The US Is Courting Disaster in Venezuela
Getting ready. But for what?
Photographer: Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images
One of the many puzzles in current American foreign policy concerns the Western Hemisphere, and specifically the Caribbean near Venezuela and Colombia. At huge cost, the administration of President Donald Trump is staging a formidable show of military force in these waters. War ships, fighter jets, special-operations units and about 10,000 ground troops are all poised to … well, do what exactly? Invade Venezuela? Depose its dictator? Keep bombing small boats carrying civilians? Declare victory and go home again?
As Evan Cooper at the Stimson Center in Washington summarizes, “US aggression in the Caribbean has little upside, while threatening to make the United States a pariah and exacerbate the conditions that lead to drug trafficking and migration.” Just what is the White House thinking?