United States | News & Politics

A forever war is, at its core, the pursuit of a nebulous objective against an irregular actor on an open-ended timeline. Tragically, the MAGA fever dream of cartel wars in Mexico fits this description down to the letter. Much like efforts to uproot the Taliban or Hamas, “destroying the cartels” is a nebulous and unrealistic goal for the simple reason that drug traffickers are deeply enmeshed within a domestic population. Organized crime, moreover, is driven by profit as opposed to ideology; takedowns of various cartels or kingpings are unlikely to eliminate markets for illicit services.