The U.S. use of cyber warfare to help capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro marks a turning point in how the country uses its cyber capabilities.
President Donald Trump and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted to using U.S. cyber capabilities to shut off power in Caracas, allowing them to conduct the raid.
It is one of the first times a president has publicly acknowledged U.S. cyber operations against another country.
At a press conference, Caine and Trump said U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Space Command, and other forces carried out coordinated operations to clear the way for U.S. military aircraft to fly into Venezuela before dawn.
"The lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have," Trump said.
"It was dark, and it was deadly," Trump added.
U.S. cyber capabilities are typically highly classified, but experts said Trump was signaling to countries such as China and Russia that the United States can inflict serious damage and is not afraid to use them.
"Policymakers are getting more comfortable employing and, crucially, acknowledging cyber operations as tools of statecraft and military power," said Michael Sulmeyer, former assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy under the Biden administration.
"It is one thing to do it; it is another to say it," Sulmeyer said.
The Pentagon has declined to disclose the specifics of the cyber operation in Venezuela while Cyber Command said only that it was "proud to support" the mission.
NetBlocks, an internet tracking group, reported a loss of internet connectivity in Caracas around the time power was cut in the country.
Venezuela's energy minister said after the attacks that the U.S. was responsible for power cuts.
U.S. cyber operations disrupted Chinese-made radar systems and Russian-made air defense systems, preventing the Maduro government from responding.
"We worked for four years in the first administration to get [the U.S. government] in a place where cyber could be used at the speed of relevance, and it looks like President Trump finally did it," said Joshua Steinman, who served as senior director for cyber on the National Security Council under the first Trump administration.
Eric O'Neill, a former FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence operative, said the public disclosure sends a message to China and Russia.
"It's an incredibly stark warning," O'Neill said. "You strike us, we can strike you."
Lindsay Gorman, managing director of the German Marshall Fund's Technology Program, expressed concern that disclosing cyberattacks may weaken future attempts at cyber warfare.
"There's a reason we keep things closer to the vest, and that's because our adversaries are watching how we do things; they have intelligence operations dedicated to figuring out what U.S. cyber doctrine and capabilities are," Gorman said.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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