America’s Drug Problem Can’t Be Fixed With Drones and Missiles
Sending missiles across the border to blast the bad guys does nothing to alter the economic dynamics that have been driving the drug trade for years.
Mexican soldiers burn coca plants during an operation in Atoyac de Alvare, Mexico.
Photographer: ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFPThis article is for subscribers only.
The top two Republican candidates running for president are pushing a new strategy to deal with the US’s drug problem: targeting Mexican drug cartels with military action.
The problem is that drones and missiles won’t disrupt the forces that have driven the cartels for the last 50 years, from cannabis in the 1970s to cocaine in the 1980s, to methamphetamine and heroin in the 2000s, to fentanyl in the present day. If Mexico didn’t provide the drugs America demanded, someone else would.