Global & US Headlines
Trump Green-Lights ‘Operation Southern Spear,’ Mulls Direct Strikes Inside Venezuela
On 13–14 Nov 2025 the Pentagon activated Operation Southern Spear and briefed President Trump on newly updated land-strike options against Venezuela, escalating a months-long maritime drug-interdiction campaign into a potential shooting war.
Focusing Facts
- Secretary of War Pete Hegseth publicly announced Operation Southern Spear on 14 Nov 2025, placing a USS Gerald R. Ford–led carrier group (8 ships plus a nuclear submarine) under SOUTHCOM for offensive actions against “narco-terrorists.”
- U.S. forces have already destroyed at least 21 suspected drug boats since September, killing roughly 80 people according to Pentagon and CBS tallies.
- Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López ordered the mobilization of 200,000 soldiers on 11 Nov 2025 in response, while Russia signaled it is “ready” to honor a May 2025 mutual-defense pact with Caracas.
Context
Washington has periodically used anti-drug rationales to justify force projection in Latin America—most famously the 1989 invasion of Panama, which, like today, began with maritime interdictions and carrier deployments before morphing into regime-change. The current build-up also echoes the 1895–1904 heyday of the Roosevelt Corollary, when the U.S. claimed a police power in the hemisphere; in both cases, the legal pretexts were contested abroad and at home. Long-term trends at play: (1) the militarization of counter-narcotics missions; (2) the re-assertion of the Monroe Doctrine against extra-regional actors such as Russia; and (3) the executive branch’s widening authority to wage undeclared, drone-heavy wars. If the U.S. strikes Venezuelan soil, it would further normalize targeted killings outside traditional battlefields, invite Russian counter-moves, and risk pushing fragile global oil and security systems into a new bipolar alignment—consequences that could reverberate, for better or worse, well into the 22nd century.
Perspectives
U.S. national-security focused outlets
e.g., CBS News, Yahoo News — Report that senior Pentagon leaders have given President Trump concrete military options against Venezuela as part of an expanded counter-narcotics campaign and emphasize the operational details, assets deployed and stated goal of stopping drug smuggling. Coverage largely echoes official briefings and treats the “narco-terrorist” framing as factual, giving scant attention to legal challenges or whether Venezuelan cartels are a real strategic threat.
Intervention-skeptic commentary outlets
e.g., The American Conservative, Breitbart segment quoting Sen. Tim Kaine — Argue that Trump is dragging the U.S. toward unnecessary wars—including with Venezuela—built on false premises about drug trafficking and national security, and warn the naval buildup is a catastrophic blunder that could spark wider conflict. Pieces lean on selective intelligence assessments and anti-intervention ideology, framing any military option as automatically ‘pointless’ while downplaying potential cartel violence or political gains from pressure on Maduro.
Russian or Russia-sympathetic media
e.g., Newsweek citing Lavrov, UK Mirror reprinting Tass lines — Highlight Moscow’s pledge to aid Venezuela against Washington’s “illegal” strike campaign, stressing that U.S. forces are massing near Venezuela and could trigger a Russia-U.S. confrontation. Amplifies Kremlin messaging that paints the U.S. as aggressor and portrays Russia as a protective ally, minimizing questions about Moscow’s actual capacity or Maduro’s record while stoking alarm over ‘WW3’.