EXPERT INTERVIEW — Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced today that the U.S. has carried out three additional strikes on four sea vessels, bringing the total number of attacks on boats to 13, resulting in more than 57 deaths. The Secretary said 14 people were killed and one person survived yesterday’s attacks targeting drug traffickers.
The Secretary posted on X that, “The Department has spent over TWO DECADES defending other homelands. Now, we’re defending our own. These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same,” warning of more strikes to come. “We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them.”
The strikes come amid a major U.S. military buildup in the region, most recently bolstered by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s order last week for the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier and its escorts to deploy from the Mediterranean to Latin America. President Trump says he is also considering military action against land targets in Venezuela, a sentiment echoed recently by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
Experts on the region believe part of the counternarcotics campaign is aimed at pressuring Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step down. The U.S. has recently suspended diplomatic efforts with Maduro’s government and the Venezuelan president has been directly accused by the U.S. of involvement in drug trafficking. And in a highly unusual move, President Trump publicly announced recently that he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert action in Venezuela.
Maduro has condemned the U.S. military activity, accusing Washington of “fabricating a new war” while vowing to defend national sovereignty.
The Cipher Brief spoke with former CIA station chief David Fitzgerald, who served in Latin America, at the 2025 Cipher Brief Threat Conference about the implications of the strikes and other forms of pressure on both the cartels and Maduro. Fitzgerald joined the conference live from Panama. Our interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
THE INTERVIEW
Kelly: Dave, you have deep expertise in the region and in understanding the drug cartels. With everything going on in the region right now, what's top of mind for you?
Fitzgerald: Regarding Venezuela specifically, it's an interesting situation and I think President Maduro feels like the pincer movement is coming in on him right now. He's feeling the pressure, no doubt, from the military actions in the Caribbean, and also from some of the declarations by President Trump. He doesn't have the support of his neighboring Latin countries that he would like, specifically Brazil - if you remember back when he was elected during the last time, his main ally in Latin America, President Lula, never recognized the election. So theoretically, none of his counterparts other than the ones from the countries everybody suspected would - Nicaragua, Cuba, and, at the time, Bolivia - had recognized the election and President Maduro as the president elect and now the president.
So he understands very well that if push comes to shove, if there's some type of military action vis-a-vis Venezuela, Russia, China, Cuba, even Iran is not going to come to his assistance. He's going to be out on his own and he's going to be very outgunned and outmatched by the U.S. military. [He has a] decrepit air force and a decrepit army. He also claims to have rallied 4 million militia members that are undergoing training to help defend Venezuela.
Kelly: President Trump has openly said that he has authorized covert activity in Venezuela. What does this mean? If you're Maduro, what is that message that you're taking from that? How does it change the situation?
Fitzgerald: I think we're all a little surprised by that announcement, which is very out of character for the IC to have a covert action finding actually being announced by the president of the United States. I guess on one hand he's just circumventing what would eventually happen, and that's having it leaked, which I think has happened to all of the other covert programs. On the other hand, I think it's part of that pressure campaign that Trump is putting on Maduro and I think he's really feeling squeezed. There have been recent media reports that Maduro has offered to provide natural resources to the United States to try to find a way out of the situation by accommodating President Trump by providing oil and some of the other rich resources that Venezuela has. But I think he [Maduro] understands that his plan B is going to get on a plane and go to Cuba, much as President Chavez was back in 2002 when he had a short-lived coup d'état attempt in Caracas. There are not many options for him at this time.
Kelly: This administration has made clear that part of the policy towards Venezuela is applying pressure which includes the targeting of suspected drug boats off the coast of Venezuela. With your decades of experience understanding what motivates the drug cartels and what doesn't, how do you think these attacks might shift their thinking, if at all? And I also want you to explain to us how the cartels are technology, reportedly, better than most other groups in the world. Is this true?
Fitzgerald: They're very sophisticated and vis-a-vis Venezuela, you actually have kind of a, I hate to use the word state-sponsored, but I will say state-approved cartels working in Venezuela. I don't know if we remember the days of Cartel de los Soles, which in English means the cartel of the generals, and that was so true back in the 90’s. The then head of the National Guard was under indictment [for involvement.] He's still under indictment. He has never left Venezuela since then.
Hugo Carvajal, who was General Carvajal, the head of military intelligence, fled to Spain around 2020-2021 because he had a falling out with Maduro. He was extradited to the U.S. back in ‘23. He pled guilty [to involvement in narcoterrorism and drug trafficking] in June of this year and is going to be sentenced at the end of this month. I know the guy personally, and I remember having these conversations with him and telling him, Hugo, one day this house of cards is going to come crumbling down and there's going to be a price to pay, right? He says, ah, no, no, no, no. And I think it's kind of that same atmosphere in Venezuela right now with the senior military officers. Maduro has done a good job of handling the military in the sense of the stick and the carrot, and they all understand that as long as they're true and loyal to Maduro, they're going to benefit from it, from their illegal activities, either allowing trafficking or corruption to take place or participating in it. So there's going to be more indictments, I think. There's no doubt Carvajal is making a plea with the U.S. attorney right now in order to lower his sentence.
You have that combined with what you see now in Colombia. Trump had called President Petro a narco trafficker and said he's cutting all narcotics assistance to Colombia. That's a blow to him, but it's also a blow to our efforts in the region because Colombia, as everybody knows, has been our strongest ally in this fight, both in the Counter-terrorism fight in the region and also in the counter-narcotics fight. So we're going to watch how this plays out.
Elections in Colombia are in May of next year. All polls indicate Petro really doesn't have a chance. I'm not sure whether this announcement will help him or not. Colombia's not doing well right now. The United Nations just last month announced that they have record cultivation of coca now in Colombia. They're producing more than they ever did even before we started our Plan Colombia back in the 90’s. So it's a worrisome situation.
Kelly: I'm glad you brought up Colombia because I was going to ask you about that.
I’ve also heard recently that the epicenter of the drug problem is in Mexico. Talk to us a little bit about that and about what you have seen work or not work, against drug cartels in Mexico.
Fitzgerald: The question has always been how do you declare victory? Okay, narcotics traffic is going to exist for the rest of time. It always has, right? So the question is how do you define victory over that target? Years back, I had a conversation with [former Colombian] President [Alvaro] Uribe and I said, “we’ve made great strides, a lot of great things have happened. How do you define victory over these trafficking and terrorist groups?” Back then it was the FARC and the ELN where they were a two for one, or both trafficking and terrorist groups.
He looked at me and said victory is when these problems stop being a national security problem, a threat to our national security, and just basically turn into a regular criminal problem. I think he nailed it on the head. In countries like Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, all through Central America, these are national security problems. The corruption that it entails, the penetrations that the traffickers have made through all society. It is a threat to the region and a threat to national security of all of those countries, and indirectly a threat to our national security, especially along the border and especially with some of the violence that comes with it.
In Mexico, I think President [Claudia] Sheinbaum has done a fairly good job. You've seen all the newspaper articles about the ICS (Integrated Country Strategy) participation in Mexico. It has been a successful program, but again, flying under the radar, you really can't broadcast this. Colombia was very effective at taking out the heads of the cartels. Extradition was key. We have extradition with Mexico, but again, you have pockets of immunity within Mexico. The corruption is rampant. How to get past the corruption? Venezuela is that kind of dark hole where you really can't do much. But there has been some success, and I can't take that away from the Mexican services, to a lesser extent, the Colombian services and all through Central America, but we're not where we need to be right now.
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Question from NBC Reporter Dan DeLuce (in the audience): Let's say Maduro does get on a plane and fly to Cuba. What does he leave behind? What are the scenarios you see unfolding? I know it's highly speculative, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Fitzgerald: First of all, he wouldn't be the only one on the plane. He would be joined by his wife, probably half of the general staff and anybody else who could get on that plane. They will all understand that if he goes, they go and that they're going to be left to the hoards to try and figure out their survival. So I think right now that is option B, because militarily, he understands the Russians are not going to come to his assistance. The Chinese look at this as a transactional relationship with Venezuela. They are making money off Venezuela’s oil and the loans they provide. They just want to be paid back. Maduro is pretty weakened right now. Nobody is likely to come to his aid. So I think for him right now, it's a very serious consideration as far as plan B, how to get out of Venezuela and how to get out of Venezuela fast.
Kelly: How do you measure the impact of these strikes against these boats?
Fitzgerald: In two ways. The first impact is the psychological impact, and the second is the actual counter-narcotics effort impact. I think the impact of stopping the drugs from reaching [destinations], whether they're going to San Domingo or Dominican Republic or some other Caribbean island as a transit, that's minimal. The Coast Guard has been doing that for decades. It helps, but in many ways it's a drop in the bucket. The psychological impact, however, is far greater. I doubt there's very few volunteers or crewmen, both from Venezuela and from Colombia, who are happy about getting on some of these fastboats or the submersibles to crew them out to the Caribbean. I think what you're going to see, it's probably already started, is a shift to the Pacific side. This situation is kind of a pendulum and it’s been like this for decades. The US and our allies would focus on the Caribbean. They'd switch to the Pacific. We'd focus on the Pacific. They go back to the Caribbean. They would just change their routes, change their modus operandi of how they traffic drugs.
Kelly: Thank you so much, Dave. I really appreciate you taking the time. I know you don't do a lot of interviews like this.
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