Mission: Impossible; It's Time to Pull the Military Out of Drug Interdiction
Abstract
When the Department of Defense was brought into counter-narcotics operations in the mid-1980s, our senior leadership perceived the drug war to be a very linear campaign. That is, senior decision makers believed that increases in detection and interdiction assets would produce proportionate increases in drug seizures. Thus, by employing the military to dramatically increase our interdiction capability, the leadership hoped to cripple smuggling organizations. But the impact of military support to interdiction was brief and indecisive. Smugglers have long since adapted, and it is now clear that the interdiction campaign's contribution to controlling the price and supply of drugs is, and will continue to be, negligible. This paper argues that, because of smuggler adaptation, drug interdiction has been an ineffective, sometimes counterproductive, element of our strategy, and that the military resources devoted to that effort should therefore be reprogrammed. Especially at this time, when our military is balancing diminishing resources and increasing operational demands, we must take a critical look at the need for continuing the current high levels of military support to drug interdiction. In fact, our national effort against drugs would lose little by releasing the bulk of the military's counter-narcotics assets to other, mainstream defense missions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA442795
Entities
People
- Jon T. Byrd
Organizations
- National War College