Donald Trump has been hailed for taking the fight to a deadly new generation of terrorist threat.
Right now, the hulking USS Gerald R Ford is steaming towards the Caribbean - a major new twist in Mr Trump's 21st-century war on drugs.
There, the aircraft carrier will meet a fleet of warships, thousands of troops, F-35 fighter jets and a nuclear submarine, while CIA agents have already been given the green light to operate on the ground.
The President's target is Venezuela, a drug cartel hotbed led by socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro.
Mr Maduro on Friday accused the US of "fabricating a new eternal war" following a series of devastating strikes on "narco-terrorist" drug boats.
So far, 43 suspected "narcos", including those in the Tren de Aragua cartel, have been killed in the missile strikes.
"If people want to stop seeing drug boats blow up, stop sending drugs to the United States," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said.
Trump critics - including Mr Maduro - have claimed his new war is a front for a US-backed coup in South America.
Nicolas Maduro on Friday accused the US of 'fabricating a new eternal war'
|REUTERS
Now, former CIA case officer Eric Conroy has offered GB News the inside track on the President's pivot south.
Mr Conroy spent seven years in the US Air Force, and another seven in the CIA. He has lived in Japan, Afghanistan, Iraq and across Europe - and is planning to run as a Republican for Congress in Ohio next year.
In a hint as to Mr Trump's intentions, he explained the American approach to what happens "when we're doing foreign policy influence or change".
He detailed a triple-pronged approach: diplomatic, conventional and "unconventional". "It takes a couple of different angles to push," he added.
DONALD TRUMP TAKES ACTION ABROAD - READ MORE:
Right now, the USS Gerald R Ford is steaming towards the Caribbean
|REUTERS
The ex-CIA man was speaking to the People's Channel shortly after his former employers were authorised to get to work in Venezuela.
"They are talking to sources on the ground to know what's going on," he said. "Their primary role is information collection. There's no exploding pens. It's not like James Bond."
Further reports from Venezuela suggest the agency is bringing in real-time intelligence from satellites and signal intercepts to detect which boats it believes are loaded with drugs.
Then, the CIA tracks their routes before recommending which vessels should be hit by missiles.
Eric Conroy offered GB News the inside track on the President's pivot south
|GB NEWS
Combined with diplomacy - "what you see on TV" - the pressure of using all three options can be lethal, Mr Conroy added.
"We've seen a change under the Trump administration," he said. "We've had had a lot of simmering foreign policy issues that have just gone unresolved for a couple of decades now. Venezuela's one. The drug gangs in Mexico are another.
"I even saw an article last week about Chinese marijuana cartels operating near the Canadian border, which is totally wild.
"He is taking not only traditional threats like Russia and China seriously, but he's starting to hold some of these smaller non-state groups like Hamas or the Venezuelan narco-gangs accountable.
Mr Conroy hailed the President for holding the drug gangs accountable
|GETTY
"He's picking out the big actors, but he's also nibbling at the edges of these gangs and groups that are funded by them. That's the bigger geopolitical game that's going on.
"In the past, we ignored the proxies. Now we're holding them accountable. Venezuela is part of that."
That's reflected in the words of US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
Mr Hegseth labelled the cartels the "Al-Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere" this week as he issued a brutal ultimatum.
"The United States military will treat these organisations like the terrorists they are - they will be hunted, and killed, just like Al-Qaeda."
PICTURED: A drug boat is blown up by an American strike
|HANDOUT
More than 22,000 people died from cocaine overdoses in 2024, according to the US National Centre for Health Statistics.
And soon, the President will brief the US Congress on his war against the cartels - amid reports he may target cocaine factories in Venezuela.
The gangs' influence is felt on American streets in what Eric Conroy labelled a "passive-aggressive conflict".
"It's not all-out war... It's how much you can get away with without putting a country into all-out war.
"A lot of countries have figured out different ways to annoy the US and the West.
"What Venezuela does is they try to create trouble through through narco-gangs. It destabilises America and it kills Americans with that trade."