The Global War You’ve Never Heard Of

American Thinker ^ | 11 Dec, 2025 | Travis Wilson

[MtnClimber]

American actions involving Venezuela have stirred up a flurry of theories and narratives around the United States’ strategic intentions. Some theories highlight apparent contradictions between rhetoric and policy, such as President Trump’s pardons of major drug-traffickers despite his public anti-drug stance. Others frame potential U.S. military threats against Venezuela as being driven primarily by America’s dependence on oil. Additional narratives have revived allegations of Venezuelan interference in U.S. elections, including claims from a former Maduro regime official about a “narco-terrorist war” against the United States.

In my effort to better understand the factors driving the building tensions around Venezuela, I decided to strip away all the explanations and start with what we know is happening. The United States is striking small vessels, referred to as go-fast boats, reportedly carrying cocaine meant to be transferred onto ships bound for the Gulf of Guinea. This sea route and the next step of the voyage have come to be known as Highway 10 because Venezuela is connected to the Gulf of Guinea via the 10th Parallel North on the globe. The gulf includes several countries that tend to lack the resources necessary to patrol for and prevent the shipments. From there, the payload can be passed on to the even poorer countries of the Sahel desert, where al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Russian mercenaries of the Africa Corps (not to be confused with the German unit of World War Two) have a certain level of autonomy and can move the cocaine to the Mediterranean Sea. From there it enters the hands of Europe’s various iterations of the Mafia. This drug route and the players involved has been laid out in a pretty detailed manner by the Argentine independent journalist Ignacio Montes de Oca under his X handle, @nachomdeo.

[MtnClimber]

A really informative article. Much more information than I was able to excerpt. If you have an ad blocker I recommend reading the whole thing.

[BobL]

Agree, good article. As to Russia, I doubt they care about what their mercs do in Africa, but they do likely care about Venezuela, although that may be part of the deal-making with Russia - “you allow us to take care of our backyard and we’ll allow you to take care of your backyard”.

[bert]

Except, Russia has no real capability for projecting strength in Venezuela.

[ChessExpert]

If I understand this right, these drugs originate in Venezuela and move East into Africa. What is being grown? Or, manufactured?

It’s news to me. I usually think of opium production in the Middle East with heroin moving westward. Meth labs are another problem.

[piasa]

Trivia : Venezuela’s Intel service and Iran were caught running a cyber/hack attack plot targeting US nuclear power plants several years ago when Obama and Kerry had their minds on making a deal with Iran.

[BobL]

“Except, Russia has no real capability for projecting strength in Venezuela.”

I generally agree as they certainly don’t match Soviet capability, nor have an ideology to push. But it doesn’t take much to stir things up down there. Give Venezuela 1000 Gerans and they could likely decapitate neighboring countries...for example.

[piasa]

Cocaine going to Africa and Europe, heroin going from Africa to the Americas.

May be a fair amount of opium being grown in the Americas now, too.

[jagusafr]

More likely Colombia with transshipment through Venezuela.

[bert]

I wonder how many American troops are now serving in neighboring Guyana

[MtnClimber]

It is likely the drugs are cocaine and fentanyl.

[BobL]

“I wonder how many American troops are now serving in neighboring Guyana”

They don’t tell us, but Venezuela possibly attacking Guyana hasn’t been in the news lately, so hopefully that threat is over...and if it took the US to stop it, that’s fine with me, considering the oil they have.

[woodbutcher1963]

Cocaine and Fentanyl are being manufactured in either Columbia or Venezuela. The cocaine comes from the Cocoa plants grown in the Andes of Peru and Ecuador. The leaves are refined into Cocaine in Columbia & Venezuela.

The routes bringing them through our southern border have been greatly shut down. So, the other routes are by the ocean. The drugs may be loaded into standard 40’ containers and loaded on ships going to the US, Canada, Europe and Asia.

I watched a YouTube video a few months ago about how the Italian Mafia in Naples and Calabria(the Ndrangheta) controls the port in the southern Italian mainland. The drugs are brought into the port in a container with other products coming from Central and South America. Products like bananas or other things. The Ndrangheta has people that work for them at the port in the Caribbean where the container is loaded. In certain containers their product is mixed in. Some containers are intercepted by the police. Some are not. A cost of doing business, so to speak.

These fast boats bring the product from the mainland to where it is eventually loaded in a container. That container might end up in Newark or Montreal or Naples or Savannah or Marseilles .

[PIF]

A lot of the boats do the 24 km crossing to the Caribbean island chain, beginning with Aruba to the Dominican Republic, to Puerto Rico, to the Florida coast.

[daniel1212]

Communication on the reason for actions is lacking.

but Nacho Montes de Oca, cited in article, offers, @nachomdeo ·

Sep 3 Translated from Spanish The logic of the narcos was to seek out little-surveilled zones as an alternative for bringing the drugs into Europe, a market as attractive as that of the US and one that moreover continues to grow. The increase in consumers of 9% since 2016 explains the interest that this route

The poorly guarded waters and skies of the Gulf of Guinea are the ideal crossing site. The countries in the region are too poor to have the means of surveillance, and their incomes too low to resist the temptation of joining the chain of complicities of the narco.

Translated from Spanish From there, they can be smuggled onto ships heading to Europe or take the land route that crosses the Sahel, particularly through Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. This is where France comes back into the picture, having been ousted from those nations by Moscow-sponsored coups.