The US Military Just Sent a Clear Message to Maduro and Venezuela

The destroyers carry highly accurate 1,500-mile land-attack Tomahawk cruise missiles; very sophisticated air defense and intelligence collection capability; and two multi-purpose helicopters each. The big amphibious ships can move their “main battery” – a Marine Expeditionary Unit of 2,500 Marines – ashore very quickly anywhere along the northern coast of South America. A nuclear-powered attack submarine may be operating in the area as well. Collectively, well over 4,000 sailors and Marines and at least half-a-dozen major warships are operating a thousand miles from the US in an area with dense commercial shipping, operating oil and gas platforms, fishing activity, and cruise ships.Why is this high-powered deployment occurring now, and what is its objective?

Ostensibly, the forces are in place to conduct counter-narcotics operations, a worthy goal. Witness the reported destruction by the US military on Tuesday of a boat that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization.” But most drug shipments to the US move up the Pacific coast via the waters along the west coast of Central America from sources in the Andean Ridge. Many shipments go by air, which a naval flotilla would have little ability to interdict without an aircraft carrier.

I know these counter-drug missions intimately from my time as the head of US Southern Command, the four-star combatant command headquartered in Doral, Florida, near the Miami International Airport. For over three years, I spent much of my time studying the complex patterns of drug movements and begging the Pentagon for the resources to stop them. What I learned is that defeating the drug runners isn’t about high-tech offensive weapons or massive warships, and certainly not about Marines or nuclear submarines. It is about intelligence. The sea is vast, and the number of patrolling vessels constitute a tiny presence, even with their long-range radars and sonars. Think of patrolling the state of Texas with a half-dozen police cars and you get the idea. 

If the objective is stopping the flow of drugs, a better plan would be to increase the intelligence collection resources available to Southern Command, including sophisticated satellites and cell-phone intercepts, using its very modern command center in Doral as a data and intelligence fusion center. The US could also make better use of the Joint Interagency Task Force-South in Key West, a coalition of more than 20 national partners and US law enforcement and intelligence agencies. That may be the best way to assess intelligence and then deploy Coast Guard cutters to do the intercepts. The big, muscular naval flotilla can contribute through intelligence gathering; provide embarked helicopters and small boats; and give physical and logistical support at sea to interagency teams from the Coast Guard, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

But the big warships have another mission: to send a very clear message to the dictator of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro. Tomahawk missiles from destroyers or submarines can’t do much against drug runners, but they can take out critical income-generating oil and gas infrastructure. US Marines aren’t going to take down drug-running high-speed boats a la Miami Vice, but they could be used against oil and gas platforms or Venezuelan military bases along the coast. Submarines and destroyers can sink Venezuelan warships and shoot down military aircraft. Maduro, who has a $50 million US bounty on his head and is deep into the narcotics trade according to US officials, is on the receiving end of this signal.

I met Maduro during my time at Southern Command when he was the minister of foreign affairs. I read his biography and was unimpressed by his early job as a bus driver and union boss. When I met him at a neutral site during a regional conference in South America, he struck me as unlikely to have the drive or cunning to succeed his boss, the charismatic and clever Hugo Chavez. I underestimated him.

That was in 2009. Today, he has not only consolidated complete control of Venezuela but has become a prominent thorn in the side of the US and many of his neighbors — notably Guyana, which he regularly threatens to invade, and close US ally Colombia.

The US deployment and the expressions of support for it by some of Venezuela’s neighbors have triggered splenetic outbursts from Maduro, who says that “the empire has gone mad” and vows to “defeat American imperialism.” The US should continue to step up its fight against the narco-trafficking that provides oxygen to Venezuela’s rotten regime and undermines the peace and prosperity of its neighbors. Some serious gunboat diplomacy that sends Maduro and the region a signal of both America’s capability and intent is a useful side dish to serve.

Stavridis is dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is on the boards of Aon, Fortinet and Ankura Consulting Group.

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a retired US Navy admiral, former supreme allied commander of NATO, and vice chairman of global affairs at the Carlyle Group.

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