Amid the longest pause to this point within the US military’s lethal military strikes towards alleged drug trafficking boats within the Caribbean and japanese Pacific, US regulation enforcement officers informed NCS they’re unsure in regards to the strikes’ lasting influence after 11 months, and consultants are skeptical they are going to meaningfully change the area’s drug commerce.
The official mission for Operation Southern Spear, because the boat strike initiative is understood, is classed, in response to a May 20 report from the Pentagon’s inspector normal workplace. The US military has destroyed at the very least 67 vessels and killed at least 221 people within the marketing campaign that started in September 2025.
It’s not clear why the strikes have paused. The final occurred on June 21.
But regulation enforcement officers and consultants who spoke with NCS emphasised the resiliency and adaptableness of drug smuggling networks, and so they expressed skepticism in regards to the deadly strike technique and its effectiveness.
US Southern Command, the headquarters overseeing Operation Southern Spear, informed NCS in an announcement that the mission “allows SOUTHCOM to take the fight to the cartels,” a lot of which have been labeled as terrorist organizations, “before their violence and poison reaches our shores.”
The command, by a spokesperson, stated the operation’s goal is “to detect, disrupt and dismantle” cartels labeled as terrorist organizations, which “denies them a foothold in the Western Hemisphere.” The mission additionally goals to discourage cartels from smuggling medication.
When the marketing campaign towards alleged drug boats started final fall, it wasn’t clear whether or not the aim was to disrupt cartels or oust Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, who was then the nation’s chief.
Official statements all the time referenced the cartels, however high officers stored discussing Maduro.
In his Truth Social put up asserting the primary strike, President Donald Trump known as out Maduro for allegedly controlling the Tren de Aragua transnational gang, which his administration has labeled a cartel.
In November, White House Chief of Staff Suzie Wiles informed Vanity Fair journal that Trump “want[ed] to keep on blowing boats up until [Venezuela’s Nicolas] Maduro cries uncle.”
But the boat strikes continued even after the US efficiently captured Maduro in a daring nighttime January 3 raid into Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. He now sits in a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial on costs associated to drug trafficking, cash laundering and corruption. Maduro has pleaded not responsible.
Dozens extra strikes have occurred for the reason that Maduro raid, with the newest being on June 21. Experts and regulation enforcement are nonetheless making an attempt to evaluate what influence they’ve had.
Since the boat strikes started, the quantity of sea-borne cocaine seized by the Coast Guard has declined in each the japanese Pacific and Caribbean, in response to information the service supplied to NCS.
“It’s hard to measure this close in time,” one Homeland Security official informed NCS. “We have to wait and see what dent there is and, you know, how cartels are changing tactics.” A second official cautioned NCS that cartels are doubtless utilizing new routes, which may clarify the drop.
Nicholas Magliocca, a geography professor on the University of Alabama who has modeled how cocaine smugglers in Central America adapt to regulation enforcement stress, informed NCS that “meeting force with force” through the decades-long US-led “war on drugs” has solely intensified the difficulty.
“I don’t see how targeting a small number of smuggling vessels with low-level traffickers onboard will change that,” Magliocca stated.
Another cocaine trafficking professional, Sebastian Cutrona, stated that sea-borne trafficking “is often done through shipping containers, not through boats [like] those that have been attacked in the last few boats.” He described the boat strike marketing campaign as “performative” in nature.
Cutrona additionally famous that the Caribbean Sea routes are not the first approach that cocaine enters the US — most goes overland by the US-Mexico border.
And whereas cocaine was chargeable for nearly 20,000 US overdose deaths in 2025, artificial opioids like fentanyl, which is basically produced in Mexico and the US utilizing chemical precursors from international locations like China and India, killed nearly twice as many individuals within the US, or greater than 38,000. Opioid overdose deaths had been already waning as properly when the strikes started.
“I don’t see that the United States is tackling the roots of the problem,” stated Cutrona, editor of a latest ebook about cocaine’s Western Hemisphere provide chain and a senior criminology lecturer on the United Kingdom’s Liverpool Hope University. “These are just low-level associates, and by killing them, the US is by no means … dismantling the criminal organizations that supply those illegal drugs.”
Military officers don’t all the time know the identities of everybody on board the boats they aim, NCS beforehand reported, and so they informed the Pentagon inspector normal they might not publicly disclose what standards decide whether or not a ship is destroyed or intercepted by the Coast Guard.
And cocaine continues to be reaching the United States.
Customs and Border Protection officers are seizing 1000’s of kilos monthly of the drug on the nation’s borders and within the nation’s inside, in response to the company’s public information. The Drug Enforcement Agency additionally seized almost 180,000 kilos of cocaine through the first half of 2026, in response to its web site.
The head of US Southern Command, Marine Corps Gen. Francis Donovan, beforehand acknowledged the restrictions of the boat strikes as properly.
“Boat strikes aren’t the answer,” Donovan informed lawmakers in March.
NCS’s Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.
Davis Winkie’s work at NCS is supported by a partnership between Outrider Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners (JFP). NCS retains full editorial management of the reporting.