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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.
Dealing with the cartels in Mexico using military force is very different from dealing with them here in the United States because in the United States it is illegal to use surveillance aircraft and NSA SIGINT assets to hoover up reams of data and then act without warrants in response.
Worth noting that this may happen anyway; the US already acts against cartels and they already have been caught with all of the above weapons except perhaps MANPADs (and I've been waiting for that any day now).
Maybe? Looks like they have around 1300 ships (and that it takes about one month to cross from China to Mexico, or two months round trip). Let us assume that the United States is willing to commit a small task force comprising an America-class LHA, a Burke cruiser, two Littoral Combat Ships (finally, a role they are halfway good at!), and two Legend-class cutters, plus a squadron of MPA aircraft and a squadron of Coast Guard or Marine helicopters operating out of San Diego. Let's further assume that the squadron and each of the ships can perform on average a single intercept a day, except the LHA, which we will assume can carry out up to four. That means the US could, with a fairly casual show of force, could intercept every ship in the Chinese fleet twice a year.
Now, I am not saying that fighting the cartels is necessarily a good idea. But I am saying that there's a huge difference between domestic law enforcement operations and the full eye of Sauron that the US can bring to a military operation and that analogizing US domestic drug operations probably isn't correct imho. I tend to think that the US government, if it approached the problem methodically, could "destroy" the cartels as organized groups, but that actually destroying drug production/trafficking in Mexico as a permanent problem is a commitment measured in decades that the US would grow tired of. From that perspective, I agree that it makes more sense to focus on the domestic side of things (we have a border for a reason!) However, a punitive mission against the cartels might make sense in certain context. I also think that Afghanistan only analogizes if we make an open-ended commitment or try to topple the government of Mexico and rule it instead. If "going to war against the cartels" means "a punitive expedition against the Sinaloa" with clear goals, then I think that's very different. You might recall that in 1989 the US invaded Panama over drug trafficking without getting bogged down in a 20-year counterinsurgency, but there we had a very clear goal in mind (capture Manuel Noriega).
Sure, but they do it anyway and manufacture chains of evidence, as Snowden revealed. So that's no excuse.
That's not at all what Snowden revealed, but lore was never meant to be real.
You're technically correct; this stuff was published by Reuters at the same time as Snowden but it at least purportedly isn't from that source. But the point stands; they do it anyway.
From your link:
Regardless of controversies about parallel construction (which is already illegal), your own cite doesn't even purport to show what you claim it shows.
"Officials have stressed" that everything the officials were (and are) doing is legal, yes. But they cover it up anyway.
So, you have some other cite that demonstrates that they were using NSA data? Or is this just baseless speculation?
It's the same cite. The claim isn't that they weren't using NSA data, only that they weren't using that particular NSA data. And no, it's not "baseless" speculation. When they've been revealed to having been up to no good in various ways, the prior should be that they've been up to no good in adjacent ways they weren't caught for as well.
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