The United States has deployed more than 4,000 military personnel to waters surrounding Latin America and the Caribbean in order to fight drug cartels, two unnamed U.S. defense officials told CNN in mid-August. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro later announced that he would deploy more than 4.5 million militia members throughout the country. How might an increased U.S. military presence in Latin America and the Caribbean affect authorities’ ability to stem illegal drug and arms trafficking flows in the region? Where are U.S. troops most likely to be deployed? What is the likelihood of an escalation in hostilities between Washington and Caracas in the coming days and months?
Henry Ziemer, associate fellow for the Americas at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): “The current U.S. naval deployment to the Southern Caribbean is plainly mismatched for counter-narcotics missions. Guided missile cruisers and attack submarines certainly have powerful capabilities, particularly sensors, which can be brought to bear to detect and interdict drug trafficking shipments, but there are other platforms that can achieve similar effects with a much lower profile. Accordingly, the primary intention seems to be signaling clearly that the United States considers organized crime to be a national security issue meriting the deployment of military force. However, the large concentration of naval assets in the region has raised speculation the United States may take direct military action against Venezuela. Some key developments to watch for in this regard include whether the United States deploys additional enablers, especially airborne early warning and control aircraft, electromagnetic warfare tools, and logistics and resupply vessels. These would all likely need to be in place before the United States would be willing to countenance even a limited strike on Venezuela. Also relevant is whether Secretary of State Marco Rubio succeeds in convincing Canada, Mexico and European countries to join the United States and deploy their own forces to the region. European governments, in particular, are likely open to the possibility, given that the majority of cocaine trafficked from Venezuela is now destined for their shores, but at the same time, Europeans are generally unwilling to let themselves be accomplices to a U.S. invasion of another country. Therefore, the more multilateral the force becomes, the more effective it will be in combatting narcotrafficking—but the less likely it will be that regime change is in the cards. Nevertheless, saber-rattling in the region naturally presents opportunities for inadvertent escalation, and the present moment appears increasingly fraught.”
José R. Cárdenas, principal at The Cormac Group in Washington: “It would be a mistake to consider the U.S. naval deployment off the Venezuelan coast ‘business as usual’ or mere political theater. It is too big, powerful and costly for that. Rather, it is a signal by the Trump administration that the status quo—Venezuela as a hub for transnational organized crime and a regional destabilizer through mass migration—is no longer tenable. Nor does it presage a full-scale invasion as necessary to accomplish U.S. policy objectives. There exists a wide range of options in the policy toolkit short of that for the United States to enforce its will. It is likely that Washington is in contact with Venezuelan military personnel not involved in narcotrafficking and others in charge of guns to state that if they don’t remove Maduro from power, the United States is prepared to unleash an asymmetric offensive that could consume them as well. The Trump administration has carefully constructed a policy rationale that this is not ‘regime change’ for the sake of exporting democracy to the world’s benighted peoples. Rather, it is a national security initiative meant to eliminate a source of tons of cocaine from entering the United States: something ‘Main Street USA’ can identify with. Credibility, moreover, is the cornerstone of Donald Trump’s foreign policy. Believe what he says, or else. There is no climb-down from the current deployment. No doubt anti-American despots in Moscow, Beijing and elsewhere are watching the unfolding action in the southern Caribbean carefully.”
María Velez de Berliner, chief strategy officer at RTG-Red Team Group, Inc.: “U.S.-Venezuela tensions have never been higher because Maduro has never faced the military superiority of the United States as he does now. Both countries are eying each other across the Venezuelan Caribbean. However, the U.S. forces amassed 11 miles (near Trinidad and Tobago) off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast, are a ruse. The issue is not drugs, but rather the removal of Maduro’s leftist dictatorship. Maduro’s counter-deployment of 1,500 militia members to Zulia and Táchira states (bordering Colombia) are no match for the U.S. forces currently at sea, or its special operations forces that are already deployed inside Venezuela. The creation, with Colombia, of the Zona de Paz #1 in the Catatumbo region is for naught, given that Maduro threatened to close the binational border to ‘prevent’ an attack that the U.S. military might consider using the U.S. special operations forces already in Colombia. Given the charges Maduro faces in U.S. courts (terrorism, money laundering and, allegedly, being the head of the Cartel de Los Soles), it makes sense to think that Maduro might find his solution in fleeing to Nicaragua or Cuba to avoid imprisonment in the United States. Maduro’s days are numbered. The issue is not if he will be removed from power, but rather when the United States will do it, and whether it does so directly or indirectly. The critical question remains: Who will the United States then support as interim president of Venezuela? Given the United States’ history of failures in the region, I hope it might be different this time. Vladimir Padrino, Venezuela’s defense minister, holds the trump card, for now, because he might be the only one the United States has to negotiate with.”
[Editor’s note: This Q&A was first published before news broke on Sept. 2 of the U.S. Navy having destroyed a boat that was allegedly being used to traffic drugs from Venezuela.]
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