Summary
President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration are debating the extent of potential U.S. military action against Mexican drug cartels.
Options discussed include targeted airstrikes, cyberattacks, covert operations, and “soft invasions” using special forces. Trump has warned Mexico to curb fentanyl trafficking or face military intervention.
His key appointees, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, support some form of military action, framing cartels as terrorist threats.
Critics fear this could escalate tensions with Mexico and spark significant international controversy.
Well there’s no way this is going to end badly. No way at all.
I don’t know if Trump knows this but a lot of things here are made in Mexico.
I hate to admit it, but somehow Ben Shapiro was right. He wrote about this in his terrible, awful, no good, very bad book True Allegiance. Although the reason why that invasion started was due to border crossings. And it wasn’t started by the president but by the governor of Texas.
The book is awful but I recommend listening to Behind the Bastards’ (a podcast) reading of it because it is enlightening.
And the parallels to late 1930’s Germany just keep coming
Another source close to Trump describes to Rolling Stone what they call a “soft invasion” of Mexico, in which American special forces — not a large theater deployment — would be sent covertly to assassinate cartel leaders.
Oh yeah, that went so well previously, why not try again?
/s
To be fair, the unofficial word has always been that our guys are doing a little more than what a civilian would consider training when they go on joint training missions in Central and South America. They aren’t officially supposed to take part in any fighting but it’s common knowledge that part of the faith in a partnership and the skills host forces have been taught is for the special forces guys training them to go on a few missions with them.
The reputation from those operations is a large part of why cartels don’t want to bother feds or tourists anymore. They know if they end up on Uncle Sam’s list then no amount of sovereignty is going to stop tier 1 forces from coming for them. Even if it has to be the CIA’s Special Activities Group. (The guys who actually do “if you get caught, we don’t know you” types of missions)
This is a large part of why a Cartel apologized for shooting tourists and handed over 5 members in 2023. They did not want to be on that list.
Now before anyone comes in here and says Trump’s plan is no big deal, the entire calculus of this situation changes when the cartel leaders become indiscriminate targets. The status quo right now is a bit like old Chicago’s legends, only Americans “in the game” are fair targets. We turn our heads and in return the cartels leave most Americans alone. That changes the second they go into self defense mode. They’re going to take hostages, they’re going to blow shit up in border communities, they’re going make it as painful as possible.
In short, this is a great way to create an insurgency in the US South West.
