Military Command
Appears in 4 stories
Conducted Operation Absolute Resolve
Congress last declared war in 1942. Since then, presidents have ordered military strikes 212 times without formal declarations—but never quite like this. On January 3, 2026, U.S. special forces raided the Venezuelan capital, captured President Nicolás Maduro in his residence, and flew him to New York to face narcoterrorism charges. Eleven days later, Vice President JD Vance cast the deciding vote to kill a Senate resolution that would have required congressional authorization for further military action. Now, over a month after the raid, the operation faces mounting legal challenges: Maduro's defense team filed motions on February 4 questioning the federal court's jurisdiction over the extraordinary rendition case, while the International Court of Justice and UN human rights bodies have issued statements characterizing the operation as a violation of international law.
Updated Feb 6
Leading Operation Southern Spear with 15,000 deployed personnel
The CIA just struck Venezuelan soil. On December 30, President Trump confirmed the first known U.S. land attack inside Venezuela—a drone strike on a coastal dock allegedly used by the Tren de Aragua gang to load drug boats. No one was there when the missiles hit. Meanwhile, in the Pacific that same day, a U.S. strike on another boat killed two more people, bringing total deaths to at least 107 since September.
Updated Dec 30, 2025
Entered leadership transition as Venezuela-related maritime escalation accelerates, potentially affecting regional interdiction and surveillance posture.
Trump’s Venezuela “blockade” threat is no longer just rhetoric—it’s being scaffolded by fresh Treasury actions and a widening target universe. Since the blockade announcement, Washington has added new Venezuela-linked sanctions and separately hit Iran’s shadow-fleet network, expanding the pool of already-sanctioned vessels that could be swept into real-world stop-and-search enforcement if they touch Venezuela’s trade.
Updated Dec 20, 2025
Operating under acting leadership while a new commander is nominated; continues public strike messaging amid intensifying congressional and classification scrutiny
What began as a made-for-video “counterdrug” campaign is now colliding with full-spectrum oversight politics. After SOUTHCOM’s Dec. 16 strike-footage release, the U.S. military publicly acknowledged additional lethal actions that pushed reported deaths past 100 across roughly 28 known strikes since Sept. 2—while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed every member of Congress and signaled the Pentagon will not publicly release the full, unedited video record of the controversial Sept. 2 double-strike episode.
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