DeSantis and America's Intervention Addiction

The growing enthusiasm for a military option in Mexico just shows how addicted to military intervention many Republicans are.

Ron DeSantis is trying to catch up with the other Republican hawks that want to attack Mexico:

DeSantis, who’s trailing Trump in national polls by wide margins, is promising to send Navy and Coast Guard resources to block fentanyl-related Chinese precursor chemicals from reaching Mexican ports, "if the Mexican government drags its feet" in assisting.

DeSantis also says that he would “reserve the right to operate across the border to secure our territory from Mexican cartel activities,” which is another way of saying that he would order incursions into Mexican territory without its government’s permission. These are exceptionally bad ideas for all the reasons I have discussed before. Aggressive policies like these are very likely to backfire on the United States by provoking more violence in border communities and greater instability leading to increased migration. They would definitely poison our relationship with Mexico for decades to come. What makes these proposals even worse is that they seek to apply a more militarized solution to a drug war that has been failing for generations. We know in advance that they aren’t going to make a dent in the distribution and use of fentanyl.

Trying to cut off chemical supplies with a blockade of ports would not only be an act of war against Mexico, but it would also require a huge commitment of ships and personnel to try to enforce it. Even if the Mexican government were willing to cooperate (and they wouldn’t be), it would be a major undertaking that would eat up limited Navy and Coast Guard resources on a fool’s errand. It’s bad enough to commit unprovoked acts of war against a neighboring country, but to do it with no possibility of achieving the desired goals would be moronic.

Any interruption that a blockade achieved would be limited and temporary, and narcotraffickers would find other sources to make their product in any case. Drug use can’t be bludgeoned out of existence through the threat and use of force. The growing enthusiasm for a military option in Mexico just shows how addicted to military intervention many Republicans are. If they can’t get a new war with Iran or China right now, they will have to get their fix by striking out at Mexico.

We can hope that nothing will come from all this agitation for war in Mexico, but it is disturbing that so many presidential candidates are toying with such a reprehensible idea. Aggressive policy ideas that were once widely ridiculed can end up being embraced if their advocates get access to the levers of government. Lots of people laughed at Trump’s pledge to rip the nuclear deal as an obviously stupid position (and it was that), but he did it anyway and we are left dealing with the aftermath.

It would be comforting to dismiss these proposals as nothing more than campaign demagoguery, but that is too easy. If candidates run and win on a platform that includes intervention in Mexico, it is entirely possible that they will make good on their threats. If a candidate says that he will wage illegal war against our neighbor, we should assume that he means it and treat it as the disqualification that it is.

One thing we can say for sure is that DeSantis is returning to his roots as a hardliner and a panderer to hardliners. Anyone that was pretending that DeSantis was some sort of would-be restrainer has no excuse for believing that now. If you want a more peaceful foreign policy, DeSantis isn’t on your side and he never will be.