Topic summary
Operation Southern Spear
- Venezuelan opposition
United Kingdom
Venezuela(after Operation Absolute Resolve, disputed)
- Venezuela
- Cartel of the Suns(alleged by the US)
Cuba
Colombia(alleged by the US, until August 2026)
- Alleged drug traffickers
- Tren de Aragua
UC-ELN(alleged by the US)
FARC dissidents (including Comandos de la Frontera) (alleged by the US and Ecuador)
Donald Trump
Marco Rubio
Pete Hegseth
Kristi Noem
Markwayne Mullin
Dan Caine
Frank M. Bradley
Alvin Holsey
Evan Pettus
Francis Donovan
John Ratcliffe
María Corina Machado
Edmundo González
Luis Abinader
Kamla Persad-Bissessar
Nayib Bukele
Javier Milei
Abelardo de la Espriella
Delcy Rodríguez (disputed)Nicolás Maduro (POW)Delcy RodríguezJorge Rodríguez
Vladimir PadrinoDiosdado CabelloAlex Saab
Miguel Díaz-CanelSalvador Valdés Mesa
Manuel Marrero Cruz
Esteban Lazo Hernández
Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla
Álvaro López Miera
Raúl Castro
Niño GuerreroX
1 carrier strike group, 6 destroyers, 1 amphibious assault ship, 2 amphibious transport docks, 1 guided missile cruiser, 1 national security cutter, 1 nuclear-powered attack submarine, 150+ aircraft
200,000 troops 4,500,000 militia (Venezuelan claim)
22,000–25,000 medics and military personnel (2019 estimate)Operation Absolute Resolve:
7 wounded
1 helicopter damaged
10 oil tankers boarded or seized
Several allegedly killed including Niño Guerrero in land strikes in Venezuela and Ecuador
Operation Absolute Resolve:
2 captured 2 civilians and at least 23 military personnel killed 32 Cubans killedOne Beechcraft Baron destroyed
One Buk-M2E destroyed
Operation Southern Spear is a United States military and surveillance campaign launched in 2025 by the administration of US president Donald Trump with the declared aims of "detecting, disrupting, and degrading transnational criminal and illicit maritime networks". Some analysts say the operation is a hybridization of the war on terror and the war on drugs. Others have said that removal of Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela was an objective of the operation.
In mid-August 2025, the US began deploying military forces to the Caribbean Sea, amid heightened tensions between the US and Venezuela during the crisis in Venezuela and as the Trump administration sought to slow the flow of illicit drugs. In September, the U.S. military began conducting airstrikes on vessels the Trump administration alleged were controlled by narco-terrorists. By late November, with the Cartel of the Suns designated by the US as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization, a new phase of operations began. In December, the Trump administration declared the Maduro government a Foreign Terrorist Organization, and began boarding and seizing sanctioned crude tankers. In late December, the US made its first strike on a land target within Venezuela. On 3 January 2026, the US bombed targets in Caracas and other locations, and captured Maduro and flew him out of the country.
Later in January, NPR reported that "drug-seizure data suggest that the attacks are doing little to stop the flow of illegal narcotics into the United States."
On March 6, 2026, the operation expanded to Ecuador when U.S. forces bombed Comandos de la Frontera as part of the Ecuadorian conflict (2024–present).
The campaign was formally named on 13 November 2025 by Pete Hegseth, US secretary of defense, as an expansion of an operation bearing the same name announced by the United States Navy on 28 January 2025. It uses a hybrid fleet of vessels with robotics and autonomous systems to detect and combat alleged drug trafficking networks in the Western Hemisphere.
According to an assessment by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the military strikes against suspected drug-trafficking vessels did not reduce the volume of cocaine entering the United States. Instead, the operations forced criminal organizations to change their smuggling techniques and at the same time eroded traditional law enforcement investigative techniques.