I spent 26 years in the United States Navy, including time in maritime interdiction operations; boarding vessels, counter-piracy, stopping smugglers, and enforcing U.S. and international law on the high seas. These missions are dangerous and complex, but maritime interdiction has always been a law-enforcement operation, not an act of war.
That is why the recent push to classify drug smuggling boats as “terrorist combatants” eligible for military destruction troubles me. Drug traffickers are criminals, but treating them as wartime targets crosses a line that has protected both human life and America’s legitimacy on the world’s oceans.
The United States already has all the legal authority it needs to interdict drug vessels. U.S. domestic and international maritime law empowers our forces to detect, stop, board, and seize vessels that are stateless or suspected of criminal activity. These frameworks, built over decades through painstaking diplomacy, have shut down smuggling routes, stopped the flow of weapons, terrorism financing, and contraband, and allowed us to operate far from home with the cooperation of other nations.