We are not at war with Venezuela. Yet.
by Joan Johnson-Freese, Rhode Island Current
I once sat next to my Air Force three-star general boss in an otherwise empty auditorium in Montgomery, Alabama, listening to two junior officers rehearse a briefing on U.S. space security efforts. 
If Trump had actual proof to back his claims,
he would have shown it to us
At the time, I was the Air War College resident civilian space expert. The two officers tag teaming on statements about U.S. defensive programs also spoke about offensive efforts aimed at particular countries.
I leaned over and asked the general if we were at war with these countries.
“Good question,” he whispered back.
“ARE WE AT WAR?” he then shouted out to the briefers.
One firmly answered yes.
The other said no.
The general was understandably taken aback. “Seems like we ought to have that figured out before going on the offensive,” he replied.
This happened nearly 30 years ago. But the general could very well make the same common sense statement today, relevant to three U.S. military attacks in the Caribbean that could trigger a war with Venezuela.
The first took place on Sept. 2 when the U.S. military carried out an airstrike against a civilian speedboat the Trump administration said was carrying drugs in international waters off Venezuela, killing 11 people. Then on Sept. 15, a strike on another boat killed three people. A third strike on Sept.19 killed three more people. In each instance, President Donald Trump stated the attacks were against narco-terrorists, members of the Tren de Aragua cartel, on their way to the United States.
Rhode Island’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has spoken out against what he calls the illegality of the assaults, calling them “reckless, unauthorized operations” that could “drag our nation into a conflict we did not choose.”
Reed pointed out that miscalculation on anyone’s part during or after the attacks could have triggered a war. California’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff further stated that “blowing up boats without any legal justification risks dragging the United States into another war and provoking unjustified hostilities against our own citizens.”
Questions regarding the illegality of the attacks stem from both international and domestic law. International law allows attacks on a naval vessel in international waters during an armed conflict, which did not apply in this instance, and in peacetime if the vessel is suspected of engaging in terrorist activity, or posing a threat regarding weapons of mass destruction.
Where drugs are involved, vessels are subject to seizure as part of law enforcement efforts. Using the U.S. military to blow up suspected drug trafficking vessels without any proof of who or what was aboard, offered either before or after the strikes, extends beyond allowable circumstances.
The Trump Administration has justified the attacks as necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. Preventing and deterring drugs from reaching American shores has been and must continue to be a national imperative.
But the U.S. drug crisis — and it is a crisis — is not only or even primarily one of supply. The global market is lucrative, and dealers could and would go elsewhere were it not for high demand in the United States. Addressing the demand problem is also an issue worthy of immediate and holistic — though largely unattended — government action.
Domestically, questions have been raised regarding whether the attacks were a potential overreach of executive authority, both because the U.S. military was used as law enforcement and because Congress is authorized to take the nation into war, not the president.
According to the U.S. War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 to check presidential ability to conduct military actions without Congressional consent during the Vietnam War, the president is required to consult with Congress before introducing the nation’s armed forces into hostilities.
Congress was not involved in decision making prior to the attacks, nor provided much information or transparency regarding the rationale afterwards. After the first two attacks, Democratic Sens. Schiff of California and Tim Kaine of Virginia introduced a joint resolution under the War Powers Act to block the U.S. military from engaging in hostilities with certain nonstate actors without congressional authorization, to little avail.
Kentucky Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, a libertarian with a long history of questioning executive overreach, has argued the U.S. can’t simply kill people suspected of wrongdoing without due process.
The recklessness of the actions raises the question of whether the Trump administration was deliberately trying to provoke a military response from Venezuela as an excuse for expanded U.S. military action. During Trump’s first term in office, tensions between the United States and Venezuela reached a point where he asked advisers about invasion as an option. He was strongly advised against it.
Trump reportedly has said that invading Venezuela would be “cool.” Then in March 2025, less restrained in muscle-flexing than during his first term, Trump issued an executive order levying a 25% tariff on countries that directly or indirectly imported Venezuelan oil.
Oil. The United States has a history of getting into long wars with unanticipated and unintended consequences over oil.
The number one customer for Venezuelan oil is China. Choking Venezuelan oil hurts China. The U.S. starting a war with Venezuela would have even further direct implications for China. China already voiced its support for Venezuela after the first two attacks, warning the U.S. against “bullying.” Like the renaming of the Defense Department to the Department of War, picking a fight with Venezuela seems at least in part another chest-thumping shot at China.
Starting a war for the administration to flex its political and military muscles would not be “cool” from any perspective because it puts American blood and treasure at risk. If we are not at war — and Congress has not authorized such — then these illegal, provocative, political-theater attacks must stop.
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Rhode Island Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Rhode Island Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janine L. Weisman for questions: info@rhodeislandcurrent.com.
