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News - 14 November 2025

Operation Southern Spear —confusion after sudden US declaration

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Joe Glenton

@joe_glenton


On 13 November, US secretary of war Peter Hegseth declared a new military operation. Typically dramatically named, America’s Operation Southern Spear is clearly aimed at Latin America. The US has been launching deadly strikes since September. The Trump regime claims it is fighting ‘narcoterrorism’. Critics say the mission is regime change in Venezuela.

Operation Southern Spear

Despite a sense that bombing would start immediately, what we actually have is confusion. Here is War Sec Hegseth’s rather grandiose X post:

But as some sharp-eyed commentators pointed out, something called Operation Southern Spear has already been underway since January:

So what does this even mean? Certainly the US has been massively building up forces in the area, as we’ve reported regularly.

If we were to speculate, we could point out that a semi-declaration of war might seem to the White House like it would keep the latest Jeffrey Epstein email release out of the news cycle.

Some people seem to think there is a link:

And this hasn’t been helped by the fact that Trump has both talked down and talked up land strikes on Venezuela:

He received a full updated briefing on targets this week, for example. Suggesting the mission was on:

Yet just under two weeks ago he talked strikes down on 60 Minutes: 

I don’t talk to a reporter about whether or not I’m going to strike.

But he did say Venezuela president Nicolas Maduro’s time was up. For his part, Maduro told CNN that he wanted peace in the region:

No more endless wars, no more unjust wars, no more Libya, no more Afghanistan.

 

Whatever Trump’s long-term aim is will be clearer when the National Security Strategy (NSS)  is published. Critics are predicting it will reorient US policy – including foreign policy – around a far-right ‘homeland’ concept. This will cover everything from immigration to spending to suppressing internal dissent.

Zeteo News said one federal staffer who’d seen a draft told them it looked like:

fascist internet trolls getting worked up about something they saw on Twitter.

Zeteo warned:

The draft of Trump’s new global strategic vision is loaded with sections that read as if they were conceived in one of White House policy architect Stephen Miller’s most hyper-nationalist wet dreams.

Featured image via UK Defence Journal





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