Beyond Illicit Drugs: How the US is Expanding the Scope of Armed Conflict

Illicit drugs are having a moment. This is not the first time the United States has prioritized illicit drugs, but it is the first time in decades the issue has been framed not merely as a matter of public health and safety, but a direct threat to US national security. In 1971, President Richard Nixon famously declared illicit drugs “public enemy number one,” ushering in an era of strict drug control that would later become known as “the war on drugs.” The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush built on this foundation. Throughout his presidency, Reagan repeatedly referred to illicit drugs as a “menace” and dramatically increased enforcement and interdiction. And in a national address in 1989, Bush called illicit drugs the “gravest domestic threat facing the nation” and later launched Operation Just Cause to arrest Panamanian President Manuel Noriega ostensibly due to his involvement in drug trafficking.

Fifty years later, the (mostly) rhetorical war on drugs has morphed into a literal war on drugs. In the past year, the Trump administration determined the United States is in a “non-international armed conflict with drug cartels,” designated multiple cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), declared illicit fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction,” conducted dozens of kinetic strikes against reported drug trafficking vessels, and executed a daring nighttime raid to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, justified in part by his alleged role leading the Cártel de los Soles. This reflects a dramatic shift in how Washington conceptualizes illicit drugs—as a battlefield problem rather than a law enforcement challenge—and challenges prevailing international norms governing the use of force and non-intervention. Following Maduro’s ouster, many have speculated about who might be next (myself included). Rather than focusing on individual actors, maybe we should be thinking about the threats themselves. Today it’s illicit drugs, tomorrow could it be something else?

Historically, the US has exercised caution when responding to low-intensity threats such as transnational organized crime, cyberattacks, economic coercion, and disinformation campaigns, relying primarily on traditional tools like law enforcement, diplomatic engagement, and international cooperation to blunt their worst effects. However, the tactical success of Operation Absolute Resolve and the broader militarization of the war on drugs could embolden the US to use force more freely to confront a wide array of nonmilitary threats. This aligns with the administration’s newly released US National Security Strategy, which suggests multiple asymmetric threats are comparable to a military attack: “We want to protect this country, its people, its territory, its economy, and its way of life from military attack and hostile foreign influence, whether espionage, predatory trade practices, drug and human trafficking, destructive propaganda and influence operations, cultural subversion, or any other threat to our nation.”

To date, illicit drugs have been the clearest example of the US taking a more aggressive approach towards nonmilitary threats, but we’ve also begun to see it manifest elsewhere, for example, with the deployment of thousands of active-duty and National Guard troops along the Southwest Border, the seizure of foreign oil tankers, and threats to wrest control of the Panama Canal, among others. These actions illustrate an evolving pattern, where tools and strategies once reserved for armed conflict are being repurposed for issues traditionally resolved through non-military means. As the US expands its concept of national security, there is a risk that every threat—criminal, economic, or otherwise—merits a military response. As the saying goes, “to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

While it’s refreshing to see policymakers recognize the dangers posed by illicit drugs and other nontraditional threats, experience has shown that complex problems rarely have simple solutions. Military operations like Operation Absolute Resolve may deliver “quick wins,” but in the long term they may cause more harm than good, blurring the lines between crime and war, normalizing the use of force, and leading to greater instability. Moreover, redefining terms like “armed attack,” “imminent threat,” and “self-defense” sets a dangerous precedent that could reshape how the United States—and its enemies—confront perceived threats. If the US can attack Venezuela for its role in drug trafficking, what’s to stop China from invading Taiwan on a similarly flimsy basis?

The idea of using military force to address nonmilitary threats is alluring, and decisive operations like Operation Absolute Resolve increase the temptation, but what begins as an exception quickly becomes the rule.

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