At a recent public briefing, President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke on the Venezuelan military operation, and it was revealed that there was a critical encounter with Cuban special forces assigned to provide personal security to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The encounter, officials said, resulted in those forces being neutralized during an operation that underscored one truth: when the United States chooses to act, it does so with unmatched precision, reach and resolve. A large platoon-sized element, approximately 40-50 troops, was decimated by our smaller Delta operations teams. All enemies were killed in action, and we had two wounded. That is a conclusive FAFO.
Call it real power — the hard, mechanical and moral capacity to project superior force and critical military gravitas anywhere, at any time. Real power is not a slogan; it is the fusion of carrier strike groups, expeditionary logistics, special operations mastery, satellite eyes, cyber dominance, and an industrial base that can surge like a living engine. It is the ability to move decisive force across oceans, to see the battlefield before the first boot touches ground, and to deliver effects with surgical accuracy while sustaining the fight until the political objective is secured.
We demonstrated our core competencies with brutal truth. Let me remind you that Russia has been the primary patron of the Maduro regime (Chavez before that) with nearly $15 billion in military hardware traded for oil over the past 15 years, including some of Russia's premier military systems: SU-30M, BUK-2, T-72, MI-24 and S-300 platforms, to name a few. These systems were ineffective in stopping our operation. Russia and China's equipment is not comparable to the kit we bring to the fight. That is the difference between a nation that can enforce order on a global scale and those that can only posture and preen. Real power is not theater; it is the quiet, brutal choreography of capability turned into consequence.
Look at Russia’s Ukrainian fiasco and learn the lesson: hulking armies with parade display equipment without proper logistics are vanity; tanks without fuel are soft targets, and dated Soviet era platforms are impotent in today's ever-changing battlespace. Moscow’s campaign exposed fractured command, rotten supply chains, and strategic hubris. What was sold as a lightning strike became a grinding humiliation. The contrast could not be starker: one model grinds under its own contradictions; the other resolves problems before they metastasize. America's Special Military Operation vs. Russian Clown Show.
China may boast factories and fleets, but it lacks the expeditionary mastery and integrated coalition architecture that define American real power. Iran and North Korea traffic in proxies and asymmetric menace; they do not possess the global logistics, precision strike webs, or political legitimacy to act anywhere, anytime, with the calibrated force the United States can muster. China has no combat experience, and this will be a major undoing for them going forward. Russia can bully neighbors and attempt to conquer weaker nation,s but it cannot sustain the kind of worldwide, rapid‑response dominance that comes from an ISR net, allied basing, and an industrial base that can pivot at speed.
Make no mistake: real power is deterrence incarnate. The knowledge that the United States can and will bring overwhelming, ass-kicking, decisive force and has the political will to see it through is the best deterrence for any crisis. That is the stabilizing terror of competence: adversaries think twice, proxies hesitate, and chaos is contained before it spreads; Machiavelli was correct when he said it is better to be feared than respected. So it is in this matter.
This is not chest‑thumping for its own sake. It is a sober accounting of capability and consequence. When senior American officials publicly describe operations that neutralize hostile elements tied to hostile regimes, they are not boasting for sport; they are signaling a simple calculus to friend and foe alike: the United States can reach you, hold you to account, and do so with a level of integration and precision no other state currently matches.
To autocrats, proxies and terror‑sponsoring regimes who imagine sanctuary or immunity, understand this fact: American real power is patient, precise and prepared. It is not random cruelty; it is disciplined enforcement of national interest backed by overwhelming capability. No actor should assume immunity from accountability or sanctuary from consequence. Govern yourselves accordingly, then, to those who would do us harm.
Troy Carico is a former infantry enlisted soldier (11B) and infantry officer with branch qualifications including counterintelligence (35E) and military intelligence (35D). He served with distinction in the U.S. Army for more than 22 years and is highly decorated and service-connected disabled. He also has prior service as a civilian intelligence officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency Great Skills Program and has served in numerous clandestine assignments throughout the world.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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