Operation Southern Spear — the name given to the U.S. military mission to stop the flow of illegal drugs in the Caribbean Sea with the lethal targeting of mariners accused of smuggling — has cost more than $600 million from the time the mission started through the first quarter of 2026.
During that time, the mission has cost taxpayers roughly $647 million, according to a new report from the Department of War Office of the Inspector General, which was released on Thursday. The cutoff for the cost analysis was March 31, and U.S. Southern Command has conducted at least 10 kinetic strikes since then, presumably bringing the total cost even higher than the $647 million figure.
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Stopping maritime smuggling has historically been a job led by the Coast Guard, which would interdict the vessels, board if needed, and detain those on board if warranted, but the Trump administration decided last year that it needed to conduct lethal interdictions to establish deterrence against the cartels allegedly involved.
It’s unclear exactly how SOUTHCOM decides whether to blow up a suspected drug vessel or have the Coast Guard interdict it. SOUTHCOM told the inspector general it could not answer that question in a “publicly releasable” way, according to the report. But the subject of how they determine targets is the subject of a new, separate DoW IG “evaluation” announced earlier this week.
Specifically, the objective of the new review is “to determine whether DoW components followed the established framework of the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle,” according to a May 11 letter from Bryan T. Clark, assistant inspector general for evaluations programs, combatant commands, and operations to Gen. Francis Donovan, the leader of SOUTHCOM, and Bradley Hansell, undersecretary for intelligence and security.
The Pentagon has repeatedly affirmed the strikes are legal despite bipartisan concern on Capitol Hill.
The first strike on Sept. 2, 2025, garnered scrutiny after it was reported that the U.S. service members involved in it ordered a second strike on the disabled vessel once they realized not everyone on board had been killed. In later instances, Southern Command notified the U.S. Coast Guard of possible survivors, which subsequently launched search-and-rescue operations. Two people who survived a U.S. strike were later rescued, treated, and ultimately repatriated to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia.
Shortly after the U.S. military began this campaign, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth asked Adm. Alvin Holsey, then-commander of U.S. Southern Command, to retire before the end of his tenure. Donovan succeeded him in the position.
The Trump administration’s national security strategy, released in December, details the president’s “America First” doctrine and sets out the administration’s foreign policy objectives, emphasizing the importance of the Western Hemisphere. The administration wants to “ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States,” the NSS said, and wants the countries’ governments to “cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations.”
As part of the broader administration’s efforts to influence the Western Hemisphere, the U.S. military has deployed overwhelming firepower to the Caribbean since late last summer. The military blockaded Venezuelan oil to pressure the government into making an agreement with the United States, but ultimately launched a mission to arrest dictator Nicolas Maduro in early January instead. They have allowed his vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, to remain in power.
In recent weeks, the administration has turned its attention to Cuba, which has been reeling from the loss of Venezuelan oil, following Maduro’s arrest.
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On Wednesday, the Justice Department indicted former Cuban President Raul Castro and five others of crimes connected to the Feb. 24, 1996, attack on two aircraft operated by the Miami-based Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue, including charges of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals and destruction of aircraft. Given Castro’s indictment, the administration could consider a similar mission to the one that resulted in Maduro’s capture because they used his long-standing federal indictment as the pretext for the capture mission.
A day later, SOUTHCOM announced the USS Nimitz and three escort warships entered the southern Caribbean Sea on Wednesday shortly after the indictment was announced. Trump, on Thursday, denied that the arrival of the warship was meant to intimidate Cuba.
