Jack Devine, a former acting CIA deputy director of operations, is founder and chairman of The Arkin Group, a New York City-based international intelligence and investigative company.

Eliminating the narcotics threat to our nation is a rightful priority for the Trump administration, but using U.S. troops to prosecute the drug war is the wrong tact and with far-reaching consequences.

This war will not end in a ceasefire. There will be no summits or working-level negotiations. It’s an insurgency, and the U.S. military must not become embroiled in another forever war when there are viable alternatives to undermine cartels and stem the flow of drugs.

I've seen firsthand how empowering foreign partners with military technology and intelligence has been pivotal to defeating adversaries everywhere from Afghanistan to Colombia. And right now, if we don't firmly partner with the Mexican government and take bold action together, the drug cartels aren't going anywhere.

How US helped Colombia break Cali and Medellin cartels

We faced a similar narco-security challenge several decades ago when the most high-powered cartels were headquartered in Colombia. Back in the early 1990s, I was the CIA's director of the Counternarcotics Center and chief of the Latin America Division where I saw how a robust U.S. government effort involving the CIA, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Colombians dismantled the Cali Cartel and Pablo Escobar's notorious Medellin Cartel.

At that time, just like now, the conventional wisdom was that the cartels were too powerful to be taken down. But we succeeded because we were willing to trust and equip our Colombian partners with the tools they needed, and because the Colombian forces themselves were the face of the operation, adding a critical stamp of legitimacy to the effort.

According to The New York Times, President Donald Trump has signed a directive to allow the U.S. military to carry out operations against Latin American cartels in foreign lands and at sea. This would disregard the valuable operational synergy I’ve seen time and again when there are strong partnerships between a host country and American officials.

Further, unilateral military action would be viewed as a threat to Mexico’s sovereignty, and without active participation from the Mexicans, any immediate success would inevitably be short-lived. Unilateral action would also increase the risk of retribution on U.S. interests, only dragging us into a more prolonged battle.

While partnering with Mexico is complicated by the fact that the cartels hold real sway within the government, right now we have a potential ally in Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has already sent cartel-linked individuals to the United States to face justice and appears eager to drop the ineffective "hugs not bullets" strategy of her predecessor.

Although Sheinbaum must publicly resist any perceived threats to Mexico's sovereignty vis-à-vis the United States, the Mexican public is actively decrying crime and corruption. Addressing this legitimate complaint will require her to take meaningful action against the cartels.

Drug traffickers rank among top national security threats

Likewise, we've reached a breaking point here at home, where narco traffickers are ranked among top national security threats and Washington has designated certain cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. But instead of putting Mexico on the defensive, we should seize this moment of mutual concern by again undertaking a major joint project.

This should be a well-funded and formalized effort led by high-level U.S. intelligence, law enforcement, military and State Department officials with defined authorities and powers under a presidential national security directive. There also must be carefully defined guidelines for military action in Mexico to ensure that civilians never wind up as collateral damage.

In Colombia, we were able to dismantle Escobar’s organization because we developed a clandestine and elite team of Colombian personnel and outfitted them with the most state-of-the-art analytical tools and intercept capabilities of the time.

We can replicate and expand upon this historic model with Mexico, taking advantage of our high-end intelligence fusion center in El Paso, Texas, and staffing it with thoroughly vetted U.S. and Mexican intelligence and military officers who have full access to all-source intelligence. This team should be tasked to identify all key cartel leaders and their foot soldiers, as well as transportation and storage facilities.

At the same time, a paramilitary action unit should be established on a highly restricted Mexican military base. This unit should have the responsibility for carrying out actions against cartel targets, but like in Colombia, the roles must be clearly delineated. The Americans should provide key intelligence and technology, but the Mexicans need to take the lead in any assaults so that the attack is not perceived as being externally driven or as a threat to their nation’s sovereignty.

Technology has evolved at a rapid clip since the breakup of the Colombian cartels, and we can empower our Mexican partners with the latest weapons that would grant them a critical advantage. The cartels are already using drones against Mexican law enforcement, to transport drugs and to surveil U.S. officers at the border.

However, U.S. military armed drone technology is a game-changer, and if we equip the Mexicans with the weapons needed to conduct a limited but highly aggressive armed drone campaign, the cartels may be so dramatically outmatched that they'll have no choice but to run.

While new criminal factions can spring up after cartels are hit, if the operating environment is hostile enough within Mexico, the cartels will quickly look elsewhere. Colombia's security trajectory also demonstrates that dismantling cartels via limited but forceful action, while requiring continued vigilance, is still more likely to have a positive impact on society than maintaining the status quo.

Although there will always be drug traffickers when there is demand for narcotics, history shows that through collaboration we can drive the drug trade out of Mexico ‒ and there's never been a more opportune moment to do it.

Jack Devine, a former acting CIA deputy director of operations, is founder and chairman of The Arkin Group, a New York City-based international intelligence and investigative company. He is the author of “Spymasters’ Prism” and “Good Hunting.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump deploying US military against drug cartels will drag us into a forever war | Opinion

Reporting by Jack Devine / USA TODAY

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