The US has attacked several Venezuelan boats and deployed its largest military buildup in Latin America in decades.

Experts call it "21st-century gunboat diplomacy" as U.S. positions strike-capable forces in Caribbean amid tensions with Maduro regime and cartels.

Two B-1 bombers flew over the Caribbean in latest show of force as U.S. military operations in the region continue to grow.

Trump has deployed the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, also known as the "Night Stalkers" in the Caribbean region near Venezuela.

The 10,000 U.S. troops now operating in the Caribbean were sent to interdict drug boats. But Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's Sept. 30 state of external emergency fundamentally changed what they're facing: a military on full wartime alert,

U.S. military and intelligence actions, coupled with Venezuela’s mobilization, have raised the risk of conflict in the Caribbean.

The U.S. military has built up an unusually large force in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off the coast of Venezuela since this summer, when the Trump administration first began to shift assets to the region as part of its so-called war against narcoterrorism.