Click to view full size

The gov­ern­ment of Venezuela has or­dered a full-scale mil­i­tary readi­ness ex­er­cise with 200,000 armed troops de­ployed, just as the Unit­ed States’ USS Ger­ald R Ford—the largest air­craft car­ri­er and war­ship ever con­struct­ed—en­tered Caribbean wa­ters.

Yes­ter­day, the US Navy of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced the ar­rival of the USS Ger­ald R Ford (CVN 78) and its en­tire strike group to the area of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the South­ern Com­mand (US­SOUTH­COM). The Ford is mov­ing with over 4,000 sailors and dozens of tac­ti­cal air­craft on board. The next-gen­er­a­tion car­ri­er can launch and re­cov­er air­craft si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, day and night.

It was stat­ed that the op­er­a­tion was or­dered by US Sec­re­tary of War Pe­te Hegseth “to sup­port the pres­i­den­tial di­rec­tive to dis­man­tle transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions and com­bat nar­coter­ror­ism in de­fence of US ter­ri­to­ry.”