L
et us first consider Donald Trump's well-documented hostility toward Nicolás Maduro's regime. Add to that Venezuela's location, right in what the United States, according to the Monroe Doctrine and its later modification by Theodore Roosevelt, has long claimed as its backyard. Mix in the Republican president's tendency to reject any checks on his power. Moreover, take his uninhibited use of the military, as regularly demonstrated by troops deployed to American cities or his election campaign-style speech, delivered while aboard the USS George Washington aircraft carrier in Yokosuka, Japan, on Tuesday, October 28. This brings us to 10% of the ships currently deployed by the US Navy being concentrated near the Venezuelan coast.
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The largest American aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and its accompanying carrier battle group do not get rerouted from the Adriatic, where they were operating, and sent to join two destroyers, amphibious assault vessels, a cruiser and an attack submarine already stationed on-site simply to cruise around the Caribbean Sea. This is not to mention the F-35 fighter jets that have also been stationed nearby, in Puerto Rico. When military preparations strongly resemble those required for an attempt at regime change by force, it cannot be ruled out that this might indeed be the goal. With Nobel Peace Prize season over, anything is possible.
