EXPERT OPINION — For about a week we experienced significant controversy over the first military attack on alleged narco-trafficker small boats off the coast of Venezuela (and later Ecuador). The controversy began with news that the Secretary of Defense had ordered the Special Operations Command Task Force commander to, “Kill them all.” This was linked to reports that the boat was attacked not once, but twice; the second attack launched with full knowledge that two survivors from the first attack were hanging on the capsized remnants.

Critical commentary exploded, much of it based on the assumption that the “kill them all” order had been issued, and that it was issued after the first strike. Even after the Admiral who ordered the attacks refuted that allegation, critics continued to assert that the attack was, ‘clearly’ a war crime as it was obviously intended to kill the two survivors.

The public still does not know all the details about these attacks. What is known, however, is that Congress held several closed-door hearings that included viewing the video feed from the attacks and testimony from the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and the Admiral who commanded the operation.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the reaction to these hearings has crystalized along partisan lines. Democratic Members of Congress and Senators have insisted they observed a war crime and called for public release of the video. Republicans, in contrast, have indicated they are satisfied that the campaign is based on a solid legal foundation and that nothing about the attacks crossed the line into illegality.

What is less obvious than the partisan reaction is how what began as a problem for the administration has ended up becoming a windfall. When Senator Roger Wicker, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, announced after the second closed door briefing that he was satisfied with the administration’s legal theory and saw no evidence of a war crime, it provided a signal to the administration that this Congress is not going to interfere with its military campaign. Democrats will try: they will continue to demand hearings, they have asserted violation of the War Powers Act and propose legislation requiring immediate termination of the campaign, and they will continue to insist the U.S. military has been ordered to conduct illegal killings. But so long as the Republican majority is tolerant of this presidential assertion of war power, there is virtually nothing to check it. This so-called ‘double tap’ tested the political waters, and it turns out they are quite favorable for the President.

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From a legal perspective, the reaction to this incident has reflected overbreadth and misunderstanding from both ends of the spectrum. For example, characterizing the second attack as a war crime – or rejecting that conclusion – implicitly endorses the administration’s theory that it is engaged in an armed conflict against Tren de Aragua, an interpretation of international law that has been rejected by almost all legal experts. Equally overbroad has been the assumption that the second attack must have been intended to kill the survivors from the first attack – an assumption that renders that attack nearly impossible to justify, even assuming it was conducted pursuant to a valid invocation of wartime legal authority. But even release of the video would be insufficient to answer a critical question in relation to this assumption: was the second attack directed against the survivors, or against the remnants of the boat with knowledge it would likely kill the survivors as a collateral consequence? Only the Admiral and those who advised him can answer that question. And if the answer is, ‘the remnants, not the survivors’, other difficult questions must be addressed: what was the military necessity for ‘finishing off’ the boat? And, most importantly, why wasn’t it operationally feasible to do something – perhaps just dropping a raft into the water – to spare the survivors that lethal collateral effect?

But the true significance of this incident and the reaction it triggered extends far beyond the question of whether that second attack was or was not lawful; it is the implicit validation of the foundation for the legal architecture the administration seems to be erecting to justify expanding the conflict to achieve regime change in Venezuela. In this regard, it is important to recognize that the Trump Administration is implicitly acknowledging it must situate its campaign and any extension of this campaign within the boundaries of international law, even as it seeks to expand them beyond their rational limits. Understanding this consequence begins with two essential considerations. First, the Trump Administration’s consistent invocation of international legal authority for its counter-drug campaign - albeit widely condemned as invalid – indicates that any expansion of this campaign will be premised on a theory of international legality. Second, that theory will have to align with the very limited authority of a state to use military force against another state enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.

That limited authority begins with Article 2(4) of the Charter, which prohibits a state’s threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any other United Nations member state. This prohibition is not, however, conclusive. Instead, the Charter recognizes two exceptions allowing for the use of force. First, military action authorized by the Security Council as a measure in response to an act of aggression, breach of the peace, or threat to international peace and security. Such authorizations have been used since creation of the U.N., one example being the use of force authorization adopted in 2011 to establish humanitarian safe areas in Libya; the authorization that led to the Libyan air campaign. The reason such authorizations have been infrequent is because any one of the five permanent members of the Security Council (the United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia) may veto any resolution providing for such authorization for any reason whatsoever. It is inconceivable the U.S. could garner support for such authorization to take military action in and/or against Venezuela, much less even seek such an authorization.

The second exception to the presumptive prohibition on the threat or use of force is the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense enshrined in Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. That right arises when a state is the victim of an actual or imminent armed attack. Furthermore, the understanding of that right has evolved in the view of many states – and certainly the United States – to apply to threats posed by both states and non-state organized armed groups like al Qaeda.

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From the inception of this counter-narcotics campaign the Trump administration has asserted that the smuggling of illegal – and all too often deadly – narcotics into the United States amounts to an ‘armed attack’ on the nation. This characterization – coupled with the more recent designation of fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction – is obviously intended to justify an invocation of Article 51 right of self-defense. As with the assertion that TdA is engaged in an armed conflict with the United States, this invocation has been almost universally condemned as invalid. But that seems to have had little impact on Senators like Wicker or Graham and other Republicans who have indicated they are satisfied that the campaign is on solid legal ground.

To date, of course, the campaign based on this assertion of self-defense has been limited to action in international waters. But President Trump indicated in his last cabinet meeting that he intends to go after ‘them’ on the land – ostensibly referring to members of TdA. So, how would an assertion of self-defense justify extending attacks into Venezuelan territory, and what are the broader implications for potential conflict escalation?

The answer to that question implicates a doctrine of self-defense long embraced by the United States: ‘unable or unwilling.’ Pursuant to this interpretation of the right of self-defense, a nation is legally justified in using force in the territory of another state to defend itself against a non-state organized armed group operating out of that territory when the territorial state is ‘unable or unwilling’ to prevent those operations. It is, in essence, a theory of self-help based on the failure of the territorial state to fulfill its international legal obligation to prevent the use of its territory by such a group. And there have been numerous examples of U.S. military operations justified by this theory. Perhaps the most obvious was the operation inside Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden. Many other drone attacks against al Qaeda targets in places like Yemen and Somalia are also examples. And almost all operations inside Syria prior to the fall of the Asad regime were based on this theory.

By implicitly endorsing the administration’s theory that the United States is acting against TdA pursuant to the international legal justification of self-defense, Republican legislators have opened the door to expanding attacks into Venezuelan territory. It is now predictable that the administration will invoke the unwilling or unable doctrine to justify attacks on alleged TdA base camps and operations in that country. But, unlike other invocations of that theory, it is equally predictable that the territorial state – Venezuela, will reject the U.S. legal justification for such action. This means Venezuela will treat any incursion into its territory as an act of aggression in violation of Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter, triggering its right of self-defense.

In theory, such a dispute over which state is and which state is not validly asserting the right of self-defense would be submitted to and resolved by the Security Council. But it is simply unrealistic to expect any Security Council action if U.S. attacks against TdA targets in Venezuela escalate to direct confrontation between Venezuela and the U.S. Instead, each side will argue it is acting with legal justification against the other side’s violation of international law.

What this means in more pragmatic terms is that there is a real likelihood a U.S. invocation of the unable or unwilling doctrine could quickly escalate into direct hostilities with the Venezuelan armed forces. At that point, we should expect the administration will treat any effort by Venezuela to interfere with our ‘self-defense’ operations as a distinct act of aggression, thereby justifying action to neuter Venezuela’s military capability.

It is, of course, impossible to predict exactly what the administration is planning vis a vis Venezuela. Perhaps this is all part of a pressure campaign intended to avert direct confrontation by persuading Maduro’s power base to abandon him. But the history of such tactics does not seem to support the expectation Maduro will depart peacefully, or that any resulting regime change will have the impact the Trump Administration might desire. One need only consider how dictators like Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega resisted such pressures and clung to power even when U.S. military action that they had no chance of withstanding became inevitable. Or perhaps the administration will bypass the ‘unable and unwilling’ approach and simply initiate direct action against Venezuela to topple Maduro based on an even more dubious claim of self-defense now that he has been designated part of another foreign terrorist organization.

One thing, however, is certain: the options for extending this military campaign to Venezuela are built upon the feeble foundation that the U.S. is legitimately exercising the right of self-defense against TdA. And now, because of an attack that triggered congressional scrutiny, the administration is in a stronger position politically than ever thanks to Republican legislators endorsing this theory of international legality.

The real issue that was at stake during those closed door hearings was never really whether a possible war crime occurred, although the deaths that have resulted from the ‘second strike’ (like all the deaths resulting from this campaign) are highly problematic. The real issue was and remains the inherent invalidity of a U.S. assertion of wartime legal authority and a congressional majority that seems all too willing acquiesce to an administration that seems willing to bend law to the point of breaking to advance its policy agenda.

Nicolas Maduro is a tyrant who has illegitimately clung to power contrary to the popular will of the Venezuelan people. His nefarious activities and anti-democratic rule justify U.S. efforts to force him out of power and enable restoration of genuine democracy in that country. What it does not justify is constructing a legal edifice built on an invalid foundation to justify going to war against Venezuela to achieve that goal. But now that the Trump administration has tested the political waters, that seems more likely than ever.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

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OPINION — “There's no doubt that America's adversaries are trafficking fentanyl into the United States in part because they want to kill Americans. If this were a war, that would be one of the worst wars. I believe they killed over the last five or six years, per year, 200-to-300,000 people. You hear about a 100,000, which is a lot of people, but the number is much higher than that. That's been proven.”

That was President Trump in the Oval Office on December 15, explaining why he was signing an Executive Order (EO) designating “illicit fentanyl and its core precursor chemicals as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).”

Notice Trump’s use of the word “war,” and the vast exaggeration of numbers of fentanyl drug deaths in the U.S. -- actually 48,000 in 2024. Also, does anyone really think that the cartels are pushing fentanyl into this country “to kill Americans?” Or is the real reason they are doing it is to make money – as is the case with most drug dealers.

I am focusing on this rather odd EO because to me it is another sign that President Trump is bringing the U.S. military into yet another essentially domestic American problem, drug use. I also see it as the Trump administration regularizing employment of the U.S. military to be a normal response to control civil issues.

Remember, President Trump has employed some 9,000 active and National Guard service members on the U.S. southern border to block what he termed an invasion of illegal immigrants. He has also federalized National Guard troops in U.S. cities like Washington, D.C. claiming they were needed to combat crime, and required hundreds of Marines and originally 4,000 California National Guard personnel in Los Angeles to put down protests against immigration raids.

There was even a military atmosphere in the Oval Office on December 15, because the President used that same meeting to make the first awards of a Mexican Border Defense Medal to 13 Army and Marine service members who provided military support to the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

In the Oval Office meeting, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth explained that the newly-issued medal exactly replicated the 1918 Mexican Border Defense Medal, but that one went to U.S. troops who patrolled the border during 1916-1917, when fear was of a German-inspired invasion by the paramilitary forces of Francisco "Pancho" Villa as part of the Mexican Revolution.

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While President Trump said that “to kill Americans” was a purpose of trafficking fentanyl, the EO itself said there was a more complex goal. The EO said, “The production and sale of fentanyl by Foreign Terrorist Organizations and cartels fund these entities’ operations — which include assassinations, terrorist acts, and insurgencies around the world — and allow these entities to erode our domestic security and the well-being of our Nation.”

Here, this EO seeks to link up with one of President Trump’s first EOs, signed on January 20, that designated unspecified cartels as Foreign Terrorists Organizations to make them subject to laws Congress passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The new December 15 EO goes on to say, “The two cartels that are predominantly responsible for the distribution of fentanyl in the United States engage in armed conflict over territory and to protect their operations, resulting in large-scale violence and death that go beyond the immediate threat of fentanyl itself.”

Inexplicably, the EO does not name those two cartels.

However, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in its 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment makes it clear who they are by saying, “The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels, in particular, control clandestine [fentanyl] production sites in Mexico, smuggling routes into the United States, and distribution hubs in key U.S. cities.”

Then both the new EO and 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment carry the exact same following sentence: “Further, the potential for fentanyl to be weaponized for concentrated, large-scale terror attacks by organized adversaries is a serious threat to the United States.”

It turns out that back in the 1990s, a number of countries investigated using fentanyl as part of an incapacitating agent, including the U.S. Defense Department. The U.S. dropped the idea because of a margin of safety issue – the difference between a dosage that would incapacitate and one that would kill a person.

However the Russians did create a fentanyl-based incapacitating agent and used it in October 2002, when 40 Chechen terrorists seized Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater and held some 800 people hostage. Russians finally released the fentanyl-based gas to incapacitate those in the theater and it killed some 130 of them.

Fentanyl is an FDA-approved synthetic opioid used medically as a pain reliever and anesthetic. It is close to 100 times stronger than morphine. Two milligrams of fentanyl -- equivalent to 10-to-15 grains of table salt – can be lethal. Unlike other illegal drugs such as cocaine, wholesale traffickers distribute fentanyl by the kilogram, equal to 2.2 pounds.

The DEA has found wide U.S. usage of illicit, manufactured, counterfeit fentanyl pills ranging from .02 to 5.1 milligrams, the latter more than twice the lethal dose depending on a person’s body size, tolerance and past usage.

Fentanyl illegal drug use has been a major problem in the U.S. since 2021 when overdose deaths reached 71,000. But as shown above overdose fentanyl deaths are on the way down. President Trump even recognized fentanyl use had gone down saying in the Oval Office on December 15, “We've also achieved a 50% drop in the amount of fentanyl coming across the border and China is working with us very closely and bringing down the number and the amount of fentanyl that's being shipped…We've got it down to a much lower number.” But Trump added, “Not satisfactory, but it will be satisfactory soon.”

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The term “weapon of mass destruction” has specific legal definitions, typically tied to nuclear, radiological, chemical, or biological weapons that are designed to cause large-scale death or bodily harm.

Under the Trump WMD EO, implementation calls for Defense Secretary Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi to determine if the U.S. military is needed to enforce 10 U.S.C. 282, a post-9/11, 2002 counterterrorism law covering emergency situations involving weapons of mass destruction.

If they agree the military is needed, under 10 U.S.C. 282 Hegseth and Bondi are to “jointly prescribe regulations concerning the types of assistance that may be provided,” and “describe the actions that Department of Defense personnel may take in circumstances incident to the provision of assistance.”

There are provisions in 10 U.S.C. 282 prohibiting the military from authority to arrest individuals, directly participate in searches or seizures of evidence related law violations or collection of intelligence for law enforcement – but those provisions also can also be waived.

In addition, under the Trump EO, Hegseth is to consult with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to “update all directives regarding the Armed Forces’ response to chemical incidents in the homeland to include the threat of illicit fentanyl.”

I go into all these details because I believe something other than fentanyl is involved here. Others are questioning the December 15 EO, such as Andrew McCarthy in National Review on December 20.

McCarthy wrote, “President Trump may despise ‘forever wars,’ but he sure seems to like pretend wars. The point of the fentanyl ‘designation’ is to shore up his case for using military force against drug traffickers — although its relevance to high seas around Venezuela is hard to fathom since fentanyl is neither produced nor imported from there. At any rate, fentanyl, a dangerous drug but one with legitimate medical uses, is a narcotic, not a weapon of mass destruction akin to a chemical or biological bomb.”

Yesterday, Military.com pointed out, “The [December 15] Executive Order does not spell out a specific military mission, and Pentagon officials have not yet stated whether the armed forces will take on a direct role under the new designation.”

Nonetheless, the EO creates yet another new, domestic area for military operations within the homeland, and what emerges needs to be watched.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief, because national security is everyone’s business.

SPECIAL REPORT — In a turbulent year, one of the biggest national security stories came in the form of a document.

The administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS), released earlier this month, upends longstanding U.S. policy toward allies and adversaries alike. It ranks drug trafficking and illegal immigration as top threats to U.S. security, places a heavy emphasis on the Western Hemisphere, criticizes Europe and downplays security challenges from China and Russia.

Eight years ago, Trump's first NSS said that “China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” The new NSS doesn’t name Russia as a threat to the U.S. – stating instead that “strategic stability with Russia” is a goal of American policy. Europe is presented as a bigger challenge; the U.S. should “help Europe correct its current trajectory,” which the NSS says has been damaged by immigration and a risk of “civilizational erasure.”

As for China, the document focuses on economic competition – trade, infrastructure, and technology. References to Taiwan and the South China Sea come later, and they include warnings that other Asian nations must carry a greater burden; “the American military cannot, and should not have to, do this alone.”

“The north star of great-power competition with China and Russia—around which the first Trump administration built bipartisan consensus—is gone,” Rebecca Lissner, Senior Fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote of the new NSS. The objective now, she said, is a “mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing.”

Not surprisingly, European leaders were furious about the pivot to a more Russia-friendly posture, and what the European Council President called “political interference” in the affairs of Europe.

Glenn Corn, a former CIA Senior Executive, called the document’s treatment of Europe a “shock.”

“Europeans are not the enemy,” Corn told The Cipher Brief. “And I doubt the Russians will stand side by side with us on the battlefield and support us the way that our European partners have done.”

The new NSS won praise from at least one global capital. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said its emphasis on restoring strategic stability with Moscow “correspond in many ways” to Russia’s own vision.

Infographic with a map of the Americas showing the areas where the United States has carried out attacks against alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean since September 2, 2025, as well as the number of people killed in these attacks, as of December 16 (Graphic by AFP via Getty Images)

Missiles on the Water

While the focus on narcotrafficking was clear from the early days of Trump’s second term, the heavy U.S. military deployments and air strikes in the Caribbean took experts by surprise. The aerial campaign began with a September missile attack on a small boat that killed 11 people; a second strike that day took the lives of two survivors who were clinging to the upturned vessel. The follow-on strike sparked criticism in Congress – including from Republicans – and charges that it might have violated maritime laws.

As of mid-December, at least 25 strikes had followed, including some in the Pacific, resulting in the deaths of more than 90 people alleged to have been smuggling drugs on the water. The Trump administration justified the attacks as necessary to stem a flow of fentanyl – which Trump labeled “a weapon of mass destruction” that has killed tens of thousands of Americans. Legal experts questioned whether passengers in these boats — even if they were found to have been carrying narcotics — could be considered enemy combatants. Others noted that fentanyl and its precursors are sourced primarily from China and Mexico — not Venezuela.

A separate question loomed, as the year wound down: were the strikes a prelude to military action against Venezuela, and its president, Nicolas Maduro?

Beyond the U.S. military buildup, there were several signs in December that a move against Venezuela may be in the offing: reports that the U.S. was exploring “day-after” scenarios in the event of Maduro’s ouster; the seizure of a Venezuelan tanker that was said to be transporting sanctioned oil to Iran; and President Trump’s December 16 announcement of a naval blockade of sanctioned oil tankers from Venezuela.

Infographic with a map showing the location of strikes carried by Israel against Iran since June 13, 2025, according to data reported by the ISW (Graphic by AFP) (Graphic by VALENTINA BRESCHI,SYLVIE HUSSON,OLIVIA BUGAULT/AFP via Getty Images)

The U.S. and Israel Attack Iran

It would have been unthinkable only two years ago: a U.S.-Israeli war against Iran that provoked almost no meaningful response.

The attacks came in June – Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites and military infrastructure that were followed by American airstrikes on three nuclear installations. Iran fired missiles at a U.S. base in Qatar but its overall retaliation was minimal, a consequence of earlier Israeli campaigns that weakened Iranian air defenses and its various militias in the Middle East. The 12-day war damaged elements of Iran’s nuclear program and laid bare a tectonic shift in the region: Iran and its “axis of resistance” had been badly weakened.

For decades, war-gaming scenarios had warned that any attack against Iran would carry risks of a conflagration, given the likelihood of a coordinated response from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthi militia in Yemen. Now the paradigm has shifted.

“The U.S. joined Israel in military operations and people thought that had been a red line in the past,” Norman Roule, a former National Intelligence Manager for Iran at ODNI, told The Cipher Brief. “For the nuclear negotiations and other talks going forward, Iran now has to deal with a new world where there is this precedent.”

As the year ended, Iran remained a shell of what it had been, and reports suggested its leaders were conflicted about the way forward. Would the country recognize its weaknesses and move towards a rapprochement with the West — a move that might bring sanctions relief and usher in a new security dynamic in the region? Or would hardliners carry the day, resorting to one of the last levers Iran has – its nuclear program?

“If you're in Iran, you have to make a strategic decision,” Roule said. “‘If we restart the program, will the United States and Israel attack?’ They've got to ask, ‘If we do this, will we survive?’”

U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meet in the Oval Office at the White House on February 28, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Zelensky’s Oval Office Blowup – and the Rollercoaster that Followed

For Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, 2025 brought wild swings of fortune, on the battlefield and in the global halls of power.

An Oval Office meeting on February 28 marked the low point – the encounter during which President Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelensky for what they saw as insufficient gratitude towards the U.S. and – in Trump’s words – a failure to understand that Ukraine “has no cards” in the war against Russia.

The meeting “was a horrible disappointment and almost a shock to the system,” former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Philip Breedlove told us that day. “There was only one winner…and that is Vladimir Putin.”

But fortune’s wheel took turns in Zelensky’s favor. Trump’s subsequent meetings with Zelensky – at the Vatican in April and the June NATO summit – warmed the relationship; the NATO summit itself saw Trump pivot back toward the alliance and its support for Ukraine; and then – in a startling outburst – Trump in July turned his ire towards Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We get a lot of bull**** thrown at us by Putin,” Trump said.

Alas for Zelensky, at year’s end the pendulum looked to have swung back once more. Trump’s envoys were again pushing Russia-friendly peace proposals, which included the surrender of territory beyond what Russia has already occupied. In an interview with Politico, Trump said of Zelensky, “He’s gonna have to get on the ball and start accepting things…cause he’s losing.” It sounded like a gentler version of the treatment Zelensky had gotten on that February day in the Oval Office.

Photo by Wojtek Laski/Getty Images

A Tu-95 bomber aircraft takes off for a night patrol flies out of Engels-2 airbase on August 7, 2008 in Engels, Russia. (Photo by Wojtek Laski/Getty Images)

Operation “Spiderweb” – and What Came After

It was Ukraine’s greatest military success in 2025 – and it happened far from Ukrainian territory. An operation dubbed “Spiderweb” smuggled 117 drone weapons into Russia and unleashed them against several airfields on June 1, damaging or destroying dozens of Russian warplanes. The mission was months in the planning, the drones were smuggled on prefabricated cabins disguised as hunting lodges, and unsuspecting Russians were paid to drive the trucks that moved the cabins.

“Spiderweb” showcased Ukraine's special operations capabilities and was followed by more long-range sabotage. As The Cipher Brief reported, subsequent attacks targeted Russian refineries and other sites tied to the oil sector.

“It’s very impressive,” Balazs Jarabik, a former European Union diplomat and analyst for RPolitik, told The Cipher Brief. The energy-sector attacks, he said, were “making the Russian war effort more expensive, and creating shortages so the Russian people feel the pain of the war.”

By year’s end, Ukraine had carried out an estimated 160 strikes on Russia’s oil sector – the campaign reached as far as the Siberian city of Tyumen, some 1200 miles east of Moscow, and included strikes against vessels alleged to be working in Russia’s so-called "shadow fleet” of tankers carrying sanctioned oil.

“Ukraine’s theory of victory now includes destroying Russia’s energy sector,” Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Forces in Europe, told The Cipher Brief. “They’ve developed capabilities that can reach great distances with precision, exposing Russia’s vulnerability – its inability to protect critical infrastructure across its vast landscape.”

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Palestinians flock to the Netzarim Corridor to receive limited food supplies as hunger deepens across Gaza amid ongoing Israeli attacks and blockade, on August 4, 2025. (Photo by Hassan Jedi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A Peace Deal for Gaza

It was President Trump’s signature diplomatic achievement: a truce in Gaza reached just days before the two-year anniversary of Hamas’ October 7, 2023 massacre.

The deal’s first phase took hold, albeit in violent fits and starts – the return of hostages, the freeing of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and a fresh flow of international aid for Gaza. But that may have been the easy part. As the year drew to a close, there were sporadic breaks in the ceasefire, and the fate of the deal’s next phases remained unclear.

The Trump administration’s plan for Gaza included the deployment of an international stabilization force and creation of an international “Board of Peace” (led by Trump himself) to oversee the implementation of the next phases – the transition of governance to Palestinians not affiliated with Hamas, and the beginning of a multi-billion-dollar reconstruction. The deal also included language offering a conditional pathway to Palestinian autonomy over its territories.

But as of mid-December, the announcement of the Board had been delayed, and the New York Times reported that while the U.S. was pressing other nations to contribute troops to a 8,000-member force for Gaza, it had yet to win any commitments. Countries were said to be worried their troops might be ensnared in fresh fighting; and the UN Security Council resolution to deploy the force gave no precise terms of engagement. Nor was there agreement on the makeup of a transitional government.

As these hurdles appeared, reports suggested Hamas was rebuilding its presence in the territory.

“Who’s really calling the shots there?” Ralph Goff, a former CIA Senior Executive, asked at The Cipher Brief’s annual Threat Conference, speaking of the uncertainty inside Gaza. “I remain pretty pessimistic on the idea of any kind of internal governing force being able to compete with Hamas at this point.”

By year’s end, two things were clear: the Gaza ceasefire itself was a welcome achievement after two years of carnage; and uncertainty hung over the truce’s critical next phases. This was one major story that will continue to unfold — with hope but also apprehension — well into 2026.

The commissioning and flag-presenting ceremony of the Fujian, China's first aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults, is held at a naval port in Sanya City, south China's Hainan Province, on Nov. 5, 2025. (Photo by Li Gang/Xinhua via Getty Images)

China's Military Boom

As The Cipher Brief reported, China took a “leap forward” in drone weaponry in 2025: a huge new “stealth endurance drone,” mosquito-sized “micro drones,” and the deployment of a new “drone mothership.” The latter, known as the Jiu Tian, was billed as the world’s largest drone carrier – an 11-ton aircraft that is itself an uncrewed aerial vehicle. According to the South China Morning Post, the Jiu Tian can hold 100 smaller UAVs and carry them more than 4,000 miles.

“They have the production, they have large inventory and now they also have the AI,” Dr. Michael Raska, a professor at the Military Transformation Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told The Cipher Brief. “With all these combined, they have been experiencing a leap forward in the quality and quantity of all their drones.”

China also made leaps in maritime power. In November, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) commissioned the 80,000-ton Fujian, the country’s third aircraft carrier and largest to date. A week later came news that the Sichuan, one of the world’s largest amphibious assault ships, would be ready for deployment next year.

Retired Rear Admiral Mike Studeman, a former Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, told The Cipher Brief that China had achieved its longstanding goal of building “a world-class Navy,” which had surpassed the size of the U.S. fleet.

“It's not just not in the numbers, it's in the quality,” RADM Studeman said. “These ships are modern by any standard.”

“It's impressive,” another former Rear Admiral, Mark Montgomery, told The Cipher Brief. “They're building a hundred merchant ships for every one we build, and two warships for every one we build.”

The Trump Administration issued an executive order in April to jumpstart the U.S. shipbuilding industry and restore “American maritime dominance,” but experts said the U.S. faces an uphill road. As The Cipher Brief reported, China is on track to have a 425-ship fleet by 2030, while the U.S. Navy currently has fewer than 300 deployable battle-force vessels – a total which may drop as aging ships are retired faster than new ones are put to water.

Police cars are seen on November 17, 2025 close to the railways that were damaged in an explosion on the rail line in Mika, next to Garwolin, central Poland, after the line presumably was targeted in a sabotage act. (Photo by Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images)

Europe Wakes Up to the “Gray-Zone” War

2025 was the year when Europe formally recognized – and began to respond to – a growing threat from the east: the so-called “gray-zone” war attributed to Moscow.

These attacks mushroomed in 2025 – from cyberattacks to railway bombings, the cutting of undersea cables to drone incursions into Poland and the Baltic states, and more. Experts said they were designed to be difficult to trace, and non-kinetic, so as not to draw a military response; as The Cipher Brief reported, the Kremlin was likely “aiming to create disruption without triggering escalation.”

But there were also signs that European leaders were waking up to the gravity of the threat.

NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte warned repeatedly of the dangers, and the alliance moved to improve detection and deterrence measures.

Nations took steps of their own. Finland acquired hundreds of drone jammers and outfitted border forces with high-end drone detectors; leaders from Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states said they might shoot down Russian aircraft if Moscow continued its provocations; in a September speech to the United Nations, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski went so far as to warn Moscow that “if another missile or aircraft enters our space without permission, deliberately or by mistake, and gets shot down and the wreckage falls on NATO territory, please don’t come here to whine about it.”

Even nations far from the Russian frontier were waking up to the dangers; Ireland unveiled a €1.7 billion, five-year defense plan that included systems to counter drones and protect undersea cables from Russian sabotage. And in her first public speech, MI6 chief Blaise Metreweli described the gray-zone threat bluntly: “The new frontline is everywhere,” she said.

Writing in The Cipher Brief, former Senior CIA Executive Dave Pitts stressed the need “to change the risk calculation.”

“We need to think of deterrence and response as a team sport - an Article 5 mindset,” Pitts wrote. “Gray-zone attacks that go unanswered reward our adversaries and reinforce the idea that there are more gains than risk…and encourage more attacks.”

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Heavy trucks haul earth and rock at the construction site of Wubian Xiangshang Reservoir on the top of Pandao Mountain in Zhangye, China, on March 3, 2025. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

America’s Rare Earth Crisis

Not long ago, rare earth minerals rarely made global headlines. 2025 was the year when that changed. And for the U.S. government, it was also the year in which rare earths took center stage.

Two basic facts underscored the urgency: rare earths are essential building blocks for everything from smart phones to home appliances to cars to all manner of military equipment and weapon systems; and China now produces an estimated 60 percent of the world’s rare earths and processes nearly 90 percent of them. The U.S. Geological Survey said that in 2024, the U.S. imported more than 95 percent of the total rare earths that it consumed.

Those realities spurred multiple U.S. efforts to change the dynamic: deals with Australia and Japan; negotiations with other resource-rich countries, including Congo, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Malaysia; and threats to annex mineral-rich Greenland. Even the negotiations with Russia and Ukraine reportedly included plans for U.S. firms to invest in rare-earth extraction in Russia.

China’s imposition of rare-earth export restrictions only heightened the concerns – and while those were lifted as part of a deal with Washington, the message was clear: China’s rare-earths dominance now poses a huge problem for the U.S., and gives China a powerful lever in any future negotiations with Washington.

Susan Miller, a Former Assistant Director of the CIA’s China Mission Center, called the rare earth access “vital” to U.S. technology and national security.

“We democracies must do more to assure we have continuous access to these metals, and we also need to start producing more,” Miller told The Cipher Brief. “All democracies must focus on this issue; we must act now.”

Then-National Security Agency Director General Timothy Haugh, FBI Director Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, and then-Defense Intelligence Agency Director Jeffrey Kruse appear during a Senate Committee on Intelligence Hearing on March 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

The Overhaul of the Intelligence Community

Before his return to the White House, Donald Trump promised to remake the U.S. intelligence community (IC). “We will clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus,” Trump said soon after the 2024 election.“The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled.”

In 2025, it was a promise he kept.

There were widespread cuts in staffing at the CIA, FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the biggest reductions appeared to come at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which coordinates the 18 agencies of the IC. Roughly 40% of ODNI staff were cut, including the elimination or consolidation of the Foreign Malign Influence Center and some cyber threat units into other agencies.

Other high-level dismissals drew particular attention: National Intelligence Council acting head Mike Collins was fired after presenting an assessment on Venezuela that contradicted the White House line; and NSA Director Gen. Timothy Haugh lost his job after Trump “influencer” Laura Loomer questioned his loyalty to the administration.

Depending who you asked, the changes were a much-needed streamlining of a bloated intelligence apparatus; a reorganization to focus less on Russia and China and more on border security and drug trafficking; or a Trump-driven retaliation against institutions and individuals he had blamed for investigations or views with which he disagreed.

The high-level firings troubled several experts. Jon Darby, a longtime NSA veteran who served as director of operations, told The Cipher Brief he was “very disheartened” by Gen. Haugh’s ouster. “We need an explanation of the underlying rationale,” he said.

Beth Sanner, a Cipher Brief expert who served as Deputy Director for National Intelligence at ODNI, warned of a broader politicization of the IC.

“The intelligence community is not like asking people to hit the easy button and the ‘I agree with you’ button,” she said. “That's not our role. Our role is to say what we think and why we think it…The intelligence community isn't always right. But when done correctly and behind closed doors, I cannot understand why anybody would say that presenting an intelligence assessment that disagreed with policy needed to stop, or was an example of deep state. It's not. And it's really important.”

All that said, the nature of the IC makes it difficult, even at the end of a tumultuous year for the various agencies, to know precisely what the impact of the “overhaul” has been – or will be in the future.

Fingers on laptop. (Photo by Silas Stein/picture alliance via Getty Images)

A Cybersecurity “Watershed”

It seemed like a headline from a science fiction journal. An artificial intelligence system had conducted a large-scale espionage operation.

But it wasn’t science fiction – or fake news. The AI giant Anthropic confirmed the first real-world case of the use of an AI system to do exactly that.

“Today marks a watershed in cybersecurity,” Jennifer Ewbank, a former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency for Digital Innovation, told The Cipher Brief. “AI has now crossed from tool to operator,” Ewbank said, “blurring the line between human intent and machine execution...a threshold has been crossed.”

Anthropic said that Chinese state-sponsored hackers had exploited its Claude AI system to carry out cyberattacks on corporations and foreign governments in September, and that the hackers had succeeded with only minimal human oversight. Anthropic’s threat intelligence chief said the campaign had targeted about 30 entities, and represented a new level of AI-enabled hacking. The hackers posed as security auditors and successfully breached several systems, accessing privileged accounts and private data before being blocked.

The good news? The number of breaches and scale of the damage appeared small, and no U.S. government agencies were compromised. But the incident gave ammunition to doomsayers who have warned of AI nightmares – and showed that AI is already a valuable tool for hackers and state-backed cyber operations.

Experts called it the latest code-red warning for securing AI systems and deploying effective cyber defenses. As Ewbank put it, “This is no longer a hypothetical threat being researched in a lab.”

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OPINION — “The question before the body is, can the Congress stop a military conflict declared by the Commander-in- Chief because we don’t agree with the decision, and without our [Congress] approval it must end? The answer, unequivocally, to me is no. Under the Constitution, the authority to be Commander-in-Chief resides exclusively with the President. The power to declare war is exclusive to the Congress. Now, what could the Congress do constitutionally if they disagree with a military action that is not a declaration of war? We could cut off funding.”

That was Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) speaking on the Senate floor on the afternoon of November 6, when debate was to begin on S.J. Res. 90, legislation that was “to direct the President to terminate the use of U.S. Armed Forces for hostilities within or against Venezuela, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force.”

Graham’s remark that Congress could cut off funds to halt a President ordered foreign military action took me back 56 years to December 1969, when I was working for Sen. J.W. Fulbright (D-Ark.), then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I had in late 1969 been to Laos where the Nixon administration was carrying out a secret bombing campaign in an attempt to limit weapons going from North Vietnam to pro-Communists in South Vietnam.

To halt the at-the-time classified Laos bombing program, Fulbright introduced an amendment to the fiscal 1970 Defense Appropriations Bill that prohibited the use of U.S. funds to send American ground combat troops into Laos or Thailand. To get his amendment debated and passed, Fulbright had to arrange for a closed-session of the Senate.

That closed session was held on December 16, 1969, with all 100 Senators present, a handful of staff – including me – but no one in the public galleries and no reporters in the press gallery. After a 90-minute debate, the amendment passed. The House accepted the amendment in conference and it was signed into law by President Nixon on December 29, 1969.

Fulbright’s purpose was to assert Congress’ Constitutional role when it came to a prospective military operation amid his concern that the Nixon administration was expanding the Vietnam War into neighboring countries without consulting Congress.

I describe that long-past activity to explain my continuing apprehension over today’s possible Trump administration military action against Venezuela. The Trump administration has already introduced deadly military operations against alleged narco-traffickers working from a secret list of drug cartels using a classified Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion which claims the drugs are to kill Americans and finance arms to terrorists who will destabilize the U.S. and other Western Hemisphere countries.

Last Thursday and Friday, President Trump met in the Oval Office to discuss a host of options for Venezuela with Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

Friday night, in remarks to reporters aboard Air Force One as he traveled for the weekend to his Mar-a-Lago estate, the President said he had “sort of made up my mind” about how he will proceed with the possibility of military action in Venezuela. On Sunday, flying home, Trump told reporters the U.S. “may be having some discussions with [Venezuelan President Nicolas] Maduro,” adding that “they [the Venezuelans] would like to talk.”

Although he swings back and forth, it appears clear from President Trump’s point of view, he need not consult with Congress should he decide on any military action that targets the Venezuelan mainland. As Sen. Graham pointed out, “We have only declared war five times in 250 years, and we have had hundreds of military operations -- some authorized and some not.”

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Opening the Senate debate on November 6, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a key sponsor of the congressional resolution, pointed out, “On October 31, public reporting shows that many Trump administration officials have told the press that a secret list of targets in Venezuela has been drawn up. All of this, together with the increased pace of strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific [21 attacks on alleged narco-trafficking boats, 83 individuals killed], suggests that we are on the verge of something that should not happen without a debate and vote in Congress before the American people.”

On November 6, after a relatively short debate, the Senate resolution to block the use of U.S. armed forces against Venezuela was defeated by a 49-to-51 vote.

But during that debate some important points were made, and they need some public exposure.

For example, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a military veteran herself, said, “Listen, if the Trump administration actually believes there is an ongoing credible threat of armed conflict, then they must bring their case to Congress and give the American people a say through their elected representatives. They must respect our service members enough to prove why war is worth turning more moms and dads into Gold Star parents. And they must testify about what the end state of these military operations would actually look like.”

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said, “Maduro is a murderous dictator. He is an illegitimate leader in having overturned the last election by the use of military force. He is a bad actor. But I do not believe the American people want to go to war to topple this regime in the hopes that something better might follow… Let them [the Trump administration] seek an authorization to use force to get rid of Maduro. But let us not abdicate our responsibility. Let us vote to say no to war without our approval. We don’t have to wait, nor should we wait for that war to begin before we vote.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) pointed out, “Of course, we have the capability of overthrowing the Maduro regime, just like we had the power to overthrow Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadhafi. But what comes next? Is anyone thinking about the potential blowback that such a campaign could entail? Overthrowing the Maduro regime risks creating more regional instability, not less. The breakdown of state authority may create a power vacuum that the very drug cartels the administration is ostensibly trying to destroy could exploit.”

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“You cannot bomb your way out of a drug crisis,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “The demand that motivates drug trafficking is not found in the Caribbean. It is located in communities across America where people are suffering from addiction, where economic opportunity has dried up, where the social fabric has frayed. Military strikes do nothing to address those root causes. Boats have been blown out of the water in videos released by the administration. But has the flow of fentanyl into America decreased? Has a single trafficking network been dismantled? The administration hasn’t provided any evidence that these strikes are achieving anything beyond the destruction they document on camera. This is not a strategy. This is violence without a strategic objective.”

Sen. Reed also pointed out how the Trump administration is expanding its war powers. “The White House is apparently now arguing that these strikes [on alleged narco-boats] don’t constitute ‘hostilities’ under the War Powers Act because American service members aren’t directly in harm’s way while operating standoff weapons and drones. This is ridiculous…They are very much in harm’s way, and to say that this operation is so safe that it doesn’t qualify as ‘hostilities’ is embarrassing…This new interpretation creates a dangerous precedent. If standoff weapons exempt military operations from congressional oversight, we have effectively granted the Executive Branch unlimited authority to wage war anywhere in the world so long as American forces can strike from a distance.”

Taking a different approach, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) pointed out an irony in Trump’s anti-drug argument. Van Hollen said, “I will tell you what you don’t do. You don’t submit a budget to the U.S. Congress that cuts the funding for the Drug Enforcement Agency and cuts funding for the task forces we developed to go after major organized crime syndicates involved in the drug business.” He added, “I happen to be the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee that oversees the Justice Department. And all my colleagues have to do is take a look at the request from the President of the United States when it comes to resources for fighting drugs coming to the United States. They cut them.”

Raising an additional problem, Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) said, “Letting Donald Trump ignore the law abroad makes him think he has a free pass to do it right here at home. Donald Trump thinks if he can do this in the Caribbean, he can do it on the streets of Chicago. He could use the military for his own political retribution and consolidation of power in and outside our borders. After all, he [Trump] said in his own words: ‘We’re under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms.’ That is what the President said. We cannot be complacent as he sends troops into our cities as a tool of intimidation against his political enemies.”

While we await President Trump’s decision on what comes next, let me close with another ironic situation, created last Wednesday by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

Giving the keynote address at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Homeland Security Summit, Noem celebrated recent successes in the counter-drug mission. She said that since January, the Coast Guard has stopped 91 metric tons of drugs, confiscated 1,067 weapons and seized more than $3.2 million in cash from terrorist cartels, thanks primarily due to Operation Pacific Viper, which Noem said is strategically designed to seize historic amounts of drugs from smugglers in the eastern Pacific. “Viper has saved millions of lives of individuals and Americans by stopping those drugs before they ever got to the U.S.,” Noem said.

Operation Pacific Viper, according to a Coast Guard press release, also resulted in the arrest of 86 alleged narco-traffickers as of October 15. A needed reminder: Viper was an interdiction program where narco-traffickers were intercepted, arrested and drugs seized – not boats blown up and people killed.

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Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

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Early in 2025, shortly after taking office, the Trump administration designated several drug cartels as terrorist organizations. This signaled the administration’s intention to escalate U.S. efforts to fight trafficking beyond the usual efforts of the Coast Guard, Drug Enforcement Administration and Border Patrol. It also presaged the use of the military.

Combating narco-trafficking remains the administration’s declared purpose. Implicitly, the decision to escalate U.S. efforts is based on several key points. First, drug abuse in the United States remains at epidemic levels despite decades of efforts to control it. Second, previous efforts to suppress drug smuggling into the U.S. have not been successful. Third, because the cartels smuggling drugs into the U.S. are not merely drug traffickers but large terrorist organizations, they need to be confronted as forcefully as terrorist groups elsewhere. This, effectively, means employing military force.

The administration contends that Venezuela is the country from which much of the illicit boat and air traffic carrying cocaine emanates and that Venezuela’s long-time strong man is really the head of a cartel and “a fugitive from American justice.” On August 7, the administration announced a 50-million-dollar bounty on Venezuela’s long-time strong man, Nicolas Maduro. It is this view of the Venezuelan regime and its leader, in combination with the size and capabilities of the deployed U.S. military in the Caribbean, that suggests the administration’s goals are more ambitious than just striking alleged traffickers on the high seas.

The question then is, how would the Trump administration define regime change? New leadership or something more extensive? If regime change is a goal, how does the administration hope to achieve that result? Would a combination of intimidation, enhanced economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure from the world’s democratic community convince Maduro to abandon power? Can the Venezuelan military, which in 2002 temporarily removed Maduro’s mentor, Hugo Chavez, be persuaded to act once again? Or is the U.S. administration contemplating military strikes inside of Venezuela? If so, how extensively? Would a targeted attack of regime leadership result in regime change or would the U.S. need to hit various elements of the military plus drug labs? The scope of any U.S. kinetic actions would likely affect the way Venezuelans – who overwhelmingly rejected Maduro in last year’s presidential election, react. It would also affect how the region and the rest of the world regard the U.S. campaign.

If the U.S. were able to oust Maduro what would follow? There is a legitimate government in waiting. Former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez won last year’s presidential election by a huge margin despite regime efforts to sabotage the democratic opposition. Would anything short of the installation of the democratic opposition be considered an acceptable outcome to Venezuelans or the United States? Would a government of national unity which included some of the Venezuelan dictator’s base and elements of the military be acceptable to the democratic opposition? To the U.S? The Venezuelan military has been deeply compromised by the Maduro regime’s criminal activity and is believed to be complicit at the highest levels in drug trafficking. The Cartel de los Soles is thought to include many high-ranking military personnel. Would the U.S.be prepared to put troops on the ground to prevent criminal elements of the Venezuelan military from regrouping even if current regime leadership were forced out?

Finally, what effect will current U.S. operations in the Caribbean have on U.S. relations with the rest of Western Hemisphere especially if U.S. military strikes Venezuela directly? What effect have U.S. operations already had? The answers to these questions are not all obvious.

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The Trump team has never mentioned regime change as a campaign goal. The size and nature of the deployed U.S. forces, however, make speculation on the U.S. administration’s real intentions inevitable. The number of ships, aircraft, sailors and marines appeared to be substantially greater than required to combat narcotrafficking through the Caribbean and eastern pacific even before the ordered deployment of the U.S.’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford. The messaging from Washington, moreover, focuses squarely on the Venezuelan regime.

What we have been hearing from Washington about operations in the Caribbean is a logical extension of steps taken by the Trump administration prior to the start of current operations. While President Obama first called Venezuela a threat to national security in 2015, it was only earlier this year that the U.S. designated the cartels as terrorist organizations. The designation of the cartels as terrorists was a necessary step to operationalize the shift from a law enforcement effort to a military one.

The new militarized U.S. strategy in the Caribbean has had an effect. Drug trafficking by sea is apparently way down. That said, this new strategy has not diminished trafficking by land nor reduced the flow of deadly fentanyl into the country. It has, on the other hand, generated concern in some countries about the return of American gunboat diplomacy. Domestically, the president’s new approach resonates well in some quarters but has incensed many Democrats in the U.S. Congress and even worried some Republicans. British concern about the legality of the U.S. strikes on the high seas is now so acute that the United Kingdom has ended intelligence sharing on Venezuela. The Trump administration has, however, given no indication that either international concern or congressional criticism will precipitate a change in policy.

President Trump’s change of the U.S strategy for fighting the cartels and maybe for achieving regime change in Venezuela has important implications for U.S. relations with its allies everywhere but especially within the region. The Trump administration has clearly made the Western Hemisphere a national security priority but there are many other vitally important arenas in which U.S. interests are affected by developments in this hemisphere – both positively and negatively.

Accordingly, the administration’s agenda in Latin America must include more than just winning the drug fight and controlling our Southern border. More than 40% of all U.S. manufacturing goods are sold into the Western Hemisphere and the U.S. has a positive trade balance with many countries in the region, including Brazil, Chile, Peru, Panama and others. Millions of American jobs depend on trade with the region. Energy production in the region is also significant; Canada is our largest foreign supplier but there are other key players including Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Trinity and Tobago and, more recently, Guyana. Guyana’s oil production, in fact, is exploding. The country’s GDP grew by over 25% in 2023 and by more than 30% in 2024. On the other hand, China’s influence continues to surge and China is now the largest trading partner for South America in the aggregate. The U.S. clearly needs to do what it can to strengthen the value proposition for the countries of Central and South American to see the U.S. as their commercial partner of choice.

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It is, at this point, not clear what the Trump administration’s end game is in the Caribbean. What is clear is that the U.S. cannot ignore other issues around the region or other views on how challenges should be met. Neither should we naively assume that success in suppressing the trafficking of cocaine out of South America is assured even temporarily, however many go-fast boats the U.S. military sinks. Transit by land, which the Trump administration has indicated it may take on next, is still robust. Demand for illegal drugs is still strong in the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. has recently made progress in engaging Mexico, especially on combating the Mexican cartels, but how effective joint efforts will be remains to be seen. Relations with Colombia, the source of most of the world’s cocaine, on the other hand, have deteriorated dramatically. Colombian President Gustavo Petro has characterized U.S. attacks on the drug boats as atrocities, called President Trump a criminal and encouraged American military personnel to defy his orders. The U.S., for its part, has decertified Colombia for failing to cooperate fully with U.S. counternarcotics efforts and cancelled Petro’s visa.

The U.S. still has partners in Latin America, especially trade partners, but there is also, always, concern over U.S. unilateralism. Moreover, President Trump’s announcement that he has authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to become active in Venezuela inevitably recalls for some an earlier and darker time in U.S. relations with Latin America. That said, criticism of U.S. operations in the region has been surprisingly muted – and some countries have been explicitly supportive.

Still, many in the region have been left wondering where multilateral cooperation, diplomacy, democracy support and human rights, pillars of U.S.-Latin American policy since at least the 1980s, fit in America’s new more muscular policy toward the region. At the same time, most of the region agrees that the cartels are a grievous problem, and recognize that Venezuela is a dictatorship and that it has become an epicenter for a great deal of the most pernicious activity in the region. I expect they are dubious about the likelihood of the U.S. eradicating all drug trafficking from South America because so much of the trafficking is by land. They are also unconvinced that combatting drug trafficking per se is the U.S.’s only goal. They do not wish to see a war in either South or Central America but they are also profoundly tired of living with the consequences of the growing and corrosive power of the cartels.

The Trump administration’s campaign to date has had some success and may have put Russia, China and Iran – Venezuela’s extra-regional allies -- on notice that the U.S. has decided to counter malign activity and actors in the region forcefully. But this is a high stakes game for the U.S. A U.S. escalation to ground operations could catalyze world-wide criticism of the U.S. Success with targeted strikes is not assured. At present, we are left to wrestle with the question of whether the campaign to date is a preamble to even more ambitious operations. And, can what has been accomplished to date be sustained at a time when coca cultivation in source countries like Peru and Colombia is increasing and the head of a cartel – which is how the administration has characterized Maduro – remains in control of the government of Venezuela?

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OPINION / EXPERT PERSPECTiVE — According to reports, the Trump administration informed Congress that the ongoing hostilities against alleged narco-terrorist groups does not fall within the scope of the War Powers Resolution (WPR). As a result, the administration does not believe the President’s authority to continue to wage this military campaign is in any way constrained by the law.

Trump is building on an interpretation of the law first advanced by the Obama administration to avoid WPR compliance in relation to the U.S. involvement in the NATO campaign against Libya in 2011. This interpretation posits that the WPR is inapplicable to hostilities that fall below the level of large-scale ‘war’ and involve minimal risk of U.S. casualties. Yet ironically, President Trump’s assertion of inherent constitutional authority to start and continue this military campaign is exactly what the law was intended to cover.

Enacted into law in 1973 over President Nixon’s veto, the War Powers Resolution was motivated by congressional determination to prevent future presidents dragging the nation into a war incrementally. The context was obvious: Vietnam. For a super-majority of legislators, that conflict began and slowly expanded under the same premise: presidential assertions of inherent constitutional authority to commit small numbers of U.S. armed forces to low-level operations with limited risk: first as advisors, then to engage in limited direct action, then through ‘limited risk’ air operations. What evolved was an escalation that most of these legislators believed was inconsistent with both presidential assurances and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution – the statutory use of force authorization Congress enacted in 1965 to empower the President to respond to subsequent North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. assets. From 1964 to 1967, the number of U.S. armed forces in Vietnam had escalated from approximately 25,000 to almost 500,000.

Nothing in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution limited that escalation, and over the years Congress continued to provide presidents with the money and manpower to wage the war. Yet it was a different lesson from that experience that provided the true motivation for the WPR: the undeniable reality that it is far more difficult for Congress to force an end to a war than it is to prevent (or limit it) from inception.

Voting to cut off funding for an ongoing conflict is certainly a tool in the congressional arsenal to check presidential assertions of war power, but in the context of ongoing hostilities it is unrealistic to expect it will be useful. To begin with, restricting existing appropriations would require a veto-proof super-majority in both the House and Senate. But even mustering a simple majority to deny a continuation of appropriations for ongoing hostilities is politically unrealistic as it will be perceived as ‘abandoning’ or ‘betraying’ troops in the field.

The conflict in Southeast Asia proved this. Even after Congress revoked the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, it continued to provide fiscal and human resources in support of hostilities. And when service-members asked federal courts to rule that the President lacked constitutional authority to order them to war, judges consistently ruled that this continued support demonstrated joint action by the President and Congress, satisfying the Constitution’s war powers equation. Even when Congress enacted a Bill to cut off all funding for the bombing campaign in support of the Cambodian military’s struggle against the Khmer Rouge, President Nixon’s veto threat and the accordant compromise that extended that funding was enough to lead a federal appeals court to reach the same conclusion. In short, unless Congress could muster a sufficient majority to override a presidential veto and enact law prohibiting continued operations, a president’s unilateral decision to commit the nation to a conflict would effectively put Congress in a straitjacket.

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It was against this background the WPR was enacted. At its foundation is the assertion that the President’s authority to commit “United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situation where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances” requires either express statutory authorization (a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force) or “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.” As a result, the law includes several essential provisions:

· The President must report any such commitment to congressional leadership within 48 hours.

· Once reported (or when such a report was required), the President has 60 days to persuade Congress to support the operation by enacting express statutory authority.

· If Congress fails to enact such an authorization, the operation must terminate (unless Congress grants the President a 30-day extension to bring the operation to an end).

· Congress may order termination of an operation at any time by concurrent resolution (a majority vote by the Senate and the House with no opportunity for a presidential veto).

· Congressional authorization may not be inferred from any appropriation or other law unless it expressly authorizes the operation.

· Nothing in the WPR – to include the 60-day grace period provision – may be interpreted as a grant of authority to the President to commit U.S. forces to hostilities or imminent hostilities.

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From inception, presidents (and many experts) have criticized the WPR as self-contradictory, most notably because it also includes a provision that indicates nothing in the law “is intended to alter the constitutional authority of the Congress or of the President…” These critics argue the law does just that by unconstitutionally intruding upon the inherent war powers vested in the President and the prerogative of Congress to indicate support for presidential war powers initiatives by implication. And there are other defects. For example, the law omitted the well-established inherent authority of presidents to use military force to rescue U.S. nationals abroad (the Senate version included such a provision but it was removed during conference negotiations). And the provision allowing Congress to order termination of an ongoing military operation by concurrent resolution arguably runs afoul of a subsequent Supreme Court decision invalidating what is known as a legislative veto – use of a concurrent resolution to revoke a delegation of authority to the President enacted by law (although there is a question of whether the WPR concurrent resolution provision falls into that category as it is not withdrawing any prior statutory delegation of authority).

And then there is the so-called 60-day clock, perhaps the most misunderstood and at the same time perplexing provision of the law: misunderstood because it is often asserted as a statutory grant of authority to the President to conduct any military operation for up to 60 days (which contradicts Section 8 of the WPR); perplexing because if it is not a grant of authority, then what exactly did it mean?

The answer to the second question is ironically highlighted by the current counter-narcotic military campaign. Because it may not be interpreted as an express grant of constitutional authority to engage in hostilities (or situations of imminent hostilities), it is best understood as a failsafe – an acknowledgment that presidents will likely initiate combat operations on the belief they are acting pursuant to constitutional authority. If they do so, however, the law requires such an assertion of authority be validated by express congressional endorsement within 60 days. If a President is unable to secure such validation, congressional inaction functions as opposition, requiring termination of the operation.

There are, of course, problems with this equation. First, from a president’s perspective, if he is acting pursuant to valid constitutional authority on day 59, how does it evaporate on day 61? And if it was valid on day 59, a mere statute cannot dictate its invalidity. Second, there is something troubling about allowing Congress to require a president to terminate a military operation by inaction. Finally, as noted above, this provision ignores the frequently utilized congressional practice of expressing its support for a presidentially initiated military campaign by implication – primarily through funding and providing necessary resources (including manpower). Examples include not only the Korean War, but also the two post-WPR campaigns that exceeded 60 days without express statutory authorization: the Serbian air campaign in 1999, and the Libyan air campaign in 2011.

Nonetheless, the process of at least seeking congressional endorsement of a military campaign that extends beyond 60 days acknowledges a critically important premise: that the Constitution diffuses war powers between Congress and the President. While the requirement for express statutory authorization may have been constitutionally overbroad from inception of the WPR, seeking some manifestation of congressional support preserves this important war powers balance between the two political branches. Perhaps more importantly, it acknowledges the Congress’ constitutional authority to impose limits on – or even prohibit – commitment of the nation to hostilities.

Instead of acknowledging this shared constitutional role in authorizing war, the Trump administration is staking a claim of unilateral presidential authority. Because we are told there is little risk of U.S. casualties, Congress ostensibly has no role, and the WPR is inapplicable. But it is precisely because, “From small things, big things someday come” that Congress enacted the WPR. Acknowledging a congressional role now – while perhaps not necessarily express authorization – will advance the necessity that the administration make its case for the necessity, morality, and legality of this campaign before the representatives of We the People; give Congress the opportunity to exercise its constitutional role in war powers; and most importantly protect the nation from being dragged, incrementally, into a war Congress may find near impossible to get us out of.

This is a genuine War Powers Resolution moment.

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EXPERT INTERVIEW — Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced today that the U.S. has carried out three additional strikes on four sea vessels, bringing the total number of attacks on boats to 13, resulting in more than 57 deaths. The Secretary said 14 people were killed and one person survived yesterday’s attacks targeting drug traffickers.

The Secretary posted on X that, “The Department has spent over TWO DECADES defending other homelands. Now, we’re defending our own. These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same,” warning of more strikes to come. “We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them.”

The strikes come amid a major U.S. military buildup in the region, most recently bolstered by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s order last week for the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier and its escorts to deploy from the Mediterranean to Latin America. President Trump says he is also considering military action against land targets in Venezuela, a sentiment echoed recently by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

Experts on the region believe part of the counternarcotics campaign is aimed at pressuring Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step down. The U.S. has recently suspended diplomatic efforts with Maduro’s government and the Venezuelan president has been directly accused by the U.S. of involvement in drug trafficking. And in a highly unusual move, President Trump publicly announced recently that he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert action in Venezuela.

Maduro has condemned the U.S. military activity, accusing Washington of “fabricating a new war” while vowing to defend national sovereignty.

The Cipher Brief spoke with former CIA station chief David Fitzgerald, who served in Latin America, at the 2025 Cipher Brief Threat Conference about the implications of the strikes and other forms of pressure on both the cartels and Maduro. Fitzgerald joined the conference live from Panama. Our interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

THE INTERVIEW

Kelly: Dave, you have deep expertise in the region and in understanding the drug cartels. With everything going on in the region right now, what's top of mind for you?

Fitzgerald: Regarding Venezuela specifically, it's an interesting situation and I think President Maduro feels like the pincer movement is coming in on him right now. He's feeling the pressure, no doubt, from the military actions in the Caribbean, and also from some of the declarations by President Trump. He doesn't have the support of his neighboring Latin countries that he would like, specifically Brazil - if you remember back when he was elected during the last time, his main ally in Latin America, President Lula, never recognized the election. So theoretically, none of his counterparts other than the ones from the countries everybody suspected would - Nicaragua, Cuba, and, at the time, Bolivia - had recognized the election and President Maduro as the president elect and now the president.

So he understands very well that if push comes to shove, if there's some type of military action vis-a-vis Venezuela, Russia, China, Cuba, even Iran is not going to come to his assistance. He's going to be out on his own and he's going to be very outgunned and outmatched by the U.S. military. [He has a] decrepit air force and a decrepit army. He also claims to have rallied 4 million militia members that are undergoing training to help defend Venezuela.

Kelly: President Trump has openly said that he has authorized covert activity in Venezuela. What does this mean? If you're Maduro, what is that message that you're taking from that? How does it change the situation?

Fitzgerald: I think we're all a little surprised by that announcement, which is very out of character for the IC to have a covert action finding actually being announced by the president of the United States. I guess on one hand he's just circumventing what would eventually happen, and that's having it leaked, which I think has happened to all of the other covert programs. On the other hand, I think it's part of that pressure campaign that Trump is putting on Maduro and I think he's really feeling squeezed. There have been recent media reports that Maduro has offered to provide natural resources to the United States to try to find a way out of the situation by accommodating President Trump by providing oil and some of the other rich resources that Venezuela has. But I think he [Maduro] understands that his plan B is going to get on a plane and go to Cuba, much as President Chavez was back in 2002 when he had a short-lived coup d'état attempt in Caracas. There are not many options for him at this time.

Kelly: This administration has made clear that part of the policy towards Venezuela is applying pressure which includes the targeting of suspected drug boats off the coast of Venezuela. With your decades of experience understanding what motivates the drug cartels and what doesn't, how do you think these attacks might shift their thinking, if at all? And I also want you to explain to us how the cartels are technology, reportedly, better than most other groups in the world. Is this true?

Fitzgerald: They're very sophisticated and vis-a-vis Venezuela, you actually have kind of a, I hate to use the word state-sponsored, but I will say state-approved cartels working in Venezuela. I don't know if we remember the days of Cartel de los Soles, which in English means the cartel of the generals, and that was so true back in the 90’s. The then head of the National Guard was under indictment [for involvement.] He's still under indictment. He has never left Venezuela since then.

Hugo Carvajal, who was General Carvajal, the head of military intelligence, fled to Spain around 2020-2021 because he had a falling out with Maduro. He was extradited to the U.S. back in ‘23. He pled guilty [to involvement in narcoterrorism and drug trafficking] in June of this year and is going to be sentenced at the end of this month. I know the guy personally, and I remember having these conversations with him and telling him, Hugo, one day this house of cards is going to come crumbling down and there's going to be a price to pay, right? He says, ah, no, no, no, no. And I think it's kind of that same atmosphere in Venezuela right now with the senior military officers. Maduro has done a good job of handling the military in the sense of the stick and the carrot, and they all understand that as long as they're true and loyal to Maduro, they're going to benefit from it, from their illegal activities, either allowing trafficking or corruption to take place or participating in it. So there's going to be more indictments, I think. There's no doubt Carvajal is making a plea with the U.S. attorney right now in order to lower his sentence.

You have that combined with what you see now in Colombia. Trump had called President Petro a narco trafficker and said he's cutting all narcotics assistance to Colombia. That's a blow to him, but it's also a blow to our efforts in the region because Colombia, as everybody knows, has been our strongest ally in this fight, both in the Counter-terrorism fight in the region and also in the counter-narcotics fight. So we're going to watch how this plays out.

Elections in Colombia are in May of next year. All polls indicate Petro really doesn't have a chance. I'm not sure whether this announcement will help him or not. Colombia's not doing well right now. The United Nations just last month announced that they have record cultivation of coca now in Colombia. They're producing more than they ever did even before we started our Plan Colombia back in the 90’s. So it's a worrisome situation.

Kelly: I'm glad you brought up Colombia because I was going to ask you about that.

I’ve also heard recently that the epicenter of the drug problem is in Mexico. Talk to us a little bit about that and about what you have seen work or not work, against drug cartels in Mexico.

Fitzgerald: The question has always been how do you declare victory? Okay, narcotics traffic is going to exist for the rest of time. It always has, right? So the question is how do you define victory over that target? Years back, I had a conversation with [former Colombian] President [Alvaro] Uribe and I said, “we’ve made great strides, a lot of great things have happened. How do you define victory over these trafficking and terrorist groups?” Back then it was the FARC and the ELN where they were a two for one, or both trafficking and terrorist groups.

He looked at me and said victory is when these problems stop being a national security problem, a threat to our national security, and just basically turn into a regular criminal problem. I think he nailed it on the head. In countries like Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, all through Central America, these are national security problems. The corruption that it entails, the penetrations that the traffickers have made through all society. It is a threat to the region and a threat to national security of all of those countries, and indirectly a threat to our national security, especially along the border and especially with some of the violence that comes with it.

In Mexico, I think President [Claudia] Sheinbaum has done a fairly good job. You've seen all the newspaper articles about the ICS (Integrated Country Strategy) participation in Mexico. It has been a successful program, but again, flying under the radar, you really can't broadcast this. Colombia was very effective at taking out the heads of the cartels. Extradition was key. We have extradition with Mexico, but again, you have pockets of immunity within Mexico. The corruption is rampant. How to get past the corruption? Venezuela is that kind of dark hole where you really can't do much. But there has been some success, and I can't take that away from the Mexican services, to a lesser extent, the Colombian services and all through Central America, but we're not where we need to be right now.

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Question from NBC Reporter Dan DeLuce (in the audience): Let's say Maduro does get on a plane and fly to Cuba. What does he leave behind? What are the scenarios you see unfolding? I know it's highly speculative, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Fitzgerald: First of all, he wouldn't be the only one on the plane. He would be joined by his wife, probably half of the general staff and anybody else who could get on that plane. They will all understand that if he goes, they go and that they're going to be left to the hoards to try and figure out their survival. So I think right now that is option B, because militarily, he understands the Russians are not going to come to his assistance. The Chinese look at this as a transactional relationship with Venezuela. They are making money off Venezuela’s oil and the loans they provide. They just want to be paid back. Maduro is pretty weakened right now. Nobody is likely to come to his aid. So I think for him right now, it's a very serious consideration as far as plan B, how to get out of Venezuela and how to get out of Venezuela fast.

Kelly: How do you measure the impact of these strikes against these boats?

Fitzgerald: In two ways. The first impact is the psychological impact, and the second is the actual counter-narcotics effort impact. I think the impact of stopping the drugs from reaching [destinations], whether they're going to San Domingo or Dominican Republic or some other Caribbean island as a transit, that's minimal. The Coast Guard has been doing that for decades. It helps, but in many ways it's a drop in the bucket. The psychological impact, however, is far greater. I doubt there's very few volunteers or crewmen, both from Venezuela and from Colombia, who are happy about getting on some of these fastboats or the submersibles to crew them out to the Caribbean. I think what you're going to see, it's probably already started, is a shift to the Pacific side. This situation is kind of a pendulum and it’s been like this for decades. The US and our allies would focus on the Caribbean. They'd switch to the Pacific. We'd focus on the Pacific. They go back to the Caribbean. They would just change their routes, change their modus operandi of how they traffic drugs.

Kelly: Thank you so much, Dave. I really appreciate you taking the time. I know you don't do a lot of interviews like this.

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OPINION / FINE PRINT — “We have asked the Mexican government to also step up their involvement in stopping these cartels and stopping the huge amount of drugs that are coming across. If the Mexican navy saw a group of American fishermen that they thought were suspicious of potentially moving drugs and they moved in to kill the 15 American citizens without contacting you, without going through any normal procedures, would you be okay with that?...What we do in combat there is reciprocity, and we are concerned about what other militaries will do to us because we have opened the door on this.”

The was Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) speaking back on September 18, during a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing for Derrick M. Anderson to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict and Platte B. Moring III to be the Defense Department Inspector General.

Three days earlier, the U.S. had carried out the second of its attacks on speedboats it said were trafficking drugs in the Caribbean that were destined for the U.S. killing three individuals. The first such attack, on September 1, killed 11 occupants.

Because the jobs both Anderson and Moring were up for would involve them dealing with the Trump administration’s new policy of attacking alleged narco-trafficking boats in international waters, Sen. Slotkin and other Senators raised questions at this hearing that are highly relevant today as these deadly Trump administration attacks have continued in the Caribbean and since Tuesday began in the eastern Pacific.

So far, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reported nine such attacks resulting in the deaths of 37 individuals.

As I will explore below, last month, Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) at the close of this hearing made a pledge that remains unfulfilled – in effect to hold oversight hearings on the attacks.

Before that happened, Sen. Slotkin made clear, “I have no problem with these groups being designated foreign terrorist organizations. Fentanyl is killing just as many people, if not more, as any terrorist group we have ever seen. But I do have a problem with the lack of transparency and potential violations of international law.”

The Senator then pointed out, “The U.S. government has a way of interdicting ships. You know this. The U.S. Coast Guard uses patrol boats and helicopters. They are able to shoot out a motor and disable the vehicle, board it, and then indict all those people, grab all those people. Show everyone all the drugs that they have secured.”

As I wrote in my column three days ago, the U.S. Coast Guard announced October 14 that it has seized more than 100,000 pounds of cocaine in the eastern Pacific Ocean since launching Operation Pacific Viper in early August, averaging over 1,600 pounds interdicted daily. These drug seizures, and the apprehension of 86 individuals suspected of narco-trafficking, were the result of 34 interdictions since early August.

I also pointed out in that column, that on the day after the Coast Guard release of the success of Operation Pacific Viper, during an Oval Office press conference President Trump said that Coast Guard interdiction “had been ineffective” for 30 years because “they have faster boats.”

As Sen. Slotkin noted above, and I mentioned in my column, the Coast Guard has helicopter-mounted special long-range rifles that can hit and disable the engines mounted at the rear of narco-trafficker speedboats.

While Trump and Hegseth have publicized videos each time a boat has been blown up, I agree with Sen. Slotkin who at the September 18 hearing said, “I would love it if the Trump administration showed us the full video from that encounter, showed us that these men did not have their hands up, that they were not waving a white flag, that they were not turning around and getting out of there, and then show us the drugs. The President said that there were all kinds of drugs that were in that ship. Show it. Show us the video that he is apparently alluding to.”

Hegseth did show what he said were packages of drugs floating on the water after yesterday’s eastern Pacific action, but then the drugs appeared to have been blown up.

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Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) followed Slotkin and brought up a series of questions he and 24 other Democratic or Independent Senators had sent to the White House on September 10, and had not received answers. In fact, they have not yet received an answer.

The questions are worth reviewing: “Give us the evidence that these boats were carrying drugs. Tell us who was on the boats. Tell us what your legal authority was to take a military strike that had not been authorized by Congress? The question that I really want to know is why did you decide to attack rather than interdict? If you interdict a drug boat you get evidence. You seize the drugs but you also get evidence by having access to people and often it is that evidence that leads you to be able to go after the kingpins and the real, you know, muscle behind these operators.”

Kaine added, “If you attack a boat and destroy it makes an impact, but you do not get the evidence. It may actually be counter-productive in fighting narco trafficking.”

As I noted above, when Chairman Wicker closed the September 18 hearing, he said, “The questions about what happened in the Caribbean [and now eastern Pacific] are going to have to be answered. This committee has congressional oversight responsibility.”

Earlier, Sens. Wicker and Slotkin had an exchange about what might occur at any future oversight hearing.

Chairman Wicker reminded Slotkin that “each witness has answered in the affirmative to this question, ‘do you agree to provide records, documents, electronic communications in a timely manner when requested by this committee, et cetera.’ So that is on the record.”

Sen. Slotkin asked, “Do you understand that as video? Just to clarify for me, Chairman.”

Chairman Wicker responded, “Documents, records. I think each witness has answered in the affirmative there…and they will be obligated to follow that.”

“Great,” Sen. Slotkin said at one point, “I look forward to the video.”

I think we all do.

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Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

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DEEP DIVE — U.S. military forces this week carried out yet another strike on a vessel in Caribbean waters off Venezuela, marking the sixth such lethal operation since September. For the first time, two survivors were rescued and taken into U.S. custody aboard a navy ship.

President Trump also confirmed that he has authorized covert CIA operations inside Venezuela, dramatically broadening the theater of confrontation. Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro appealed to the U.N. Security Council, demanding the body denounce the strikes as violations of sovereign rights — a motion the U.S. is poised to veto.

These actions are the latest installments in a mounting campaign the U.S. launched in early September, signaling a shift from isolated interdictions into sustained military pressure.

On September 2, U.S. forces struck a vessel in international waters, killing 11 people, and claimed that it belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang and was laden with narcotics. Just over a week later, Washington unveiled an extensive naval deployment comprised of eight warships, a submarine and thousands of troops and launched a second attack against another alleged smuggling vessel, sending a clear message that the operation is systematic rather than episodic.

Then, in early October, the administration formally alerted Congress that the United States was in “armed conflict” with regional drug cartels, and promptly followed with another strike off Venezuela’s coast, killing four.

What began as maritime interdictions has evolved into a strategic escalation — combining naval power, aerial presence, covert action, and legal redefinition of cartels — in what appears to be an intensifying, long-term confrontation.

Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, tells The Cipher Brief the strikes “represent a paradigm shift in how the United States conducts counternarcotics.”

“Previously, the United States would board and search vessels and make arrests. Driving much of this paradigm shift is the foreign terrorist designations on more than a dozen organizations,” he continued. “The administration wants to send the message that this is not just a rhetorical shift, but that this is a shift with meaning. We deal with terrorists differently than we deal with criminals.”

From Quiet Waters to Strategic Theater

For decades, the Caribbean was viewed in Washington as a quiet, if troubled, backyard, important for migration and commerce, but hardly central to global competition. That calculation has changed. Today, the region is framed as a frontline of American power, where the U.S. confronts a convergence of transnational threats — from drug trafficking and irregular migration to external influence from China, Russia, and Iran — that unfold just off its own shores.

Michael Shifter, adjunct professor at Georgetown University and former president of the Inter-American Dialogue, tells The Cipher Brief that the strikes “will have a critical impact on the Caribbean security situation.”

“For the first time since the Panama invasion in 1989, the U.S. has carried out combat operations against assets allegedly connected to a Latin American government,” he noted. “That the strikes were conducted without regard to international law has unnerved other regional governments and made them wonder if they might be the next target.”

For much of the post-Cold War era, the Caribbean was not a primary theater for U.S. grand strategy. Policymakers often focused on the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, leaving the islands and waterways between Florida and South America to languish in relative neglect. The U.S. presence was episodic and reactive — providing disaster relief after hurricanes, conducting occasional counternarcotics patrols, and offering modest development aid.

But adversaries were not idle. China deepened infrastructure investments, secured port access, and trained regional military officers in its academies. Russia provided defense diplomacy, intelligence cooperation, and symbolic shows of force. Iran, though less prominent, found opportunity through Venezuela and proxy networks. These activities chipped away at U.S. primacy, testing whether Washington’s absence created a strategic vacuum.

“The presence of the expanded array of U.S. surveillance assets, cruisers, destroyers, amphibious ships, F-35 fighters, and other forces, in conjunction with the demonstrated use of force and reported planning for strikes inside Venezuela, are visibly driving panicked reactions by the Maduro regime,” Evan Ellis, research professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, tells The Cipher Brief. “This demonstrates that the U.S. is willing to go beyond traditional law enforcement interception protocols to use lethal force against suspected drug boats.”

A Renewed U.S. Deterrent Strategy

The Trump administration has reframed narcotics networks as “narco terrorists,” a label that blurs the line between law enforcement and national defense. This allows for military strikes against what once would have been considered criminal targets. The Venezuelan boat destroyed on September 2 is the most vivid example yet, and it sparked immediate backlash from governments in Caracas, Bogotá, and across the Caribbean.

Venezuela condemned the strike as a violation of sovereignty, with Nicolás Maduro mobilizing civilian militias and promising to defend territorial waters. Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro went further, calling for international investigations into U.S. officials for what he termed unlawful killings. Fishermen in Trinidad and Tobago expressed concern about being caught in the crossfire, as expanded naval patrols threatened their livelihoods and heightened the risks to civilian vessels.

From Washington’s perspective, these costs are tolerable compared to the benefits of deterrence. Deploying advanced assets — such as F-35 fighters to Puerto Rico — signals that the U.S. views the region as strategically vital. The administration is also seeking to highlight the deterrent value of its strikes, suggesting they could disrupt smuggling operations and complicate adversaries’ strategic planning.

Still, questions loom about legality and proportionality.

“Unilateral U.S. military operations in Latin America have a long and often unhappy history,” Shifter said. “They remain extremely sensitive and touch a nerve in the region.”

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The Policy Evolution: From Reactive to Strategic

The idea of a sustained U.S. Caribbean policy, however, is not new. The 2020 U.S. Strategy for Engagement in the Caribbean outlined plans for expanded diplomacy, development, and security cooperation. Yet progress was limited by competing priorities and budget shortfalls.

What has changed in 2025 is the scale and framing of U.S. involvement. Rather than treating the Caribbean as an ancillary focus of counternarcotics or disaster relief, the Trump administration now casts it as a frontline of national defense. The deployment of warships and high-tech aircraft, the aggressive legal redefinition of cartels, and the diplomatic outreach led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio all point to an institutional pivot.

Congress is also being drawn into the mix. The reintroduced Caribbean Basin Security Initiative Authorization Act would allocate $88 million annually through 2029 for security cooperation. The measure reflects recognition that sustained resources, not episodic funding, are necessary to compete with external powers.

Risks, Imperatives, and What Comes Next

The road ahead carries both promise and peril. On the opportunity side, elevating the Caribbean to a strategic priority acknowledges geographic fact: the region sits on America’s doorstep, with busy sea lanes and chokepoints that have often been overlooked in U.S. defense planning. A credible deterrent posture, paired with investments in governance and development, could help steady fragile environments and blunt the appeal of rival powers.

Yet the risks of escalation are considerable. Misidentifying a civilian vessel, overreaching in the use of force, or neglecting consultation with regional partners could provoke backlash that undermines U.S. legitimacy.

“It is doubtful that the U.S. strikes will be effective in stopping the flow of narcotics,” Shifter cautioned. “Traffickers will adapt, alter their routes and try to minimize risks. Retaliation by criminal groups cannot be ruled out.”

Ellis warned of another danger: the aftermath of regime change in Venezuela.

“The biggest risks of such an operation would be whether Maduro could be captured alive. The other risk is that, in the absence of a more enduring U.S. force, the legitimate government of Edmundo González would not be able to establish order and control over the military,” he pointed out. “A post-Maduro Venezuela could degenerate into a free-for-all between criminal factions, guerrilla groups, sindicatos, and pranes — with Cuban and Russian elements fueling instability.”

Berg, by contrast, argued that regional cooperation has been robust.

“What has been great to see is the regional support for the United States’ deployment. Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana have been vocally supportive,” he said. “The Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, and Argentina have all declared the Tren de Aragua to be a foreign terrorist organization in the last month. Countries in the region appear open to a different approach, and some are even synchronizing their approaches with the United States on counternarcotics.”

The strike that killed 11 people was both a tactical hit on a trafficking network and a symbolic declaration of intent. What follows will decide whether this marks the start of a durable doctrine — or an overreach that produces more instability than it resolves.

“More consistent presence in the region will be key to ensuring that the United States can secure its interests,” Berg added.

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