DORAL, Fla.—The largest United States naval force to prowl the Caribbean in decades is steaming off Venezuela’s coast, President Donald Trump says the nation is engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” against narcoterrorists, and there’s debate on the airwaves, across social media, and in Congress whether this is a war, what it all means, and where it’s going.
But at the Department of War’s Southern Command outside Miami on Dec. 12, there was only reverent praise for the retiring Navy admiral leading those forces and assurances that the air force lieutenant general succeeding him is ideally suited to assume the helm.
