President Donald Trump has presided over a slow-rolling military buildup in the Caribbean—the largest increase in forces in the United States Southern Command’s (USSOUTHCOM) area of responsibility (AOR) in decades—and everyone is waiting with bated breath to see what will happen next. 

Already, the Trump administration has ordered the destruction of multiple suspected drug-running boats emanating from Venezuela. It has also seized an Iranian-affiliated oil container ship that was allegedly running sanctioned Venezuelan oil to Cuba and was part of the global shadow fleet undergirding the black market. For these actions, it has been accused of war crimes—attacking the speedboats without due process—as well as piracy for taking the container ship and its contents for itself.

There does not appear to be any change in those policies from Trump. Meanwhile, the president has indicated that he intends to expand military operations against Venezuela’s drug cartels by deploying large numbers of US troops into Venezuela itself (there are around 16,000 US Marines sitting off the coast of Venezuela currently). 

Many in Washington who support the president’s belligerence toward Venezuela liken this action to what President George HW Bush did against Manuel Noriega in Panama. At the time, Noriega was credibly accused of involvement in the drug trade, and the United States launched a military intervention in Panama—codenamed Operation Just Cause—to remove him from power and arrest him. After a brief military struggle, and a two-week siege of the Holy See’s diplomatic mission in which Noriega had taken shelter, the Panamanian dictator was captured and brought back to the United States. All in all, the operation was a tremendous success.

There are some real differences between then and now. Notably, Venezuela is twelve times larger than Panama, with a population density that is ten times larger. The geography of Venezuela is fundamentally different in Venezuela from that of nearby Panama, too. 

In Panama, the United States deployed a force of around 27,000 troops. As noted above, 16,000 troops—US Marines—standby to engage in combat in Venezuela. Not only is the Venezuelan Armed Forces far larger than the Panamanian forces were, but it also has considerably more military........

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