Riley Mellen, Eric Schmitt, Christoph Koettl, Samuel Granados and Junho Lee
Since late August, the U.S. military has carried out a steady and significant buildup of forces in the Caribbean, with about 10,000 troops at sea and on shore.
It is the largest deployment of U.S. forces in the region in decades and intended to bolster what the Trump administration says is a counterdrug and counterterrorism mission.
The United States has also carried out several lethal strikes on boats that the administration said were carrying narcotics. President Trump and other officials have posted videos of the strikes on social media.
Much of the military buildup is visible in commercial and scientific satellite images and in photographs shared on social media and by residents of the region. Some of the military flights can be seen on publicly available flight-tracking websites. The military has also posted details about U.S. activities in the Caribbean.
But officials have privately made clear that the main goal of the troop increase — which Mr. Trump said this week could also include covert C.I.A. operations — is to drive Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, from power.
About half of the U.S. force is aboard eight Navy warships, including about 2,200 Marines equipped with fighter jets. The other, slightly larger half of the force is mostly at former U.S. bases, now civilian airports, in Puerto Rico, and includes Marine Corps F-35 fighter jets, Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drones and a variety of other surveillance planes and support personnel.
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