The United States has been increasing pressure on the Venezuelan regime for weeks, and last week Donald Trump called for an air blockade and imminent ground operations. In principle, the US president launched operations against drug trafficking clans, although he also made it clear months ago: he considers Nicolás Maduro, the country's president, to be the world's biggest drug trafficker.

Accordingly, it has been deploying some 15,000 troops and more than a dozen warships to the region for months as part of an operation the Pentagon has dubbed “Operation Southern Spear.”

The US military has since killed more than 80 people as part of its campaign against drug trafficking. The Caribbean Sea has the world’s largest warship, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford, and has deployed 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico.

It's easy to see that these are not the usual means used to fight drug wars around the world. Trump's goal is to overthrow the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela.

The US president said on Thursday that the United States was preparing new measures against Venezuelan drug trafficking networks, and then told troops in a Thanksgiving video call that ground strikes would begin “soon.” “They’ve probably noticed that [drug traffickers] don’t want to ship by sea anymore, so we’re going to start disrupting land shipments,” he said.

The question is, can Venezuela be defended against the United States?