The US military just blew up another small boat in the eastern Pacific. On Sunday, a lethal projectile smashed into a speedboat, instantly killing two people and leaving six survivors adrift in the open ocean. It's the latest strike in Operation Southern Spear, a aggressive maritime campaign ordered by the Trump administration.
If you haven't been tracking this, the numbers are jarring. The Pentagon has launched more than 60 of these missile and drone strikes since September 2025. The total death toll now sits at over 210 people. The White House calls these targets "narcoterrorists" and insists the country is in an active armed conflict with Latin American drug cartels. For an alternative perspective, see: this related article.
Yet, after dozens of strikes, the government hasn't provided a shred of public evidence showing that these specific boats were actually carrying drugs.
The Reality of Maritime Interdiction
For decades, intercepting drug runners in international waters was a dangerous, high-stakes game of cat and mouse. Coast Guard cutters and Navy vessels would chase down "go-fast" boats. They used non-lethal tactics, shot out outboard motors, and detained suspects for trial in US federal courts. Further insight on the subject has been shared by BBC News.
That framework is gone. Under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the military now skips the arrest entirely. Instead, they use "lethal kinetic strikes"—military code for blowing the vessel to pieces from the air.
A 10-second black-and-white video posted on social media by SOUTHCOM shows the standard operating procedure. A small motorized boat speeds through the waves, a crosshair locks onto it, a missile strikes, and the vessel instantly transforms into a massive fireball.
The administration argues that drastic measures are necessary to stop the wave of fatal drug overdoses devastating American communities. But maritime security experts point out a massive logical flaw in this strategy. The fentanyl causing the vast majority of US overdose deaths doesn't travel on open-ocean speedboats from South America. It's manufactured in Mexico using precursor chemicals from Asia and smuggled across the southern land border through official ports of entry. The speedboats in the Pacific are generally carrying cocaine, a highly profitable drug, but not the primary driver of the current US overdose crisis.
The Burning Legal Questions
International law scholars and human rights groups like Amnesty International are calling these operations unlawful extrajudicial killings. In international waters, you can't just act as judge, jury, and executioner based on intelligence reports alone.
The biggest scandal surrounding Operation Southern Spear involves what happens after the initial explosion. On Thursday, US lawmakers demanded the Pentagon release unedited video footage of the very first strike from September 2025. Reports suggest that after an initial strike killed nine people, two survivors were left clinging to the smoking wreckage. Instead of rescuing them, the military allegedly launched a follow-up strike—a "double tap"—to completely destroy the vessel, killing both survivors.
The White House defended the second strike, claiming it was done in "self-defense" to ensure the vessel's destruction. But maritime law is unyielding on this point. Once a vessel is destroyed and people are in the water, they are considered shipwrecked survivors. Under the laws of armed conflict, you cannot legally target shipwrecked individuals who pose no active threat.
The Pentagon's independent watchdog announced a probe to review whether the military is following its established six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle. Notably, the Inspector General isn't looking at whether these strikes are legal under international law, just whether the military followed its own bureaucratic rules before pulling the trigger.
What Happens to the Survivors
When a strike occurs, SOUTHCOM typically posts a brief statement noting that they notified the US Coast Guard to activate search and rescue systems. But finding survivors in the vast expanse of the eastern Pacific is like searching for a needle in a moving haystack.
Take the strike from June 16, which left two survivors. The Coast Guard called off the search just 24 hours later, citing "no signs of survivors or debris." For this latest strike involving six survivors, the Coast Guard has offered no comment on whether anyone has been pulled from the water.
If you are following this policy shift, the next crucial steps to watch won't happen at sea. Keep an eye on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. Lawmakers are pushing hard for the release of the unedited drone feeds. If those tapes confirm that the military is actively executing survivors clinging to flotsam, the Trump administration will face a massive legal and political crisis over its rules of engagement.
