Jack of Harts

The important thing to understand about the Drug Wars is that they did not end drug use in the Americas. They did not even end the drug cartels or kill all of the Drug Lords. Many escaped the scorched earth campaign that wiped out their fellows. It also did not end government corruption or otherwise build a new utopia on the bones of Old Mexico and the drug cartel leadership. The Americans had learned in previous decades that swarming in and attempting to build perfect new nations on the bones of old ones did not work, so they did not try. Their goal was to destroy drug cartel power in Mexico and find locals willing to build local governments that the Americans could leave behind when they were done. They took great care in attempting to water that idea everywhere they went.

The most surprising historical aspect of the final Drug Wars was how brutal and quick they were. Both human and AI intelligence services knew who the enemies were and roughly where to find them, and legal matters like jurisdiction were simply ignored. The Americans simply marched, drove, or flew in and shot everything and everybody affiliated with the drug cartels until they were very dead. It was a war with a singular set of targets that the Americans neutralized before moving on in a lightning campaign that enveloped and consumed Mexico City in a matter of months. Where of course the Marines put another stamp on their anthem by dancing through those streets again, in typical Marine fashion. Which generally included as many pretty or nearly-pretty girls as were happy or nearly-happy to join in the festivities as they could find.

Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and what would become the Republic of California all cooperated in the final effort to deal with the Mexican drug cartels. Or the Drug Lords as many called them due to the amazing publicity of Dixie and her little misfit gang of Texas Tech students and teachers. Texas and California devoted the lion’s share of the troops, though New Mexico and Arizona made their presence known as well. They killed every cartel member they could find, and then tracked down and killed the bosses themselves. The Drug Lords. It was a scorched earth campaign where any large or small drug cartel, every affiliated gang, and even the politicians and police that supported them were shot as many times as it took to kill them before the military went on in search of the next target. They were the Drug Wars, not the Drug Police Actions.