The Secret War on the Edge of the World - from North Korea’s Coasts to the Caribbean

Sometimes it is the operations that no one is allowed to see that reveal the most about a presidency. In the spring of 2019, Donald Trump sent the legendary SEAL Team 6 on a mission so sensitive that it could only begin with his personal signature. The target was the North Korean coast. In the darkness of night, mini-submarines glided toward the hermetically sealed country, on board the Red Squadron - the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011. Their task: to bury an electronic device that would allow the United States to intercept Kim Jong Un’s communications. What was planned as a masterpiece of espionage ended in disaster. When the SEALs landed on the beach, they discovered a boat from which a man entered the water. Assuming they were dealing with North Korean security forces, they opened fire. Two, perhaps three people were killed. Only when the commandos pulled the bodies from the water did they realize their mistake: They were civilians, fishermen gathering shellfish at night. To leave no traces, the SEALs sank the bodies - according to insiders, even perforating the lungs so that they would not surface.

North Korea remained silent. Washington was even quieter. The Pentagon reviews classified the mission as “justified,” the dead as a regrettable but unavoidable result of a “chain of unfortunate events.” The reports were classified, and the public learned nothing - until now. Several of those involved were later promoted. And yet the mission remains an open wound. Matthew Waxman, a former national security lawyer under George W. Bush, warned that the administration may have violated the War Powers Act and Title 50 by failing to inform the congressional intelligence committees. “This is exactly the kind of operation that Congress needs to be informed about,” he said.

The parallels to the present are striking. Only a few years later, Trump is again at a point where covert military actions threaten to spill over into open conflict - this time not in East Asia but in the Caribbean. Since July, the president has deployed a naval task force to the southern Caribbean: eight warships, several P-8 surveillance planes, an attack submarine, and the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group with 4,500 sailors and 2,200 Marines on board. According to the Pentagon, ten F-35 fighter jets are also stationed in Puerto Rico, ready to carry out airstrikes against Venezuela if necessary. The trigger: a secret directive from Trump in which he declared Latin American drug cartels to be “terrorist organizations” - including a Venezuelan group whose leader, according to Washington, is none other than Nicolás Maduro himself.

Shortly thereafter, the Pentagon began massively increasing its presence in the Caribbean region. On Tuesday, US forces intervened directly for the first time and destroyed a speedboat that was said to have departed from Venezuela. Eleven suspected smugglers were killed. Just two days later, two Venezuelan F-16 jets buzzed a US destroyer, providing the image of a conflict moving to the next level of escalation.

Maduro responded with martial words: He spoke of “the greatest threat on our continent in the last hundred years” and announced the mobilization of 4.5 million defense forces. “We will defend our seas, our skies, our land,” he declared - and warned Trump that Senator Marco Rubio was pushing him into a war that would stain his hands with blood. Internationally, the fronts are less clear. The Organization of American States (OAS) was divided: Some member states welcomed Washington’s tough stance against the “narco-regime,” others warned against a new military adventure on Latin American soil. The EU, of course, reacted cautiously again, called for compliance with international law, and demanded humanitarian exemptions should there be an embargo or military operations. Even within the UN, there were debates about whether Washington’s terror lists are legally sustainable under international law or whether they are more of a geopolitical instrument. In Washington, no one denies the danger. The US troop strength is too small for a ground invasion, but commandos could launch targeted attacks from the warships, including “capture-or-kill” operations.

It would not be the first time that a limited mission turned into a historic strike - in 1989, George H. W. Bush used a similar justification to overthrow Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. That is precisely why the episode on the North Korean coast feels like a harbinger: It shows how narrow the path is on which such operations balance. At the time, things ended without escalation because Pyongyang remained silent. In the Caribbean, however, Washington is facing an opponent who is loudly threatening, deploying aircraft, and reinforcing coastal defenses. A single miscalculation could be enough to set the region ablaze. The image that emerges is of a presidency that repeatedly tests the limits of international law and bypasses democratic control mechanisms. The death of the North Korean fishermen is recorded in the Pentagon files as a tragic accident, but in its political symbolism it reads like a warning signal. If the same willingness to take risks is now transferred to Venezuela, the outcome may no longer remain secret - but become the headline of a new American intervention.