In Venezuela, the issue of civil-military relations has traditionally been very controversial. The origin of the controversy is complex, but basically it is about the historical problem related to the political significance that the military have played in the conformation of the State and the place they should occupy in Venezuelan society. But, fundamentally, the Venezuelan civilian political leadership did not have, nor has it had until now, the capacity, the interest, the political will and clarity, conceptual consistency and doctrinal conviction, and even the need to implement a set of mechanisms and techniques to exercise an effective civilian control over the historical praetorian potential of the Venezuelan military. Thus, it can be affirmed that in the matter of Venezuelan civil-military relations, after the failure of the ruling praetorianism of dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez, we have not had a real and true civilian control over the military. On the contrary, what we have had is an understanding, agreement, fusion, alliance and military-civilian and political-military symbiosis; not written, but operative and effective. After several centuries of barbarism, backwardness and uncivilization, the 21st century may be for Venezuela the century of the definitive defeat of the praetorianism virus and the final supremacy of the Venezuelan civil society over the military and its armed institutions.
