Intercepts and arrests have given way to a new era of detection and detonation. The era of cautious diplomacy has morphed into one of strategic force. Nicolas Maduro is poised to encounter the might of the USS Gerald R. Ford, acclaimed as the world’s most formidable and influential warship.

Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, announced that in line with the President’s mandate to dismantle international criminal syndicates, the Secretary of War has deployed the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group along with its air wing to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Southern Command.

Parnell elaborated, “The augmented U.S. military presence will enhance our ability to detect, track, and disrupt illegal actors and their operations that threaten U.S. security and prosperity.”

Departing the Mediterranean Sea and the Gaza conflict, the USS Gerald R. Ford is now focused on what the United States deems its primary concern: the Cartel of the Suns and its prominent leader, Maduro. This carrier is a comprehensive arsenal, not just a weapon of war.

The Ford Carrier Strike Group boasts two nuclear reactors, a force of 4,600 personnel, 75 military aircraft, sophisticated weapons elevators, and is equipped with F-18 Super Hornets and an E-2 Hawkeye.

The Ford is accompanied by modern ships such the guided-missile cruiser Normandy and a team of destroyers like Carney, Roosevelt, Thomas Hudner, Ramage and a powerful submarine. This is an eloquent and extraordinary diplomacy, tailor-made to deal with brutal regimes like the one in Venezuela.

The U.S. has not only changed its deterrence and diplomacy but also its approach to narco-dictators in the Western Hemisphere. “Narco-terrorists intending to bring poison to our shores will find no safe harbor anywhere in our hemisphere,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said after destroying a 10th drug boat bound for the U.S. “Just as al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people. There will be no refuge or forgiveness — only justice.”

But dictators like Maduro aren’t going to go away just by destroying a couple of boats. The regime is convinced that the U.S. is playing a strategy of pressure and nothing more. The tyrant from Miraflores survived Trump’s first administration, the sanctions, the pandemic, international isolation, and even the threat of invasion. Now he wants to repeat the formula — but he’s got it all wrong. 

Maduro had the audacity to say that he would not leave power because he has Russian weapons to fight the battle.

“Any military force in the world knows the power of the Igla-S,” he said. “Venezuela has no fewer than 5,000 of them in key anti-craft defense positions to guarantee peace, stability, and tranquility.” He also noted that they have “simulation equipment that puts thousands of Igla-S operators in a position of good aim. In the last mountain and the last town.” 

Despite Maduro’s continued threats and misbehavior, his options seem to be running out. He is at a crossroads, facing a choice: either flee to Moscow like Bashar al-Assad did, or else die clinging to power like Muammar Gaddafi did in Libya. 

Trump has a strong determination to end the threat presented by drug cartels. “I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” he said. “We are just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. They are going to be, like, dead.” 

Nobel laureate Maria Corina Machado has said that Maduro started the war against the Venezuelan people, but that Trump will end it. “The transition is underway, and it will be orderly and peaceful,” she said. “We are moving from tyranny to democracy, from chaos to order, from misery to prosperity.”

Arturo McFields is an exiled journalist, former Nicaraguan ambassador to the Organization of American States and a former member of the Norwegian Peace Corps. He is an alumnus of the National Defense University’s Security and Defense Seminar and the Harvard Leadership course.