Should US send troops to fight Mexican drug cartels? It's not a good idea.

Published 3/21/23

A growing chorus of voices has called for the deployment of U.S. troops against drug cartels, especially after the murder of two American citizens in Mexico.

U.S. Reps. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, and Michael Waltz, R-Fla., have introduced a joint resolution in Congress to authorize the president to use the armed forces for this purpose. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., pledged to introduce similar legislation designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said it was a mistake not to have bombed meth labs in Mexico when then-President Donald Trump asked his secretary of Defense about this possibility. Former Attorney General William Barr has even pressed for military action, "whether or not the Mexican government participates."

The idea of blaming and punishing Mexico has been politically expedient – from the U.S. Army’s punitive expedition against Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution to Trump’s tweet in 2019 that it was time for the United States to “wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth.”