American Boots in Ecuador's Drug War: Mission Creep Just Became Mission Fact
For decades, the U.S. military's role in Latin America's drug war stopped at training, intelligence, and equipment. This week, according to the Wall Street Journal, dozens of American military personnel crossed that line and joined Ecuadorean police in actual raids. That's not an advisory mission anymore — that's American troops doing law enforcement on foreign soil, and it happened while the U.S. military is already stretched by an active shooting war with Iran.
Bottom Line
THE BOTTOM LINE: The U.S. just moved from coaching Ecuador's drug war to playing in it. The raids themselves are small; the precedent is not. Direct military participation in foreign law enforcement creates escalation triggers, legal gray zones, and open-ended commitments — at a moment when the U.S. military is already fighting on other fronts. This is a single-source report, so details may shift, but the direction of travel is clear and worth watching closely.