USA Strikes Alleged Narco Ships
Off the coast of Venezuela, U.S. Navy radars lock onto a high-speed vessel slicing through the Caribbean — a suspected narco-boat packed with cocaine, bound for U.S. shores. It’s a scene reminiscent of past decades, but this is not history repeating itself. It’s a revitalized U.S. maritime interdiction campaign, part of a broader, more calculated effort to choke off the cartels’ trafficking arteries without sparking diplomatic fires.
The campaign, unfolding largely at sea and in international airspace, is as strategic as it is tactical. The U.S. knows its legal authority is clearest here — outside sovereign borders, where it can act decisively. And according to former Navy officer and Heritage Foundation senior fellow Brent Sadler, that precision pressure is having an effect. "They’re going to try and stay alive by moving cargo on aircraft," Sadler explains. "But it’s more expensive, and you can’t move as much by volume, so it’s going to hurt their business model."
Yet while the U.S. Navy steams toward fast boats and air patrols scour the skies, the battlefield’s southern frontier remains conspicuously quiet: Mexico.
Despite being the primary source of fentanyl and methamphetamines flooding American communities — with 27,275 pounds of fentanyl seized at the border in 2023 alone — Mexico’s soil remains off-limits to U.S. firepower. Not because the threat is smaller, but because the politics are more delicate. No naval raids. No drone strikes. Not even a whisper of airstrikes.
As Sadler puts it, “Once you go on land, now you’ve got sovereignty issues, collateral damage, all kinds of complications.” And in Mexico’s case, a deeply intertwined economic and diplomatic relationship makes military action virtually impossible. Former U.S. Ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne calls the U.S.–Mexico dynamic "vast and strategic" — a trading partnership, a migration partner, and a necessary ally in drug enforcement, even if at arm’s length.
Contrast that with Venezuela — where U.S. forces can operate offshore with few constraints. Washington doesn’t recognize Nicolás Maduro’s regime, and Congress has labeled it a narco-terrorist state. That makes Venezuela one of the few countries where military interdictions serve dual purposes: stop the drugs and send a message. Every boat seized, every trafficker intercepted off its coast puts pressure on Maduro’s collapsing regime — and the cartels he tolerates.
Analysts like Mark Cancian of CSIS confirm this isn’t just counternarcotics — it’s geopolitical leverage. “The Venezuelan military is relatively weak,” he says. “We can operate off their shores with few concerns.”
Even as traffickers adapt — some turning to air routes, others exploiting customs loopholes in places like French Guiana, a French territory with EU protections — the U.S. is pressing wherever it can legally act. Sadler warns that lax EU rules are now letting cocaine reach Europe with ease via the backdoor of the Schengen Zone. "That loophole needs to get plugged," he says.
So, while the battlefield may not stretch into Sinaloa or Michoacán, the war is very much underway — fought in shadowed waters, international skies, and quiet intelligence channels. And if this maritime siege continues, it may be the most effective — and least politically explosive — counternarcotics strategy Washington has deployed in years.