Nice piece! I think this quote about why this campaign might theoretically be effective is especially illustrative:
"nobody wants to lay down their life just to get a few more kilos of coke across the border."
This is pretty empirically not true, narcos are killed in their hundreds and thousands every year in fights over territory and smuggling routes! Street gangs in the US kill over corners or cell phone numbers that customers call
Thanks for your comment! My intention with that line was to illustrate how proponents of deterrence by punishment think about criminal preferences. Of course in practice as you point out there are plenty of people willing to risk their lives for a kilo of coke.
I do still think the weak version of the argument is probably true, most people who get into a narcosub are probably either hoping for a payday or already being threatened with death by the cartels onshore and not particularly interested in laying down their lives for anything greater than that.
Sorry to not be clear - I fully agreed with you! I was trying to say that the theory that bombing will deter cartels flounders on the rocks of “narcos kill and die over drugs all the time”
Nice piece! I think this quote about why this campaign might theoretically be effective is especially illustrative:
"nobody wants to lay down their life just to get a few more kilos of coke across the border."
This is pretty empirically not true, narcos are killed in their hundreds and thousands every year in fights over territory and smuggling routes! Street gangs in the US kill over corners or cell phone numbers that customers call
Thanks for your comment! My intention with that line was to illustrate how proponents of deterrence by punishment think about criminal preferences. Of course in practice as you point out there are plenty of people willing to risk their lives for a kilo of coke.
I do still think the weak version of the argument is probably true, most people who get into a narcosub are probably either hoping for a payday or already being threatened with death by the cartels onshore and not particularly interested in laying down their lives for anything greater than that.
Sorry to not be clear - I fully agreed with you! I was trying to say that the theory that bombing will deter cartels flounders on the rocks of “narcos kill and die over drugs all the time”