For more than half a century, a 163-square-kilometer American territory in the Caribbean Sea has been repeatedly bombed by the US military. From the 1940s until the 2000s, 2,000 tons of ammunition fell every year on Vieques, a small island in the Puerto Rican archipelago. The US Navy has transformed this crystal-clear Caribbean paradise into the most realistic recreation of a war zone possible: after expelling thousands of residents and taking control of two-thirds of the island and its resources, the navy established a training base and firing range there to conduct artillery tests and other military exercises that have terrified the local population, forcing them to live amid explosions on a narrow strip of land.
After one of those bombs killed a civilian, massive protests forced the navy to withdraw from Vieques in 2003. Although routine military exercises have continued in Puerto Rico ever since, the militarization the island underwent during World War II and the Cold War – periods in which the territory served as a U.S. military stronghold thanks to its strategic location in the Caribbean – has never been seen again. Until now. Amid growing tensions with Venezuela, the United States has increased its military presence in Puerto Rico and surrounding areas, including reopening military bases in the territory.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was in Puerto Rico on Monday. The Pentagon said the purpose of the visit by the top US military commander was to thank the troops stationed in the territory ahead of Thanksgiving Day, which is celebrated on Thursday. However, second The New York TimesCaine is expected to meet with soldiers and senior officers from the Southern Command to assess the readiness of the deployed forces.
The US Southern Command is responsible for the military deployment ordered by Donald Trump in the Caribbean, while the US evaluates options to force the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom it officially considers an illegitimate leader linked to drug trafficking to the United States. Five thousand of the nearly 15,000 U.S. troops sent to the area are stationed in Puerto Rico for what the Trump administration has called an anti-drug operation. This operation included the sinking of at least 21 suspected drug boats in extrajudicial attacks that killed more than 80 people.
Caine’s trip to Puerto Rico comes at a time when the Trump administration has alluded to the start of a “new phase” in Operation Southern Spear. This could include actions inside Venezuelan territory for the first time. At the same time, the prospect of a telephone conversation between Trump and Maduro to explore the feasibility of a diplomatic solution has also opened up, according to sources close to the situation, cited by Axios.
This week’s visit marks Caine’s second trip to Puerto Rico in recent months. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was in the territory Sept. 9 along with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Both were received by the governor of Puerto Rico, Jenniffer González, as a faithful ally of Trump. The governor, of the conservative New Progressive Party (PNP), which advocates for Puerto Rico to become the 51st U.S. state, supported the island’s growing militarization.
“We thank President Trump and his administration for recognizing the strategic value that Puerto Rico has for the national security of the United States and the fight against drug cartels in our hemisphere, perpetuated by narco-dictator Nicolás Maduro,” González said in September.
Since late August, F-35 fighter jets, naval destroyers and helicopter gunships have arrived in Puerto Rico and amphibious training exercises, flight operations and landing and infiltration maneuvers have been conducted. The largest and most advanced US aircraft carrier, the USS Gerard Fordand more than a dozen other warships have been deployed to Caribbean waters.
Open wounds
The military deployment to the Caribbean involved the reopening of a naval base in Puerto Rico that had been closed more than 20 years ago. Opened in 1943, Roosevelt Roads was one of the largest U.S. Navy bases in the world until its closure in 2004. Roosevelt Roads is located in the municipality of Ceiba, on the eastern tip of the island, just 16 miles (26 kilometers) from Vieques. The naval base that opened on Vieques in the 1940s was conceived as an extension of Roosevelt Roads and closed shortly after the Navy withdrew from the island following the death of David Sanes, a 35-year-old Vieques resident who worked as a security guard at a military outpost where troops accidentally dropped a bomb in 1999.
Now, Roosevelt Roads is operational again, reviving fears that the military could return to Vieques 20 years after residents successfully drove them out. Even today, Vieques continues to live with the consequences of the military’s 60-year stay on the island. The US government has not finished cleaning up the unexploded ordnance left behind by the Navy when it was extracted. And several studies show that Vieques residents have unusually high concentrations of toxic metals such as mercury, uranium and arsenic in their hair and urine, and are more likely to die from cancer than other Puerto Ricans, with significantly higher rates of heart disease, liver disease, diabetes and infant mortality.
Last week, those wounds were reopened after it was revealed that since last January, military personnel conducting maneuvers in Puerto Rico had been able to store ammunition in Vieques. Following the revelation, Juan Dalmau, the former gubernatorial candidate of the Puerto Rican Independent Party (PIP), which came second in last year’s elections, called on Governor González to cease any further military use of Vieques.
“It is unacceptable that, in addition to the outrage over the US Navy’s failure to fulfill its obligation to repair the extensive environmental damage caused by 60 years of bombing in Vieques, there is now an intention to use the island as a military dump. Even more scandalous is that, knowing the great collective sacrifice of the fight for peace in Vieques, this administration passively accepts this crime,” Dalmau wrote in a public letter to the governor, signed by other politicians of his party.
González, for his part, responded that Vieques “has not been on the map for discussion” regarding deployment to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean amid tensions with Venezuela. “Not for (military) exercises, or anything else,” he said. González specified that, in addition to Roosevelt Roads, there are soldiers in the municipality of Aguadilla (in the north-east of the island) and in Camp Santiago, in Salinas, in the south.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently issued an early warning for all airspace over Puerto Rico, warning of a “potentially hazardous situation” related to increased military operations in the area. The alert is in force from 18 November 2025 to 16 February 2026.
As happened in Vieques, the presence of the US army once again sparked both political and citizen protests. In an interview with EL PAÍS this month, New York Democratic Rep. Nydia Velázquez, the highest-ranking Puerto Rican in Congress, spoke out against the militarization of her home island and the United States’ use of it “as a platform to attack Venezuela.” And demonstrations took place in the streets of Puerto Rico with signs demanding: “Gringos out of the Caribbean!”
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