In Washington, the strong man on the Orinoco is seen as the mastermind behind the drug cartels Sinaloa (Mexico) and Tren de Agua / Cartel de los Soles (Venezuela) and the bounty was quickly doubled to 50 million dollars. After that, there were plenty of oaths of allegiance to Nicolás Maduro from senior military officers. There are plenty of them, however, as Venezuela has seen a remarkable increase in the number of officers with the rank of general this year: the 99 army generals have been joined by 36 flag officers in air force blue and a lonely 31 admirals - 30 of them newly promoted. Just for the record: the Armada Bolivariana has a Lupo-class frigate (from 1980), three OPV Avante 2200s (from 2011) and six speedboats (from 1975), plus three OPV Avante 1400s (from 2010) as essential Coast Guard units - that's it. Fittingly, Maduro also had 4.5 million militiamen (reservists) mobilised in mid-August to defend Venezuela's "sacred soil" - after all, they want to be led.

As the influx of northbound drug boats would not stop despite the bounty, the American president ordered strong naval forces off the opposite coast in the south of the Caribbean and off the Mexican coasts in mid-August. First there were three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and a coastal combat ship (LCS-21), followed shortly afterwards by a Ticonderoga-class missile cruiser and a conventionally armed Los Angeles-class submarine, then towards the end of the month two San Antonio-class LPDs and a Wasp-class LHD were added: 4,500 soldiers and 2,200 marines, where otherwise only a few US Coast Guard ships patrol. An "imperial provocation", according to Maduro. At the beginning of September, a drug speedboat was actually intercepted and destroyed without further ado: Eleven dead - no prisoners. A second boat was "taken out of circulation" in the same way in mid-September - the crew consisted of significantly fewer people. The situation still does not appear to be geared towards de-escalation! On the other hand, things are going on behind the scenes as before - there are two American flights a week to repatriate apprehended "illegals" to Venezuela and some crude oil in Chevron tankers is also flowing northwards from Venezuela. But is it all just froth?