The New Dark Age

Yoselina Guevara López

Since early August 2025, the US Navy has deployed part of its military apparatus in the Caribbean Sea, claiming to be conducting an anti-drug operation, for which it has mobilized a total of eight warships: the guided missile destroyers USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham, and USS Sampson; the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima and the amphibious transports USS San Antonio and USS Fort Lauderdale, the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Erie, and the littoral combat ship USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul. In addition to the fast attack nuclear submarine USS Newport News, there are about 4,500 Marines and sailors, including the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.

As several analysts point out, these are not the units typically used for anti-drug operations, which are carried out with vessels that can reach high speeds for pursuit and detention. On the contrary, this military mobilization could be aimed at preparing for an assault operation or large-scale invasion.

This militarization of the Caribbean by a nuclear power such as the United States has been accompanied by public statements threatening Venezuela and accusations from Washington that the Venezuelan government is a “narco-state.” Furthermore, it constitutes a clear violation of the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity and independence of a state, as well as a disregard for the declaration of Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace.

Clearly, this staging of events unfolding off the Venezuelan coast is not part of the fight against drug trafficking, as Trump and his cabinet members claim. It is a script that is already well known and has been applied in other cases when a country, in the name of its sovereignty and self-determination, decides to break free from the yoke and dependence of the US empire.

Military force to attack civilians

Three recent serious incidents, which have not been clarified by Washington, indicate the use of totally disproportionate force against civilians who, even if they were proven to be involved in illegal activities, cannot be threatened, intimidated, or killed in flagrant violation of international law.

The facts are as follows: on September 2, 2025, the United States intercepted and destroyed a small boat, killing the 11 people on board. Donald Trump showed this operation during a press conference via a video showing the boat being sunk.

On September 12, 18 heavily armed and hostile marines from the destroyer Jason Dunham boarded the vessel Carmen Rosa with nine fishermen, who were legally fishing in the waters of Venezuela’s exclusive economic zone. The US military held the sea workers hostage for 8 hours, searching and inspecting the vessel without any authorization or coordination with the Venezuelan authorities. On the contrary, they boarded the boat by deceiving the fishermen.

On September 15, the US president announced a new attack on another fishing vessel in the Caribbean, which resulted in the deaths of three people, presumably also sea workers. We must emphasize that these are not trivial naval interceptions, but acts of “unconventional warfare,” with a totally disproportionate use of force, outside of a declared conflict, without the US vessels suffering the slightest threat to their safety.

These lethal attacks on the high seas raise serious questions from the perspective of international law; although the presence of warships on the high seas is governed by the principle of freedom of navigation, aggressive military action is only permitted in very limited circumstances. Legal analysts argue that a “kinetic attack” is only justified in “self-defense in the event of an imminent threat.”

The US authorities justify the boarding and, in two cases, the destruction of the vessels on the grounds that they were allegedly transporting drugs. However illegal their activities may be, they do not in themselves constitute a military threat. Therefore, US operations to sink fishing boats and kill civilians are illegal according to the law of the sea, and constitute a crime under international law, which provides for the protection of human life regardless of nationality or the vessel on which individuals are traveling.

Maximum pressure to bring about a change of government The United States is applying a strategy of “maximum pressure” to Venezuela, as President Nicolás Maduro has stated, but this goes far beyond the interception of narcotics and is part of a plan within the “hybrid war.” In this case, it involves the use of violence, under the threat of causing serious harm to governments and populations to force them to surrender and cede the authority conferred by constitutional mandate; in other words, it is coercion through military power to achieve an objective by force.

Over the last fifty years, this strategy has been used by the United States, linking foreign policy to military policy with the supposed aim of preserving its national security. From the White House, the United States is implementing this strategy against Venezuela, acting in a manner to which it is accustomed, with the hegemonic vision that it can occupy countries, seize resources, intimidate, threaten, exterminate, and disarm populations, using force, without regard for international law or public opinion.

Prepared for an attack on the high seas

The Venezuelan Minister of Defense, General Vladímir Padrino López, stated at a press conference held on September 17, 2025, that, on the orders of the Commander-in-Chief of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, Nicolás Maduro Moros, they are conducting the three-day Caribbean Sovereign 200 campaign maneuver on the island of La Orchila . This is a military exercise involving joint aerospace task forces, special forces, intelligence and electronic warfare, and joint maritime and land task forces. General Padrino López added: “At this special juncture, we have to redouble our efforts and increase our operational readiness for a scenario of armed conflict at sea.”

Prior to this, the Venezuelan people have come together in perfect popular-military-police unity, in a massive and spontaneous response to the Venezuelan president’s call to enlist in the defense of the homeland. Nearly 4 million Venezuelans, from farmers to retirees, have registered and are being trained in basic military knowledge and techniques.

All of this indicates that, given the uncertainty, the Venezuelan government does not rule out the possibility of the United States launching a military adventure, even though Latin America is a territory of peace. But above all, it demonstrates the conviction and commitment of the Venezuelan people to defend their sacred land in a gesture of resistance to the imperialist offensive.

The Trump method: threats, pressure, unpredictability

The political style of the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, is totally ambiguous and unpredictable. In fact, on September 18, in statements to the press aboard Air Force One during his return to Washington after a state visit to the United Kingdom, he denied having held talks with members of his government to plan a “regime change” in Venezuela.

As in other situations, the White House tenant has used his very peculiar and banal propensity to shamelessly reaffirm the superiority of his decision-making role over that of other members of his administration. With his latest statements, he is practically ridiculing the Miami lobby headed by Marco Rubio, according to which a punitive military mission against the Venezuelan government was already planned in detail and ready to be executed.

Furthermore, the entire narrative that the Venezuelan opposition in the United States has used to promote chaos and destabilization in Venezuela has been debunked. This type of “gray war” of information involves analysts spreading lies, phony experts with no influence within the US government or reliable sources among Venezuelan authorities, who constantly manipulate videos and conduct analyses without credible arguments, seeking only to influence international public opinion, increase dissociation, violence, and hatred among a sector of the opposition, and once again try to isolate the Venezuelan government.

However, it is necessary to emphasize that the continued presence of US aircraft and destroyers in the Caribbean Sea leaves open the possibility of incidents between armed forces, both maritime and air, in Caribbean skies, which would maximize tensions and risks of a large-scale military conflict that could engulf all of Latin America.

During a time of profound global crisis and tension, we hope that a minimum of common sense will prevail over the irrational pursuit of power and the use of force for political and territorial domination and the illegal appropriation of resources. History has taught us that when the United States uses the pretext of drug trafficking as a powerful and versatile geopolitical instrument, the objective is almost never drugs, but power. However, a new era has arrived, and it is not so easy to deceive all of humanity.