A screengrab from a video posted by the US government of a “kinetic strike” on a boat allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean. Photo courtesy US Southern Command/X.

Designating major drug cartels as global terrorist organizations and declaring a national emergency, the Trump administration has launched the largest US military deployment in Latin America since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Under Operation Southern Spear, US forces have carried out targeted strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels, killing couriers and small-boat crews in actions that human rights groups warn resemble a “murder spree” more than law enforcement. These killings are not incidental. They are staged as spectacles of retribution: highly visible demonstrations of force aimed at projecting resolve and deterrence.

Aside from the legal and ethical issues with a policy of extra-judicial executions, the strategic rationale for staging these costly spectacles is dubious at best. First, it diverts critical resources from major criminal networks sourcing narcotics. The Drug Enforcement Agency’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment identify the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartel groups as the major suppliers to the US of fentanyl and other illicit drugs—Venezuelan traffickers are minor players. Second, destroying the vessels and assassinating couriers eliminates the material evidence and critical intelligence on networks that could be gathered from arrests and interrogations.

In a paper from 2016, lawyer Kevin Lerman points out that drug mules are “pawns of the drug conspiracies” representing the lowest rung of the narcotics trade. Similarly, writes University of London professor Jennifer Fleetwood, couriers are the “most powerless and most exploited in the international drug trade,” typically snared into the web of the cartels by poverty, debt or coerced into collusion. If caught, cartel bosses will vigorously disown them and not waste a........

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