U.S. Prepares for Possible Military Action in Venezuela, Nigeria and Iraq After President’s Announcement.

U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered preparations and publicly floated military options in three theaters, Venezuela/Caribbean, Nigeria/West Africa and Iraq/ West Asia, while the U.S. has increased naval and air assets in the southern Caribbean. The moves concentrate on coercive, precision options near maritime approaches and standoff strike packages in each theater, with distance, partner access and legal constraints shaping feasible courses of action.

According to articles and statements since his reelection in 2024, U.S. President Donald Trump has pursued a double-edged foreign policy. On one side, he pledges to end America’s “forever wars” and restore global economic stability; on the other, he has reignited commercial rivalries by imposing new tariffs even on traditional allies. In recent weeks, Trump has gone further, openly mentioning potential U.S. military interventions across three continents. In South America, tensions with Venezuela have surged as the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, recently redeployed from the Mediterranean, arrived in Caribbean waters. In Africa, the president has spoken of “taking action” in Nigeria, a country marked by religious conflict and immense oil wealth. And in Western Asia, he has warned Iraq’s leadership of possible “operations” if American interests are threatened. Behind the rhetoric lies a consistent pattern: each of these nations maintains strained relations with Washington while controlling key energy resources. Should economic or diplomatic levers fail, the administration appears ready to rely on nearby military assets tailored to each theatre, at sea, in the air, or on land.
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A carrier strike group operating as part of the U.S. Fleet, soon to be deployed near Venezuela (Picture source: U.S. Navy).

The geography and posture are not symmetrical: in the southern Caribbean, U.S. naval and air assets surged in late summer and early autumn, giving Washington proximate tools for precision maritime interdiction, coastal strikes and limited special operations. Multiple reports have documented strikes on suspected drug craft near Venezuela in September and October, alongside the arrival of warships, a fast-attack submarine and F-35s forward in Puerto Rico. These deployments provide credible means to act quickly at sea and against select coastal targets without a ground invasion. The same is not true in West Africa, where the United States dismantled its Sahel basing network after the 2024 withdrawal from Niger, creating a logistics problem that would slow any Nigeria operation and drive the Pentagon toward air-centric or special operations options that rely on partner access.

Venezuela is the theater where the United States can most rapidly scale effects. The posture today includes surface combatants armed with Tomahawk land-attack missiles and SM-6 multi-mission rounds, maritime patrol P-8A aircraft for targeting and battle damage assessment, and forward fifth-generation fighters staged in Puerto Rico. Tomahawk’s in-flight retargeting and loiter capability make it suitable for dynamic targeting, while SM-6 adds over-the-horizon anti-air and limited strike options that expand a destroyer’s magazine utility. The P-8A brings the AN/APY-10 radar and multi-INT payloads suited to find go-fast boats, coastal assembly areas and emissions associated with Venezuelan radars along the littoral. The strategy Washington has sketched is coercive and iterative: strike at sea against smuggling craft and staging nodes, threaten infrastructure that supports illicit trafficking cycles, and pair maritime interdiction with limited land-attack options if coastal defenses actively challenge U.S. ships or aircraft. A carrier air wing, if tasked, would add persistent ISR and suppression of enemy air defenses.

Target sets in this scenario are maritime and coastal. They include semi-submersibles and fast boats outbound from Venezuelan waters, fuel and logistics clusters that support trafficking along the Paria and Orinoco deltas, and coastal surveillance radars that cue patrol craft. The Tomahawk Block V family gives surface action groups a standoff option with modernized navigation and communications, while a B-1B or B-52H launching JASSM-ER from the continental United States or Puerto Rico would offer complementary land-attack standoff if required. JASSM-ER’s reach exceeds 500 nautical miles, and the B-1 has demonstrated internal carriage of twenty-four JASSM-class weapons. Those combinations create a ladder of escalation from naval gunfire and helicopter-borne visit, board, search and seizure, up through precision cruise missile strikes on coastal command nodes if Venezuelan forces escalate first.

Venezuela’s integrated air defense is not negligible. Caracas is widely reported to operate S-300VM batteries and legacy Pechora-2M systems, with public imagery of transporter-erector-launchers at sites near Caracas and Maracay, and periodic analyses that track their dispersal patterns. Those point defenses, paired with mobile coastal radars and legacy fighters, complicate low-altitude routes and make a suppression package prudent before any land-attack sortie over the littoral. The U.S. Navy’s AARGM-ER, now advancing through operational testing, is being integrated on the F/A-18E/F and EA-18G and is designed to reach farther from maritime launch points than legacy HARM. That matters for an opening salvo that first degrades emitters, then authorizes follow-on strikes with Tomahawk or JASSM-ER. The emphasis would be maritime control and coastal denial effects, not regime change.

Venezuelan Buk-M2E surface-to-air missile system deployed west of Caracas, Venezuela. Image captured from local media footage showing the movement of launcher vehicles and radar units on October 25, 2025, indicating full combat readiness. (Picture source: Venezuela TV)

The logistics underpin the strategy: San Juan to Caracas is roughly 478 nautical miles, a fighter-sized hop that can be comfortably bracketed by KC-135 and KC-46 refueling or avoided by standoff weapons from ships. Cooperative Security Locations on Curaçao and Aruba, long used for counter-drug aviation, further reduce transit times for ISR aircraft. Put simply, the Caribbean theater offers enough basing depth and naval mobility to sustain a days-to-weeks coercive campaign without large land footprints. That proximity is precisely why the administration’s Caribbean moves occurred first.

Nigeria is a very different math problem. The closest enduring U.S. base in Africa is on the opposite side of the continent, and the retirement of the Niger hub forced AFRICOM to rely on long legs, partner access or expeditionary staging. Djibouti to Abuja is approximately 2,068 nautical miles. MQ-9s can loiter for more than twenty-seven hours for ISR and precision attack, but establishing a persistent strike pattern over Nigeria would still require forward operating locations, diplomatic permissions, and tankers to support manned aircraft if called in. The most credible near-term tools are ISR and limited air-to-ground fires where Abuja consents, coupled with special operations advisory teams or hostage-recovery elements on a short leash. Anything resembling an amphibious or armored incursion is not plausible on short notice without host-nation basing in West Africa and weeks of staging. U.S. still hold bases near Nigeria, even if they cannot be considered as enduring bases, they still can host military assets to conduct preventive strikes or operations while waiting for other forces and armaments to be deployed.

U.S. Bases in Africa (Mail and Guardian - John McCann).

Because the U.S. President tied possible action in Nigeria to the protection of civilians, targeting logic would emphasize rapid ISR cueing of mass-atrocity incidents, interdiction of armed convoys threatening population centers, and strike support to Nigerian units if requested. MQ-9s with Hellfire, GBU-12 and GBU-38 give discriminate effects against mobile targets, while aerial refueling opens options for a small package of F-15E or F-35 aircraft to deliver JASSM-class standoff weapons from regional airspace if access is granted. Tanker math matters here. The KC-46 carries up to 212,000 pounds of fuel. KC-135 fleet upgrades improved offload capacity and reliability. Without regional clearances, however, tankers must orbit far from the target area, creating long drag chains that quickly erode sortie efficiency. The operational takeaway is that Nigeria's options remain bounded by permissions and distance, a point echoed by experts analyzing the planning guidance.

Nigeria’s adversaries present a fragmented and elusive target set. Boko Haram and Islamic State–West Africa Province (ISWAP) operate from dispersed rural sanctuaries across Borno, Yobe and Lake Chad, using light vehicles, small arms, and mobile camps rather than fixed infrastructure. The Nigerian Air Force fields a mix of older Chinese and Russian aircraft with limited radar coverage, leaving wide airspace gaps over the north. Urban density in cities like Lagos and Abuja further complicates air operations, creating a risk of collateral damage and restricting kinetic options to remote areas where target identification can be verified through persistent ISR.

Iraq sits between these poles. The United States retains a lean but real footprint at bases such as Ain al-Asad and within the Kurdistan region, along with theater ISR and strike assets on call. The declared policy is a phased drawdown and consolidation by end-2026, which means any new kinetic activity would be framed as force protection and counter-ISIS or as select strikes on Iran-aligned militia infrastructure after attacks on U.S. personnel. CENTCOM’s public record over the last two years describes repeated militia drone and rocket attacks and U.S. retaliatory strikes on weapons depots and command nodes in Iraq and Syria. That pattern suggests a continued advisory mission with episodic precision strikes rather than ground maneuver, constrained by Baghdad’s sovereignty concerns and by the announced timeline to reduce forces.

U.S. Bases in Middle East, near Iraq (Picture source: Al Jazeera).

If hostilities escalated in Iraq, the opening U.S. targets would again be enablers: one-way attack drone stockpiles, rockets and launch sites, militia C2, and air defense systems that threaten U.S. aircraft. Standoff munitions like JASSM-ER allow strikes from outside Iraqi airspace if required by diplomacy, while armed MQ-9s provide overwatch for advisers and convoys. The political reality is that Baghdad’s tolerance has limits, and Washington’s current posture is designed to apply pressure with precision while avoiding actions that force the Iraqi government to curtail the partnership outright.

In Iraq, the principal threat environment is defined by Iran-aligned militias equipped with short-range rockets, improvised loitering munitions, and armed drones that target coalition installations and logistics convoys. These groups maintain small, concealed firing sites near populated zones, making counter-battery and counter-UAS operations complex and politically sensitive. Their decentralized structure allows rapid relocation and plausible deniability, forcing U.S. forces to rely on high-precision strikes and persistent surveillance rather than large-scale maneuvers. The Iraqi security forces’ uneven control across provinces further complicates target coordination and deconfliction.

The Ain al-Asad Airbase, the remaining U.S. base in Iraq (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

Across all three theaters, the escalation ladder should be explicit. At sea near Venezuela, it begins with surveillance and interdiction, moves to disabling fire and armed helo actions, then to coastal SEAD with AARGM-ER if Venezuelan emitters illuminate U.S. aircraft, followed by Tomahawk or JASSM-ER against fixed nodes only if lethal threats persist. In Nigeria, it begins with ISR and information support to Abuja, then time-sensitive strikes with MQ-9s on armed perpetrators of mass violence under Nigerian request, and only then, if partners grant access, limited manned airpower presence. In Iraq, the rung below major escalation is already routine: retaliatory precision strikes on militia infrastructure after a credible attack on U.S. forces, followed by diplomatic de-escalation. That clarity helps manage risk to aircrews and to civilians.

Risks are material and legal. Any land-attack options in Venezuela would raise sovereignty issues and risk miscalculation with air defenses around population centers. In Nigeria, civilian protection operations would demand positive identification, host-nation authorization and careful rules of engagement. In Iraq, any expansion of strikes inside federal territory without Baghdad’s buy-in could fracture the coalition and accelerate the drawdown timeline. Those constraints are one reason Pentagon officials have kept options short of invasion in public discourse.

Tomahawk Block V provides long-range, subsonic precision with in-flight retargeting and battle damage imagery. SM-6 adds flexible defense and limited strike from Aegis ships. JASSM-ER offers low observable penetration beyond 500 nautical miles, with proven employment and heavy bomber carriage that allows mass. P-8A’s APY-10 radar, EO/IR and acoustic suite strengthen maritime kill chains and post-strike assessment. MQ-9 endurance allows broad-area surveillance and discriminate engagement with Hellfire and laser-guided bombs. Tankers enable all of this, but they also telegraph operational feasibility. The distance from San Juan to Caracas is under 500 nautical miles, which simplifies tanker plans. Djibouti to Abuja is over 2,000 nautical miles, which does not. Erbil to Al Qaim is roughly 180 nautical miles, a short reach for persistent overwatch. These numbers define the difference among the three options on the table.

If Washington chooses to apply limited force, the most executable play is in the Caribbean, where naval and fifth-generation air assets already sit close enough to deliver controlled, reversible pressure. Nigeria remains a planning problem where intelligence and special operations can move quickly but sustained airpower cannot without permissions and staging. Iraq is accessible but politically bounded, suited to the current pattern of retaliatory precision and partner enablement.

Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.