Against Attacking Mexico

Military action against Mexico is the worst way to address the drug crisis

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

—A quote often misattributed to Einstein

It seems that in U.S. foreign policy circles the following view has become unquestionable dogma: if anything bad is happening in the world, the U.S. has the responsibility—no, the duty—to correct it with military force. If we lived in a sane country, we’d ask other questions like

1. Would we succeed?

2. Is this legal?

3. Would this violate international law?

4. Will this escalate an existing conflict?

5. Would the cure be worse than the disease?

Of course, asking these more nuanced questions that demand a more serious approach than merely beating the drums of war every time a bad thing happens the world over seems far beyond the competencies of our foreign policy elite. The most amusing and recent manifestation of this pathology has been the suggestion made by various hawks—including our former president, who many bizarrely praise for his dovishness—that we attack Mexico. Politico reports

In recent weeks, Donald Trump has discussed sending “special forces” and using “cyber warfare” to target cartel leaders if he’s reelected president and, per Rolling Stone, asked for “battle plans” to strike Mexico. Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) introduced a bill seeking authorization for the use of military force to “put us at war with the cartels.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said he is open to sending U.S. troops into Mexico to target drug lords even without that nation’s permission. And lawmakers in both chambers have filed legislation to label some cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move supported by GOP presidential aspirants.

Of course, Mexico has opposed the intervention, for the same reason that the U.S. would impose Canada being granted unlimited authority to conduct military operations on our territory to stem the opiate crisis. In fact, those who support this intervention should explain why it’s permissible for us to carry out such attacks on our neighbors but not for Canada to do it. Is there some feature of divine law that says that terrorist attacks carried out on neighbors without permission to stop a threat are only permissible if the country doing it has a red white and blue flag?

It turns out that under international law, one does not have unbridled authority to attack a country just because bad things are happening in it. As Christopher Newton notes “If the US took military action in Mexico without permission, it would almost certainly violate international law while generating an immense diplomatic backlash from Mexico and other nations.” This should not surprise anyone—international law has high standards for attacking other countries absent permission and “a bad thing is happening there” does not cut it.

Of course, if we actually were serious about stemming the power of the cartels, we’d stop sending arms to Mexico which are subsequently stolen by the cartels. As Zamudio et al note

Most guns recovered and traced at crime scenes in Mexico -70%- come from the United States. And after more than a decade of military deployment to fight crime, new military equipment and firearms, and U.S. military training for thousands of soldiers as part of the Merida Initiative, human rights violations by state forces remain much higher than before the Initiative began, with nearly complete impunity.

They later note that Mexico’s war on drugs “has provoked escalated violence in the country, where organized criminal groups, police officials at all levels of government, and soldiers have committed serious crimes, including murders, forced disappearances, and torture. In that context, criminal organizations and state agencies have committed crimes against humanity.”

Fortunately, history has been kind enough to give us a matched sample. In 2004, after the U.S. Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired, this affected where U.S. assault weapons were sent to Mexico. Dube et al 2012 report

The estimates suggest that the policy change induced 60% more homicides in municipios at the non-California entry ports, as compared to municipios 100 miles away, and caused at least 239 additional deaths annually in the municipios located within 100 miles of all border ports. Notably, we are able to show that the policy shock increased crime guns seized by the Mexican military, specifically for the gun category that includes assault weapons, but not handguns, providing additional evidence that the FAWB expiration increased violence through its effect on assault weapons supply.”

If the thing that has been aiding the cartels is U.S. efforts to fight the supply of Mexican drugs, the solution, as is obvious to anyone with a brain, is to not dramatically scale up efforts to fight the supply of Mexican drugs. It takes a very special sort of mind to look at the war on drugs in the U.S., which had relatively popular support, and think that we should carry this out in another far more volatile country, when they are begging us not to, and when the U.S war on drugs—like the Mexican war on drugs—has been an abject failure.

It turns out that efforts to use the military to fight the cartels in Mexico just haven’t worked. This was the conclusion of Jose Merino who originally intended to debunk an earlier analysis concluding this, but after analyzing the data, Merino concluded that “the military operations have caused an increase in the homicide rate in the states where they have taken place.” Thus, even those with strong biases in the direction of supporting military actions in Mexico, when they examine the data, find that our actions just lead to increases of violence.

When the U.S. wages a savage war on a foreign country, leading to instability and collapse of governance, that very often leads to an expansion in the power of the cartels—Afghanistan is a good example. Harrigan cites the examples of Colombia and Afghanistan to argue that the international war on drugs has been an abject failure, resulting in more drug operations. While Colombia is in many ways a success story, the specific policies carried out to combat the flow of drugs were abject failures that increased the amount of drugs produced. Additionally, Colombia was a case where we were working with the government, rather than attacking the country externally, over the protests of the people in the country.

If we look at the U.S.’ international efforts to carry out the war on drugs, they’ve been an abject failure. The Rand corporation carried out a detailed 175-page report, which started with an an analysis of previous studies that analyzed the international drug war and found “All the prior studies are implicitly pessimistic about the possibility of greatly increasing the impact of the interdiction system.” They ultimately conclude that, while some efforts may have not been abject failures, “a major increase in military support is unlikely to significantly reduce drug consumption in the United States.”

As Daniel Larrison notes “Trump likens a cartel war to fighting terrorists, but this ignores how terrorist groups have often flourished and spread during the “war on terror.” Look at the Sahel to see how militarized “solutions” have contributed to making the region much less stable and much more violent.”

The abject failure of the war on terror is something I’ve argued for elsewhere. It is rather amusing that policymakers think that combining the two most abject failures in U.S policy—the wars on terror and drugs—will make a striking success. Perhaps they should also force Mexico to adopt the scared straight program?

There are, of course, structural reasons why an international war on terror cannot succeed. As long as demand is high for these products, efforts to dry up supply will just make the supply go to new places. This was noted by none other than Milton Friedman

I have always said that what seems to me to be most immoral about drug prohibition in the United States is that we impose on places like Colombia the loss of thousands of lives because we cannot enforce our own laws. Our laws make it illegal for people to consume cocaine. If we could enforce those laws, there would be no demand for cocaine. It wouldn’t pay anybody to grow the stuff. It wouldn’t pay anybody to risk being shot or arrested or what-not, in Colombia.

…

No matter what happens to demand – it doesn’t overstate it practically. Suppose Colombia could completely wipe out all cocaine production within Colombia – it was wholly successful. Well, then you would find cocaine production would shift elsewhere. It would move to Peru, Chile – I don’t know. Maybe Turkey. To the Golden Triangle -who knows?

So it’s impossible to eradicate supply of cocaine while there is still a demand for it?

Absolutely. As a practical matter I think it is impossible. …You understand that I’m in favour of legalising, and I always have been (on moral grounds as well as practical ones. I don’t think it’s the business of the government to tell me what I can put in my mouth any more than it’s the business of the govt to tell me what I can put in my head)

So as long as we continue the failed war on drugs, which prevents legal businesses from selling drugs, the cartels will be propped up. This has lead the world economic forum to claim that the war on drugs has been an abject failure, that did not stop the influx of drugs, nor weaken the power of the cartels, but instead drastically increased rates of violence.

One might wonder what those who support this aggression have been saying. Well, this has been espoused by virtually no serious people, so unfortunately, to find what its advocates are claiming, we must scour the less respectable corners of the American right wing.

Take Fox News, for example, which, being a relatively unprincipled purveyor of propaganda, has churned out an article describing Robert Almonte’s report of a horrible incident in which two U.S. citizens were kidnapped. After this, it describes Almonte admonishing the white house to be more outraged about this—before suggesting declaring war on the cartels. The reasoning—if it can be called that—in the article proceeds in three steps.

1. A horrible thing happened.

2. We should be outraged.

3. Therefore, we should go to war with the cartels.

One might expect, that if one were serious, they’d provide reasons to think that a war on the cartels would reduce the extent to which bad things that should outrage us all are happening. Not Almonte or Fox, however; the white house should be outraged, therefore we should invade, is their basic reasoning. Enough said. And if you deny this hysterical lunacy behind so many wars that have claimed so many thousands of lives, then you’re a crazy dove. And maybe anti-American.

Apparently, the reasoning employed by major news sources advocating that we attack our neighbor to the south is no more sophisticated than that employed by Darryl Worley in his hit song, written shortly after 9/11, in which he starts by summarizing the complaints of those who oppose including that “we don't realize the mess we're getting in.” Then, he admonishes those people, accusing them of having forgotten how traumatizing 9/11 was. This song seems to encapsulate much of the “reasoning” of our foreign policy planners—some story pulls on the heartstrings, and so we see that as a reason to tear a country or two apart to kill the people who allegedly took these actions. When we vaporize 10% of a country, no one ever asks if we’ve forgotten those lessons, but whenever people oppose senseless wars, that’s seen as indicative of naivete and not caring enough about American lives.

In a slightly more serious version of the Fox proposal, Josh Hammer argues for a war on the drug cartels. He starts by describing in emotive terms all the bad things happening at the Mexican border with Fentanyl smuggling and so on. No one disputes that drug trafficking is very bad. The question is what we should do about it.

Now, one might think that, when one advocates a serious invasion in flagrant violation of international law, they’d provide some reasons to think that it would work out. But not Hammer, who merely declares “It is a disaster. And such a disaster—especially one in our own backyard—requires a clear, unambiguous response from the putative greatest nation on earth.”

Should Canada invade the U.S. to stop “such a disaster” “in their own backyard?” Hammer, like a salesman peddling penis enlargement pills, declares that such a proposal would be a “straightforward and potentially highly effective policy.” Nothing comes after this—apparently, it’s just self-evident that this would be straightforward and highly effective.

Propagandists for U.S. invasion never seem to have to give reasons why their proposed policy would work—despite our abysmal track record. It’s only when one thinks we shouldn’t kill lots of foreigners that they have to provide reasons to think they’re right.

Next Hammer declares that claims that this would complicate diplomatic relations with Mexico “barely passes the laugh test.” Why is this? It seems like one might expect that attacking internal forces in another country against their wishes would harm diplomatic relations, but Hammer thinks this claim is just laughable. Why? Well

Mexico has just as much—if not more—of an interest in cracking down on the cartels as the U.S., but it cannot publicly say so, let alone act upon that interest, due to the cartels’ successful bribery and corruption of the all-too-venal Mexican government.

Apparently, in the upside-down clown world in which Hammer lives, if one attacks another country against that country’s wishes, as long as the attacking country thinks it will turn out for the best, then it won’t actually complicate diplomatic relations. Thus, if China were to attack Taiwan, claiming to extirpate terrorists and that Taiwan would have “as much—if not more—of an interest” in the crackdown, claims this would undermine diplomatic relations would “barely pass the laugh test.” However, being a Hammer in search of a nail, our author can’t fathom direct military action turning out poorly.

In fact, by this standard, Mexico would be legitimate in invading the U.S. to attack U.S. gangs. After all, many gangs traffic guns to Mexico—these plausibly destabilize Mexico as much as Fentanyl does the U.S.. But it seems that it’s only illegal when countries other than the U.S. and Europe carry out aggression in the eyes of many.

Next, Hammer declares

After 9/11, the U.S. waged war upon al-Qaeda, but for some reason, with hundreds of citizen kidnappings, far too many killings, and an unfathomable number of Americans now dropping dead from cartel-supplied fentanyl poison, bipartisan elites cite concerns about diplomatic niceties and say our hands are tied.

About this, Hammer and I are in relative agreement. The war on the cartels is roughly as good of an idea as the failed war on terror. Afghanistan was a bit more complicated than the rest of the war on terror, but the non-Afghanistan parts of the war on terror were very roughly as obviously disastrous as a war on Mexican cartels.

This is the extent of the arguments provided in Hammer’s article. He declares that things are bad, before taking it as almost self-evident that this justifies a vicious U.S. attack that would no doubt further the destabilization of Mexico.

The Center for Renewing America has also released a report advocating this idiotic policy. One might expect it to be a bit better, coming from a think tank. Unfortunately, anyone with high expectations would be left disappointed by this idiotic screed. They start by defining terms and describing the horrors of the cartels. Then they describe a detailed proposal of how we could attack the cartels.

No reason is given to think the proposal would work. Seriously, none! Not one! One longs for the days when think tanks, even if wrong, would actually give reasons to think that their proposal would work, rather than merely existing to give a veneer of respectability to the more deranged and confused parts of the MAGA movement.

The Center for Renewing America, among other things, proposes sanctions. Apparently, unconvinced by the murderous and ineffective record of sanctions, they think that it would be a great idea to sanction the cartels. How we would figure out which sanctions are targeted at the cartels is unclear—working it out is apparently left as an exercise for the reader.

Fortunately, this report does note various risks including

• Disruption of the supply chain with the US’s second-largest trading partner;

• Potential for criminal illegal alien gangs operating in major US cities to carry out attacks at the behest of cartels designated as cartel networks and affiliated factions;

• Strained diplomatic relations with Mexico and/or Central American nations while US military operations are carried out;

• Allocation of military resources to defend the homeland that results in a diminished ability to counter other threats; and

• Potential for mission creep should nation-building bureaucrats attempt to seize control over the targeted and specific mission to crush the cartels.

However, instead of giving reasons why the risks are unfounded, they admit that they are significant, before declaring that the rewards are greater than the risks. Of course, they give no reason to think that such an effort would be a success at all. Such is what passes for scholarship at the Center for Renewing America.

Fortunately, there are things that we could do that would combat the cartels without engaging in acts of international terror. One of them was described earlier—we could stop sending so many small arms and light weapons to Mexico, which are consistently stolen by the cartels, leading to dramatic increases in violence. Many of the guns used by the cartels are sold by America, as Cohen and Allen report. Folkerts notes “The United States exports a growing number of military weapons to Mexico. There are virtually no controls on where they go. When weapons end up in the hands of abusive security forces or organized crime, they fuel a crisis of human rights and impunity in Mexico. And when this happens, the United States is complicit in contributing to human rights violations in Mexico.”

The other would involve ending our murderous and ineffective war on drugs. If the cartels are making money from selling drugs, forcing them to compete with legal businesses would utterly decimate them, cutting off their main source of cash. We could also invest more in drug courts, leading to dramatic decreases in drug use. As the Massachusetts government has noted

Drug Courts Reduce Crime

• Nationwide, 75% of Drug Court graduates remain arrest-free at least two years after leaving the program.

• Rigorous studies examining long-term outcomes of individual drug courts have found that reductions in crime last at least three years and can endure for over 14 years.

• The most rigorous and conservative scientific “meta-analyses” have all concluded that Drug Courts significantly reduce crime as much as 45 percent more than other sentencing options.

Drug Courts Save Money

• Nationwide, for every $1.00 invested in Drug Court, taxpayers save as much as $3.36 in avoided criminal justice costs alone.

• When considering other cost offsets such as savings from reduced victimization and healthcare service utilization, studies have shown benefits range up to $27 for every $1 invested.

• Drug courts produce cost savings ranging from $3,000 to $13,000 per client. These cost savings reflect reduced prison costs, reduced revolving-door arrests and trials, and reduced victimization.

Drug Courts Ensure Compliance

• Unless substance abusing/addicted offenders are regularly supervised by a judge and held accountable, 70% drop out of treatment prematurely.

• Drug courts provide more comprehensive and closer supervision than other community-based supervision programs.

• Drug courts are six times more likely to keep offenders in treatment long enough for them to get better.

Ultimately, the solution lies not in overly punitive and savage attacks on other countries but in the way we ended the cartels associated with the alcohol trade. When we ended prohibition, those criminal enterprises went away. Similarly, when the war on drugs ends and legal businesses can outcompete the murderous cartels, so too will the cartels go away.

Fundamentally, like so many features of our foreign policy, the solution lies not in direct military action, but in more peaceful means—ones that have actually shown effectiveness. To the extent that we attack Mexico, escalating violence, we’ll have failed to learn the lessons of history, and have rising instability at our southern border.