Is Trump Leading the US Into War With Venezuela?
Trump and Hegseth at the White House on Aug. 11, 2025. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
In the wake of the recent deployment of US Navy warships to the coastal waters of South America, pinnacling with two airstrikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels, including one today that President Donald Trump said killed three people and an earlier attack that killed all 11 on board, Americans need to take pause. We must take a hard look at the implications of using lethal US military capabilities against drug cartels while casting aside our sacred and constitutionally born belief in the right of due process and dedication to the time-honored principles of international law. And we must hold Trump to the fire as he blindly leads America into conflicts that he is wholly unprepared to confront – and that will last far beyond his own presidency.
There are a number of extremely troubling precedents for using military force to combat drug cartels, and the dangers in rapidly expanding the utilization of the US military by the Trump administration, both at home and abroad, are plentiful. But the most prescient of these is the mounting potential for an armed conflict with Venezuela. A conflict which, quite clearly, the Trump administration has not thought through.
Following the Sept. 2 strike on the boat in the Caribbean, Trump released a clip of the footage stating that the operation had been carried out against “narcoterrorists” of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) drug cartel, which, per a Jan. 20 executive order, is now designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. He said that the vessel – hundreds of miles from the US mainland and reportedly turning around – had been in the process of transporting illegal narcotics to the United States, and declared that the TdA is “operating under the control of [Venezuelan President] Nicolas Maduro” and is “responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.” In his short statement, he used the word “terror” or “terrorist” five times in a clear attempt to assert moral righteousness and legal justification for the strike. In the announcement about today’s strike, he used the words three times, describing illegal narcotics as “deadly weapons” being used to deliberately poison Americans and adding “BE WARNED — IF YOU ARE TRANSPORTING DRUGS THAT CAN KILL AMERICANS, WE ARE HUNTING YOU!”
In what should not come as a surprise, Venezuela responded to the perceived aggression outside its borders with a show of force. In a twist of irony, a flight of US-supplied F-16s from the Venezuelan air force twice overflew one of the US Navy destroyers in international waters earlier this month. In response, Trump warnedthat the Venezuelan jets could be “shot down” and directed that military commanders could “do anything [they] want” if the Venezuelan military did the same again.
Trump has consistently touted the catchphrase “No New Wars” as a cornerstone of his foreign policy stance. But Americans are seeing quite the opposite unfold in both the words and actions of this administration. Last month, when questioned on the initial build-up of US military presence in the region, press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared, “The Maduro regime is not a legitimate government,” and stated that the Trump administration is “prepared to use every element of American power” against it.
Despite Trump’s public denial that the administration is pursuing regime change in Venezuela, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently forewarned, “President Trump is willing to go on offense in ways that others have not seen.” He called President Maduro a “kingpin of a drug narco state,” and advised that the Venezuelan leader “should be worried.” He stated that lethal US military actions “won’t stop with just this strike.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed the same and emphasized, “The president of the United States is going to wage war on narcoterrorist organizations.” Combined with the actions already carried out by this administration, this hardly reflects any genuine intent toward no new wars. To the contrary – war seems to be exactly what the Trump administration is working to realize.
Revel in Using Military Might
Trump and Hegseth seem to revel in the use of America’s military power, and they make no secret of that. This is seen, most recently, in Trump’s executive order to rebrand the Department of Defense as the “Department of War” along with Hegseth’s amplification of the intent as being for “maximum lethality – not tepid legality.” As I’ve previously written, it is my belief that the principles of restraint and temperance in the use of military force form the moral foundations for the US military and reflect core American values that separate us from our adversaries. But Trump and Hegseth tend to show little regard for these values.
This is exemplified in the swift moves to cut my office at the Pentagon dedicated to the evolution of precision warfare capabilities and more effective safeguarding of civilians in conflict. It is shown in the enduring provision of weaponry and unconditional political support to Israel, even as its military systematically slaughters tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians under the banner of “self-defense” and carries out strikes in sovereignnations with complete impunity. And it is foreshadowed in the reckless military operations that have been carried out in the first few months of this administration. In the strike campaign against the Houthis in Yemen throughout March and April, the number of reported civilian casualties nearly doubled within a two-month period as compared with the previous 23-year span of US action in the country, with zero accountability from the Department of Defense.
In June, in an abrupt departure from the administration’s own intelligence reporting only months earlier and solely at the request of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump directed a multi-layered bombingcampaign against nuclear facilities in Iran, risking all-out war and then threatening to turn Iran “into a parking lot.” The Trump administration has now swiftly moved on to bombing alleged drug traffickers in South America – without due process and under a legally-defunct pretense of counterterrorism – while threatening the national sovereignty of Venezuela and, implicitly, that of other Central and South American neighbors.
In his inaugural address in January, President Trump claimed, “Our power will stop all wars.” This was codified in a March 4 executive order that detailed the administration’s declared “Peace through Strength” doctrine. Naively, Trump truly seems to believe this. Yet, history reminds us that, more often than not, the application of military power alone only leads to regional and global destabilization and prolonged conflict. I spent much of my military career hunting and killing members of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS with airstrikes when, in the end, America’s so-called “war on terror” dragged on for over two decades and only served to furtherdestabilize the Middle East and Africa. And it continues to this day under a different name and with an ever-expanding global US military footprint.
If Trump hasn’t learned these vital lessons from the “war on terror,” some for which he is directly responsible – such as the 2020 deal with the Taliban, which ultimately led to the fall of Afghanistan into the hands of the very enemy we went to war against – he should take clues from the major conflicts he is now proving wholly unable to affect. Before being sworn in for his second administration, Trump boasted dozens of times that he would end Russia’s war against Ukraine on “day one.” He asserted that his influence and power would see an end to Israel’s war in Gaza before he even took office. We see how both aspirations have played out.
The US military is always prepared for combat. It is always ready to engage any adversary on any battlefield. It was well before Trump and Hegseth, and it will be well after. But to insert an analogy from the world of Ultimate Fighting, which the Trump White House seems enamored with: when we step into that Octagon, we should be prepared to go five rounds and then some. Throwing a couple of jabs and then betting that your opponent will throw in the towel is simply the strategy of a fool.
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Wes J. Bryant is a former senior targeting adviser and policy analyst at the Pentagon where he led as chief of civilian harm assessments. He is a retired master sergeant and special operations tactical air controller in the elite special warfare branch of the U.S. Air Force and co-author of the book, "Hunting the Caliphate: America’s War on ISIS and the Dawn of the Strike Cell."
