Marco Rubio’s War

Washington has dramatically raised the stakes in its ongoing war of words with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, using lethal military force to destroy a civilian speed boat claimed to be operated by members of a Venezuela-based drug cartel that was in the process of trafficking illegal narcotics to the US. The military strike represents the culmination of more than a decade of effort on the part of US Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio to transform Venezuela and its leader into a national security problem worthy of military intervention on the part of the US. Today, with Rubio in the service of President Donald Trump — who appears committed to putting military muscle behind a modern-day version of the Monroe Doctrine, a 19th century policy that defined the Western Hemisphere as a US sphere of influence — the prospect of the US moving against Maduro appears to be closer than ever to being attempted, even if it means war.

Rubio, a conservative Republican who was elected as a senator from Florida in 2010, has used his credentials as an anti-communist Cuban-American to target what he has called the “Chavez-Maduro regime” in Venezuela personally. In 2016, Rubio became chairman of the Senate subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, giving him oversight of US foreign policy in South America. Since that time, Rubio has placed Venezuela and its president in his crosshairs, taking the lead in defining both as a national security threat worthy of US military intervention. A staunch Russophobe, Rubio has used Russia’s close ties with Venezuela as an excuse for articulating a national security threat worthy of US military intervention for the purpose of unseating Maduro, a man Rubio has labeled as a “tyrant.”

The Ghost of Noriega

The dismissal of Mike Waltz as national security adviser in May 2025 paved the way for Rubio to become the first dual-hatted secretary of state/national security adviser since Henry Kissinger held both positions under Presidents Nixon and Ford. While the US constitution does not prohibit a president from such dual tasking, it was widely recognized by members of Congress and legal scholars alike that the centralization of policymaking and the lack of congressional accountability (in the case of the national security adviser) made putting the powers and influence of a secretary of state and national security adviser in the hands of a single person unwise. The example of the US action to remove Chilean President Salvador Allende from power in 1973 underscores the danger of allowing someone to be able to avoid the oversight of Congress required of a secretary of state by hiding under the cover of implementing presidential duties as national security adviser.

The policy decisions made by the Trump administration regarding Venezuela since May 2025 reflect the hardline priorities that have been promoted by Rubio over the course of the past decade. While Maduro was indicted by the US in 2020 on charges relating to narco-terrorism, corruption and drug trafficking, the US government has, since then, engaged in negotiations with the Maduro government, an indication that the charges were motivated more by politics than any desire to bring Maduro to justice. As secretary of state, Rubio has made it clear that the posture of the US government has fundamentally changed under Trump. Speaking in Ecuador, Rubio declared that Maduro “is an indicted drug trafficker in the US, and he’s a fugitive of American justice,” raising the specter of the fate of former Panamanian President Manuel Noriega. Like Maduro, Noriega had been charged as a drug trafficker by the US. Noriega was later captured by US forces in 1989 after a military invasion that saw him removed from power, only to die in a US prison cell in 2017.

Direct Action Is the New Direction

Speaking to reporters in Mexico City, Rubio underscored the new policy direction that the Trump administration is taking when it comes to drug traffickers, declaring that the old practice of stopping boats and capturing smugglers was a thing of the past. “The US has long, for many, many years, established intelligence that allow us to interdict and stop drug boats. We did that,” Rubio noted, “and it doesn’t work. What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them.”

Left unsaid was the fact that many legal experts view the US action of targeting a civilian boat in international waters as a violation of international law, in particular the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which holds that states should not use lethal force against vessels unless under direct threat. While the US is not a signatory of UNCLOS, it has previously committed to following its guidelines. But Rubio seems to have little regard for the UN when it comes to Venezuela. During his press briefing in Ecuador, when a reporter pointed out that the UN has issued a report that disputes the US contention that Venezuela is a haven for narcotics traffickers, Rubio retorted “I don’t care what the UN says. The UN doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

At the same press conference, Rubio declared that the US was taking a whole new approach toward the decades-old war on drugs. “It’s a war on killers,” Rubio said. “It’s a war on terror. These are not narco-traffickers, these are narco-terrorists who terrorize the countries they operate in.” Rubio’s words are backed up by the fact that the US has deployed a large naval armada off the coast of Venezuela composed of ships and submarines capable of launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, along with amphibious warfare ships carrying marines trained and equipped for expeditionary operations. When Venezuelan F-16 fighters flew close to a US destroyer, the US declared the maneuver to be a provocation and deployed F-35 fighters to Puerto Rico in response.

The US appears to be on a trajectory that could lead to a direct military confrontation with Venezuela. Back in 2018, Trump called the Monroe Doctrine “the formal policy of our country.” As national security adviser, Rubio has just finished drafting a new national security doctrine that, according to initial press reports, has the US moving away from military entanglements in Europe and the Pacific to consolidate control over the Western Hemisphere, in effect a “Monroe Doctrine 2.0.”

The looming conflict between the US and Venezuela looks to be the initial act in a larger drama of regional power consolidation by a Trump administration keen on building a “fortress America” capable of withstanding the global challenges of a new multipolar world. Combating narcotics trafficking is but an excuse for war, the modern-day equivalent of the weapons of mass destruction justification used by the US to invade Iraq as part of a larger policy of regional transformation in the Middle East. History shows that the US can remove regimes from power but also that regime change does not necessarily result in the regional transformation desired.

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