STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We have a strategic assessment of a U.S. military campaign against boats in the Caribbean. President Trump asserts that the U.S. has blown up, quote, "three boats" that left Venezuela in recent days. The Trump administration says they were smuggling drugs, although the proof of that is at the bottom of the sea. One boat carried 11 people, another carried three and the other we don't know. The strikes led some to ask how they are legal, and today we ask if the strikes are practical, if they achieve their stated goal. Vanda Felbab-Brown is at the Brookings Institution and specializes in security and counternarcotics, which makes her the right person to talk about this. Good morning.
VANDA FELBAB-BROWN: Good morning.
INSKEEP: What kind of drugs come out of Venezuela?
FELBAB-BROWN: It is cocaine. So it is not the drug that is killing Americans, which is methamphetamine and, most importantly, fentanyl. There is certainly cocaine consumption in the United States, but that has not led to significant lethal drug overdose.
INSKEEP: OK. And so there is not any interruption in the fentanyl traffic that's meaningful at all from the U.S. Navy blowing up these boats?
FELBAB-BROWN: No. So the naval actions in the Caribbean do not affect the flow of fentanyl. Fentanyl is produced in Mexico. It is delivered through mostly the land border, although there is certainly a possibility that it could be, in time, delivered by boats from Mexico. But the naval operations in the Caribbean do not hamper that unless they started catching precursor chemicals that are coming to China. But again, this would unlikely be so far in Latin America. We would be seeing these flows much closer to Mexico.
INSKEEP: I'm curious about something here. In August, it's believed the president signed an order directing the military to act against cartels. The president of Mexico immediately responded to this and said, don't be invading Mexico. This going to be a real problem if you invade Mexico, which is a thing that Republicans have talked about doing for a long time, sending the military against cartels in Mexico. Is it possible the president instead had the military act in the Caribbean because that was - there would be less chaos as a result of that?
FELBAB-BROWN: Well, I think it's possible, but really, it's not clear what the mission is. I mean, certainly, the administration has stated that it hopes that the killing of drug smugglers, drug traffickers would create deterrent effects. But many of the people who are manning the boats are low-level traffickers, low-level mules. They are dispensable. They risk their lives anyways. They face a variety of threats, and there are tens of thousands of them available. So it's hard to see how actions around Venezuela could produce deterrence effects to reduce the flow of drugs into the United States.
INSKEEP: OK. I'm trying to think this through a little bit more because we're talking about boats coming out of Venezuela. I'm not an expert as you are in Caribbean boat traffic, but I'm guessing you could target boats that come out of Colombia or that come out of Panama or any number of other places that may have illegal drugs. Do you find anything interesting that the U.S. Navy has focused specifically on boats leaving Venezuela?
FELBAB-BROWN: Well, many people in Latin America suspect that this might be an effort to put pressure on the Maduro regime, perhaps provoke a military confrontation that would justify U.S. military action against the Maduro regime. This is widespread expectation. And we have certainly seen the U.S. establishing a new counternarcotics coalition that includes governments such as Argentina, such as Paraguay, Ecuador, whose stated purpose is to enable these kind of operations. So there is some possibility of the expansions elsewhere. But again, this is all happening with very little clarity as to what the objective is.
INSKEEP: OK. So we don't truly know what the objective is, but it sounds like what you feel you do know is that these operations are irrelevant to fentanyl in the United States. Is that correct?
FELBAB-BROWN: Absolutely. So the operations are irrelevant to fentanyl, and the question is what kind of effects they will have. So say that you do manage to create sufficient deterrent effects around Venezuela. Cocaine trafficking will move on the seas to other parts. It will move to air traffic.
INSKEEP: They will continue other ways. Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow at Brookings. Thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate it.
FELBAB-BROWN: Thank you.
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