The US military has been steadily massing a large number of troops, naval and air assets in the Caribbean over the last two months, conducting training missions off the coast of Venezuela, reopening a military base in Puerto Rico that had been shuttered for decades, and attacking speedboats carrying suspected drug traffickers from Venezuela and Colombia.

As of Tuesday, a significant percentage of all deployed US naval assets globally are also now located in US Southern Command, the US military’s command responsible for operations in the region, according to a fleet tracker published by the United States Naval Institute’s news portal.

That includes the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, amounting to more than 4,500 Marines and sailors, three guided-missile destroyers, an attack submarine, a special operations ship, a guid

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