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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?
Yes, though anyone who ironically proposes a special military operation deserves one. (This is a joke, but do be kind to your friend.)
More to the point- your friend is raising relevant points, and you are raising bad geopolitical analogies. There are contexts where it is not war to conduct strikes in a neighboring country's territory, but these are generally limited to very specific contexts- namely imminent threats of which 'routine drug smuggling' generally does not qualify. If you do so anyway, there are many, many, many ways it can go badly, particularly if the sovereign state doesn't give you permission. Given how many things in diplomacy rest of voluntary cooperation, there are many ways for an unwanting state to make their neighbor's life difficult, even without armed resistance, and in the modern era there are also easy ways for that to go very, very costly. (See- drones.) This doesn't even touch how foreign state actors could partake and interfere- such as smuggling weapons (see- drones) to cartels for use against the Americans.
There are a number of reasons an armed intervention would be a bad idea, but let's focus on why it's not a good idea: it's not 1917, Mexico is not in a civil war, the cartels are not Pancho Villa doing cross-border raids into the US, and the Pancho Villa expedition failed anyways.
Thank you for the pushback, even though I'm not convinced.
I know you're more of an expert on armed forces and geopolitics than I am, would love to heart some scenarios.
But it feels like as far as neighborliness goes, Mexico has been hitting defect pretty insistently. It ain't no Mr. Rogers. Well actually we've always been fucking you over slowly seems like a weak argument.
This sort of behavior from a neighbor that's the junior partner seems intolerable. It would never be accepted by Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, or any sane country.
It would be a pretty mask off moment for those foreign state actors. Russia/Iran/NK are sorta busy. China would rather bide its time and build up for a few more years, and it would focus on Taiwan anyways. Maybe some South American countries would consider getting involved?
I guess the real disconnect is that I think if it does escalate to combat between one or more cartels and the US, the cartels would capitulate in less than 60 days, making it a fait accompli.
Yes, I know, four day operation to Kyiv and all, but we're not threatening their nationhood or trying to grab clay. If they're at all businessmen they'll realize that we can make them bleed and lose treasure very hard very fast. If the individual cartels test each other out and have areas of control and neutral zones, does not pushing back on their expansion mean you're just rolling over?
You send multi-million dollars worth of equipment into Northern Mexico. Drones costing a few hundred to thousand dollars blow them up. Rinse and repeat until the American taxpayer gets tired of seeing the celebratory videos on the internet while foreigners simultaneously mock them and highlight every American-caused casualty as an atrocity.
Assuming you are an American- please show some self-awareness when accusing who of fucking over who, particularly when you are advocating an act of war against a neighbor.
I repeat the earlier point: you are making poor geopolitical analogies.
Or rather- when Russia decided it wouldn't tolerate a sovereign neighbor doing sovereign policy things, it led to one of the biggest blunders of post-WW2 Russian strategic policy, costing over a million casualties and the loss of significant global power and standing. When China wouldn't tolerate Vietnam's behavior, it invaded the north and had such an embarrassing lack of success that Vietnam has sparked not just a detente, but budding partnership, with China's main strategic rival.
These were both terribly stupid policies by the 'senior' partner, neither of which actually got what they wanted as a result.
The other countries have been less incompetent, and so have generally let their disgruntlement with troublesome neighbors remain disgruntlements rather than casus belli.
That would indeed be a real disconnect, and one that strongly suggests a lack of attention to the experiences of the Iraq and Afghan wars.
The Americans have not been able to make organized criminal groups inside the US 'capitulate' in 60 years. The US lasted about 20 years in Afghanistan, and considerably less in Mogadishu against worse-equipped criminal warlords. The idea that you would be able to totally defeat inernational cartels in 60 days by occuping a fraction of a country, in a country that you do not speak the language of, over a border zone you have never been able to seal, is not serious.
And even if you can initially disrupt, what then? Say you somehow clear them from area X in 60 day, but on day 61 you go home. What do you think happens on day 62? Or day 63? Or [however many days you stay]+1? What- besides grabbing clay and building forts to compel indefinite military threats- is your compliance plan?
And you think this achieves anything... why?
You're not thinking like a cartel. Or rather, you seem to think cartels are unitary actors who a singular 'they' can capture, as opposed to coalitions of autonomous rivals who often fight over profit share. Life is cheap, and the cartel's losses are not your own- instead, the cartel's loss is a chance for your own gang to take out rivals and maneuver yourself for a bigger cut of the American drug-purchasing money. As long as there are americans willing to pay tons of money to buy the drugs, then there is a lot of money to be made selling despite the risks. That other people in the business lose out isn't an issue, it's an opportunity- especially if you can use the American intervention as a way to knock out rivals / settle scores / make way for yourself.
No, it does not.
You send stealthy long-loiter-time surveillance drones over mexico. You use them to ID organized Cartel activity, cross-referencing electronic intel from the NSA. When you locate a concentration of Cartel activity, a stealthy plane drops a container from 35,000 feet, which pops open at 30,000 feet and spills out a hundred small anti-personnel drones. These drones fly down to the target area and messily unalive selected targets in the strike zone, recording high-quality video of exactly who they splatter in the process. No hellfires, no demolished buildings; half-pound directional frag charges, with close range and wide-angle video record of exactly who was hit and what they were doing.
You might not even need the planes; I bet we could rig a tomahawk or a reasonably stealthy cargo drone to deliver the payload. Make a supercut compilation of the footage, slap on an ISIS flag gif at the front and back, dub in a banging nasheed medley and sprinkle in some Allahu Akbar's at appropriate moments, then upload the videos to 4chan and shrug and Who, me? when anyone asks. That's how I'd aim to do it, were I God-Emperor.
This is the actual problem, but the Cartels are sufficiently odious that cutting the grass, in the Israeli parlance, holds considerable appeal. Realistically, the goal would not be to eliminate all narcotics cartels forever, but to add selective pressure against their worst excesses. Make it clear that when they, for example, haul a bunch of people off a bus and make them fight to the death with sledgehammers, they and their bosses stand a significant chance experiencing rapid unscheduled disassembly as a direct consequence.
Maybe it's still not worth the effort. I am a fairly committed non-interventionist, and there is certainly a strong non-interventionist argument to be made here. But these are in fact some of the most vile people on earth, the harm they cause is considerable, and they're right fucking there. Maybe we really do have to just put up with them indefinitely as they rape and murder and torture and poison and corrupt both our biggest neighbor and our own citizens. But then why the fuck does this argument not apply to China or Russia?
Who says it doesn't?
The Russians and the Chinese both put up with great deals of neighborly behavior they find unneighborly. The Chinese have what they consider an entire secessionist province with substantial foreign smuggling and arms trafficking as a neighbor, and the argument that no, they should not conquer said island is the basis of the most plausible global power war since the cold war. And the Russians have an entire military alliance dedicated to the argument that they should not get to do what they want to the people who dislike them who are right fucking there, and the last time the Russians decided to 'do something' about 'the most vile people' on earth (Nazis!), they are still in fighting that war to great personal detriment as many of their neighbors make the argument that, yes, this argument against intervention does apply to them.
You've misunderstood me. I'm willing to at least contemplate the idea that there isn't really anything to be done about the cartels, that the present situation is roughly as good as we can expect and that we should just suck it up. What confuses me is when I'm then told that it's very important that we prosecute a proxy war with Russia on the other side of the world, and that we need to gear up for a Great Power confrontation with China. All the arguments for restraint and toleration of the Cartels likewise appear to me to apply even more so to China and Russia, who have nukes, actual armies, and significant nation-state resources backing them.
I'm not sure you're wrong, but I would really like to see your math.
What math are you confused on?
You are not fighting a direct war with Russia or China, who can inflict considerable costs and losses against the US if engaged directly. This proposal is a proposal to instigate a direct conflict with cartels, who can inflict considerable costs and losses against the US if engaged directly.
This is a cost / math consistency: do not instigate a direct conflict against those who can inflict consider costs and losses if engaged directly.
There are certainly other arguments that can be made on how to react to someone else's instigation of a conflict, but many of these are voided if made by the same people proposing direct conflict instigation (and are generally not my position regardless).
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