That means that the use of force against any targeted non-state actor must be bounded and part of a coherent strategy with an achievable objective. If not, anyone with a connection in a very large illicit network, no matter how tangential, can find themselves a target for military action.

The danger is that, as the CTC study shows, the network of individuals tied to drug trafficking is massive from El Mencho in Jalisco to the United Wa State Army in Myanmar to your cousin who sells weed to his friends.

One of several legal arguments being made to justify lethal strikes against drug boats in the Western Hemisphere is that the sale of illicit drugs finances terrorists that are in an armed conflict with the United States and U.S. allies.

The study is a bit of six degrees of Kevin Bacon, but it also illuminates some key nodes of a larger illicit economic system.

Makes sense. You may not know someone in the next neighborhood, but you both use the same local drycleaner. Likewise if you need AK-47s whether you are a drug runner or a terrorist, you will hit up your local arms dealer.

The Combating Terrorism Center did a network analysis of 2,700 individuals to see if terrorist and criminal networks are linked (apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/A...). They found that 98% of the individuals were part of a single large network spanning 122 countries - a dense web of 15,000 relationships.

Border states should pay attention because seven of the criminal groups that have been designated as terrorist organizations are in Mexico. There are more than 12,000 U.S. troops on the border. An escalation against Mexican groups could come next.

Under the War Powers Resolution, the President must have authorization from Congress within 60 days or he must stop military action. We are at 37 days.

The use of lethal force against narcotraffickers violates the spirit of the law. If there isn't an immediate threat, the President must seek authorization from Congress.

5. In a worst case scenario, we could see a turn away from the inter-American system based on binding international agreements (h/t Tom Long) and countries in the region could balance against the United States.

4. Frustrating U.S. unilateral military campaigns against vaporous drug trafficking organizations with no discernible end-state.

3. The culmination of the loss of Brazil as an ally - the product of poor foreign policy choices since the end of WWII.

2. The rise of regional organizations that exclude the United States and Canada while opening the door to China - specifically the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

1. The breakdown of international organizations that are generally favorable to the United States such as the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Defense Board.

The heart of our position was that regional policy in the Western Hemisphere needed to focus on opportunities more than threats. If the new U.S. strategy turns out to be a Roosevelt Corollary redux instead of investing in regional integration, we could see several negative outcomes:

We argued that "Effective engagement in the hemisphere presents an opportunity for the U.S. to increase its comparative strength to rising and revisionist powers, broaden the western democratic family of nations, and provide a powerful example to the developing world."