- 8 months ago
Why America’s Next War is Heading to Mexico
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00:00For years, the most violent armed conflict taking place in the Western Hemisphere has
00:04been raging like an inferno across Mexico, consisting of various different cartel factions
00:09all vying against one another for power, influence, and the control of lucrative narcotics trade
00:15routes and markets in the United States.
00:17This war within Mexico between the cartels and against the Mexican government has claimed
00:21the lives of around 400,000 people through violent crime-related homicides and disappearances
00:27since it began in 2006.
00:30While the fentanyl and methamphetamine that they've been smuggling across the border
00:33have been ravaging America's streets and fueling the U.S. opioid epidemic, where more than
00:38250,000 other people have died from fentanyl overdoses alone just since 2018.
00:45The numbers of fentanyl overdose deaths in the U.S. have been rising almost every single
00:49year since 2012, to the point where they were 27 times higher in 2022 than a decade previously
00:55in 2012.
00:56And despite the vast majority of illicit fentanyl originating from labs outside of the country
01:02and entering the U.S. by being smuggled by cartels across the border, and despite the
01:06fact that the Mexican government has already been officially at war with the cartels ever
01:10since 2006, the prospect of the U.S. military stepping in and taking direct action against
01:15the cartels in Mexico themselves always seemed like a fringe idea or something out of a movie
01:21for years.
01:22But over the past few months, with Donald Trump back in office again, that once-fringe idea
01:27of sending the U.S. military off to its next war with the Mexican cartels across the border
01:32has been becoming increasingly more mainstream and plausible.
01:36According to a memoir that was written by Mark Esper, Trump's Secretary of Defense during
01:40his first term, Trump allegedly asked him privately in 2020 if it would have been possible for
01:45the U.S. military to fire missiles at cartel-run drug labs in Mexico and then deny all U.S.
01:51responsibility for the attacks afterwards.
01:53Trump himself has denied that this interaction ever took place at all.
01:57But the rhetoric from him and other Republicans since then ongoing after the cartels and crushing
02:01their fentanyl operations has only grown in fervor.
02:04In March of 2023, a group of four American tourists who were mistaken for Haitian smugglers
02:10by Mexico's Gulf cartel in the border town of Matamoros were kidnapped and two of them
02:15were murdered.
02:16Even after the cartel apprehended the men who were allegedly responsible and turned them
02:20over to authorities and apologized profusely, the incident sparked an uproar in the United
02:25States and led to Republican Senator Lindsey Cram saying that he would introduce legislation
02:30to lay the groundwork for the Biden administration to deploy U.S. military force against the Mexican
02:35cartels.
02:36Something that Mexico's then-president, Andres Manuel López Obrador, better known by his
02:41initials as AMLO, rejected on the basis that it would have been a violation of Mexico sovereignty.
02:47But since AMLO left office in Mexico in late 2024 and its political successor, Claudia
02:51Scheinbaum, assumed office, the U.S. has been steadily moving the pieces into place to
02:56confront the cartels more directly anyway.
02:58Shortly after taking office in October of 2024, President Scheinbaum secretly began allowing
03:03the CIA for the first time to start running covert surveillance drone flights over Mexican
03:08airspace and territory.
03:10The extent of this secret CIA surveillance drone program over Mexico wasn't revealed
03:14for several more months until an article was released about the program by the New York
03:18Times in February of 2025.
03:21While not given any authorization to use lethal force, at least for now, the CIA drones have
03:26been busy hunting for cartel-run fentanyl labs across Mexican territory instead, whose
03:31intelligence is then passed on to Mexican authorities and likely kept by the U.S. for potential future
03:35operations.
03:37Since returning back to office again, Trump has ordered an increase in the numbers of the
03:40CIA reconnaissance drone flights that are taking place over Mexico, while he's also ordered
03:45the U.S. military to step up its own separate surveillance flights along the southern border and along
03:49Mexico's Pacific coast.
03:51Unlike the CIA, the U.S. military does not yet have formal permission to utilize Mexican airspace.
03:58But that hasn't stopped the Trump administration from using the military to acquire intelligence on the
04:02cartels anyway.
04:03Since Trump returned to office, the U.S. military has conducted more than two dozen known
04:07surveillance flights along the southern border, using a variety of spy planes and drones.
04:12Well, in early February, a U.S. Air Force RC-135V rivet joint reconnaissance aircraft carefully
04:19threaded the needle of international waters and airspace to fly deep within the Gulf of California,
04:24directly by the Mexican state of Sinaloa, home to one of Mexico's largest and most influential
04:29cartels, the Sinaloa Cartel.
04:32These increased surveillance flights under the Trump administration appear to be gathering
04:36intelligence and acquiring targets for potential future attacks.
04:39While the Trump administration has also been further laying groundwork for attacks in other
04:43ways as well.
04:45Trump's pick for the U.S. ambassador to Mexico during this administration is a man named Ronald
04:49Johnson, a former Green Beret and a veteran CIA officer with more than 20 years of prior
04:55experience leading sensitive paramilitary operations.
04:58A pick that suggests the Trump administration's coming posture towards Mexico and the cartels.
05:04Between February and March of 2025, the Trump administration sent a detachment of the Green Berets
05:08to the Luis Carpizo Naval Facility in the Mexican state of Campeche to conduct joint training
05:13exercises with Mexico's elite Naval Marine Corps.
05:17While on the 20th of February, the Trump administration took the unprecedented step of formally
05:21designating the six largest Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations or FTOs.
05:28The Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Northeast Cartel, La Nueva Familia,
05:33the Gulf Cartel, and the United Cartels.
05:35Now, historically and practically speaking, the Mexican cartels were never designated by
05:40the U.S. government as terrorist organizations in the past because there's a pretty clear
05:44difference between cartels who are basically businesses whose ultimate goal is making money
05:49and groups like Al-Qaeda or ISIS whose ultimate goals are political change and who are ideologically
05:54or religiously motivated instead.
05:56Nonetheless, the designation of the Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations by the Trump administration
06:01does not immediately open up the door to U.S. air power raining down on them in Mexico.
06:07It actually offers up no additional military tools against them all on its own.
06:11What it does do, though, is it enables U.S. financial authorities to go after the cartels'
06:15finances much more aggressively than they used to be able to do.
06:19All organizations designated as terrorist groups by the U.S. government get all of their assets
06:23frozen that are under the control of American financial institutions, while their known members
06:28are banned from entering the country and it immediately enables their deportation.
06:32However, the most significant thing that happens when a group is designated as an FTO is that
06:37it becomes illegal for U.S. citizens and even others to knowingly provide what's called
06:42material support for the group.
06:44If there's a restaurant somewhere in Mexico that pays protection money to one of the cartels,
06:48for example, this would enable the restaurant to get targeted by financial freezes or seizures
06:52due to the financial transfers with the cartel.
06:55The designation can also come with great unintended financial and economic consequences as well, though.
07:01Because of how deeply embedded many of the cartels are within Mexican society,
07:06there are countless Mexican businesses that are connected to one in some way or another.
07:10For example, for years even before Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023,
07:16American financial companies like PayPal simply refused to conduct any business in the West Bank at all.
07:21Out of fear that since Hamas was a designated foreign terrorist organization,
07:25and since Hamas was so embedded in the West Bank,
07:28that their services might have ended up getting used by someone linked to Hamas.
07:32And then, they would get come after by U.S. financial authorities.
07:35A similar dilemma can now arise in Mexico,
07:38with the six major cartels in the country now designated as foreign terrorist organizations,
07:43making U.S.-based banks, payment processors, and other financial companies operating in Mexico
07:47potentially susceptible to federal prosecution.
07:51Formally designating the six cartels as terrorist organizations
07:54also lays the groundwork in America for justifying an intervention against the declared terrorists later.
08:00Very shortly after their designation was made,
08:02Elon Musk, one of Trump's top advisors,
08:05took to X and said that meant they're eligible for drone strikes.
08:08Back in November of 2024,
08:10Trump's border czar, Tom Homan,
08:12said that the president was committed to calling the cartels terrorist organizations
08:16and using the full might of the U.S. special operations to take them out.
08:21While this new Trump administration's secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth,
08:24has also repeatedly refused to rule out the option of drone strikes
08:28and other U.S. military actions against the Mexican cartels when pressed about it,
08:32even without the express consent of the Mexican government.
08:35During a visit to the southwestern border in February,
08:38Hegseth publicly refused to rule out launching cross-border raids into Mexico to pursue the cartels,
08:44and said that all options remained on the table.
08:46But there also appears to be some degree of division within Trump's inner circle
08:51on how aggressively to go after the cartels.
08:54Based on insider reports,
08:56one of the camps in the Trump administration is being led by Sebastian Gorka,
09:00Trump's appointed senior director for counterterrorism on the White House National Security Council.
09:04Gorka's camp is apparently pushing towards using the U.S. military to aggressively pursue the cartels within Mexico
09:09and to destroy their fentanyl operations as quickly as possible,
09:13with or without the prior consent of the Mexican government.
09:17This camp argues that the urgency of the fentanyl crisis in America
09:20demands rapid and decisive action against the cartels,
09:23while the other, more cautious camp is apparently being led by Trump's homeland security advisor, Stephen Miller,
09:29who is allegedly concerned that going too hard on the cartels without the Mexican government's approval
09:34could jeopardize the cooperation between the U.S. and Mexican governments on migration and border issues,
09:39which could greatly exacerbate the numbers of migrants who are reaching the U.S. border.
09:44Mexico's relatively new president herself, Claudia Sheinbaum,
09:48has repeatedly asserted that Mexico will never accept unilateral U.S. military actions or drone strikes on Mexican territory.
09:55She has insisted that any U.S. military actions taken on Mexican territory without her government's consent
10:00would be a gross violation of Mexico's sovereignty,
10:03and that Mexico seeks cooperation or coordination with the U.S., not invasion or subordination.
10:09She has allowed the CIA to begin conducting those reconnaissance flights over Mexican airspace.
10:14She has deployed 10,000 Mexican troops to the northern border to patrol for fentanyl smuggling.
10:19She has sent more soldiers and police into the Sinaloa state,
10:22where her government has reported nearly 900 arrests just since last October.
10:26And she's already begun extraditing more than two dozen cartel operatives to the U.S. to stand trial.
10:32Nonetheless, in early April, NBC News reported that several unnamed high-level Trump administration officials
10:39were still considering launching drone strikes in Mexico against cartel targets soon,
10:44even without the Mexican government's approval.
10:47And to understand what's happening right now between the U.S. and Mexico and the cartels,
10:51it helps to understand a bit of the context behind the drug war's history
10:54and how bad the problem has gotten over time.
10:57Drug traffickers and criminal groups in Mexico began growing more organized and advanced in the 1980s,
11:03after the historical cocaine smuggling route from Colombia to Miami by sea grew more difficult to pull off,
11:09which led to the cocaine smuggling route shifting overland to the U.S. southern border through Mexico instead.
11:14Criminal drug cartels in Mexico began coalescing in regionally defined areas,
11:18and they began fighting against one another and the government for the control of these narcotics trade routes and markets in the U.S.
11:24Under President Felipe Calderón, the Mexican government officially declared war on the drug cartels in 2006
11:30and engaged with the U.S. government on a joint campaign to decapitate cartel leadership,
11:35something that they called the Kingpin Strategy.
11:38For the next six years until 2012, American intelligence agencies passed on information about the cartels to the Mexican government.
11:45U.S. law enforcement agents cooperated with Mexican law enforcement,
11:48and U.S. special forces trained up elite Mexican commandos to go after the cartels themselves.
11:53But this initial strategy had its shortcomings.
11:57Some of the Mexican special forces that were trained by the American special forces
12:00later defected and took their training and expertise with them
12:03to form one of the most fearsome Mexican drug cartels, Los Zetas,
12:07which later became the Northeast Cartel,
12:09which is one of the cartels that is now designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S.
12:15Targeting cartel leadership also often created power vacuums
12:18and triggered fierce succession crises and civil wars within the cartels,
12:22which exacerbated the levels of violence further.
12:25After Calderón's party was voted out of office in 2012,
12:28and Enrique Peña Nieto took over as Mexico's president next,
12:32he shifted the strategy away from using the Mexican military to confront the cartels
12:36back towards law enforcement agencies,
12:38and the joint military operations with the U.S. against the cartels were ended.
12:43Nonetheless, despite a brief decrease in homicides in Mexico following President Nieto's reforms,
12:48corruption and crime-related violence continued to be serious issues in the country.
12:52Near the end of his term in 2016,
12:55drug-related homicides in Mexico increased by a staggering 22%,
12:59with more than 20,000 people killed that year alone.
13:03In 2017, a mass grave that contained the remains of more than 250 victims of drug-related violence
13:10was discovered in the country's Veracruz state.
13:13And then the violence continued escalating to an all-time high peak of 33,341 reported homicides in 2018,
13:23which has remained fairly consistent at levels nearly that high every year since.
13:28The murder rate in Mexico continues to remain among the highest in the world,
13:32and is more than three times as high as it is in the U.S. next door.
13:36While between 2017 and 2020,
13:39one journalist was killed in Mexico roughly every week on average.
13:43Then, after AMLO assumed the Mexican presidency next in 2018,
13:47he began pursuing a radically different approach towards the cartels than any of his predecessors.
13:53He adopted a new policy that he called Hugs, Not Bullets,
13:56in which he sought to address the cartel violence problem by legalizing marijuana,
14:01implementing poverty alleviation programs,
14:03and rolling out new sentencing guidelines for convicted drug traffickers.
14:07He also created a new Mexican National Guard,
14:10a sort of hybrid civilian police and military force to fight against the cartels on the ground.
14:16Overall, AMLO took a very hands-off approach towards the cartels in Mexico,
14:21which effectively enabled them to flourish like they had never before.
14:24AMLO claimed, falsely, on multiple occasions that no fentanyl was even produced in Mexico at all.
14:31AMLO formally withdrew Mexico from a security cooperation agreement with the U.S. in 2021,
14:37while the numbers of disappeared people in Mexico skyrocketed under his lax administration.
14:42More people disappeared in Mexico under AMLO's presidency than during both of his predecessors combined.
14:47During the final year of his administration in 2024,
14:51an average of 37 people in Mexico disappeared every single day,
14:56while more than 120,000 people in Mexico are now listed as officially missing.
15:02So while the official homicide rate declined slightly under AMLO's leadership,
15:07the disappearance rate also skyrocketed at the same time.
15:10And since missing people are not counted by the Mexican government's statistics as homicides,
15:15the true homicide rate when counting the dramatic increases in missing people since 2018
15:20is likely far higher than the official Mexican data suggests it is.
15:25And the problems of violence and smuggling both got much worse under AMLO's watch,
15:30while the cartels grew increasingly more powerful.
15:32As it currently stands now in 2025,
15:34it's been estimated by the U.S. military that the various competing cartels in Mexico
15:39now de facto control around one-third of the entire country's territory,
15:44putting the Mexican government on a level of de facto control within their country
15:47that's about on a par with a recognized failed state like the Syrian government.
15:52Between all of the cartels combined today are an estimated 160,000 to 185,000 armed fighters and mercenaries,
16:00almost half the size of the standing Mexican armed forces themselves.
16:05Large swaths of the country in Mexico that are under cartel influence
16:08are more controlled by the cartels than by the actual government,
16:12which is why the U.S. State Department currently still maintains a level 4
16:16do-not-travel advisory to the Mexican states of Colima, Guerrero,
16:20Mijoacan, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, and Zacatecas,
16:24where cartel activities and influence are particularly well-pronounced.
16:28In addition, corruption and cartel influence across the Mexican government
16:31also runs extremely deeply.
16:34A report by the American DEA found evidence that the cartels had funneled millions of dollars
16:39into the 2006 presidential campaign of AMLO, for example.
16:43In 2020, U.S. law enforcement arrested the former Mexican defense secretary
16:47while he was visiting Los Angeles on a sprawling indictment
16:51that accused him of accepting bribes from one of the cartels
16:54and of using his position to assist with drug smuggling.
16:57Well, in 2024, the former Mexican secretary of public security
17:01was also sentenced to 38 years in prison for his role in accepting bribes from the Sinaloa cartel.
17:07Facts that now present significant challenges to the prospect of the U.S. military
17:11cooperating with the Mexican government against the cartels.
17:15If the cartel's influence extends high enough up through the government
17:18to the Mexican president's own cabinet positions,
17:21to what extent can the Mexican government be trusted
17:23to not leak information about impending U.S. military plans to the cartels.
17:29It's for this reason why the more hawkish members of the Trump administration
17:32advocate for more heavy-handed unilateral military action against the cartels,
17:36even without the support of the Mexican government,
17:39which they view as being too corrupt and compromised by the cartels themselves.
17:43Now, while there are multiple cartels operating within Mexico today,
17:46the biggest and most fearsome two right now are the Sinaloa
17:49and the Jalisco New Generation cartels.
17:52And they are the two that will most likely become the targets
17:54of any potential direct U.S. military attacks involving drone strikes or special forces raids.
18:00These two large cartels are responsible for the overwhelming majority of narcotics
18:04that enter into the United States today,
18:06including nearly all of the illicit fentanyl and methamphetamine in America.
18:10What sets the Sinaloa cartel apart from the others, in particular,
18:14is also the cartel's very close ties to China and the fentanyl trade route.
18:18The Sinaloa cartel dominates Mexico's Pacific port of Mazatlan within their home Sinaloa state,
18:25through which they're able to import large quantities of precursor chemicals
18:28necessary for fentanyl production from China.
18:31Sinaloa cartel chemical brokers will purchase Chinese-made chemical ingredients for fentanyl
18:36and then smuggle them into Mexico, where they arrive at the cartel's drug labs
18:40and are transformed into high-grade synthetic fentanyl,
18:43in either pill or powder form, which is then smuggled across the border into the United States,
18:48carried in smaller packages by individual drug mules,
18:51or in large quantities co-mingled with legitimate trade goods carried by trailers,
18:55where they have been ravaging American communities for years.
18:59Drug-related overdose deaths in the U.S. have been steadily rising since the 2010s,
19:04as the supply of fentanyl and methamphetamine into the country from Mexico has increased too,
19:09to the point where in 2022 alone, the CDC reported that more than 107,000 Americans
19:15died from drug-related overdoses, 70% resulting from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids,
19:22and the other 30% resulting from methamphetamine and other synthetic stimulants,
19:26the majorities of both of which come into the country through the Sinaloa
19:30and the Jalisco New Generation cartels.
19:32It is the deadliest and most serious drug epidemic that the United States has ever faced in its history,
19:38and the sheer brazenness of the Sinaloa cartel's willingness to partner with chemical companies
19:43from the biggest U.S. state adversary to flood the U.S. with synthetic drugs,
19:48underscores how serious of a problem this has become.
19:52But the flow of deadly drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine
19:55in one direction from Mexico north to the U.S. is only one half of the problem.
20:00The other half of this problem that's often left out of these conversations in the American context
20:05is the simultaneously enormous flow of weapons and arms
20:08in the other direction southward from the U.S. across the border into Mexico.
20:13Throughout the entirety of Mexico right now,
20:15there is only just a single legal gun store to purchase firearms at.
20:19And yet, despite that,
20:21there are millions of firearms that can be easily found in Mexico
20:24that were manufactured in the United States.
20:27It's been estimated that somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 U.S.-made firearms
20:32are smuggled south across the border into Mexico every single year,
20:36a problem so significant that Mexican authorities often refer to it as the Iron River.
20:41The Mexican government has claimed that between 70 to 90% of the guns used for crimes in Mexico
20:46have been illegally trafficked into the country from the U.S.,
20:50while the U.S. government itself has reported that more than 40% of the illegal firearms
20:55seized by authorities in Mexico over a five-year period
20:58came exclusively from the state of Texas.
21:01So while the cartels have flooded the American side of the border
21:04with synthetic drugs that have fueled America's opioid and drug epidemics,
21:08it can also be argued that American gun manufacturers and sellers
21:11have also flooded the Mexican side of the border with firearms
21:15that has fueled the violence and war surrounding the cartels in Mexico's long drug war.
21:21And as a result of this long Iron River,
21:23the cartels have been steadily able to transform themselves
21:26into some of the most powerful and well-equipped non-state actors in the world.
21:30They are now known to possess heavy weaponry like belt-fed Gatling guns,
21:34armored personnel carriers,
21:36and even their own custom-made tank contraptions that are usually called narco tanks.
21:40The cartels are also known to have adept bomb-making skills
21:43and a proficiency in using IEDs,
21:46as evidenced by a recent incident in 2023
21:48when Tucson, Arizona Border Patrol agents came under fire from cartel members,
21:53and then after pursuing them,
21:54discovered 10 cartel-placed IEDs along the border.
21:58As early as 2010,
21:59the cartels have also made a pioneering use of drones in multiple applications
22:03to deliver drugs across the border,
22:06to navigate the flows of migrants from above in real time,
22:09and as weapons to attack their enemies with,
22:11Apparently having taken lessons from the war in Ukraine,
22:14the Mexican cartels have recently been using drones to drop explosives on their enemies
22:18during assassination or terror campaigns.
22:21The cartels are also known to possess an arsenal of landmines,
22:25while recent reported weapon seizures from Mexican authorities
22:28indicates that their arsenals may be becoming even more sophisticated.
22:31In early 2024,
22:33Mexican authorities reported to have seized a heat-seeking FIM-92 Stinger
22:38surface-to-air missile from the Sinaloa cartel,
22:41which is theoretically capable of downing a commercial airliner.
22:44While shortly afterwards,
22:45Mexican authorities also reported to have separately seized
22:48two U.S.-made Javelin anti-tank systems
22:51from the Jalisco New Generation cartel,
22:53meaning that the two most powerful cartels right now
22:56are likely advanced enough
22:57to have significant anti-air and anti-tank capabilities.
23:00Regardless,
23:01while significantly out-equipping most law enforcement agencies in Mexico,
23:04the cartels' firepower training and capabilities
23:07are still nowhere near on the same scale as the U.S. military is.
23:11Probably the biggest obstacle standing in the way of the U.S. military
23:14actually attacking the cartels then
23:16are the multiple legal roadblocks standing in the way instead.
23:20Since the Mexican government has repeatedly made it explicitly clear
23:23that they will never consent to unilateral U.S. military actions
23:26on Mexican territory
23:27and have sworn to defend their sovereignty,
23:30international law prohibits the United States
23:32from taking military action in Mexico
23:34except through a very narrow exception.
23:37Article 2, paragraph 4 of the U.N. Charter
23:39explicitly prohibits
23:41the threat or use of force
23:42against the territorial integrity
23:44or political independence of any state.
23:47However, article 51 of the U.N. Charter later
23:49also carves out a narrow exception to this,
23:53noting that nothing in the Charter
23:54shall impair the inherent right of individual
23:57or collective self-defense
23:58if an armed attack occurs against a U.N. member.
24:02It's conceivable then
24:03that in order to justify U.S. military strikes on Mexican cartels
24:07through the lens of international law,
24:09the Trump administration would probably try to argue
24:12that the level of destruction and death
24:13that's been caused in America
24:15by the cartels' fentanyl and methamphetamine smuggling operations
24:18entitles it to use military force against them
24:21on Mexican territory
24:22while acting in self-defense.
24:25Regardless of how destructive
24:26the fentanyl and methamphetamine crisis
24:28has been in America, however,
24:30the smuggling of those narcotics into the U.S.
24:32does not really represent
24:34an armed attack on the country
24:35in the way that article 51 of the U.N. Charter envisioned.
24:39Thus, without the Mexican government's cooperation,
24:42any U.S. military strikes on the cartels in Mexico
24:44would almost certainly be interpreted
24:46as a violation of international law at best,
24:49and could be interpreted as an act of war on Mexico at worst,
24:53especially if the strikes end up killing
24:55large numbers of Mexican civilians,
24:57which are likely.
24:58This is the same counsel
25:00that Trump's former defense secretary, Mark Esper,
25:02is said to have cautioned about
25:04when Trump allegedly first brought up the idea
25:06of firing missiles at drug labs in Mexico back in 2020.
25:09It would put the bilateral relationship
25:11between the U.S. and Mexico
25:12into an irreversible nosedive,
25:15and it could lead to massive unintended consequences,
25:17like Mexico simply deciding to stop cooperating
25:20with the U.S. altogether
25:21on migration issues along the border.
25:24Mexico is, to put it politely,
25:26also extremely sensitive to the U.S. military
25:29taking unilateral actions inside of their country.
25:32In the early 20th century,
25:33the U.S. military repeatedly intervened
25:36in Mexico's affairs
25:37and conducted operations on Mexico's territory
25:39without the government's consent.
25:41In 1914, the U.S. military decided to seize
25:44and occupy the Mexican port of Veracruz
25:46for seven months
25:48that killed around 160 Mexicans in the process.
25:52While for 10 months between 1916 and 1917,
25:55the U.S. sent around 10,000 of their soldiers
25:57across the border into the Chihuahua state of Mexico
26:00in a manhunt for Pancho Villa,
26:02a Mexican revolutionary
26:03whose forces had attacked a border town in New Mexico.
26:07Throw in the very long history
26:09of U.S. and CIA-led operations
26:11throughout the Latin America region
26:12for the past century,
26:13and you get an idea of why Mexico
26:16wouldn't exactly trust the intentions
26:18of the U.S. military
26:19and the CIA operating in Mexico again next.
26:23Nonetheless,
26:24the recent actions of the U.S. military
26:25and of Trump himself
26:26during his first term in office
26:28may be indicative of what actions
26:30they'll ultimately take
26:31against the Mexican cartels next.
26:33The U.S. military
26:34and the Obama administration,
26:36after all,
26:36didn't really care at all
26:37about Pakistan's sovereignty
26:39or asking Pakistan for prior permission
26:41before they sent in a SEAL team
26:43deep into Pakistan
26:44to kill Osama bin Laden in 2011
26:46due to fears
26:47that the Pakistani government
26:49was potentially compromised
26:50and might have tipped bin Laden off
26:52if they knew about it.
26:53While Trump himself
26:54has historically been very against
26:56large-scale U.S. troop deployments
26:58like in Iraq or Afghanistan,
27:00he frequently authorized drone
27:01in missile strikes
27:02and special forces raids
27:03to expand and intensify other conflicts.
27:06In 2017 and 2018,
27:08he ordered U.S. missile strikes
27:10in Syria against the Assad regime
27:11in response to their use
27:13of chemical weapons,
27:14which was also probably
27:15a violation of the U.N. charter.
27:17He authorized the special forces raid
27:19in Syria in 2019
27:20that killed the leader of ISIS.
27:22And perhaps most indicative
27:24of how he might act in Mexico,
27:25Trump also authorized
27:26the controversial drone strike
27:28that killed General Qasem Soleimani
27:30in early 2020.
27:31Eight months before
27:33that drone strike,
27:34the Trump administration
27:34designated Iran's
27:36Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
27:37or IRGC,
27:39one of the branches
27:39of the Iranian state military,
27:41as a terrorist organization.
27:43Soleimani was then the commander
27:44of the IRGC's Quds Force,
27:47basically Iran's version
27:48of the CIA.
27:49While he was at the airport
27:50in Baghdad, Iraq
27:51in early 2020,
27:52Trump authorized a drone strike
27:54that assassinated him
27:55without asking for approval
27:56first from the Iraqi government.
27:58The drone strike killed
28:0010 people,
28:01including Soleimani,
28:02and enraged the Iraqi government,
28:04which characterized the incident
28:05as a violation
28:06of its national sovereignty
28:07and considered it a breach
28:08of its security arrangement
28:09with the United States.
28:11Shortly afterward,
28:12the Iraqi parliament
28:13passed a non-binding resolution
28:15to expel
28:15all remaining American troops
28:17from the country.
28:18The incident also
28:19might have set a precedent
28:20for the Trump administration's
28:21potential future actions
28:23in Mexico,
28:23since Trump had the IRGC
28:25designated as a terrorist organization,
28:27and then ordered a drone strike
28:28on their most senior leader
28:30just eight months later
28:31without requesting approval
28:32of the government
28:33where the drone strike
28:34took place in beforehand.
28:36Similar actions
28:37could also take place
28:38in the future
28:38against the now terrorist
28:40designated cartel leadership
28:41in Mexico.
28:43So based on Trump's
28:43own historical preferences
28:44for taking covert actions
28:46against designated terrorist groups,
28:48like drone strikes
28:49and limited special forces raids,
28:51these are probably
28:51the same kinds of tactics
28:53that he's currently thinking
28:54about applying
28:54to the Mexican cartels as well.
28:56While he's probably also
28:57using the CIA drone flights
28:59that are already
29:00taking place over Mexico
29:01and the military surveillance flights
29:03that are already taking place
29:04along the borders
29:04and coastlines of Mexico
29:06to build out a targeting deck
29:07for future attacks.
29:09Nonetheless,
29:10there will be multiple problems
29:11with straight-up military attacks
29:13on the cartels
29:13beyond all of the legal
29:15and geopolitical issues.
29:17Fentanyl, in particular,
29:18is produced completely differently
29:19than plant-based drugs are.
29:21Fentanyl can be produced
29:22in large quantities
29:23in relatively small labs.
29:25And the cartels' Fentanyl labs
29:27are often located
29:28in densely populated,
29:29crowded urban areas
29:30and in people's own homes.
29:32Targeting these labs
29:33with drone strikes
29:34has very high potential
29:36to cause mass civilian casualties,
29:38which would further
29:39inflame tensions
29:40between the Mexican
29:41and U.S. governments.
29:42Sending in special forces raids
29:44instead to attack
29:45the labs on the ground
29:46could also result
29:47in American soldiers
29:48becoming casualties
29:49or getting captured
29:50by the cartels
29:51or even by the Mexican government.
29:52also sparking
29:53a major potential
29:55political crisis.
29:56Moreover,
29:57Fentanyl labs
29:58are also low-tech
29:59and much easier to replace
30:00than conventional
30:01plant-based drug production is.
30:03Blowing up
30:03or capturing
30:04a bunch of Fentanyl labs
30:05does nothing
30:06to stop the cartels
30:07from just setting up
30:07more of them afterwards,
30:09especially so long
30:10as the demand
30:11for synthetic narcotics
30:12within the U.S.
30:13remains unchanged
30:14and lucrative.
30:15The Trump administration's idea
30:17would be to employ
30:18maximum military pressure
30:19on the cartels
30:20by assassinating their leaders,
30:22blowing up their labs
30:23and disrupting their logistics
30:24in order to try
30:25and compel them
30:26into abandoning
30:27the Fentanyl
30:27and Methamphetamine trade
30:28to the United States
30:29and to critically abandon
30:31their commercial relationships
30:32with state adversaries
30:33like China,
30:34particularly acute
30:36for the Sinaloa cartel's
30:37close business with China
30:38in the overall
30:39Fentanyl supply chain.
30:41In some ways,
30:42there's already
30:42a few early signs
30:43that this strategy
30:44could actually
30:45kind of be working.
30:47Just this February,
30:48open source intelligence
30:49appeared to indicate
30:50that the Metros
30:51and the Grupo
30:51Escorpion cartels
30:53managed to broker
30:54a ceasefire
30:54between them
30:55and the Mexican
30:55border state
30:56of Tamaulipas
30:57and that their
30:58ceasefire terms
30:59notably included
31:00a call to end
31:01their fentanyl trafficking
31:02into South Texas,
31:04potentially out of a fear
31:05of incurring
31:06the overwhelming wrath
31:08of the U.S. military
31:09and their foreign
31:10terrorist organization
31:11designations.
31:12On the one hand,
31:13the cartels
31:14are not ideological
31:15terror organizations
31:16and they effectively
31:17operate as businesses.
31:18When ideological terror
31:20organizations like
31:20Al-Qaeda or ISIS
31:21are attacked,
31:22they often dig
31:23themselves in
31:24and continue the fight
31:24no matter how badly
31:26their organization
31:26gets bloodied.
31:28If the cartels
31:28begin losing access
31:29to their revenue streams
31:30and their resources
31:31begin coming under
31:32threat by the military,
31:33they, on the other hand,
31:35are much more likely
31:36to adapt and negotiate
31:37instead of continuing
31:38on fighting
31:39without the ideological
31:40incentive.
31:41But at the same time,
31:42there's also a risk
31:43that taking direct
31:44U.S. military action
31:46against the cartels
31:47will also encourage
31:48the cartels
31:48to retaliate
31:49in uncertain
31:50and unpredictable ways.
31:53Historically,
31:54the cartels
31:54have avoided
31:55deliberately attacking
31:56American citizens
31:57out of a fear
31:58of encouraging
31:58a U.S. military response,
32:01as evidenced
32:01by the Gulf cartels
32:02apology in 2023
32:03after they mistakenly
32:05killed those two
32:06American citizens.
32:07However,
32:08if the U.S. military
32:09was already actively
32:10bombing their drug labs
32:11and assassinating
32:12their leadership
32:13with special forces raids,
32:15they would have
32:15no more incentive
32:16to show any restraint.
32:18And they might even
32:19be incentivized
32:20to begin carrying out
32:20attacks targeting
32:22Americans for leverage
32:23and reprisals
32:24to try and force
32:25the U.S. government
32:26into halting their attacks.
32:28There are around
32:281.6 million U.S. citizens
32:30who currently live
32:31in Mexico
32:32who might find themselves
32:33the target of attacks
32:34in the crossfire,
32:35to say nothing
32:36of the millions
32:37of American tourists
32:38who travel to Mexico
32:39every single year.
32:41No matter which option
32:42the Trump administration
32:43ultimately takes
32:44towards the cartels
32:44south of the border,
32:46risks abound.
32:47Cooperating with
32:48the Mexican government
32:48against the cartels
32:49risks critical information
32:51leaking to the cartels
32:52through corrupt
32:53Mexican government officials.
32:54While sidelining
32:55the Mexican government
32:56altogether
32:56and attacking the cartels
32:58unilaterally,
32:59risks crashing
32:59the relationship
33:00between the U.S.
33:01and Mexico
33:01and compromising
33:02their historical cooperation
33:04on the border
33:04and migration.
33:05While it further risks
33:06incentivizing the cartels
33:08to begin initiating
33:08terroristic attacks
33:09on American citizens
33:10and U.S. interests.
33:12potentially exacerbating
33:13the conflict
33:14and drawing the U.S. military
33:15further into the war
33:16in another Afghanistan
33:17in the mountains
33:18south of the border.
33:20Any chance of being
33:21successful in the long run
33:22can also not be
33:23simply based on
33:24attacking the cartels
33:25operations and leadership
33:26and eliminating
33:27their members.
33:28So long as the
33:29unquenchable demand
33:30for narcotics
33:30in the U.S.
33:31still remains high,
33:33so long as the flow
33:34of guns back across
33:35the border
33:35from the U.S.
33:36into Mexico
33:36remains unchecked
33:37like an iron river,
33:39and so long as
33:40the Mexican government's
33:40authority over
33:41its own territory
33:42remains decentralized,
33:43weak, and corrupt,
33:45the problem will
33:45just continue persisting,
33:47and new cartels
33:48and leaders
33:48will just replace
33:49the ones that are
33:50destroyed to fill
33:51in the power vacuum.
33:52A multifaceted approach
33:54to the long drug war
33:55is needed
33:56that also addresses
33:57the root causes
33:57of the conflict
33:58in the first place.
34:00But addressing
34:00those root causes
34:01will be no simple task.
34:03The Mexican drug war
34:04for years
34:04has been among
34:05the most violent,
34:06destructive,
34:06and longest-lasting
34:07conflicts of the
34:08entire 21st century.
34:10that has evolved
34:10through multiple phases
34:11that have seen
34:12many different cartels
34:13and leaders
34:13come and go
34:14throughout the years.
34:15Crushing one cartel
34:17and eliminating
34:17their leadership
34:18without addressing
34:18the root causes
34:19will never put an end
34:20to the conflict.
34:21And no other cartel leader
34:23throughout this entire conflict
34:24has been as powerful
34:25or as well-known
34:26as Joaquin Guzman,
34:27better known by his nickname
34:29of El Chapo,
34:30whose arrest and extradition
34:31to the United States
34:32in 2017
34:33did nothing to end
34:34the drug war's
34:35violence and chaos.
34:36El Chapo was the leader
34:37of Mexico's
34:38Sinaloa Cartel
34:39for years.
34:40And at his height,
34:41he was arguably
34:42even more powerful
34:43than Pablo Escobar
34:44had managed to become
34:45in Colombia
34:45in the 1980s.
34:47His sprawling empire
34:48was once estimated
34:49to be responsible
34:50for an entire quarter
34:51of all the illegal drugs
34:52that were entering
34:53into the United States,
34:54largely through a network
34:55of at least 90 underground tunnels
34:57that he had ordered
34:58constructed between
34:59the US and Mexico.
35:00A multi-billionaire,
35:02El Chapo is believed
35:03to be personally responsible
35:04for the deaths
35:05of tens of thousands
35:06of people.
35:07And for years,
35:08he was the most wanted man
35:09in the Western Hemisphere,
35:10with a total amount
35:11of bounties on his head
35:12that nearly equaled
35:13$10 million.
35:15Constantly elusive,
35:16he managed to escape prison
35:18multiple times
35:18after being arrested,
35:20most infamously in 2015
35:21when he escaped
35:22from Mexico's
35:23Altiplano Maximum Security Prison
35:25through an elaborate tunnel
35:26that he had his men
35:27construct beneath the prison
35:28without being noticed.
35:30After that escape,
35:31El Chapo became arguably
35:32the most wanted fugitive
35:33in the entire world
35:34by both the US
35:35and Mexican governments.
35:37And a worldwide manhunt
35:38for his recapture began,
35:40the scale of which
35:41has rarely ever been seen
35:42before or since.
35:44I also made an entire video
35:45about the years-long
35:46manhunt for El Chapo
35:47and how the US
35:48and Mexican governments
35:49were eventually able
35:50to locate and capture him
35:51in my Modern Conflict series,
35:53which I create new videos
35:55in every single month,
35:56taking deeper dyes
35:57into more recent,
35:58controversial,
35:59and darker subject material
36:00surrounding modern wars
36:01operations and conflicts.
36:03Over the past four years,
36:05I've personally created
36:06nearly 50 total episodes
36:08in Modern Conflicts
36:09covering topics as diverse
36:10as the US's
36:11manhunt for Osama bin Laden
36:12and the pathway
36:13that led up to that point
36:14in the 9-11 attacks.
36:16An hour-by-hour analysis
36:18into the events
36:18that took place
36:19during Hamas's attack
36:20on Israel on October 7th
36:22and Israel's subsequent
36:23full-scale invasion of Gaza,
36:25along with how the US
36:26led a coalition
36:26that eventually destroyed ISIS
36:28across Iraq and Syria,
36:29how the US military campaigns
36:31in Iraq and Afghanistan
36:32began and evolved with time,
36:34and dozens of other episodes
36:35with brand new ones
36:36like the manhunt for El Chapo
36:38coming out every single month
36:39all exclusively on Nebula.
36:42Because of the inherently
36:43violent controversial
36:44and recent nature
36:45of discussing the details
36:46of the manhunt
36:47for arguably the most wanted
36:48violent criminal
36:49of the entire 21st century,
36:51this episode covering
36:52the manhunt for El Chapo
36:53would never work on YouTube
36:55because it would instantly
36:56be demonetized
36:57and age-restricted,
36:58which means that YouTube's
36:59algorithm,
37:00which is based on
37:00showing you ads,
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37:03to you or promote it.
37:05I deal with very large numbers
37:07of my videos on YouTube
37:08getting demonetized
37:09and age-restricted
37:10as they are,
37:11and that's why I upload
37:11all of my episodes
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37:13exclusively to Nebula,
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37:40And that's why there's
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37:54and so, so many others.
37:57I also know that there's
37:58a lot of streaming platforms
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38:03But I also know that
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38:05all the way through to the end,
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38:08that you'll love as well.
38:10And so much more
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