The nation’s top military officer on Monday will visit Puerto Rico and one of the several Navy warships dispatched to the Caribbean Sea to combat drug trafficking as the Trump administration weighs the possibility of a broader military campaign against Venezuela.
The stated reason for the trip by the officer, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is to thank troops ahead of Thanksgiving, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details.
But General Caine has been a major architect of what the Pentagon calls Operation Southern Spear, the largest buildup of American naval forces in the Caribbean since the Cuban Missile Crisis and the blockade of Cuba in 1962. The general is expected to consult with commanders on the armada’s preparations, one of the two officials said.
The Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s largest and newest aircraft carrier, arrived in the Caribbean last week, and there are now 15,000 troops in the region, including Marines on amphibious ships and some 5,000 personnel at military bases in Puerto Rico.
General Caine’s visit comes as President Trump has approved several measures to pressure Venezuela and prepare for possible military action, according to multiple people briefed on the matter.
Mr. Trump has signed off on C.I.A. plans for covert measures inside Venezuela, operations that could be meant to prepare a battlefield for further action, these people said. At the same time, they said, he has authorized a new round of back-channel negotiations that at one point resulted in Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, offering to step down after a delay of a couple of years, a proposal the White House rejected.
It is not clear what the covert actions might be or when any of them might be carried out. Mr. Trump has not authorized combat forces on the ground in Venezuela, so the next phase of the administration’s escalating pressure campaign on the Maduro government could be sabotage or cyber, psychological or information operations.
The U.S. Navy has routinely been positioning warships near Venezuela’s coast in locations far from the Caribbean’s main drug-smuggling routes, suggesting that the buildup is focused more on a pressure campaign against Venezuela than on the counternarcotics operation the Trump administration says it is carrying out.
Cruisers and destroyers have consistently been sailing in an area 50 to 100 miles off Venezuelan shores, according to an analysis of satellite imagery provided to and verified by The New York Times. Though some cocaine is trafficked in this area, it is several hundred miles east of the busiest smuggling routes, which, according to U.S. government data, are off the coast of neighboring Colombia.
The United States has launched 21 known strikes on boats that the Trump administration says were smuggling drugs, killing at least 83 people. Mr. Trump has said ample intelligence justifies the strikes, but administration officials have not provided detailed evidence of the cargo the boats were carrying. Nor have U.S. officials said why Colombia or Mexico — Mexico is the main conduit for fentanyl — are not in the Navy’s sights.
Administration officials say Mr. Trump has still made no decision about additional military action, though several weeks ago he declared that land strikes on Venezuelan targets were coming. Variations of such strikes — against drug facilities, military troops or Mr. Maduro’s own inner circle — were debated in the run-up to this week’s national security meetings, officials say.
So far, the strikes have been against only the small speedboats in international waters that the administration insists were crewed by “narco-terrorists,” without offering evidence. The military is not allowed to deliberately kill civilians, even those suspected of committing crimes. Some legal scholars, and some of the families of those killed, say the attacks amount to state-sponsored murder.
General Caine’s visit comes as the military has been ratcheting up its role in a multifaceted pressure campaign.
With the Ford now in the Caribbean, carrier-based F/A-18 fighters have been carrying out flight operations in the area, with some flights just off the Venezuelan coast. In addition, Air Force B-1 and B-52 bombers, each armed with dozens of precision-guided bombs, have also been flying regular training missions off Venezuela’s coast.
Forces from the United States and Trinidad and Tobago began joint military exercises in recent days, the second set in a month, aimed at curbing violent crime and drug trafficking through the Caribbean nation. Marines from the 22nd Expeditionary Unit are participating from Navy ships sailing in the region.
Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times. He has reported on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism for more than three decades.
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