Well, maybe kind of about oil... shipping lanes in the gulf.
We do not fly F-35s to Puerto Rico for cocaine skiffs. We do not send a carrier strike group to the Caribbean for routine interdiction. We do not move an Amphibious Ready Group with an embarked Marine Expeditionary Unit for drug runners. The force package tells you what planners are worried about.
Venezuela has established a pattern of accepting foreign-enabled drone production, electronic warfare support, and strategic naval deployments. The regime has built the infrastructure (ports, coastal access, cartel logistics, sanctions evasion channels) that would support a UUV program. If Iran is willing to transfer drone manufacturing capability and deploy seabase ships into the Atlantic, the step to UUVs is not a leap. It is an extension of what is already underway.
A deniable, proxy-operated capability is designed to stay below the threshold of public confirmation.
This theory checks out with me, Venezuela as a forward-operating-base for China/Russian marine drones... couldn't discuss that publicly or our defense apparatus would look weak in the face of this type of asymmetry. This is also consistent with the rest of the new Monroe doctrine, securing our hemisphere, Border Sec/Ops in Mexico, US hardware and other partnerships with El Salvador, kicking China Inc. out of the Panama Canal, 20B to Milei, regime change in Chile....
https://medium.com/@mcnai002/the-venezuelan-drone-crisis-313dad18497d
China already has Iran and Russia mainlining their black gold into the veins of its economy and receiving payment via Chinas trade payment protocol alternatives to SWIFT and USD hegemony . Venezuela is routing its heavy crude to China via Iran.
This is too much for Trump who in the face of China humiliating him and his bluster hopes to retain at least regional hegemony over the Americas.
Russia has joined China is saying 'Fuck you Uncle Sam...you are a spent force.'
The bottom line is that USA cannot now fight a war of any scale without China resuming the supply of rare earths which are essential to modern warfare.
But Venezuela is surely a scenario where the near crippled US military industrial complex can still assert it power projection and hegemony over strategic resources - or can it?
If it cannot, the petrodollar and the US empire it supports, is one more step closer to redundancy.