Reuters shares the latest news on US military staging in the Caribbean region near Venezuela (with reports from Reade Levinson, Ricardo Arduengo, Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart, Jonathan Saul, Michael Pell, Clare Farley, Vijdan Mohammad Kawoosa, Jon McClure, and Mariano Zafra). See photographs and full article at Reuters.
The United States military is upgrading a long-abandoned former Cold War naval base in the Caribbean, a Reuters visual investigation has found, suggesting preparations for sustained operations that could help support possible actions inside Venezuela.
The construction activity at the former Roosevelt Roads naval base in Puerto Rico — shuttered by the Navy more than 20 years ago — was underway on September 17 when crews began clearing and repaving taxiways leading to the runway, according to photos taken by Reuters. Until the Navy withdrew from the facility in 2004, Roosevelt Roads was one of the biggest U.S. naval stations in the world. The base occupies a strategic location and offers a large amount of space for gathering equipment, one U.S. official said.
In addition to the upgrades of landing and take-off capabilities at Roosevelt Roads, the U.S. is building out facilities at civilian airports in Puerto Rico and St Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The two U.S. territories sit roughly 500 miles from Venezuela.
Reuters spoke to three U.S. military officials and three maritime experts who said the new construction in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands pointed to preparations that could enable the U.S. military to carry out operations inside Venezuela. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly alleged that the U.S. is hoping to drive him from power.
“All of these things are, I think, are designed to scare the pants off the Maduro regime and the generals around him, with the hope that it will create fissures,” Christopher Hernandez-Roy, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, told Reuters.
To monitor U.S. military activity in the region over the last two months, Reuters photographed U.S. military bases and reviewed satellite imagery, ship and flight tracking data and social media posts. The news agency also tracked movements of U.S. military vessels through on-the-ground reporting and open-source photos and videos.
The military buildup in the region is the largest unrelated to disaster relief since 1994, when the United States sent two aircraft carriers and more than 20,000 troops to Haiti to take part in “Operation Uphold Democracy.”
Since early September, the United States has carried out at least 14 strikes against alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing 61 people. The strikeson alleged drug vessels have increased tensions with Venezuela and Colombia and drawn attention to a part of the world that has received limited resources within the U.S. military in recent years.
Asked for comment on the military expansion in the region, the White House said President Donald Trump had promised on the campaign trail to take on the region’s drug cartels. [. . .]
The U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean began in August with the arrival of warships, a nuclear-powered submarine, fighter jets and spy planes.
The Ford aircraft carrier strike group, with roughly 10,000 troops and dozens of aircraft and weapons systems, is on its way from the Adriatic Sea. One of the Ford’s destroyers cleared Gibraltar on October 29, according to satellite imagery and ship tracking data.
Presented with Reuters’ findings, the Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment. The governor of Puerto Rico did not respond to a request for comment.
Building up Caribbean bases
Some of the most dramatic infrastructure improvements are occurring at the former Roosevelt Roads base, where crews are upgrading taxiways with improvements that analysts say would enable use by fighter jets as well as cargo planes.
Mark Cancian, a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser with the CSIS, said the changes were consistent with preparations for an increase in landings and takeoffs of military aircraft. [. . .] Reuters also found significant changes at Rafael Hernandez Airport, the second-busiest civilian airport in Puerto Rico.
By mid-October, the U.S. military had moved in communications gear and a mobile air traffic control tower — typically used to coordinate a surge of aircraft in war zones or after disasters. [. . .]
For full article and photos, see https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-CARIBBEAN/MILITARY-BUILDUP/egpbbnzyrpq/
[Illustration above: Recent sightings of U.S. military vessels and aircraft as of October 31. Sources: Reuters reporting, MarineTraffic, FlightRadar24, Sentinel-2, Planet Labs PBC.]
Reuters shares the latest news on US military staging in the Caribbean region near Venezuela (with reports from Reade Levinson, Ricardo Arduengo, Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart, Jonathan Saul, Michael Pell, Clare Farley, Vijdan Mohammad Kawoosa, Jon McClure, and Mariano Zafra). See photographs and full article at Reuters. The United States military is upgrading a long-abandoned former Cold War naval base in the Caribbean, a Reuters visual
