Yesterday, El Paso, Texas, was placed under severe restrictions from the Federal Aviation Administration. For unspecified reasons of national security, no aircraft would be allowed in or out for ten days. Washington sources soon confirmed what many suspected: the cause was hostile drone activity from Mexico.
Then there was an about turn. Within a few hours, the flight ban was lifted. What actually happened? We know that the Department of War has been working on an anti-drone system for some time, using lasers to shoot down craft. One of these laser systems was actually deployed near El Paso and officials claim a drone was indeed shot down. The FAA, concerned with possible threats to civil aviation, then imposed the ten-day flight ban. The reason for the absurdly long no-fly zone was that a meeting between the FAA and the DoW had already been scheduled – nine days away. This isn’t just a story about hostile Mexican drones, then, but hapless American bureaucracy.
The administration has been forced to strengthen the border because of violence and civic breakdown in Mexico. The apparatus of government needs to understand this and accommodate the White House’s response. In 2018, Mexico essentially became an estado de narco, a narco state, and the results for the United States include the horrors of fentanyl, human trafficking and murder.
The ruling Morena party has allowed the cartels to exist as a parallel sovereign partner: controlling territory, taxing commerce through extortion and deploying military-grade force. Organized crime has become a part of the governing machinery of Mexico. With the ascent of president Claudia Sheinbaum in 2024, matters have improved – mostly because the Trump administration has demanded it – but the synthesis of regime and cartels remains. Sheinbaum is still a member of Morena, despite her promises to clean up corruption. She has yet to prosecute any of the politicians and generals who work with, profit from and direct cartel operations. To do so would risk the collapse of her regime.
It is in that context that the current administration has deployed the armed forces to the southern border. America’s neighbor either cannot, or will not, secure its own territory. The border is vast, mostly unmanned and harsh in climate. The antagonists who seek to cross it are well funded, technically sophisticated, morally unrestrained and highly motivated. Securing the border means contending with remote routes across difficult terrain. It means stopping trafficked people from being brought illegally into the United States. It means contending with the frequent entry of Mexican military personnel into the United States, mostly shepherding shipments north. And, increasingly, it means dealing with a drone threat that has become one of the most-significant tactical problems facing the American border.
That threat is the reason the Department of War had anti-drone lasers positioned outside El Paso. The consequences for the city, had the flight ban remained in place for ten days, would have been severe. El Paso has always been a lonely outpost in one of the great wildernesses of the Americas. It is geographically isolated, a city in the Chihuahuan desert, hours from any other meaningful settlement. Although road and rail were unaffected, the ban on aviation would have placed El Paso at the far end of a long logistical tail.
The United States must be allowed to defend its people. The great and interlocking apparatus of the whole federal government must be made to recognize the situation. This is not an argument for the FAA becoming subordinate to the Department of War. Instead, there needs to be proper coordination and a sense of urgency in the federal government. A ten day ban on flights was absurd.
El Paso has always been a lonely outpost in one of the great wildernesses of the Americas
The deployment of anti-drone technology is going to become commonplace, not just at the US-Mexico border but across America, as drone threats continue to evolve. There is too much critical infrastructure to secure, and too many adversaries capable of deploying drone swarms against them. Ukraine has shown the effectiveness of drone technology against Russia. But America is not immune. Civil aviation needs to learn to coexist with defense.
The federal government needs to look at the bigger picture. Mexico is a great nation in the grip of rulers corrupted by greed or deluded by ideology. Just as America deserves better from its neighbor, the Mexican people deserve better from their leaders. Thankfully, the Morena regime is facing a collapse in popularity.
The hardened US border denies cartels the profits that sustain the regime. There is American pressure on Mexico’s relationship with Cuba, a key ideological ally for Morena die-hards. Trump has suggested that perhaps the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement isn’t worth renewing, a threat to the economic viability of the regime. And there is – according to sources in both DC and Mexico City – a US list of narco politicians wanted for justice. Sheinbaum is going to have to act sooner rather than later.
The southern border plans are slowly working. The lesson of the El Paso airspace incident is not to pull back, but to ensure the entire federal government understands what’s at stake.
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