Soldiers aren't drug cops, President Trump. Don't send them into Latin America's narco wars
By Tim Padgett
August 21, 2025 at 7:00 AM EDT
COMMENTARY President Trump is reviving a longstanding U.S. urge to have the military fight the hemisphere's drug cartels — but history suggests sending troops to take down traffickers usually ends badly.
As President Donald Trump threatens to unleash the U.S. military on drug cartels in Mexico and Venezuela, I’m transported back to a TV tongue-lashing I once received on Fox News.
A couple decades ago, I was a guest on the network’s top-rated rant show, “The O’Reilly Factor.” I was a correspondent covering Mexico’s drug war, and my right-wing host Bill O’Reilly (before Fox dumped him over sexual misconduct lawsuits) had me under fire-breathing interrogation.
“The United States should invade Mexico, shouldn’t it?!” he kept asking me.
“Well, actually, no,” I’d reply before I’d be cut off again:
“It’s the only way to defeat Mexico’s narco-cartels, isn’t it?!”
I remember trying, and failing, to point two things out to Señor O’Reilly.
The first, obviously, was that a U.S. military invasion would be an egregious violation of Mexico’s national sovereignty — as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is warning Trump now.
But the second — and, frankly, just as important — was that it wouldn’t work.
And that was already being proven in those days by none other than Mexico itself.
READ MORE: Floridians: Think of Mexico's real rulers when you vote on marijuana
Under then President Felipe Calderón, Mexico was deploying thousands of troops to battle traffickers — los narcos, the drug mafias that were exporting cocaine and meth by the semi-truckload over the U.S. border, while staging ghastly murders and massacres inside their own country.
The military strategy had some successes; it collared some cartel capos and scored some big busts. But it registered mostly failure — which is why, two decades later, Mexican communities are still terrorized by cartel homicide and U.S. communities are still terrorized by cartel fentanyl.
Drug war analysts came to that conclusion just one decade later. In a damning 2016 report, the respected investigative website InSight Crime lamented that cartel violence and trafficking was “not only on the rise” in Mexico, it also appeared “to be spreading to areas of Mexico that had not previously seen high levels” of it.
A big reason: in the long run, soldiers make lousy drug cops.
Dope dealers and carjackers aren’t taken down by armies; they’re reined in by cops, detectives, prosecutors and judges — and so are fentanyl cartels.
Militaries are trained to fight other militaries. Combatting organized crime requires effective and honest investigative police work.
Mexico’s police, though, are best known for incompetence and corruption. So Mexican leaders like Calderón decided back then to do the popular thing and deputize their GI’s, instead of doing the necessary thing and professionalize their gendarmes.
Shock and awe
But sadly, as InSight Crime pointed out, Mexico is a reminder that the shock-and-awe nature of military operations “intensifies conflict rather than defusing it” and simply “pushes crime groups into other areas with less security force presence.”
Mexican Security and Citizen Protection Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch announces Mexico's extradition of 29 drug cartel figures to the U.S., in Mexico City, Aug. 13, 2025. (5587x3725, AR: 1.4998657718120805)
Nothing suggests a U.S. military adventure in Mexico would have any different result.
And when it comes to Venezuela — Trump is reportedly aiming three U.S. warships and thousands of Marines to the Caribbean right now — it could result in an Iraq-style quagmire.
That’s because Venezuela’s military itself is the nation’s leading drug cartel.
So any militarized U.S. counternarcotics operation in Venezuela could possibly lead to war with Venezuela. It’s a war the U.S. would easily win — the Miami-Dade police department could defeat Venezuela’s army, whose only skills are running coke and killing anti-regime protesters — but winning could mean a messy yanqui occupation of an economically collapsed dystopia.
Trump thought his MAGA minions were mad about him bombing Iran and not releasing the Epstein files? Wait till they see the U.S. Army nation-building in Maracaibo!
The Trump administration believes militarizing the hemispheric drug war is justified because it’s designated cartels like Mexico’s as terrorist groups.
I don’t really disagree with labeling narcos as terroristas. But sending the Marines abroad to do war with them is more dangerous than, say, sending the National Guard into Washington D.C.
In fact, Trump risks making the same mistake in D.C. that Calderón made in Mexico. In lieu of the real solution — having Congress fund more potent police and judicial institutions in the nation’s admittedly crime-ridden capital — he’s opted for the macho spectacle.
In the end, dope dealers and carjackers aren’t taken down by barracks warriors; they’re reined in by well trained and well equipped beat cops. And detectives. And prosecutors. And judges.
Same goes for fentanyl traffickers and cartel murderers.
So don’t wave Shock and Awe at Mexico, President Trump.
Instead, help Mexico get serious about Law and Order.
(1509x275, AR: 5.487272727272727)
As President Donald Trump threatens to unleash the U.S. military on drug cartels in Mexico and Venezuela, I’m transported back to a TV tongue-lashing I once received on Fox News.
A couple decades ago, I was a guest on the network’s top-rated rant show, “The O’Reilly Factor.” I was a correspondent covering Mexico’s drug war, and my right-wing host Bill O’Reilly (before Fox dumped him over sexual misconduct lawsuits) had me under fire-breathing interrogation.
“The United States should invade Mexico, shouldn’t it?!” he kept asking me.
“Well, actually, no,” I’d reply before I’d be cut off again:
“It’s the only way to defeat Mexico’s narco-cartels, isn’t it?!”
I remember trying, and failing, to point two things out to Señor O’Reilly.
The first, obviously, was that a U.S. military invasion would be an egregious violation of Mexico’s national sovereignty — as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is warning Trump now.
But the second — and, frankly, just as important — was that it wouldn’t work.
And that was already being proven in those days by none other than Mexico itself.
READ MORE: Floridians: Think of Mexico's real rulers when you vote on marijuana
Under then President Felipe Calderón, Mexico was deploying thousands of troops to battle traffickers — los narcos, the drug mafias that were exporting cocaine and meth by the semi-truckload over the U.S. border, while staging ghastly murders and massacres inside their own country.
The military strategy had some successes; it collared some cartel capos and scored some big busts. But it registered mostly failure — which is why, two decades later, Mexican communities are still terrorized by cartel homicide and U.S. communities are still terrorized by cartel fentanyl.
Drug war analysts came to that conclusion just one decade later. In a damning 2016 report, the respected investigative website InSight Crime lamented that cartel violence and trafficking was “not only on the rise” in Mexico, it also appeared “to be spreading to areas of Mexico that had not previously seen high levels” of it.
A big reason: in the long run, soldiers make lousy drug cops.
Dope dealers and carjackers aren’t taken down by armies; they’re reined in by cops, detectives, prosecutors and judges — and so are fentanyl cartels.
Militaries are trained to fight other militaries. Combatting organized crime requires effective and honest investigative police work.
Mexico’s police, though, are best known for incompetence and corruption. So Mexican leaders like Calderón decided back then to do the popular thing and deputize their GI’s, instead of doing the necessary thing and professionalize their gendarmes.
Shock and awe
But sadly, as InSight Crime pointed out, Mexico is a reminder that the shock-and-awe nature of military operations “intensifies conflict rather than defusing it” and simply “pushes crime groups into other areas with less security force presence.”
Mexican Security and Citizen Protection Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch announces Mexico's extradition of 29 drug cartel figures to the U.S., in Mexico City, Aug. 13, 2025. (5587x3725, AR: 1.4998657718120805)
Nothing suggests a U.S. military adventure in Mexico would have any different result.
And when it comes to Venezuela — Trump is reportedly aiming three U.S. warships and thousands of Marines to the Caribbean right now — it could result in an Iraq-style quagmire.
That’s because Venezuela’s military itself is the nation’s leading drug cartel.
So any militarized U.S. counternarcotics operation in Venezuela could possibly lead to war with Venezuela. It’s a war the U.S. would easily win — the Miami-Dade police department could defeat Venezuela’s army, whose only skills are running coke and killing anti-regime protesters — but winning could mean a messy yanqui occupation of an economically collapsed dystopia.
Trump thought his MAGA minions were mad about him bombing Iran and not releasing the Epstein files? Wait till they see the U.S. Army nation-building in Maracaibo!
The Trump administration believes militarizing the hemispheric drug war is justified because it’s designated cartels like Mexico’s as terrorist groups.
I don’t really disagree with labeling narcos as terroristas. But sending the Marines abroad to do war with them is more dangerous than, say, sending the National Guard into Washington D.C.
In fact, Trump risks making the same mistake in D.C. that Calderón made in Mexico. In lieu of the real solution — having Congress fund more potent police and judicial institutions in the nation’s admittedly crime-ridden capital — he’s opted for the macho spectacle.
In the end, dope dealers and carjackers aren’t taken down by barracks warriors; they’re reined in by well trained and well equipped beat cops. And detectives. And prosecutors. And judges.
Same goes for fentanyl traffickers and cartel murderers.
So don’t wave Shock and Awe at Mexico, President Trump.
Instead, help Mexico get serious about Law and Order.
(1509x275, AR: 5.487272727272727)