Keeping Up with the Cartels

By Scott Howard

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

 

A specter is haunting the Republican Party — that of General John Pershing. The acclaimed commander of American forces during World War I, “Black Jack” led a storied career. He cut his teeth in military expeditions across the American West during the Ghost Dance campaign in the early 1890s. He served admirably at San Juan Hill (alongside Theodore Roosevelt) in 1898 and in the Philippine–American War (1899–1902). The most controversial chapter of his career came in 1916 when, under orders from Woodrow Wilson, Pershing led an expedition of 10,000 men into Mexico to capture the revolutionary Pancho Villa, in retaliation for Villa’s raid on Columbus, N.M. Though the mission failed in that regard, Pershing’s expedition is generally considered a success in deterring the bandit from making future incursions into the United States.

 

The ghost of his exploits in Mexico lingers 107 years later. In the past six months, a consensus has been forming among Republican officials that the drug cartels south of our border must be dealt with. Senator Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Representative Dan Crenshaw (Texas) have both introduced legislation to authorize selective uses of the military against the cartels inside Mexico’s borders. In recent months, similar proposals have picked up steam among GOP presidential hopefuls. Candidates Nikki Haley and Tim Scott have both endorsed such proposals. Ron DeSantis has hinted at something similar, expressing support for the use of lethal force against the cartels after they cross the U.S. border and deploying the Coast Guard to restrict maritime drug-trafficking. What was once a wild-eyed proposal from Donald Trump has become quasi-official Republican policy.

 

There are reasons for this hawkishness. A record 100,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2022, of which an estimated two-thirds can be attributed to fentanyl. This comes as U.S.–Mexico cooperation over cartel policy continues to disintegrate. Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador blamed “social decay” for the U.S. fentanyl crisis, condemned the idea of U.S. military forces being deployed inside his country, and outright denied that fentanyl is produced in Mexico — only to turn around and ask China for help stopping production and transportation of the drug inside Mexico.

 

So it is not entirely shocking that the GOP has decided the status quo is far too conciliatory.

 

The candidates call upon a long American tradition of muscular foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere, implicitly invoking the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt. In 1904, in response to the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902–03, President Roosevelt issued his corollary to the Monroe Doctrine during an annual message to Congress. He asserted that the United States would use its burgeoning military might to maintain stability in the region to protect American interests and prevent foreign powers from intervening. His rationale was simple and stark:

 

If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.

 

Given the state of affairs across our southern border, it would be hard to avoid the conclusion that the conditions Roosevelt outlined have come to pass. López Obrador has spent his presidency eroding the democratic institutions meant to keep him in check. His country’s inability and unwillingness to control its border continues to reap disastrous consequences here in the U.S. Most damning of all is that, according to some estimates, the cartels effectively control 20 percent of Mexico. A nation ceding sovereignty over its territory to criminal organizations is no longer civilized under any standard definition of the term. When that nation’s unraveling threatens American lives and security, it should not be controversial for the U.S. government to act decisively.

 

The U.S. has further reasons to exercise its police power to protect its own backyard. The Mexican president’s overture to China asking for help with the fentanyl crisis is deeply troubling. Our chief adversaries do not give their help for free, and it’s a frightening scenario in which Mexico stabilizes in exchange for increased ties with China. Already the United States must deal with Chinese–Cuban collaboration, and Cuba is not the only Latin American nation that China has sought to woo in recent years. As America prepares for the coming cold war with our Asian rival, our government should not be tepid in asserting American primacy in our region. Our neighbors must demonstrate stability and alignment with the U.S. position.

 

American foreign policy, both in our backyard and overseas, should be prudent and moral. That is not the same as being feckless. Teddy Roosevelt understood that the American colossus should speak softly and carry a big stick — and be willing to use it to defend U.S. prerogatives. When it comes to the cartels, the use of military force to deal with the threat they pose to the United States should not be taken off the table. Rather than exorcise the ghosts of Roosevelt and Pershing, Republican presidential candidates would be wise to invite them in. The wisdom they possess offers the U.S. a path forward.