At the beginning of September, the southern Caribbean became a hybrid war game where anti-drug operations, financial sanctions and military deployments mixed together. Then we learned that the United States had decided to open a base that had been closed for 20 years and that F-35s have not stopped arriving since then.
Three have been added to the fighter jets monsters looking at Venezuela.
The roar. In recent days, the Caribbean has once again been the scene of a military deployment reminiscent of the most tense years of the Cold War. Up to three US B-52 strategic bombers were spotted orbiting for hours off the coast of Venezuela, escorted by F-35 fighters and supported by tankers and reconnaissance drones.
The maneuver, carried out in international airspace, was anything but discreet: a deliberate display of force a few kilometers from Caracas, in a context in which Washington intensifies pressure against the regime of Nicolás Maduro and in which rumors about a possible direct action begin to sound with increasing plausibility.
Echo of the giants. The B-52s, based in Louisiana, crossed the Caribbean sky with the unequivocal purpose of being seen. Their mere presence has a strategic significance: each of these colossi can carry dozens of long-range cruise missiles, capable of hitting land or sea targets without having to fly over enemy territory.
The United States assures that the patrols are part of anti-drug operations, but the simultaneity with Trump’s threats and the recent attacks on vessels suspected of drug trafficking point to a clearer political message: warning Maduro that Washington’s reach extends from the air to the waters of the Caribbean and, if it considers it necessary, beyond.
The fence In just two months, the Pentagon has deployed a naval and air force in the region that includes three destroyers, a missile cruiser, a nuclear submarine and an amphibious group with more than 2,000 marines. Added to this are Reaper drones, C-17 transport planes and the feared AC-130J Ghostrider, specialized in interdiction operations and surgical strikes.
The structure is more reminiscent of a preparation force for a limited campaign than a mere anti-drug operation. Washington has also confirmed the creation of a new regional task force under the command of the II Marine Expeditionary Force, while reports of lethal attacks on suspicious boats in international waters accumulate: at least five in recent weeks, with 27 dead.
Open threat. The turning point has come when Trump himself openly declared that he is studying “striking on Venezuelan land” after having “almost completely controlled the sea.” He said it with the naturalness of someone describing a logical extension of an operation in progress. He also acknowledged having authorized the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuelan territory, in a decision that marks a qualitative leap with respect to traditional diplomatic pressure.
Although he avoided confirming whether this authorization includes the figure of Maduro, the insinuation was enough to set off all the alarms in the region. In Washington, sources from the Department of Defense maintain that these would be actions aimed at “disrupting drug trafficking networks,” but Trump himself has described the Venezuelan president as “head of a cartel,” blurring the line between anti-drug war and regime change operation.
Venezuela on alert. From Caracas, the response was immediate. Maduro accused the United States of preparing an invasion and denounced to the United Nations what he described as “a very serious violation of international law.” His government maintains that the military movements seek to “legitimize a regime change operation to seize Venezuelan oil reserves.”
In a televised speech, supported by his military leadership, he evoked the coups sponsored by the CIA during the Cold War in Latin America and cried: “Down with coups d’état! Latin America neither wants them nor needs them.” At the same time, he announced that 4.5 million civilian militiamen would be ready to defend the country, although the actual enlistment figures were far from his rhetoric. Meanwhile, the opposition, led by María Corina Machado (recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize), celebrated the American support and dedicated its award “to Trump, for his decisive support for our cause.”
Fuzzy red line. The situation has become a dangerous choreography of power. On the one hand, Washington insists that its mission is to stop drug trafficking and irregular migration, on the other, its actions increasingly resemble the preparatory phase of a military operation. Trump’s rhetoric, direct and unfiltered, evokes the old ghosts of North American interventions in Latin America, while his deployment in the Caribbean resembles a modern reissue of the Big Stick policy.
Venezuela, with a weakened army, suffocating sanctions and a perpetual internal crisis, thus becomes a backboard and excuse: the place where the United States’ ambition for regional control and the need for an external enemy to maintain the cohesion of Chavismo intersect.
A prelude? The flight of the B-52s off the Venezuelan coast was not a routine maneuver. It was a sign. A demonstration that pressure is no longer measured in sanctions or communications, but in long-range missions, combat escorts and submarines that silently patrol a few kilometers from the continental shelf of a sovereign State.
Trump has found the perfect antagonist in Maduro: an isolated dictator, converted into a symbol of Latin American collapse and a justification for his new hemispheric doctrine. If you will, also a warning to sailors: it could become the first salvo of a selective intervention.
Image | USAF
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