Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who served during President Donald Trump’s first term, does not believe the military is the “best tool” to stop drug trafficking in response to the current U.S. strategy of blowing up these vessels.
The Trump administration has taken a more aggressive stance toward Venezuela and its president, Nicolas Maduro, during the first year of his second term. The whole-of-government strategy includes the Justice Department doubling the reward for information that leads to his arrest, the largest military buildup in the Western Hemisphere in decades, and lethal kinetic strikes on purported drug smuggling vessels.
“I don’t think the military is the best tool to use for any number of reasons,” Esper said on Tuesday during the Wall Street Journal’s board of directors council summit. “I would employ the Coast Guard. It may be reinforced by the U.S. military, which we did by the way during my tenure, but to me, it’s a law enforcement action.”
“I would want to capture those traffickers,” he added. “I would want to find out what they’re carrying, where they’re carrying it to, who they got their instructions from, who’s paying them. I’d want to unravel the network, not just get the traffickers.”
During Trump’s first term, when Esper was serving as defense secretary, the president considered military action in Venezuela, but Esper talked him out of it. Esper wrote about the president’s deliberations regarding the South American country in his memoir.
“There’s a lot of reasons to want [Maduro] to go, right, but my view is always, we have bigger fish to fry in the world beginning with China, if you will,” Esper continued. “And what I [counseled then], and what I would [counsel] now is it’s easy to get into a war, [but] it can be hard to get out of a war.”
The former secretary did not support Trump’s second term, which further soured their strained relationship. The current secretary, Pete Hegseth, ended Esper’s private security protection and removed his portrait from the Pentagon wall early in his tenure.
The U.S. military has carried out nearly 20 lethal kinetic strikes, killing roughly 75 people during these operations, which began in early September. The administration views those individuals as “narcoterrorists” and has told Congress the United States is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
Neither the military nor the administration has shown evidence to prove there were drugs on board any of the vessels.
HERE ARE THE DETAILS OF THE US STRIKES TARGETS ALLEGED DRUG VESSELS
President Donald Trump has said he gave the CIA his approval to conduct covert destabilizing activities in Venezuela. He has discussed the possibility of green-lighting U.S. strikes on Venezuelan soil, but has not done so yet.
The overwhelming U.S. military presence in the region has led experts to believe that there could be a greater objective at the end of the plan, such as regime change. The U.S. does not consider Maduro to be a legitimate leader after the international community accused him of falsely declaring himself the victor in the last election. He was charged with narcoterrorism in the U.S. in 2020.
