About a year and a half after he was fired by President Donald Trump, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper published a tell-all memoir about the inner workings of the Trump administration. One of the book’s more remarkable allegations was that Trump, frustrated by the flow of illegal drugs coming across the U.S.-Mexico border, asked Esper twice about launching U.S. missile attacks on fentanyl labs run by Mexican cartels. While Trump denied most of the assertions about him in Esper’s book, in a nugget little noted at the time, he gave an entirely different answer about the missile strikes: “no comment.” The implication: It was entirely possible Trump thought bombing the cartels was a good idea.
Apparently, the concept never left the president’s head. Four years later, using U.S. military force in Mexico remains a real option for Trump. On April 8, NBC News reported that the White House, the Defense Department and the intelligence community were discussing possible drone strikes on cartel infrastructure. Ideally, the U.S. would conduct these strikes in cooperation with the Mexican government, but might do so unilaterally as a last resort. If this sounds surprising, it shouldn’t; Trump’s second administration is stacked with senior officials, from Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to Ronald Johnson, Trump’s recently confirmed ambassador to Mexico, who either genuinely believe the U.S. military should be prosecuting a war against the cartels or are at least open to the proposal.
The only problem? It’s a risky, counterproductive and utterly boneheaded idea.
Author
Events on Grand strategy
