The New York Times reports:

The Trump administration is aggressively stoking tensions with Venezuela and its president, Nicolás Maduro, and appears to be creating conditions that could lead to a military confrontation.

A major buildup of U.S. naval forces is underway outside Venezuela’s waters as the administration has stepped up belligerent rhetoric about fighting drug cartels and labeled Mr. Maduro a terrorist-cartel leader. All that raises the question of whether the end goal is just to counter drug-smuggling boats, or a potential regime-change war.

President Trump signed a still-secret directive last month instructing the Pentagon to use military force against some Latin American drug cartels that his administration has labeled “terrorist” organizations. Around the same time, the administration declared that a Venezuelan criminal group was a terrorist organization and that Mr. Maduro was its leader, while calling his government illegitimate.

Since then, the Pentagon has been moving U.S. Navy assets, including warships, into the southern Caribbean Sea. In response, Mr. Maduro announced on Monday that he was deploying 4.5 million militiamen around his country and vowed to “defend our seas, our skies and our lands” from any incursions.

The administration has said little about its intentions. On Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, was asked about the movements and whether the administration was considering putting forces on the ground in Venezuela. She responded by calling Mr. Maduro illegitimate and invoking his indictment, late in the first Trump administration, on U.S. drug trafficking charges.

Mr. Trump, she said, is “prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice. The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela. It is a narco-terror cartel.”

The Pentagon declined to comment publicly about the specifics of the deployment. But Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said that cartels “have engaged in historic violence and terror throughout our hemisphere — and around the globe — that has destabilized economies and internal security of countries but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs.”

He added that the Defense Department would “undoubtedly play an important role towards meeting the president’s objective to eliminate the ability of these cartels to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States and its people.”

U.S. officials said that up to three guided-missile destroyers would soon arrive in the region. The naval warships will target boats operated by drug cartels transporting fentanyl to the United States, the officials said, but have not said how they will do so.

Also headed to the region is the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group — including the U.S.S. San Antonio, the U.S.S. Iwo Jima and the U.S.S. Fort Lauderdale, carrying 4,500 sailors — and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, with 2,200 Marines, Defense Department officials said.

Those ships and the Marines departed Norfolk, Va., earlier this week but had to turn around to avoid Hurricane Erin. They are expected to head back out soon and are likely to arrive in the next several days. Several P-8 surveillance planes and a submarine are also deploying to the region, officials said.

The destroyers heading toward a zone outside Venezuelan territorial waters are the U.S.S. Jason Dunham and the U.S.S. Gravely — both warships that recently featured in the campaign against the Houthi militia in the Red Sea. A third destroyer, the U.S.S. Sampson, now in the eastern Pacific, may soon join, one official said.

These warships are Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, equipped with more than 90 missiles, including surface-to-air missiles. They can conduct antiaircraft and anti-submarine warfare, and shoot down ballistic missiles.

Deploying them against drug cartels would be like “bringing a howitzer to a knife fight,” one defense official said on Thursday.

The U.S. Navy has long intercepted and boarded ships suspected of smuggling drugs in international waters, typically with a Coast Guard officer temporarily in charge to invoke law enforcement authority. But the scale of the forces the Pentagon is moving into place, coupled with Mr. Trump’s order, suggests that the administration is contemplating actions that go significantly beyond law-enforcement-style maritime interdictions.

“By sending three Arleigh Burke destroyers off the coast of Venezuela, President Trump is bringing serious land attack capability via Tomahawk missiles,” said Adm. James Stavridis, a former head of U.S. Southern Command, now retired. “Also sophisticated intelligence gathering, six advanced helicopters, a thousand sailors and sophisticated command control to run counter narcotic operations at sea.”

The administration’s specific operational intentions are being unusually closely held, even inside the executive branch, according to several officials. It remains unclear what criteria or rules of engagement the administration is considering for any operations using armed force.

But the recent developments invite comparisons to the provocative conditions that preceded two important American military episodes in the second half of the 20th century.

The first was the Gulf of Tonkin incident, where aggressive U.S. naval activity off the coast of North Vietnam led to a confrontation that President Lyndon B. Johnson cited to get a congressional resolution he used to expand direct U.S. engagement in the Vietnam War. (The government cited two supposed engagements, on Aug. 2 and 4, 1964; years later, it came to light that most likely the latter attack never happened.)

In the second incident, in December 1989, the administration of President George H.W. Bush sent more than 20,000 American troops to invade Panama and arrest its strongman leader, Manuel Noriega, who had been indicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges. He was convicted in 1992 and died in Panama City in 2017.

Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer and a specialist in the laws of war, said the administration should go to Congress for authorization if it wants to use military force against Venezuela. While there are plenty of examples of countries that have looked for incidents to use as a pretext to start wars, he said, “if the U.S. goes out of its way to pick the fight, that’s not self-defense.” [Continue reading…]