The U.S. military has flown a pair of supersonic, heavy bombers up to the coast of Venezuela. Thursday's flights come a little over a week after another group of American bombers made a similar journey as part of a training exercise to simulate an attack.

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,

The flights signal a possible widening of the U.S. campaign against cartels and alleged drug traffickers.

A report claims that the U.S. military has been positioning a massive number of naval ships, air assets, and troops in the Caribbean region.

From Sucre to South Florida, Venezuelans have mixed feelings about whether a threatened U.S. military incursion against drug traffickers will affect their desperate situation — and their brutal dictatorship.

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

While acknowledging that the opposition plays an important role in a democracy, Padrino Lopez warned of what he described as threats from US military actions, particularly in the Caribbean. He denounced recent US maneuvers near Venezuelan waters,

NBC News Senior National Security Correspondent Courtney Kube reports on recent military strikes in Venezuela as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announces the deployment of an aircraft carrier strike group to the region.