Heading off the coast of Venezuela: The USS Gerald R. Ford.Image: keystone
Trump’s most important means of pressure against Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro: The US President is sending a floating fortress off the coast of South America.
Bojan Stula / ch media
Oslo, Mallorca, Split… and now off to the Caribbean: When it comes to the travel program within just five weeks, the USS Gerald R. Ford can easily keep up with any luxury cruise. However, no one feels like having fun at the moment.
Nicolás Maduro’s final fight for survival of his presidency will begin when the world’s largest warship appears off the coast of Venezuela in around 10 days. Because one thing is clear to everyone: The USA is not sending its super aircraft carrier across the Atlantic just to intercept smuggler boats and fight “narco-terrorism” – as War Secretary Pete Hegseth explains the deployment order.
Are Maduro’s days numbered?
A campaign video of Donald Trump from October 2024 is currently going viral, in which he regretted not having “taken over Venezuela because of its oil” during his first term in office. Certain analysts suspect that this is exactly what he wants to do now in order to bring one of the most important oil-producing countries under US control.
Florida Senator Rick Scott said on CBS’ “60 Minutes”: “If I were Maduro, I would run away to Russia or China immediately.” Something will now “happen in Venezuela,” whether “internal or external.” And Scott concludes: “Maduro’s days are numbered.”
Republican Scott doesn’t believe in a US invasion: “That would surprise me.” But the threat that the USS Gerald R. Ford can create is enormous: Together with its accompanying group of at least three destroyers and a nuclear submarine, the USA will reinforce the combat ships already cruising in the Caribbean to such an extent that around 20 percent of the current US fleet at sea is directed against Venezuela.
This is a level of concentration that the USA has not even pulled together recently in the Middle East, and in terms of firepower in the Caribbean it surpasses anything since the Cuban Missile Crisis. US aircraft carriers in this region “are otherwise a rare sight,” writes the strategy think tank CSIS, and “one step closer to war”.
Trump in nerve poker
This force gives the US President an arsenal of around 300 Tomahawk cruise missiles and around 60 F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet fighter jets – more than enough to carry out heavy air strikes in the interior of Venezuela for days. On the other hand, state-of-the-art radar technology and a wide range of anti-aircraft missiles and automatic cannons create a protective shield around the US fleet that is difficult to penetrate.
Nicolás Maduro is coming under increasing pressure.Image: keystone
In a direct duel, Venezuela’s armed forces are hopelessly outnumbered. There are just as big question marks behind the operational readiness of the nominally 44 fighter aircraft of the outdated F-5 Tiger, F-16 A and SU-30 types as those of the two submarines, two frigates and a dozen patrol boats from Maduro’s navy.
Precisely to demonstrate US military superiority and intimidate the enemy using such numerical comparisons, the USS Gerald R. Ford is the ideal instrument of Trump’s power politics. Relocating the floating military base and its 4,550-person crew to a crisis area can multiply US attack power in one fell swoop. At the same time, without firing a shot, the psychological pressure on the opponent is increased immeasurably.
In September, the USS Gerald R. Ford took part in a NATO exercise off Norway.Image: keystone
It took ten years to build the $13 billion monster, which is twice as heavy and around a third larger than the “Titanic”. Its daily operational costs are estimated at at least 1.5 million francs. Tests and improvements took place over a further ten years. The new super carrier made its first deployment after October 7, 2023 in the Mediterranean in support of Israel.
However, at least since the Gulf War of 1990, we have also known that a dictator determined to resist can hardly ever be overthrown simply because of a hail of rockets and bombs from the air. This requires the invasion of land forces, which, in contrast to the relatively safe US air and fleet deployment, can be associated with painful losses. That is the inhibition threshold that every US president thinks twice or three times about crossing. (aargauerzeitung.ch)