As the United States blows up alleged drug boats in international waters near South America, ordinary Venezuelans are arming themselves and joining the military.
They are doing it as the Trump administration increased the bounty for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's arrest to $US50 million.
And for weeks now events known as "Militia Saturdays" have been held to enlist people to join the Venezuelan Bolivarian Militia — a civilian reserve corps that works alongside the army.
In recent years it has been made up of more senior citizens but the recent strikes and military pressure from the US has seen Venezuela pushing a recruitment drive.
Captain Rafael Astudillo joined the militia 22 years ago and says there has been a surge in sign-ups, following Mr Maduro encouraging citizens to do so.
"Numbers have grown by 35 per cent ... just in my sector," Captain Astudillo told 7.30.
"We want each person to learn about weaponry, to lose their fear of guns, because at any moment, they're going to have to use them.
"Maybe you don't like the gun, but you have to use it.
"There's a sense of patriotism.
"It's about defending and even giving my life if necessary to defend the country."
US President Donald Trump has been pushing a hardline and deadly stance against drug trafficking.
"I think we're just going to kill people who are bringing drugs into our country, OK. We're going to kill them," Mr Trump said earlier this month.
He has laid much of the blame on Venezuela and Mr Maduro — accusing him of being the leader of crime syndicate Tren de Aragua, which the US designated a foreign terrorist organisation this year.
Mr Maduro denies this and has accused the US of "fabricating a new eternal war".
All about 'intimidating Maduro'
The US military has destroyed at least 14 vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean that it alleges were trying to transport narcotics into the country.
At least 57 people have been killed.
"This is a law enforcement problem, it's not a war problem, even though they're trying to define it as an immediate threat," Chatham House's senior fellow for Latin America, Dr Christopher Sabatini, said of the US strikes.
"These are not armed actors that represent an immediate threat, which is necessary for killing people in a theatre of war.
"What Trump has opened up now is basically a shoot first, ask questions later approach and unfortunately, oftentimes, the victims can't answer those questions because they've been blown out of the water, quite literally."
The US has provided no evidence that these boats were trafficking drugs and given scant details on those killed.
It is part of broader military posturing the US says is an anti-drug operation.
Up to 14 per cent of its naval assets are currently positioned in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Venezuela, with 10,000 troops deployed.
Last week Mr Trump ordered the USS Gerald R Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier, to be redeployed from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean.
"The military presence is far beyond what you could possibly need for striking a few boats carrying drugs across the Caribbean," Phil Gunson an Andes region senior analyst said.
"That could be done with a couple of ships and the involvement of the US Coast Guard.
"It's obvious that this build-up is to do with intimidating Maduro, intimidating the military, in particular, that has been propping up his government.
"The ultimate goal is to get rid of Maduro. In other words, regime change."
Maduro's bluster back at Trump
Mr Maduro claims he has 4.5 million militia members, like Captain Astudillo, ready to respond if the US escalates the situation further but most analysts believe that is a "vast exaggeration".
"Most independent estimates suggest that at the outset, they may have a few hundred thousand actually on the books … so a lot of it is rhetoric," Mr Gunson said.
"If you're faced with the most powerful military in the world, determined to overthrow the government, the militia will not be much of a deterrent."
While Venezuela is known to be a transit hub for drugs to be sent from its coastline out to the world, it isn't a major producer of cocaine, like Colombia.
It also doesn't play a significant role in distributing the synthetic opioid fentanyl, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Fentanyl is mostly made in Mexico and enters the US through its southern border.
Yet for the last two months Venezuela has been the main target of the US president. Mr Gunson believes that is because Mr Maduro is an "easy target".
"I think they're hitting Maduro because they hope to send a message to the rest of the region," he told 7.30.
"And they're hoping that nobody is going to come to the defence of Maduro, because he's unpopular domestically and internationally."
Trump's grudge and Russia's influence
Mr Maduro assumed power when Hugo Chavez died in 2013.
He has widely been accused of election fraud by much of the international community, and in 2019 during Mr Trump's first term in office the US President recognised Venezuela's then-opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country's interim president.
"At the time Juan Guaido called for the military to defect and recognise his government over Nicolas Maduro. Well it failed," Dr Sabatini said.
"It was deeply humiliating for Donald Trump. He even invited Juan Guaedo to come to his State of the Union address, recognised him as the president, saluted him and then it all collapsed."
Despite the Trump administration's maximum pressure policy and economic sanctions, Mr Maduro held on to power.
Venezuela officially severed ties with the US, although relations had been poor and deteriorating for decades.
"Venezuela has been an irritant to the United States and in that sense, Russia in particular has backed the Maduro regime in part because it's a kind of quid pro quo, a tit for tat," Mr Gunson said.
"The Russians see the US and NATO in general as interfering in their backyard and they feel that it's only right that they should interfere in the US backyard by promoting a government that's clearly hostile to US interests."
Venezuela also happens to sit on vast gold deposits and the largest oil deposit in the world.
Despite its wealth of natural resources, the country is rife with corruption. The United Nations estimates 82 per cent of Venezuelans live in poverty — 53 per cent in extreme poverty.
In the last decade it is estimated eight million people have fled Venezuela "because of the economic tragedy and disaster that is Nicolas Maduro's government and his predecessor Hugo Chavez", Dr Sabatini said.
"There's no clear path to address these issues and that's the problem for Donald Trump's policy of sabre-rattling and gunboat diplomacy.
"The hope is to just get a transition on the cheap but if this government is deeply embedded in illicit networks, as the US claims and it is, it would require a wholesale cleaning of house of the military, national police, as well as the institutions of government."
Pride or propaganda?
Dissent and political opposition has also been crushed in the country, with the Maduro government and military at times using deadly force.
But on the streets of Caracas people publicly express their support for their government and oppose the US military's posturing.
"We are here dancing, enjoying life. If they come in they will face the consequences," local Carlos Colmenares told 7.30.
"They have deployed in the Caribbean Sea just to blow up speed boats," Riccardo Prieto said
"And they have not at all been able to prove that they are narco-traffickers, nor that they are taking drugs to the United States."
"We, without firing any shot, are showing the world that we are beating the United States," Caracas resident Gustavo Montaner said.
But there are also many who whisper hopes for a new government.
Last year's election in Venezuela was internationally condemned as rigged and the opposition leader Maria Corrina Machado was banned from contesting.
She won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her work advocating for democratic rights in her country, but is now in hiding.
"Venezuelans clearly want change and they demonstrated that in the election of July last year," Mr Gunson said.
"It's fair to say that the opinion polls bear this out that maybe 80 per cent of Venezuelans want to see the back of the present government. That's not to say all of them, of course, want it to happen through military intervention."
"You could topple Maduro fairly easily but the problem then becomes what do you do after that?
"How do you make sure that the government that you've installed doesn't immediately fall because there are many people with guns in Venezuela, including parts of the armed forces that would be hostile to the replacement of the government."
Dr Sabatini believes Mr Trump doesn't want "to lose" and that is why he has been careful to avoid saying this is about regime change.
"He said it's only taking out narco-terrorists, that means if indeed this fails to produce a regime change that he secretly wants … he does have an escape hatch and can say 'mission accomplished'."
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