The USS Gerald Ford, the United States Navy’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, along with its accompanying battle group, is set to bolster the military presence in the Caribbean. This formidable group includes around 80 aircraft, both for strikes and other operations, as well as surface combatants armed with Tomahawk missiles. They will be joining an existing fleet of roughly a dozen warships and approximately 2,000 Marines already stationed in the area.

Among these forces is the Ocean Trader, a notable vessel under the U.S. Military Sealift Command. This ship, weighing in at 22,000 tons and stretching over two football fields in length, carries a crew of about 40 alongside up to 200 special forces personnel and their equipment. Positioned off the Venezuelan coast, the presence of strategic bombers like B-52s and B-2s adds a layer of intensity to the situation, reminiscent of predators circling their target.

The pressing question on many minds is: what is the next move?

For those contemplating an incursion, a word of caution: invading Venezuela could be an ill-advised course of action.

This scenario is not akin to Operation Just Cause from December 1989, when President George H.W. Bush dispatched 27,000 U.S. troops to apprehend Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. That operation benefited from a U.S. base in Panama, a strategic advantage not present in or near Venezuela. Moreover, Venezuela’s sheer size—12 times larger than Panama—and its population, which is six times that of Panama, present significant logistical challenges.

As far as regime change, the White House needs to be reminded of a bit of history. We tried that in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq as well as a number of attempts in Central America. 

When the U.S. and United Kingdom succeeded in Iran ending the Mosaddeq regime in 1953 and replacing him with Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, that ultimately did not turn out well with the 1979 revolution that installed the ayatollahs.

In October 1983, the Reagan administration launched Operation Urgent Fury, ostensibly to rescue a handful of U.S. medical students studying at St. George’s University in Grenada. The real reason was to halt the Cubans from building a runway that would give the Soviets another aircraft carrier equivalent in the Caribbean.  

Unfortunately, all those assumptions were dead wrong. As the operational commander Vice Admiral Joseph J. Metcalf told Washington, the students were not in danger.  As British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher asked  Reagan the night before the invasion, what the U.S. was up to, as Reagan admitted, “what else could I do?  I had to lie.”

If Reagan had told the truth, Thatcher would have told the president that the runway was being built by a U.K. corporation as part of a plan to expand tourism and that it employed the lowest cost labor provided by Cuba. Castro had one demand: He wanted Cuba armed and loyal guards to prevent the workers from defecting.

So what is the Trump administration trying to do now, and why? No satisfactory explanations have been given yet. 

Part of the argument is the assertion that the U.S. is now waging an active drug war against designated narcoterrorists, giving the president the authority to use military force to destroy small boats allegedly carrying drugs north. 

Further, Venezuela is viewed as the center of gravity for these operations. But U.S. intelligence and law enforcement reports show that Colombia and especially Mexico are the villains in the drug and fentanyl trade. Venezuela is a sideshow.

The White House has already disclosed that CIA units have been authorized to operate in Venezuela in what are now non-covert ways. 

Regarding the destruction of these small so-called drug runners, it is more than arguable that using the military violates the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act forbidding the use of the military in law enforcement. And should the president approve strikes against targets inside Venezuela, as the novelist Tom Clancy wrote in “Clear and Present Danger” three decades ago, this could be in direct violation of the War Powers Act.

Perhaps in applying maximum pressure the administration is forcing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to resign or abdicate. If so, what if this does not work? 

Will Trump follow Russian President Vladimir Putin, who amassed a huge army on Ukraine’s border in 2022 and attacked, or instead use Special Forces to seize Maduro, as Bush did in Panama with Noriega? And then suppose, like the ill-fated 1980 Iranian hostage rescue attempt Operation Eagle Claw, this raid also failed?

While some Americans agree with the strikes on what are believed to be drug-runners, there is no due process nor any clear rationale why that is vital in a nation supposedly dedicated to the rule of law. In a bizarre way, the administration may be recreating the Abu Ghraib scandal that plagued George W. Bush.

So please, President Trump, do not invade Venezuela or continue this drug war without telling us why.

Harlan Ullman is UPI’s Arnaud deBorchgrave Distinguished Columnist, a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council, the chairman of two private companies and the principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. He and former United Kingdom Defense Chief David Richards are the authors of a forthcoming book on preventing strategic catastrophe.