Should US send troops to fight Mexican drug cartels? It's not a good idea.

A growing chorus of voices has called for the deployment of U.S. troops against drug cartels, especially after the murder of two American citizens in Mexico.

U.S. Reps. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, and Michael Waltz, R-Fla., have introduced a joint resolution in Congress to authorize the president to use the armed forces for this purpose. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., pledged to introduce similar legislation designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said it was a mistake not to have bombed meth labs in Mexico when then-President Donald Trump asked his secretary of Defense about this possibility. Former Attorney General William Barr has even pressed for military action, "whether or not the Mexican government participates."

Blaming Mexico comes with a long history

The idea of blaming and punishing Mexico has been politically expedient – from the U.S. Army’s punitive expedition against Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution to Trump’s tweet in 2019 that it was time for the United States to “wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth.”

Relying on Mexico as a scapegoat also has bipartisan appeal, as Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama also reportedly considered designating the cartels as terrorist organizations.

From Rep. Dan Crenshaw: Mexican drug cartels are terrorizing Americans. Here's how the US needs to fight back.

While the objective of addressing drug-related violence south of the border should be a priority for both the U.S. and Mexican governments, military force is likely to exacerbate the problem, instead of resolving it.

There is growing evidence that the militarization of anti-drug efforts contributes to additional violence, without any long-term reduction in the demand or supply of drugs. It is also based on the false premise that drug trafficking organizations magically disappear at the border, as if only Mexicans participated in the multibillion dollar business, instead of having intricate binational networks that meet Americans’ demand of narcotics in the United States.

While reaching for U.S.-led military solutions might make for flashy headlines and score easy political points, a real commitment to addressing drug-related violence requires other, more effective measures from both governments.

Mexico must strengthen its judiciary to reduce the rampant impunity that allows drug trafficking organizations to operate without consequences. It should also invest in developing civilian police that can gradually replace the armed forces in law enforcement.

US needs to reduce number of guns funneled to Mexico

In turn, the United States can start by restricting the flow of weapons into Mexico and getting serious about financial controls to choke drug cartels' finances.

What's the endgame?: White House is fine with the chaos it created at the border

As long as there is demand for drugs in the United States, no military operation, even by highly trained U.S. forces, will prove effective in reducing drug trafficking. Instead, the consequences from a fallout in U.S.-Mexico relations if Washington intervened unilaterally with military force would be dire.

Not only would much-needed cooperation between the two countries regarding immigration, national security, energy security and the environment shut down entirely, but disrupting a commercial relationship worth about $700 billion with one of the United States' main trade partners would be foolish.

We should be wary of easy solutions offered to address complex problems, such as the international drug trade. Decades of a militarized approach to anti-narcotics efforts in Latin America have clearly shown that the approach is ineffective at best.

With so many lives at stake – more than 107,000 annual overdose deaths in the United States alone – legislators and policymakers have a responsibility to make evidence-based decisions rather than falling back on popular but ineffective political slogans.

Gustavo Flores-Macías is associate vice provost for International Affairs and professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University. His research focuses on the consequences of the militarization of anti-drug efforts.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Republicans want US troops to fight Mexican cartels. That's a bad idea