Nations that defy the US-led world order may soon face a new weapon designed to hamstring defenses, disorient troops, and sow fear into the hearts of its enemies.
In a familiarly bizarre interview with the New York Post, president Donald Trump revealed that US troops had used what he colorfully termed a secret “discombobulator” during the air attack on Caracas, Venezuela earlier this month.
“The discombobulator. I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Trump told the Post. “I would love to,” he said, before claiming that, whatever it is, the device was used in Venezuela. As for what exactly it is, the president was pretty vague.
In the interview, Trump bragged that the device “made [Venezuelan] equipment not work” during the brutal offensive that killed about 100 people and led to the unlawful kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. “They never got their rockets off. They had Russian and Chinese rockets, and they never got one off. We came in, they pressed buttons and nothing worked. They were all set for us.”
As a senior US official told CNN, Trump seems to be conflating a few different systems into one weapon. For example, the US did sabotage Venezuela’s electrical infrastructure and air defense radar systems in a powerful cyberattack, per the New York Times. The White House has also claimed that Venezuelan troops suffered from a “very intense sound wave” during the attack, a likely reference to the Active Denial System, an anti-personnel weapon designed to heat human flesh on contact.
The US wasn’t just interested in knocking out Venezuela’s military capabilities. Civilian infrastructure, such as the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC), was also deliberately targeted in the blitz. Though it was 11 miles away from the closest military installation, the IVIC suffered extensive damage to its mathematics, physics, chemistry, ecology, and nuclear research buildings.
US troops also targeted the La Guaira port in Caracas, the country’s main international shipping hub. According to the publication Venezuela Analysis, medical warehouses belonging to the Venezuelan Social Security Institute were among the targets at La Guaira.
That situation has prompted an emergency response from health authorities in Brazil, who are mobilizing to send badly needed dialysis supplies and medicine to Venezuela.
In a statement to local press, Nelare Bermúdez, an official with La Guaira state’s healthcare authority, said that at least a three-month supply of medicine for kidney disease treatment had been destroyed. Yet if the discombobulator was meant to scare Venezuelans into submission, Bermúdez’s resolve suggests otherwise: “we remain undeterred in our fight to guarantee these health services,” he said.
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