Things are heating up when it comes to prospective U.S. military action inside Venezuela.
While President Donald Trump recently authorized a number of lethal strikes against boats smuggling drugs out of Venezuela, the buildup of U.S. military forces around the country is significantly more comprehensive than is required for these kinds of operations.
Indeed, the Washington Examiner understands that military planners believe the assembled forces are now sufficient to seize and hold key strategic facilities such as ports and airfields on Venezuelan territory (the Washington Examiner is withholding some details for national security reasons). U.S. control over such locations would allow for the increased, sustained projection of U.S. military power into Venezuela from defensible positions.
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The Pentagon hasn’t exactly hidden its preparations for these operations.
A Defense Department readout from late August notes how a training exercise off the U.S. Virgin Islands saw “six special tactics airmen parachuted into the Caribbean Sea with an inflatable boat, 3 miles off the shore. … Eleven more combat controllers and pararescuemen then jumped directly into [an airport] from the same aircraft, with both forces combining to take control of the airfield.”
Territorial seizure operations would put immense pressure on Nicolas Maduro‘s regime, already a key focus of these deployments. Maduro forcibly retained power following his overwhelming defeat in a presidential election last year. He is also correctly viewed by the Trump administration as the de facto boss of two major organized crime groups responsible for smuggling drugs into and conducting violence on American soil. These groups are the Cartel of the Suns and the Tren de Aragua organization.
As reported by NBC News on Friday, the Trump administration has ordered the U.S. military to plan for strikes against drug cartel-related targets inside Venezuela. Still, the common presumption is that any such actions would involve lightning in-and-out operations against specific targets rather than efforts to seize territory.
I’m not so sure that will be the case.
Consider that numerous Navy warships, 10 F-35 fighter jets, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (embarked with 2,200 Marines and Harrier jump jets), and a Navy submarine are deployed off Venezuela. Just 520 miles north of the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, Puerto Rico is serving as a staging post for these deployments. Numerous flights from stateside U.S. military bases have further bolstered this presence with new equipment and military personnel, including special operations forces.
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Put simply, U.S. forces on and around Puerto Rico, the ground force centerpiece of which is a Marine infantry battalion, are now ready to launch territorial-seizure operations on Venezuelan territory. They could be supported by surprise attacks by Airborne-infantry units stateside. Both the 75th Ranger Regiment and the 82nd Airborne Division, respectively, hold a battalion and a brigade at 18 hours’ readiness to deploy directly into combat, for example. In 2021, the 82nd Airborne dropped a Brigade straight from its Fort Bragg, North Carolina base, 4,600 miles into a combat exercise in Estonia.
Top line: The U.S. military buildup around Venezuela should no longer be seen through the lens of a purely counter-drug trafficking concern. The current deployment structure is just too big, too expensive, and too varied in capabilities for it to be designed for that mission alone. The intent may simply be to intimidate Maduro, but Maduro is rightly concerned that more direct action looms.
