Sinking speedboats with a supercarrier: the lopsided cost of Operation Southern Spear

The United States is waging an unusually one-sided campaign in the Caribbean, and the numbers are staggering. Operation Southern Spear has sunk boats tied to drug-smuggling networks, but at a cost that dwarfs the value of the targets themselves. Billions in naval assets, high-end aircraft, and expensive munitions are being deployed against crews reportedly paid just hundreds of dollars. Analysts warn that this imbalance rarely holds for long; history shows that operations built on unsustainable math often end the same way—by scaling up, or walking away.

Peter W. Singer

Defense One

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