The fact that they chose to do a cowardly kidnapping in the middle of the night and run away before Venezuela could fight back makes it much more likely that this is another bluff. If they were willing and able to do a full-fledged invasion, don’t you think they would have done that instead?

It would have been more advantageous from a PR perspective to present such an ultimatum to Maduro and to invade when he refused. Now that the media has already declared that “the dictator is gone” they will have a harder time justifying an invasion.

Also, there were never enough military assets and troops assembled for a full-fledged invasion, and now there are even less, which again points to a bluff. They may do more bombing and almost certainly more piracy, but i don’t think they can put boots on the ground for any extended period of time.