Since his election as President of Venezuela in 1998, Hugo Chavez has encouraged and continues to encourage his Venezuelan and other Latin American followers to pursue a confrontational Òdefensive,Ó populist, and nationalistic agenda that will supposedly liberate Latin America from the economic dependency and the political imperialism of the North American ÒColossusÓ (the United States). Chavez argues that liberation, New Socialism, and Bolivarianismo (the dream of a Latin American Liberation Movement against U.S. hegemony) will only be achieved by (1) radically changing the traditional politics of the Venezuelan state to that of ÒdirectÓ (totalitarian) democracy; (2) destroying North American hegemony thoughout all of Latin America by (3) conducting an irregular and asymmetric ÒSuper Insurgency,Ó or ÒFourth-Generation WarfareÓ to depose the illegitimate external enemy; and, 4) building a new Bolivarian state, beginning with Venezuela and extending to the whole of Latin America. This is not the