The growing enthusiasm for a military option in Mexico just shows how addicted to military intervention many Republicans are.
Ron DeSantis is trying to catch up with the other Republican hawks that want to attack Mexico:
DeSantis, who’s trailing Trump in national polls by wide margins, is promising to send Navy and Coast Guard resources to block fentanyl-related Chinese precursor chemicals from reaching Mexican ports, "if the Mexican government drags its feet" in assisting.
DeSantis also says that he would “reserve the right to operate across the border to secure our territory from Mexican cartel activities,” which is another way of saying that he would order incursions into Mexican territory without its government’s permission. These are exceptionally bad ideas for all the reasons I have discussed before. Aggressive policies like these are very likely to backfire on the United States by provoking more violence in border communities and greater instability leading to increased migration. They would definitely poison our relationship with Mexico for decades to come. What makes these proposals even worse is that they seek to apply a more militarized solution to a drug war that has been failing for generations. We know in advance that they aren’t going to make a dent in the distribution and use of fentanyl.
Trying to cut off chemical supplies with a blockade of ports would not only be an act of war against Mexico, but it would also require a huge commitment of ships and personnel to try to enforce it. Even if the Mexican government were willing to cooperate (and they wouldn’t be), it would be a major undertaking that would eat up limited Navy and Coast Guard resources on a fool’s errand. It’s bad enough to commit unprovoked acts of war against a neighboring country, but to do it with no possibility of achieving the desired goals would be moronic.
Any interruption that a blockade achieved would be limited and temporary, and narco-traffickers would find other sources to make their product in any case. Drug use can’t be bludgeoned out of existence through the threat and use of force. The growing enthusiasm for a military option in Mexico just shows how addicted to military intervention many Republicans are. If they can’t get a new war with Iran or China right now, they will have to get their fix by striking out at Mexico.
Read the rest of the article at SubStack
Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.
