These Are The Potential Targets Trump Might Hit in An Invasion of Venezuela: WaPo

The latest milestone in the Trump administration's escalating military campaign against Venezuela is the arrival of the world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, off the coast of Venezuela on Tuesday.

The carrier's journey to the South American country comes after the mobilization of troops in Puerto Rico and several airstrikes that have killed at least 75 people on Venezuelan boats allegedly carrying drugs.

A report from The Washington Post featuring interviews with both U.S. and Venezuelan officials indicates that the carrier's current proximity to Venezuela brings significant strike and support capability. This would give American forces the option to conduct precision strikes from the sea while limiting direct ground engagement.

The government figures interviewed by the Post also laid out four broad target categories that U.S. planners might prioritize. The first are drug production and transit nodes, including clandestine cocaine labs and large storage sites in states such as Sucre and border zones where drugs are consolidated for shipment. Hitting those nodes could be intended to degrade the financial base of corrupt officials and traffickers.

A second category is small, often improvised airstrips and "parking lots" where light aircraft land to pick up shipments. Apure and the Catatumbo region were singled out as areas where traffickers use makeshift runways and where operations have increased amid recent crackdowns on maritime smuggling. Strikes on those strips would be tactically attractive because they are discrete and directly linked to trafficking networks.

Third are ports and airports that could serve as hubs for cocaine shipments. Defense analysts named commercial seaports and major airports as potential targets if planners decide to disrupt larger-scale shipping and logistics. Any plan to strike such facilities would likely include parallel efforts to neutralize or degrade Venezuelan air defenses first, since even partially operational systems represent a threat to U.S. aircraft.

Fourth are political and security apparatus nodes, including units of the Venezuelan security services. U.S. officials have discussed the possibility of targeting the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence, known as DGCIM, or other elite security formations if the administration concluded that pressure on the Maduro leadership was the primary goal. That step would carry greater political risk and the possibility of broader confrontation.

Analysts and retired officers cautioned that strikes would have uncertain results. Venezuela retains some advanced air-defense systems and a sizable, if degraded, military. Even so, some experts believe the goal for the U.S. would be precision kinetic operations rather than a full-scale ground invasion, aiming to signal to President Nicolás Maduro and his inner circle that their hold on power is not secure.

The Trump administration, however, continues to deny that they are planning an invasion of Venezuela and that the actions taken by the military are retaliation for drugs allegedly smuggled into the country by the "Cartel de los Soles," a criminal organization supposedly made up of high-ranking Venezuelan officials.