Over the past two months, the United States has engaged in an alarming buildup of military capabilities in the Caribbean.
These capabilities vastly exceed the demands of even the most ambitious counter-narcotics program.
A report from the Miami Herald (quickly disavowed by the Trump administration) suggested that plans were in place for an extensive military campaign against Venezuela that would target military installations and suspected narcotics transit points on the way to a potential regime change campaign.
Nevertheless, official Trump administration statements have been frustratingly vague regarding the desired outcomes of policy towards Caracas. Are we at risk of drifting into war with Venezuela?
Iran invested a hell of a lot more into air defenses and really it was Israel (which has significantly less military power than the US) that cleared the way for the one US air strike there. The effectiveness of that air campaign remains to be seen, but it certainly weakened the Ayatollah, and set back their nuclear weapons program. How much damage it did to their nuke program would be something that would be kept secret by all parties, so there’s no way to know. Doesn’t stop people with a political agenda from speculating of course.
Of course whether or not the strikes were effective doesn’t change the fact that Israel was able to establish air superiority over Iran rather quickly. The US has the same weapon systems Israel has, and more of it. A lot more of it.
The US doing air strikes on Venezuela would be stupid for all kinds of geopolitical reasons, but the capability of Venezuela to inflict significant losses on the US military isn’t one of them. Venezuela has older versions of the same weapon systems Iran had since Iran and Russia are their main suppliers.