Venezuela mobilizes as top US warship nears

What happened

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest and most advanced U.S. aircraft carrier, and its three accompanying warships entered the Caribbean region Tuesday, adding to President Donald Trump’s unusual buildup of naval might off the coast of Venezuela. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the carrier strike group “will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking” in the region. But Venezuela said Tuesday it was mobilizing its entire military, including weaponry and troops, in preparation for a possible U.S. attack.

Who said what

The massive “firepower” of the Ford strike group “goes beyond what is required to strike the small boats that the Trump administration says are being used to smuggle drugs,” The Wall Street Journal said. The “only reason” to move a strategic asset like an aircraft carrier from the Middle East to the Caribbean “is to use it against Venezuela,” Mark Cancian at the Center for Strategic and International Studies told The Washington Post. Now that the Ford has arrived, “the shot clock has started” for President Donald Trump to “use it or move it.”

America’s military “dwarfs Venezuela’s, which is debilitated by a lack of training, low wages and deteriorating equipment,” Reuters said. So the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has “bet on two potential strategies” — a publicly disclosed “guerrilla-style defense” and a secret “anarchization” plan to “create disorder on the streets” and “make Venezuela ungovernable for foreign forces.”

What next?

The Trump administration has “developed a range of options for military action in Venezuela,” but the president “has yet to make a decision about how or whether to proceed,” The New York Times said, citing officials. Trump was reportedly “reluctant” to put U.S. troops in danger or risk “an embarrassing failure,” but “many of his senior advisers are pressing” for “ousting” Maduro.