It would never happen but why not annex Mexico? Send in special forces to wipe out the biggest cartels and put the entire country under Marshall law for x amount of years until they are transitioned into US states.
The southern border of Mexico is much easier to manage. Would give us full control of gulf etc. US could be more influential on some of those smaller Mexican border countries.
"I don't see any solution that involves UKRAINE remaining an independent country. Corruption is so deep they will just find the next thing to make money off. Illegal pharmaceuticals, etc.
It would never happen, but why not annex UKRAINE? Send in special forces to wipe out the biggest bureaucrats and put the entire country under Marshall Law for x amount of years until they are transitioned into RUSSIAN REPUBLICS.
The southern border of UKRAINE is much easier to manage. Would give us full control of Black Sea, etc. RUSSIA could be more influential on some of those smaller UKRAINIAN border countries."
I mean. This is HN so I'm presuming no /s tag was inferred? You want to invade a sovereign country because the US has an insatiable drug habit?
Beyond that, your argument was scarily like you were shitposting while LARP-ing as Putin.
After CA made it only a misdemeanor to illegally grow marijuana the cartels setup shop inside the US.
Is cocaine their only revenue? I think it would have to include anything they are bringing into the country that gets entirely legalized such as making fentanyl non-RX. I can not imagine pharma lobbyists being OK with this.
Assuming cocaine was their only revenue and I am just guessing but perhaps if federal, state, county and city governments did not add bureaucracy, gave businesses a quick path to being productive and did not put a high tax burden on them then maybe. Anything that adds friction or high cost overhead could give cartels a competitive advantage. There is a higher cost overhead to operating a business legally. Subsidizing a few years of startup costs and giving major tax incentives for a decade may help to change purchasing behavior.
The drug industry is huge. These people have become accustomed to a better lifestyle. They are not going back to growing corn on a dusty hillside or working as unskilled laborers. I would expect the consequence of abolishing cocaine prohibition to result in a huge increase in other criminal activity. Protection would probably be the biggest, and that could easily spread across borders.
Also, given how American policy seems to have to explore and exhaust all the bad options before settling on some mediocre option, I expect that the first policy choices might actually turn out to be harmful.
