The provocation which Venezuela is hurling at Colombia is part of a decade-long cold war which should never become a hot war — except that it now suits President Chávez to take it to the brink.

In sending 15,000 soldiers to the Colombian border and calling on Venezuelans to “prepare for war”, Chávez has good reason to distract attention from problems at home: inflation, economic mismanagement, failing water and power services, lack of some basic goods — much of them, come to that, imported from Colombia, until he started squeezing off trade this summer.

His threats can be dismissed as sabre-rattling, as they have been for the decade since he came to power. Generally, in this persistent war of words, he and the Colombian President, Álvaro Uribe, have made it up with a handshake.

A quick comparison of the armies would suggest that he would be mad to try anything more aggressive; the Colombian Army is double that of Venezuela’s, despite the oil money that Chávez has poured into the military. Colombia is the fifth-largest recipient of US military aid after Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Egypt.

Fears of a real war can be dismissed only up to a point however. The risk of inadvertent clashes between forces on the border cannot be ruled out.

Nor can the cost of regional friction, with a sharp response expected today from the Brazilian Senate, about to vote on whether Venezuela can join the Mercosur trading bloc.

The broader question is how far and by what means Chávez intends to take this ideological clash which he intends to divide the continent between his pro-Russian, anti-US, increasingly anti-democratic mission, and Colombia’s pro-US, anti-narcotics struggles, which have left it militarised but distinctly more modern and outward-looking.

This latest flash was triggered by the deal last week in which Colombia agreed to let the US use seven bases to combat paramilitaries and drug traffickers. Chávez declared that “the government of Colombia is not in Bogotá, now it is in Washington”, and warned President Obama that any US intervention launched from Colombia would spark a “100 years war”.

Colombia and the US denied any aims on Venezuelan territory. Colombia has responded mildly, so far, by calling on the UN and the Organisation of American States to look into the war threats. Neither has withdrawn ambassadors.

The Colombian-Venezuelan conflict has long been an exercise in mixed signals. Colombia has accused Venezuela of sympathising with the left-wing Farc guerrillas and their 40-year insurgency. However, trade between the countries has boomed, to $7.2 billion (£4.3 billion) last year, much of it Venezuelan imports of Colombian food.

Uribe appears the immediate winner of the tension that Chávez has caused. It has strengthened the hand of Uribe’s supporters who want to change the constitution to allow Uribe to run for a third consecutive term next year. This week Uribe managed to reopen ties with Ecuador, strained after a Colombian cross-border incursion last year, even though Ecuador’s left-wing President, Rafael Correa, has been sympathetic to Chávez.

Meanwhile, Chávez is trying to replace imports of Colombian food and cars from Brazil and Argentina, but may find it hard.

The rising oil price may help him regain the support of those who thank him for giving oil revenues to the poor — but Venezuelans are not blind to the effects of his economic waywardness. Nor is opposition entirely silenced by his increasingly authoritarian rule that has revoked the licences of television stations, harassed the media, and threatened opponents.

In February Chávez won a referendum by a narrow margin, to scrap term limits for the presidency, to support his ambition of running again in 2013. He has spoken of wanting to lead Venezuela beyond 2030, to protect what he calls his socialist revolution, and a process of liberation of the continent.

For all the heavy-handedness of his leadership he cannot afford, in pursuit of that goal, to ignore support at home or from his neighbours.

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