JY-27A and layers of imported missiles to create the most modern air defence in South America. In theory, this network was supposed to spot and stop anything that flies.
In practice, when U.S. forces rolled in with advanced electronic warfare and stealth aircraft, the radars were jammed or blinded before they even rang the alarm. The missiles never got meaningful targeting data, so not a single U.S. aircraft was shot at or downed — despite Maduro’s boasts of thousands of anti-air missiles.
What looked like a fortress became an expensive set decoration once the links in the air-defence chain broke and the system had no redundancy, decentralisation, or electronic-warfare resilience.
The result was less “Fortress Venezuela” and more “silent radar museum.”