Trump's Venezuela plan 'makes no strategic sense' as expert exposes major flaws

Trump's Venezuela plan 'makes no strategic sense' as expert exposes major flaws

Donald Trump lacks a comprehensive plan for a potential ground invasion into Venezuela, a former assistant secretary of state said, and such an operation could be costly and ineffective

View 4 Images Donald Trump has no comprehensive plans amid the potential ground invasion into Venezuela and other Latin American countries, an expert said — and it could cost him (Image: AP)

Donald Trump lacks a comprehensive plan for a potential ground invasion of Venezuela, a former assistant secretary of state claimed.

He warned that deploying the U.S. military to mitigate the influx of drugs into the U.S. from cartels is not only costly but also likely ineffective and opens the U.S. up to other national security threats.

The president recently ordered the deployment of Navy assets to the Caribbean in an effort to mitigate the flow of drugs from Venezuela and other Latin American countries into the U.S. On Monday, it was also reported that the Trump administration, under Pete Hegseth's Department of Defense, plans to send troops into Mexico to battle its cartels, even though we reported on the four far worse threats the U.S. is facing.

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That comes weeks after Trump floated around the idea of conducting military strikes inside Venezuela that would seek to destroy installations allegedly used by drug-trafficking organizations, which the president alleges are headed by Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and operated by top members of his regime.

He has been indecisive about whether to conduct such strikes or even launch a ground invasion using Navy assets recently deployed to the region for deterrence, including the USS Ford, an aircraft carrier with a capacity for over 75 aircraft, including state-of-the-art F-18 and F-35 bombers.

View 4 Images Hegseth is leading the operation as the head of the Department of Defense (Image: Getty Images)

He has, however, already launched successful strikes against 14 vessels in the Gulf of Mexico and one in the Pacific Ocean that were allegedly carrying drugs bound for the U.S. The strikes have killed over 60 people.

Former Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Frank Rose said those strikes and the overall deployment of Navy assets to the region "doesn't make a lot of strategic sense" and said Trump seems to lack a "comprehensive strategy" for "dealing with this problem."

"You need a comprehensive plan for dealing with this challenge, and my criticism of the Trump administration is, I don't see their comprehensive plan," the former House Intelligence Committee staffer, who worked on counternarcotics operations, told The Mirror US.

The influx of drugs into the U.S. is by no means a minor issue, he conceded, stating that he believes Trump's instincts in taking it seriously and treating it as a national security challenge "are fundamentally right."

It's just the way he's going about handling the issue that has Rose and many other experts baffled.

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View 4 Images Rose argued that a comprehensive political goal is required before launching military operations, lest the situation could turn into one similar to Iraq (Image: AP)

"I think the goal is right. I am not trying to criticize the president for focusing on the challenge of narcotics coming from Latin America. He's right on that," the president of Chevalier Strategic Advisors said.

" But the question is, is his strategy — attacking a few boats and killing those people — is that going to deter? My guess is, no," he added. "Is bringing in the Department of Defense as a trigger puller the right solution to the problem? And my response is, probably not."

"You need a comprehensive approach that integrates law enforcement, intelligence, diplomacy, and, where appropriate, military support. The military should not be the lead."

Potential ground invasion is 'strategic road to nowhere' and would be costly

Rose called a potential ground invasion into Venezuela — and other Latin American countries, including Mexico — a "strategic road to nowhere" that takes vital "precious, limited" Naval resources away from the U.S.'s deterrent capabilities in Europe and Asia.

"I see it as a strategic road to nowhere," he said. "I would much rather take those capabilities, forces, and resources and ensure that we are maintaining effective deterrent capabilities in Eurasia, specifically in Europe, in the Middle East, and in Asia, to try to deter our potential adversaries."

"And this is something only DoD can do, whereas the drug problem, again, is primarily a law enforcement and intelligence and diplomatic problem," he added.

He noted that Venezuela specifically is "a huge country with lots of land, lots of people," and that a ground invasion into it or any other Latin American country would be expensive, in more ways than one.

View 4 Images The U.S. has launched several airstrikes on Venezuelan vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific in recent weeks and months (Image: US Secretary of Defense Pete Heg)

"It would take a lot of troops, it would take time, and I'm sure it would be expensive," he said. "And the question to ask yourself is, given our limited resources, is this the best use of our military forces, and our limited resources, especially when we understand — and again, I give the Trump administration credit — that we've got to be focused on getting defensive capabilities to our war fighters faster?"

The U.S. is currently locked in an arms race with several of its adversaries, especially China and Russia, and Rose argued that military resources should be used to deter threats from those actors, not mitigate the flow of drugs, which he said could be handled by law enforcement and the Coast Guard.

"A ground invasion of Venezuela or another Latin American country is not something that I would recommend, especially when we are dealing with real, serious threats in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific region," he said.

"We’ve made mistakes like this before, and President Trump has, I think, rightfully said, 'We need to be very careful about land invasions, nation building, in foreign countries,'" he added. "I will give the guy credit where credit is due. He called out the challenges of the war in Iraq. Do you really want to send American troops into a politically ambiguous situation?"

He said Trump and his administration are going to have to think through their political objectives before taking military action — something it seems they haven't necessarily done.

"Think through your political objectives before you take military action, especially deploying American troops in significant numbers on the ground in a foreign country, where we don't necessarily understand all the political dynamics and we're not prepared to deal with them," he warned.

"How do you deal with the civilian population? How many troops? You just can't send 2,000 or 3,000 guys. You're going to be talking about some of the divisions down there," he continued.

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"If you're going to go into, say, Venezuela with military force, what is your political objective? Is it to overthrow Maduro? But what comes after that? What's your plan?"

Rose emphasized that the public hasn't received much information about the purpose of the deployment and also highlighted the high cost of deploying aircraft carrier battle groups to any given region — especially if the bombers aboard the aircraft carriers are used to conduct strikes or other "high-tempo combat operations" like the one Trump hinted at.

Aircraft carrier battle groups are also "precious, limited resources," and he said the U.S. needs to be strategic about how they're used.

"We have a limited number of aircraft areas that are deployable at any time, because for each carrier that's forward deployed, another one's either on its way back to the United States or in overhaul," Rose explained.

There are currently 11 aircraft carriers in commission — 10 Nimitz-class carriers and one state-of-the-art Ford-class carrier, which is the carrier currently deployed in the Caribbean.

"We're lucky if half of them are available at any one time for actual deployment," Rose said.

Approximately 14% of the U.S. Navy's total assets are now deployed in the Caribbean, and Rose believes most of them — especially the USS Ford — should instead be deployed to the Indo-Pacific or Europe to counter the threats posed by China, North Korea, Russia and Iran.