President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration are reportedly anticipating to start launching military operations inside of Mexico in an effort to take out drug cartel leaders.
In interviews with Rolling Stone, however, many experts expressed skepticism and alarm about Trump's plans, as they believed it would do little to stop the supply of drugs pouring into the United States.
Carolyn Gallaher, a professor studying guerrilla and paramilitary violence at American University’s School of International Service, said that Mexico had already tried waging literal war against the cartels and found the approach to be a failure because it would set off succession fights within the cartel that would lead to an explosion in violence.
“You have to go back and think of a new strategy,” Gallaher explains to Rolling Stone. “And going and killing capos is not only not a new strategy, but it is the most failed part of the strategy on both sides of the border.”
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Former military officials who spoke with Rolling Stone under the condition of anonymity told Rolling Stone that the plans that have leaked so far remind them of the same strategies that America has used unsuccessfully in the so-called "War on Terror" that was launched after the September 11th attacks.
“That sounds a whole lot like what we did in Afghanistan for 20 years unsuccessfully," a former Marine officer tells Rolling Stone. “What’s the metric that these people are going to use that says, oh yeah, we’ve achieved a victory? We’re not fighting an army. We’re fighting poverty. Let’s fight desperation. Let’s fight hopelessness.”
“It’s Iraq all over again,” said another military vet who worked on special operations in Iraq.
