"We're not going to invade China because
they're sending fentanyl into our country," Sen. J.D. Vance told
NBC host Chuck Todd on Sunday. But invading—or at least bombing—Mexico?
That’s an idea which increasingly has its fans, boasting support from
55 percent of registered voters, per a new NBC poll.
Those voters could get what they want: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says
he wants to "send in the Coast Guard and the Navy" to stop "precursor
chemicals for drugs going through Mexican ports." Former President
Donald Trump reportedly suggested bombing Mexican drug labs while in office and allegedly asked aides for "battle plans" earlier this year. And in Congress, Rep. Dan Crenshaw sponsored legislation to authorize use of military force against Mexican cartels.
This vision for making the drug war a real war is worrisome on multiple fronts.
The specific danger
This is a high-risk, low-reward proposition that that would incur deadly
unintended consequences. DEFP's Daniel R. DePetris has ably made this
case in the Chicago Tribune (and on Twitter), detailing four reasons attacking Mexico to stop drugs is a terrible idea:
- "Taking out fentanyl labs on Mexican territory is merely a
short-term fix." The cartels would rebound, just like opium producers
did when "the U.S. spent nearly $10 billion trying to eradicate [Afghan] poppy fields, often through airstrikes."
- "U.S. military force is highly likely to create a bigger
humanitarian crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border." Both local and migrant
civilians will suffer, and the effects will be far beyond what U.S.
Customs and Border Protection can handle.
- "U.S. military action, whether it's in the air or on
the ground, only targets the supply side of the equation." Millions of
Americans will still want drugs, and someone will supply them.
- Though most proposals signal a preference for working with Mexico
City, realistically, this would "sever whatever cooperation the Mexican
government provides to U.S. law enforcement and counternarcotics agents
on the fentanyl issue." [Chicago Tribune / Daniel R. DePetris]
The broader absurdity
Beyond the specifics, it is an indictment of the quality of our foreign
policy discourse that such an absurd proposal is being seriously floated
at all.
- The core idea is transposing the discredited tactics of the war on
terror to the war on drugs: tackling a mercurial non-state actor with a
major military campaign. [The Critic / Anthony J. Constantini]
- In fact, some have explicitly made this link. "We need to start
thinking about these groups more like ISIS than we do the mafia," said
Rep. Mike Waltz, who cosponsored the Crenshaw bill. [Politico / Alexander Ward]
- The predictable—and pathological—outcome: Repetition of all the foreign policy failures of the post-9/11 era in a battlefield much closer to home.
- Indeed, "[e]ven a campaign of air strikes against cartels could
easily escalate," as DEFP Policy Director Benjamin Friedman observes.
"Cartels could retaliate" on U.S. soil, against U.S. civilians, in a way
ISIS never could. [Reason / Fiona Harrigan]
However popular it may be as a painless hypothetical, prudence and security alike dictate this idea be dropped—for good.
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