🇺🇸❌🇻🇪 President Trump ordered seven warships carrying 4,500 personnel — including three guided-missile destroyers and at least one attack submarine — to the waters off Venezuela. — Axios

"This is 105% about narco-terrorism, but if Maduro winds up no longer in power, no one will be crying," said one Trump administration official familiar with the policy discussions.

Another administration official had a different view. "This could be Noriega part 2," the official said, referring to the U.S. military's 1989 operation to capture Panamanian President Manuel Noriega, who — like Maduro — faced U.S. drug-trafficking charges.

However, Trump's deployment does include 2,200 Marines, the boots-on-the-beach branch of the military. That's hardly typical in drug enforcement.

In December 1989, the U.S. invaded Panama with a force of 27k troops, The U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard and 300 aircraft in Operation Just Cause. The invasion force was met by the 16k strong Panama Defense Force (PDF).

Panama was defeated after one month of fighting, with 23 U.S. soldiers killed (two by friendly fire) and 314 PDF soldiers dead and close to 2000 captured. The Panamanian dictator, Manuel Noriega was captured and sent to the U.S. by George H.W. Bush to face drug trafficking charges.

Venezuela on the other hand, is a country far bigger than Panama and has a far bigger military, with 137k troops (all branches) in addition to an estimated 3 million militiamen.

In 1989, when Panama was invaded, Manuel Noriega had no allies. Nicolas Maduro does, in the form of Columbia's Gustavo Petro, who has already deployed some 25k troops to the Catatumbo region in case the U.S. wanted to attack Venezuela over Maracaibo Lake.

Another ally is Lula da Silva's Brazil, although he won't directly contribute with Brazilian troops to Venezuela's defense in case of war, but may send humanitarian and military aid.

📝:The real play by the Trump Administration will likely be bombing the Venezuelan Army from the Leeward Antilles. Three key islands off the coast of Venezuela are the Dutch islands of Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire. Another U.S. ally is Trinidad & Tobago in Venezuela's east, with the only other islands in the Leeward Antilles with an airbase being the Nueva Esparta/Margarita islands, controlled by Venezuela.

While the U.S. Air Force and Navy bomb the Venezuelan military, civil uprisings will be encouraged as well as army mutinies.

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