Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has announced that the Trump administration’s military intervention in Latin America to tackle “narco-terrorists” will be known as Operation Southern Spear.
“President Trump ordered action – and the Department of War is delivering,” the secretary wrote on X late Thursday.
“Today, I’m announcing Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR. Led by Joint Task Force Southern Spear and U.S. Southern Command, this mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people. The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood – and we will protect it.”
Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, and other top military officials joined President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday to present him with options for potential operations in Venezuela, including land-based strikes, according to CBS News.
The administration has likened Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to a cartel boss. Still, critics have argued that the majority of drugs smuggled into the southern states from the region come overland via Mexico or via the Pacific, not the Caribbean.
The U.S. military nevertheless began opening fire on small boats in the Caribbean on September 2 and has since expanded its assaults to the eastern Pacific, killing at least 80 people in 20 strikes on alleged smuggling boats.
The administration has justified its actions by claiming it is stopping harmful narcotics from reaching American shores and “poisoning” its citizens while failing to provide evidence to support its assertions.
Human rights groups and experts in international law have warned that the killings are illegal, the governments of both Venezuela and Colombia have accused Washington of engaging in extrajudicial murder, and, on Tuesday, the U.K. ended regional intelligence sharing with the U.S.
Trump has responded by insisting that the country is engaged in an “armed conflict” with the cartels, relying on the same legal authority used by the George W Bush administration when it declared its “War on Terror” after the Al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.
The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, arrived in the Caribbean Wednesday with its strike group, which includes nine embarked squadrons of Carrier Air Wing Eight, plus the guided-missile destroyers USS Bainbridge and USS Mahan, and the missile defense command ship USS Winston S Churchill, according to the Air Force Times.
They joined eight other Navy vessels already stationed in the region, including the USS Iwo Jima, USS Fort Lauderdale, USS San Antonio, USS Lake Erie, USS Jason Dunham, USS Gravely, USS Stockdale, and USS Wichita.
The Ford hosts 60 aircraft and an estimated 4,000 sailors, while an additional 6,000 personnel are spread across the eight other vessels present. The considerable build-up of American forces in the area also includes a submarine, reconnaissance aircraft, 10 F-35 fighters, and Reaper drones, according to ABC News.
“My advice to foreign terrorist organizations is do not get in a boat,” Hegseth said at a defense summit in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Wednesday.
“If you’re trafficking drugs to poison the American people and we know you’re from a designated terrorist organization, you’re a foreign terrorist or trafficker – we will find you and we will kill you.”
The secretary has revealed a penchant for dramatic rebrandings since taking charge of the Department of Defense, which he has reverted to its old name, the Department of War, and memorably named June’s airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities Operation Midnight Hammer.
