Sinking speedboats with a supercarrier: the lopsided cost of Operation Southern Spear

[rangerrebew]

Sinking speedboats with a supercarrier: the lopsided cost of Operation Southern Spear
History suggests what happens when the U.S. military outspends a foe by orders of magnitude.
Peter W. Singer | December 7, 2025
 
   
Wars have long been weighed by their expenditure of “blood and treasure”—their human and financial costs. Indeed, Donald Trump has long used the phrase as a metric to judge the wisdom of deploying U.S. forces, dating to his 2013 critiques of the war in Afghanistan. Now Trump has launched his own military operation in which the United States is outspending its opponent by several orders of magnitude. History suggests that a decision point is coming soon: escalate or go home.

Debates over the legality of U.S. military strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats have obscured calculations of their cost. And while no U.S. casualties have been reported during Operation Southern Spear, which has killed 87 claimed enemy combatants so far, the campaign is consuming far more American treasure than cartel lucre. 

On one side of this conflict is Cartel de los Soles, the alleged partnership between drug smugglers and Venezuelan government figures. The DoJ estimates the network is moving cocaine with a street value of between $6.25 billion and $8.75 billion annually, yielding them a net profit of somewhat less.

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2025/12/sinking-speedboats-supercarrier-lopsided-cost-operation-southern-spear/409984/?oref=d1-homepage-river

[rangerrebew]

I guess the value of saving humans lives from overdoses and being maimed in drug related incidents isn't worth what it once was.

[BobfromWB]

I guess the value of saving humans lives from overdoses and being maimed in drug related incidents isn't worth what it once was.

Agreed. The cost of dead kids is cheap compared to the waste of tax dollars being used to stop the drugs. The money could better be used to decommission those expensive Navy toys. 

[MeganC]

I guess the value of saving humans lives from overdoses and being maimed in drug related incidents isn't worth what it once was.

Seems to me that too many reporters and politicians are upset that they won't be getting any cocaine from Santa this year.

[DB]

Perhaps the aircraft carrier is positioned there to do more than sink drug laden speedboats...

Duh...

[Smokin Joe]

It isn't the cost of firing the missile, so much as the cost of NOT firing it that should be on the balance sheet.

One hundred thousand Americans dying from this sh*t. Every year.
Countless lives wrecked as collateral damage.
What happened to "For the children" or "If it saves just one life"?

Fly the blood red flag.
Sink 'em all.

If you need more missiles, we'll pass the hat.

[Free Vulcan]

Seems to me that too many reporters and politicians are upset that they won't be getting any cocaine from Santa this year.

Post of the day people, hahahahaha. 

[PeteS in CA]

"Sinking speedboats" severely understates what is being done. Yes, the fleet of speed boats is being attrited, but tons of drug cargo are also destroyed, smugglers' careers are being terminated, and the smuggling pipeline is being interdicted close to the pipeline entrance.

Druggies who die can be said to be getting FO, but that FO precludes their potential recovery from their addiction.

[DefiantMassRINO]

Yes, nuking Venezuela would be more efficient.

Killing narco-pirates and sinking narco-pirate vessels may provide temporary deterrence as they adjust their smuggling strategy to the newly updated battle paradigm.

We change strategy, the narcos adapt.  It's capitalist darwinism at it's most raw and primitive.

How long before narco-dolphins?

[GtHawk]

I don’t know if this is real, a interception of 15o loaded narco boats by FBI, Navy, and Coast Guard. It being on YouTube it could all be AI horse pucky.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=556QQ86_WfY

[jafo2010]

When the number of dead US citizens is greater than the number of our forces killed in WWII, I think it is safe to say we are in FACT, at war.  It is not a declared war by Congress, and why isn't it?  Those do nothing POSs haven't done anything in decades for the people of the USA.  So, how many millions of our citizens need die before they do?  Don't hold your breath!!

But what Trump is doing, it is in fact saving tens if not hundreds  of thousands of US citizens, and if that means killing every person involved with the drug distribution, so be it.

Any US politician involved as well working for the cartels should be indicted for treason, convicted and dispatched with extreme prejudice.  Their assets should be seized as well, for you can bet they took money from the cartels.  If the worthless FBI were to investigate anyone, it should be politicians declaring Trump blowing these drug boats to be a war crime.  The crime is that a POTUS prior to Trump did not take such action.

I say kill every last one of them.  My intelligence was insulted when I heard two such traffickers were returned to their own country rather than being indicted, convicted and incarcerated for a stiff 10-20 years right here in the USA.

[BobfromWB]

I don’t know if this is real, a interception of 15o loaded narco boats by FBI, Navy, and Coast Guard. It being on YouTube it could all be AI horse pucky.

What is not in dispute or AI is the seizure of a long sought sanctioned tanker bound for Venezuela by the CG yesterday. This will impact Maduro more than the so-fast sinkings.