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Notes -
Help me understand an argument about the US-Mexico relationship
A friend and old-coworker recently posted in a group chat an article quote
They think that if that were to happen “both the general population and government unofficially would side with the narcos (for different reasons).” Radicalization and bad things would follow. Firstly, I thought these things already happened. Was Sicaro not just exaggerated for effect, but complete fiction?
We diverted for a bit into the politics of Mexico under the cartels. It was fun to be reminded that there still are areas not even the military will go into without cartel approval, that AMLO used to visit El Chapo’s mother regularly, that any information given to federal agencies or even directly to the president was pretty much immediately relayed to the cartels. Apparently, cartel-unfriendly political candidates are routinely assassinated. So the state seems to have been completely captured by the cartels. They have also deeply infiltrated the local and federal law enforcement agencies. The cartels have their own military equipment, intelligence agencies maybe, air force?, submaries (not armed though I hope?)
Still, even without local police or federal government involvement (who I understand most are assets of or actual narcos) I assumed the DEA/CIA/FBI still did shit to keep things in check, at least around the border and inside the US. Well actually, cartels are expanding into Colorado these days.
Enter Trump's executive order Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
My friend was incensed, thinks that any action by special forces would be war, that the Mexican people and government will rally around the cartels, there would be terrorist attacks and sabotage by cartels/Mexican immigrants.
I’m afraid here is where I lost my cool a little bit. Paraphrasing:
I guess what I want to know is, Am I The Asshole?
War with the cartels would go really badly for the US IMO. It's not that the US lacks the firepower or the manpower or the wealth, they lack the political capacity and will to execute these kinds of imperial military operations. The US military is best at defeating conventional forces in conventional wars (preferably massively outmatched ones like the Iraqi army). They are not good at imperial wars and suppression campaigns. They are not good at regime change or stabilization or propping up a puppet government.
If cartels are so easy to beat in Mexico, why can't the US wipe out the drug dealers in America? For a long time I've been saying 'just get rid of the drug dealers to solve the problem'. The US has the technical capacity to track down the drug dealers, they have drones and spies and informants and everything you'd need. Drug addicts can find drug dealers, how hard can it be? There are literally open air drug markets in major US cities! The US doesn't have the political capacity to do it, they don't have the legal capacity and the willpower to actually wage a war on drugs (as opposed to a pretend war on drugs).
How well did the US fare in the last campaign against a nebulous collection of unconventional forces in a drug-rich foreign land? After initial military successes, they fared very, very poorly. The lessons of Afghanistan should be applied to Mexico which is considerably larger. Plus the global balance of power has changed a lot since 2001 and not in the US's favour. Chinese pharmaceutical companies have been fighting a proxy war with Mexican cartels on the streets of Philadelphia (because they do have the kind of willpower and capacity I'm talking about): https://x.com/SantsPliego/status/1748496050543837404
China and Russia would leap at the chance to flex their muscles and make even more problems in the US's sphere of influence, tie them down and bleed them. The cartels would start acquiring MANPADs, ATGMs, explosives, cash, drones. Is the US capable of searching every Chinese cargo ship heading to Mexico?
How should the US act? Slowly build up political capacity step by step, don't leap straight to the end boss. Crack down on drugs at home before an ill-planned, hazy military action overseas. Fight where you are strongest and where the enemy is weakest, build up confidence and experience.
A war on drugs is much harder to wage when you must at least nominally abide by constitutional protections of the legal rights of the enemy and conduct the war through the standardized channels of the domestic justice system. Hunting the cartels would have none of these restrictions; the NSA and CIA and other alphabet soup agencies could be off the leash de jure rather than merely de facto, and there would be no need for legal entanglements of any kind. This does not make such a campaign a good idea, but if it's a bad idea, it's for reasons other than these in particular.
You are correct in that -- the voting public would be willing to tolerate foreign civilian collateral damage in a way they won't when the victims are US citizens.
However, foreign operations face different challenges. I gather it is harder to get good intelligence on the operations of the Taliban than on the operations of some US based drug lord. Arrests of low tier enemies give can give you insights that you can't get from just bombing people.
The common theme on the domestic 'war on drugs' and a potential war on the cartels is that the number of people who are willing to risk their freedom and lives to make a fortune selling drugs when there is an opening in the market seems near endless.
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