We are deploying the USS Gerald R Ford carrier strike group to the coast of South America

[Elok]

Why are we deploying the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group to South America? I looked it up; Venezuela has a diesel-electric submarine, an Italian missile frigate from the 70s, and a bunch of patrol boats. I have spoken with a military nerd, who confirms that basically the entire naval forces of every country south of Panama would pose no challenge whatever to the largest single warship ever constructed and its destroyer escorts, which between them can unleash ninety cruise missiles and forty fighter jets. I'm just straight-up laughing here, it's like a kid threw a rock at us and we rolled up with an Abrams tank.

[Lorizael]

Because killing brown people makes MAGA dicks hard. It's not any more complicated than that. cf. interdicting drug smuggling boats and arresting the smugglers is more effective/efficient than blowing them up (and also not a war crime), but you don't get to share snuff films that way.

[SlowwHand]

It has to do with Venezuela's upcoming election.

[Elok]

F-18s are good at counting votes? Man, those upgrades were worth every penny.

Anyway, as I understand it we already had an ARG (amphibious ready group) of like five thousand marines and their associated D-day-in-a-box package hanging out in the area anyway, so the carrier group would seem to be kind of redundant even from a killing brown people perspective. I think the marines and their naval escort were probably up to ... invading Venezuela? I don't know why we'd want to do that, but I guess it's an option.

EDIT: To be clear, there are only like 2K marines in the ARG (going by Wiki here) and the rest of the 5K are running the ships and support aircraft. Still probably enough to handle the dire threat posed by Maduro's elite communist cadres.

[Lorizael]

It has to do with Venezuela's upcoming election.

Why is an election in another sovereign state any of our ****ing business? Especially handled with bombs business? I thought Trump was supposed to be the isolationist, no wars, peace prize, America First president?

[Elok]

Funny you should mention the peace prize. He didn't get it, and the person who did get it is a lady who has advocated for foreign-intervention regime change in Venezuela. The theory I heard from one wag is that basically this whole thing is the Nobel committee's fault, that he figures he's going to get the next one if he just one-ups her by actually doing it.

[giblets]

Just because the government is shut down doesn't mean we can't piss away money on this.

[pchang]

ARG actually has the more effective force composition to take out drug lords and their criminal gangs. Fighter bombers and cruise missiles aren’t really what you want for that.

[BeBMan]

I thought Trump was against foreign wars? Maybe this is a special military non-foreign war brewing...

[BeBMan]

Given that so many US cities are warzones I'm concerned that deploying more stuff abroad will significantly weaken the defense vs. dangerous folks in silly costumes