HOLY SUNDAY.-Those in charge of the US military deployment in the Caribbean and the Pacific focus their attention on two possible objectives: an operation against international drug trafficking or the progress of a landing in Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro.
Other military movements, however, allow us to extend the view a little and link these movements in the inland sea of the Continent with the failure of President Donald Trump in his efforts to stop the war in Ukraine.
Before this unusual demonstration in the Caribbean, the Government of the United States of America had spoken, at the beginning of last August, of the placement of at least two nuclear submarines in the Pacific, near Russia, as a result of what President Trump himself described as provocative comments by a former president and current senior Russian official.
“Based on the highly provocative statements of the former president of Russia, Dmitri Medvedev, who is now vice-president of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines in the appropriate regions,” he wrote on his Truth Social network, quoted by BBC News.
From the beginning
At the end of last October, CNN Latin America listed the military resources made available to the Southern Command and deployed in the Caribbean with a special operations ship, three large warships, a missile cruiser, three destroyers, a littoral combat ship, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, transport and combat aircraft, helicopters and 4,500 marines and sailors.
Today the troops number around 15,000, some on land and perhaps half on board ships.
On Tuesday of this week, with the entry of the aircraft carrier USS Gerard Ford into the Caribbean, the military operation took on another nuance if we know that it was located in Europe, a region that has been deprived of its symbolic weight and firepower and combat elements, including more than 5,000 military personnel.
Apparently what this unusual mobilization of ships, submarines and troops in the Caribbean is about is to guarantee the security of the inland sea in the face of the eventual escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, which could become a full-fledged European war.
an absurd idea
If this whole movement is really aimed at first intimidating and finally capturing Maduro, we are facing a government willing to use a war tank to kill a mosquito, or before an administration convinced that Vladimir Putin has such a firm commitment to Venezuela that he would be able to advance in a transoceanic war to keep him in power.
The United States’ opportunity, if it was in its plans to cleanse the region of bad affections, which is a mistake on a personal and political level, was missed when the confrontation between Venezuela and Guyana over the Essequibo reached the highest point of acidity, from which it has descended almost to oblivion.
Any other form of intervention would only serve to discredit US international policy, which would prove incapable of valuing forms and adhering to the law.
The world command cannot be witnessing a relentless tension in Europe, the scene of all the great war conflicts of modern times, and continue managing inflation, electoral issues and immigrant borders as if there were no risks of a scale of war catching them with their pants around their ankles.
The real danger
Venezuela and Nicolás Maduro, Colombia and Gustavo Petro, Cuba and Raúl Castro, Nicaragua and Daniel Ortega, as well as the drug boats, are elements of emotional distraction behind which something greater moves: the risk of a European war with great and serious consequences in the face of which the United States of America cannot remain from country to country, chewing gum and asking its leaders how much of the GDP they have for the military chapter.
Even for the unthinkable case of stepping aside and remaining neutral, an early deployment of sufficient force in the neighborhood is your guarantee that you will not go to bed one day and wake up the next with the active base of a European or Asian power within missile range of your territory.
If there finally comes to be an operation in the Caribbean against any of the aforementioned countries and their rulers, we would be facing a good indication that an escalation is imminent.
It is doubtful that the United States would go to war over Taiwan or Ukraine, but it is almost certain that it would do so over Santo Domingo, for example, or to avoid a point of insecurity in any area of the Caribbean, no matter the country.
The leaders of these countries should value this elementary conclusion.
Agreement with Russia
— In force
A strategic partnership agreement between Russia and Venezuela came into force yesterday after its promulgation by presidents Vladimir Putin and Nicolás Maduro. According to an Efe cable, the agreement entails an expansion of interaction between both nations in several areas.
