Progressive Politics

A decade before President Donald Trump boasted of “hunting” alleged “narcoterrorists” on boats off the coast of Venezuela, the Defense Department was looking for new ways to get involved in the war on drugs.

In a major report quietly issued by the federally funded Institute for Defense Analyses, researchers working for the Pentagon presented their findings, based on interviews with dozens of top drug traffickers incarcerated in the United States, on how to better disrupt transnational organized crime.

One top-line prescription: More “direct military action.”

The report, which was obtained by The Intercept through a Freedom of Information Act request and has never previously been made public, provides a window into the inner workings of major drug-trafficking networks.

An attorney whose client was interviewed by researchers working for the Pentagon told The Intercept that the report proves that the recent sidelining of counternarcotics police in favor of bloodshed at sea is what military insiders have wanted for years.