Alvin Holsey, Admiral Who Oversaw Boat Strikes Off Venezuela’s Coast, Retires

The admiral had abruptly announced that he would step down as the head of the U.S. Southern Command. His departure leaves several issues about the strikes unanswered.

The military commander who initially oversaw the Pentagon’s attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific retired on Friday, leaving several issues about the strikes unanswered.

The officer, Adm. Alvin Holsey, abruptly announced in October that he would step down at the end of the year from his job as the head of the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees all operations in Central and South America. The Trump administration has said that boats in the region were smuggling drugs and criminals into the United States, and the Pentagon rapidly built up some 15,000 forces there in what it called a major counterdrug and counterterrorism mission.

It was still not entirely clear why Admiral Holsey was departing a year into what is typically a three-year job and in the midst of the biggest operation in his 37-year career.

He offered no explanation on Friday at a sun-dappled ceremony flanked by palm trees at his headquarters, near Miami. Admiral Holsey, known as Bull, made no reference to the controversy over the boat strikes in brief remarks, instead urging members of his command to press for a “secure, free and prosperous Western Hemisphere.”

But one current and one former U.S. official, as well as a congressional official, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said Admiral Holsey had raised concerns early in the mission about the attacks on the alleged drug boats, which started in September.

At the time, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had expressed frustration that the admiral was not pursuing suspected drug traffickers quickly and aggressively enough. The admiral’s concerns caused him to fall further out of favor with the defense secretary, the officials said. In the end, Mr. Hegseth pushed out Admiral Holsey, the officials said.

While Admiral Holsey has been the highest-ranking military officer overseeing the boat strikes, the decision to carry them out has been driven by the White House and Mr. Hegseth. The strikes themselves have been conducted by the Joint Special Operations Command, with the admiral largely cut out of the decision-making, congressional and defense officials said.

In October, the Southern Command announced it was delegating most of the day-to-day responsibilities of the counterdrug mission to a new task force. Later named Southern Spear, it was led by Lt. Gen. Calvert L. Worth Jr., a Marine Corps general based in Camp Lejeune, N.C.

In the past two weeks, Admiral Holsey’s final days in command have been overshadowed by congressional scrutiny into a follow-on strike that killed two initial survivors of President Trump’s first boat attack on Sept. 2. That additional strike was ordered by Adm. Frank M. Bradley, who was the head of the Joint Special Operations Command at the time.

On Wednesday, the United States seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, a dramatic escalation of Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign against Nicolás Maduro, the country’s leader.

Admiral Holsey briefed top lawmakers on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees this week in a virtual classified session, but the legislators said the admiral left unanswered many questions about the strikes and his early retirement.

Lt. Gen. Evan L. Pettus, an Air Force fighter pilot and Admiral Holsey’s deputy, will take over as acting commander until Mr. Trump nominates a permanent successor.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who presided over the admiral’s retirement ceremony and has been deeply involved in the boat strikes, also made no mention of that campaign or Admiral Holsey’s unusual departure. He praised the admiral on Friday as “a quiet professional.”

Mr. Hegseth offered no comments on Friday about Admiral Holsey’s retirement. Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon press secretary, referred to Mr. Hegseth’s statement on social media from October, when Admiral Holsey announced his early retirement. Mr. Hegseth’s post made no mention of any friction with his four-star commander.

But other current and former officials at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill said Mr. Hegseth’s praise in October masked real policy tensions concerning Venezuela that the admiral and his civilian boss were seeking to paper over.

“Military officers spend their entire careers earning a role as a four-star combat commander,” said James G. Stavridis, a retired admiral and the former head of the Southern Command. “To simply depart one year into a three-year assignment without explanation of any kind is beyond unusual. I cannot think of a similar case across my four decades in uniform.”

Since early September, U.S. Special Operations forces have struck at least 22 boats off the coast of Venezuela and in the Eastern Pacific that the White House said were transporting drugs, killing 87 people. American officials have privately made clear that the main goal was to drive Mr. Maduro from power.

A range of specialists in the laws governing the use of force have disputed the Trump administration’s claim that it can lawfully kill people suspected of drug trafficking like enemy troops instead of arresting them for prosecution. As a matter of domestic law, Congress has not authorized any armed conflict.

As a matter of international law, for a nonstate group to qualify as a belligerent in an armed conflict — meaning its members can be targeted for killing based on their status alone, not because of anything they specifically do — it must be an “organized armed group,” with a centralized command structure, and engaging in hostilities.

Admiral Holsey, who is Black, becomes the latest in a line of at least two dozen military leaders, many of them people of color and women, who have left their jobs this year. Most have been fired by Mr. Hegseth or pushed out.

Mr. Hegseth fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who is Black; the first woman to command the Navy, Adm. Lisa Franchetti; and the U.S. military’s representative to the NATO military committee, Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield. Mr. Hegseth also pushed out Lt. Gen. Jeffrey A. Kruse, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Admiral Holsey’s abrupt end to leading one of the military’s highly coveted regional war-fighting commands comes after a Navy career that started with his commissioning through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps, or NROTC, at Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1988.

The admiral, a native of Fort Valley, Ga., worked his way up from commanding helicopter squadrons to leading one of the Navy’s prestigious aircraft carrier strike groups. He served first as the Southern Command’s military deputy before taking command in November 2024.

Related Content