U.S. forces in a two-week stretch destroyed more than 70 Islamic State targets in Syria, struck extremists in northern Nigeria and carried out a daring raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from a heavily guarded compound in Caracas.
Although it is often taken for granted, that kind of global reach and the ability to plan and execute complex, highly dangerous missions are unmatched by any other military, even in an era of resurgent great powers such as Russia and China. The recent operations on three continents, along with other missions in 2025 such as the strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, served as demonstrations of America’s pure military power and the unique U.S. ability to fuse its intelligence-gathering capabilities around the world with cutting-edge defense technology and careful planning at the highest levels inside the Pentagon.
The result, analysts say, is a military that is unrivaled among today’s global powers and stands alone in history.
“We can reach out and touch our enemies around the world in ways that no other military can. The reasons for that are many, and they aren’t just over one week, one month or one year. They are over decades,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“You get what you pay for,” Mr. Bowman said in an interview. “This is a result of investing in our military over the long term.”
Indeed, the vast U.S. military budget, at $901 billion for fiscal year 2026, is significantly higher than that of even its leading global adversary, China. China’s official military budget reached about $247 billion in 2025, though some estimates suggest that Beijing’s true military spending is significantly higher.
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The financial investment has given U.S. warfighters the best training and equipment of any armed forces in existence. Those two advantages, coupled with the sheer quality of the men and women in uniform, give the U.S. its one-of-a-kind ability to conduct missions anywhere in the world, Mr. Bowman said.
“You have to have all three,” he said. “If any one of them is missing, you don’t have the same military.”
The Jan. 3 raid that captured Mr. Maduro in Caracas is a clear example. No other nation could have executed such an operation, analysts and military insiders say.
More than 150 U.S. aircraft, including fighter jets, bombers and helicopters, played a role in inserting a team of Delta Force commandos into Mr. Maduro’s compound inside the Fort Tiuna military base in Caracas, military officials said. Aircraft, including drones, Chinooks, and Black Hawks, launched from 20 locations.
U.S. officials used information gathered by intelligence sources in Caracas to build a replica of Mr. Maduro’s compound, allowing Army commandos to rehearse the mission. The U.S. reportedly used electronic warfare capabilities to jam the Venezuelan military’s radars ahead of the operation.
Afterward, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces practiced the mission repeatedly to ensure “that we cannot get it wrong.”
“Our jobs are to integrate combat power so when the time comes, we can deliver overwhelming force at the time and place of our choosing against any foe anywhere in the world,” he said during a recent press conference.
“Our interagency work began months ago and built on decades of experience [with] integrating complex air, ground, space and maritime operations,” Gen. Caine said. “We watched, we waited, we prepared, we remained patient and professional. … This was an audacious operation that only the United States could do.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed that.
“Words can barely capture the bravery and the power and the precision of this historic operation, a massive joint military and law enforcement raid flawlessly executed by the greatest Americans our country has to offer,” Mr. Hegseth said at a press conference alongside Mr. Trump and Gen. Caine on Saturday.
A message of deterrence
Even as Pentagon leaders were orchestrating the Venezuela raid, military officials were carefully planning missions on the other side of the world.
On Christmas Day, U.S. forces struck numerous Islamic State targets in northwestern Nigeria in what Mr. Trump said was retaliation for the terrorist group’s years of attacks on Christian civilians in the African nation. U.S. troops are thought to have used Tomahawk missiles fired from a U.S. Navy warship in the region.
On Dec. 20, U.S. troops hit more than 70 sites across central Syria in a massive assault on the terrorist Islamic State group. Fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery were used in the operation, which targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapons depots with more than 100 precision munitions, the Pentagon said. That operation was direct retaliation for a December ambush near Palmyra, Syria, in which two U.S. soldiers and one civilian interpreter were gunned down by an ISIS terrorist, Pentagon officials said.
Those three missions served as the most recent showcase of America’s global military reach, but another clear benefit is a message of deterrence delivered to adversaries, who are reminded that the U.S. has the world’s strongest armed forces and is willing to use them.
“Deterrence is not what you or I think. … It’s what our adversaries think,” Mr. Bowman said. “We throw a punch every now and then. That has a positive effect on the perceptions of our adversaries that we’re not all talk.”
Among the examples throughout 2025, none was more impressive than the June airstrikes that targeted three key nuclear facilities in Iran. During that mission, seven Air Force B-2 stealth bombers flew 36 hours round-trip from Missouri’s Whiteman Air Force Base to Iran, hit their targets and returned to the U.S. without incident.
Months before the Maduro raid, the U.S. launched an intense campaign targeting alleged drug boats in the Pacific and the Caribbean. Earlier in the year, the U.S. carried out repeated strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, with fighter jets, drones and other assets targeting the Iran-backed outfit.
The U.S. conducted more than 100 strikes against extremists in Somalia in 2025, making it the most active war zone for American forces anywhere. Even after giving up a key drone base in Niger in 2024, the U.S. still has troops spread “across the continent,” said U.S. Africa Command.
The majority of the 6,500 U.S. troops in Africa are based at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, but the Pentagon also has key drone bases on the continent. As the Nigeria operation showed, the U.S. has the ability to hit land targets in Africa via naval assets in the region.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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