Unofficially Problematic: The Venezuela Doctrine

Here’s the uncomfortable possibility: The United States is using “drug boats” as a legally palatable entry point for pressure on a Chinese-anchored regime.

Why is the United States firing precision missiles at fast boats off Venezuela’s coast, but not off Colombia’s, if this is really about drugs?

Why do we need the world’s most advanced aircraft carrier, a nuclear submarine, F-35s, Marines, and special operations forces to do what Coast Guard cutters and good intel have done for decades?

And why, of all moments, is this happening just as a billion-dollar Chinese oil platform, Alula, settles into Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo to pump crude that mostly ends up in Chinese refineries?

Those questions sit at the heart of Washington’s new “war on narco-terrorists” in the Caribbean. The official story is familiar: ruthless traffickers, fragile democracies, cocaine bound for American streets. But look at the targets, the timing, and the broader strategic map, and another story appears: this isn’t just about drug boats. It’s about China, oil, and who gets to define power in the Western Hemisphere.

The Anti-Drug Operation That Looks Like a Dress Rehearsal for War

In late 2025, the Pentagon unveiled Operation Southern Spear, a U.S. Southern Command campaign to “defend the homeland” and remove “narco-terrorists” from the hemisphere. It started with precision strikes on suspected smuggling boats near Venezuela and expanded into the eastern Pacific. Independent analysts estimate at least 80 people killed over roughly ten weeks.

But look at the scale of the forces:

• The USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group — the largest aircraft carrier ever built

• Three destroyers, a nuclear attack submarine, and support ships

• 2,200 Marines afloat on the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group

• Ten F-35 stealth fighters in Puerto Rico

• About 150 special operations forces staged on an afloat base

That’s not a task force sized to chase a handful of go-fast boats. That’s a coercive instrument designed to hold an entire state’s coastal infrastructure at risk.

Even the Pentagon’s own posture makes something clear: this force is not big enough to invade Venezuela, but it is more than enough to strike deep inside it.

So ask yourself: if this were merely a police action at sea, why bring a hammer this large?

The Numbers: Cocaine Flows vs. Missile Strikes

When you follow the data, the focus on Venezuela makes even less sense as pure counter-drug policy.

• A DEA assessment puts about three-quarters of U.S.-bound cocaine transiting Pacific routes, not the Caribbean.

• Roughly 84% of seized cocaine in the U.S. is traced to Colombia, not Venezuela.

• UN crop reports show Colombia as the world’s leading producer, with record coca cultivation.

Venezuela does play a role — as a transit country, not a major producer. Estimates of how much cocaine crosses its territory vary, but even at the higher end, Venezuelan routes are secondary compared with the Pacific pipeline through Colombia, Central America, and Mexico.

Yet where are the most visible, lethal strikes? Not off Colombia’s Pacific coast. Not in the chokepoints of Central America.

They’re concentrated off Venezuela, against boats linked to a regime Washington already treats as illegitimate, criminal, and aligned with U.S. adversaries.

So again: if this were really about the volume of cocaine reaching U.S. cities, would this be the map of targets we’d choose?

Or is “narco-terrorism” a politically convenient label for a different kind of campaign?

Venezuela as a Chinese Energy Outpost

To see that other campaign, look inland — and across the Pacific.

Venezuela sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserves, roughly 303 billion barrels. For years, U.S. sanctions pushed Western oil majors and banks out of Venezuela’s energy sector. The vacuum didn’t stay empty; China stepped in.

Since the mid-2000s, Chinese policy banks and state firms have poured tens of billions of dollars into Venezuela:

• Around $60 billion in loans, much of it tied to oil-for-loan deals

• Long-term contracts sending Venezuelan crude to Chinese refiners as repayment

• Joint ventures and infrastructure to keep PDVSA, the state oil company, on life support

By 2023, China was already the largest buyer of Venezuelan oil, taking roughly two-thirds of exports. By 2024–25, estimates suggest more than 80% of Venezuelan crude was effectively headed to China, directly or through intermediaries. The United States, once the main customer, has been relegated to limited, license-carved purchases.

Then came Alula.

In 2025, a Chinese-owned jack-up platform, Alula, was towed into Lake Maracaibo under a $1 billion, 20-year production deal. Its mission: revive aging fields and ramp output from 12,000 barrels per day to 60,000 — heavy crude largely earmarked for China.

Diplomatically, Beijing and Caracas now describe their tie as an “all-weather strategic partnership.” Translated into strategic language, that means: we’re in this for the long haul.

So from Beijing’s vantage point, Venezuela is no longer just another oil supplier. It’s an energy anchor, a debt-burdened client, and a foothold in the U.S. backyard.

From Washington’s vantage point, what does that look like?

Strategy Documents Don’t Say “Venezuela” — But They Scream “China”

The 2022 National Defense Strategy labels China the United States’ “pacing challenge” and calls for “integrated deterrence” — a jargon phrase for using every tool of power, everywhere, to check Beijing’s advance.

Strategists have increasingly warned that Latin America and the Caribbean are emerging fronts in that competition: ports with Chinese ownership or management, 5G and fiber networks built by Chinese firms, dual-use space and surveillance facilities, and critical energy assets tied to Chinese capital.

Think tanks close to U.S. policy circles openly argue that Chinese and Russian influence in Latin America — especially in energy and infrastructure — must be treated as a priority threat, not an afterthought.

Against that backdrop, consider this: Chinese firms now help extract, ship, and insure oil from the biggest reserves on earth, just a few days’ sail from the Gulf of America — while a U.S. carrier strike group and Marine task force park themselves within striking distance.

Is that really only about smugglers?

Drug Boats as Pressure Points on Beijing

Here’s the uncomfortable possibility: the United States is using “drug boats” as a legally palatable entry point for pressure on a Chinese-anchored regime.

Formally, the targets are small craft carrying cocaine. Functionally, the campaign does three things:

1. Shows China that its oil assets sit in a risk zone.
   The same intelligence, aircraft, and missiles aimed at go-fast boats can, in a crisis, be redirected toward tankers, terminals, or even the Alula platform itself. That doesn’t mean the U.S. intends to hit them — but it makes the vulnerability explicit.

2. Raises the cost of sanctions evasion.
   Chinese traders and PDVSA have relied on elaborate ship-to-ship transfers and re-labeling schemes to move sanctioned crude. A denser American interdiction net, justified as anti-drug activity, also makes those energy flows more precarious.

3. Chokes off alternative cash flows for the regime.
   Drug trafficking brings hard currency to corrupt networks inside the Venezuelan state. Killing traffickers, sinking boats, and seizing cargo doesn’t just affect crime; it tightens the regime’s finances — and, ironically, makes it even more dependent on Chinese funds.

None of this has to be said out loud. In fact, it probably works better if it isn’t.

Why Not Colombia?

Which brings us back to the central, nagging question: if drugs are the problem, why Venezuela and not Colombia?

Colombia is the world’s leading cocaine producer. Most U.S.-bound supply starts in its fields and labs. Yet Colombia is treated as a partner: recipient of U.S. security assistance, host to joint operations, frequent visitor in high-level diplomatic meetings.

Venezuela, by contrast, is sanctioned, isolated, and politically toxic in Washington. It hosts Russian advisers. It courts Iran. It leans heavily on Beijing.

So is the difference really about who grows coca — or about who aligns with whom?

When you strip away the rhetoric, the pattern looks less like an impartial war on drugs and more like power politics with a narcotics wrapper.

The Real Question

None of this is to deny that Venezuelan officials have trafficked drugs, or that criminal gangs linked to the regime do real harm. They do. Nor is it to suggest that Washington has no legitimate interests in curbing cocaine flows or constraining authoritarian regimes aligned with its rivals.

The question is more basic — and more uncomfortable:

Are we being honest, with ourselves and the world, about what this campaign is really for?

If the answer is that drug boats are now a proxy battlefield in a larger contest with China, then we should say so. Because that contest carries different risks — escalation, blowback, the possibility of drawing Beijing into more overt support for Caracas — than a traditional counternarcotics mission.

And if we’re not willing to admit that, we should at least stop pretending that firing missiles off Venezuela’s coast — while Colombian production hits new highs — is simply about protecting Americans from cocaine.

Sometimes, the story is in what we shoot at. Sometimes, it’s in what we choose not to.