Loose Cartel War Talk Is No Laughing Matter

One of the many disturbing things about the candidates’ war talk is how cavalier they are about a decision to use force.

The Washington Post reports on Republican presidential candidates’ continued insane talk of waging war on Mexican cartels:

“There is no magic wand, military or otherwise, that the U.S. government can wave and make this problem go away,” said Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group. “The danger is that they risk normalizing the idea that the use of force is an appropriate policy response, and given the weak practical guardrails on the president, they make ideas that should be clearly off the table on the table.”

It is tempting to write off the war talk as empty bluster, but as we saw with Trump the president can sometimes seize on a military option that no one thought he would endorse and then order an illegal attack. Trump ordered the Soleimani assassination more or less on a whim because he thought it would show “strength” and apparently because he thought it might buy him some Republican support for his first impeachment trial. That option was presented to him as something that everyone expected him to reject because it was too dangerous and extreme, but he surprised his advisers and ordered the attack. It’s not hard to imagine Trump or someone else with similar views launching attacks inside Mexico in the same way.