im biased in this this regard. i spent 3 yrs in country hunting people. for all my veterans that understand what the deck of cards are. the only switch up is the location. The tools, tradecraft and training never go away.
analyst notebook, pattern of life, financial records, banking info, focused observations....remember bin laden sat across the border right next to their version of the military academy. mofos sat on his hideaway for y-e-a-r-s.
my point is that the cartel doesnt want them us govt problems esp since once you are classified as a terrorist....that human rights issue goes right out the window. not mention if its a real black site....not gtmo, not diego garcia.......
the cartel knows and we know that we can literally kill off the entire organization in short order.......but thats not the goal. itll just create a power vacuum and more chaos......so we are back to the best business deal they can get and what works for both entities. one of the key elements people are missing on this cartel ish ...is the China angle/involvement. the chinese are very adept at warfare. one of my counterparts told me (maybe he was being braggadocios)...they will only seek battle after the war is won. i took that to mean...they will use any and all measures to weaken a country through fifth generation warfare (look this up bc its going to start showing up soon. JFK tried to expose it and we know how that ended)...they will attack economically, morally, educationally, spiritually, psychologically, utilize any use of the power grid (not to many people know about the backdoor access that was built into the transformers that we use to power our grid. why would the Chinese ever need to fire a bullet when they could push the cartel to be the middleman and to do it for them.
I heard part of the reason for the push of Fentanyl was the Chinese. They paid the cartels to bring fentanyl instead of Cocaine. So destabilizition is always part of China's playbook. And I agree the Cartels have always been middlemen. Their business is getting things to America. People and drugs and bringing Guns and Money back to Mexico.
I don't think the Cartels view American might as black and white as they did in the past. They see how a change in leadership affects policy in America. That's also the advantage China has over us. Our plans only last 4-8 years. China can plan for decades and not deviate. The cartels know they wouldn't win a war but a few battles the right deals cut with the right people and business continues. They know America doesn't really want to end drugs or win a drug war. They know this is a game that we play to make money. It's just cops and robbers and politics. Fear and power and money. If they do partner with the Chinese then they have a powerful ally that puts a disagreement with the Cartel in a different perspective. If they can get Chinese intelligence Chinese technology Chinese BIOWEAPONS!!! they could be a very very very destabilizing foe. Which means they have more power when they try to make a deal.
