The United States is bolstering its military forces in the Caribbean, particularly in Puerto Rico. More than 10% of the U.S. Navy’s ships and other resources are now located in the region in what defense analysts are calling a “seismic reordering” of Pentagon assets.
The volume of hardware involved suggests an escalation of the Trump administration’s military campaign against Venezuela and President Nicolás Maduro. To date, this offensive has publicly involved killing at least 28 people in six known strikes, including one on Thursday, against small boats in the Caribbean Sea. Two of those wounded in the latest strike, so far the first to survive the U.S. assaults, are reportedly being held on a Navy ship.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, President Trump again claimed that the targeted vessels are carrying drugs that Venezuelan cartels are trafficking – at Mr. Maduro’s behest – to harm the U.S. The strikes are meant to send a clear message to Venezuela’s president that the U.S. is serious, Mr. Trump said, using a crass expletive. He added that a submarine was the target of the administration’s latest strike.
Why We Wrote This
The volume of U.S. military hardware headed to Puerto Rico suggests an escalation of the Trump administration’s military campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The president says land strikes might follow.
Some analysts posit that the president’s arguments are a pretext for a larger campaign aimed at toppling Mr. Maduro.
The Venezuelan leader has denied being involved in narco-trafficking – referring to the allegations as “fake news, propagated through various media channels” – and offered to engage in “a direct and frank conversation” with a U.S. special envoy.
The White House has not provided proof or intelligence data confirming that the people killed were criminals.
Still, President Trump on Wednesday acknowledged that he has authorized the CIA to begin planning covert operations, which could involve strikes within Venezuelan territorial waters or even on land. It was an unusual admission of what normally would be considered a sensitive state secret.
“We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” Mr. Trump said.
Reuters, U.S. Naval Institute News, Task & Purpose
|
Jacob Turcotte/Staff
What exactly is the Pentagon sending to the Caribbean?
U.S. forces began flowing into the region in earnest in August. The Pentagon has placed, among other assets, three Navy destroyers, several amphibious assault vessels, and an attack submarine in the region, according to Reuters and USNI News, a Naval Institute news service.
The Pentagon has also sent F-35 fighter jets and B-52 bombers, as well as a ship equipped with a helicopter landing deck.
Notably, two AC-130 gunships have been deployed to the region, according to Henry Ziemer, associate fellow in the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C. “This is very interesting because, of course, the AC-130 is for low-intensity conflicts,” he says.
“Low-intensity conflict” is Pentagon parlance for combat that falls short of a conventional war between two countries. It is rather a military effort to achieve U.S. political aims through, say, counterinsurgency or counterterrorism operations.
The AC-130s have been workhorses during these sorts of U.S. conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, lending “low and slow” close-air support to U.S. troops doing everything from running convoys to conducting urban operations.
Some analysts predict that a U.S. aircraft carrier might soon be dispatched to the region.
Why does Puerto Rico figure prominently in the buildup?
The U.S. has a limited number of bases within U.S. Southern Command — the Pentagon’s name for this area of military operations, which includes Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean. This makes sense, since the U.S. mainland is relatively nearby. But in the event of prolonged operations, more forward-operating forces will be necessary, notes a CSIS report co-written by Mr. Ziemer.
For this reason, Puerto Rico has emerged as a highly strategic jumping-off point for the continued U.S. presence in the region, which “is in need of airfields to fly its planes and ports to dock and resupply its ships,” the report notes. “Puerto Rico has thus far been providing the lion’s share of the infrastructure.”
Navy reconnaissance planes, such as the P-8A Poseidon, are flying out of National Guard facilities based at Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, and the Port of Ponce, one of southern Puerto Rico’s major shipping hubs, is hosting several warships.
The pressure to find more bases for U.S. forces in the region has also prompted the U.S. to reactivate the former Roosevelt Roads Naval Station near Ceiba, Puerto Rico, which had been shuttered for more than two decades.
What’s the purpose of the buildup?
That this is all laying the groundwork for Mr. Maduro’s ouster has been the most-discussed possibility among analysts this week.
The U.S. military presence in the region, reportedly at 10,000 troops, “is far too large, in my opinion, to be a counternarcotics force,” Mr. Ziemer says. At the same time, he adds, “I think it’s too small to be a genuine invasion and regime-change force.”
In 1989, during its invasion of Panama, the U.S. sent roughly 27,000 troops to depose dictator Manuel Noriega. In 1983, it sent just 7,300 service members to occupy Grenada.
But Venezuela is far larger, with greater complexities.
The announcement on Thursday that Adm. Alvin Holsey, the head of U.S. Southern Command, will be retiring one year into a three-year term injects a measure of uncertainty into American plans.
So, too, does news this week that the Trump administration has given the go-ahead for the CIA to start planning for covert operations in Venezuela. That development, first reported by the New York Times, could be an effort to pressure Mr. Maduro – who, in addition to alleged human rights abuses, dismantling of democratic institutions, and drug trafficking, has long enjoyed the support of U.S. rivals Russia and China – to step down, analysts say.
While it is unclear what those covert military operations might involve, targets within Venezuela are well within range of Tomahawk missiles, even though the ships that carry them are docked in Puerto Rico.
The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the authority to declare war. But last week, the Senate voted down a resolution that would have blocked President Trump’s Caribbean boat strikes. A bipartisan group of senators on Thursday began trying again to bring a vote to block the president from authorizing military action “within or against” Venezuela without congressional authorization.
The White House has declared the U.S. in “armed conflict” with the drug cartels it says are controlling these vessels and has labeled several cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
“One thing does seem pretty certain, which is that the U.S. is probably considering going from strikes right now that have all been in international waters to strikes inside Venezuelan territory,” Mr. Ziemer says.
Whether that is within Venezuelan territorial waters or “actually on land,” he adds, is likely yet to be determined.
