That was too much for President Wilson. He sent one of the United States Army's foremost soldiers, General John "Blackjack" Pershing, along with a considerable force to the border to sort things out. Pershing and his men struck south, seeking Pancho Villa, with four regiments of cavalry and two of infantry seeking the bandit chief. They engaged various revolutionary forces in the pursuit and eventually moved back north. This action also marked the first use of aircraft by the U.S. Army, as the Signal Corps 1st Aero Squadron moved in to provide reconnaissance and liaison support.

The Mexican government, needless to say, was not happy about the American invasion. In April, the U.S. 13th Cavalry was attacked by 500 troops of the recognized Mexican government. Not long after that, the U.S. Army moved back north across the border.

General Pershing declared the operation a success despite the Army's failure to capture Pancho Villa. The next year, Pershing led the American Expeditionary Force to France to take part in the Great War. Pershing was promoted to General of the Armies of the United States, a rank intended to match the European field marshals. He was the only living officer to attain that rank, and only accepted it on the condition that George Washington be posthumously awarded that same rank with seniority over Pershing.

That was then. This is now, and yes, history may well be rhyming, except that instead of revolutionaries, our forces, civil and military, face vicious drug cartels, who are armed not with Mauser rifles but with automatic weapons and equipment stolen or purchased from the Mexican army and police.

Parallels - Today On the Border

Today, our southern border has tightened up considerably since January 20th, 2025. (What was it that happened on that day?) However, the vicious Mexican cartels are still operating; many of the coyotes still attempting to penetrate our southern border are thought to be associated with those cartels. Now, the Trump administration is moving American forces to the border, including combat arms forces and combat vehicles. While it's a refreshing notion, the idea that our military would be deployed to protect our border instead of someone else's border, what might happen next? Could cartel provocation result in a repeat of the 1916 expedition? Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, as my colleague Becca Lower reported, has sworn to gain "100% operational control" of the border.

See Related: '100% Operational Control': Hegseth Ordering 3K Troops, Stryker Combat Vehicles to US-Mexico Border.

Becca wrote:

During his trip to the southern border with Homan in February, Hegseth made a promise to the Mexican drug cartel leaders: "All options are on the table. We will secure our border and all our men and women guarding it, and we're proud to be here."

And as the DefSec wrote on a repost on Saturday of the DoD X post, the mission is so clear and concise, you could fit on a bumper sticker: "100% OPERATIONAL CONTROL" of our nation's sovereign border:

We are dead serious about 100% OPERATIONAL CONTROL of the southern border. https://t.co/5bzvEQ8qPu

— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) March 1, 2025

That's a neat, pithy statement by the SecDef, but that goal, operational control, may be difficult to attain with forces only on one side of the border, leaving no defensive depth.

What Would a Repeat of 1916 Look Like?

What if cartel actions did provoke a response similar to the 1916 expedition? Let's assume that some incident provokes President Trump to order U.S. troops south of the border to seek out the cartels where they live, to flush them out of their holes and destroy them, much like Israel has been doing to Hamas in Gaza. The United States, of course, has many huge advantages, not the least of which is technology. My colleague Brandon Morse has already described those advantages:

See Related: The People Who Think the US Military Will Meet Their Match in the Cartel Are Sadly Mistaken

As Brandon points out:

It would hardly be a fight. The cartel isn't one massive organization, it's a bunch of decentralized groups. While there are parts of it that are well-outfitted with high-quality military gear and powerful weaponry, it's nothing compared to the technological advancements, tactics, and destructive capability of the U.S. military. Our ability to gather information, disrupt supply lines, target leaders, and put troops where they need to be swiftly far exceeds that of any cartel.

Initially, of course. In 1916, the United States did not have a great technological advantage. Our cavalry troops relied on horses for transport, our soldiers were equipped with the 1903 Springfield rifle, while the Mexican military used the M1910 Mexican Mauser, which had very similar capabilities; Pancho Villa's men had a hodgepodge of weapons. The one great advantage the American invaders had was the airplane: The "Flying Bedstead," the Curtiss JN-3 "Jenny," which at the time was state-of-the-art.

Now? We have drones, we have satellites, and we have a stand-off advantage the cartels lack. They do have drones and appear to know how to use them, but that won't overcome the United States' massive signals intelligence and reconnaissance capabilities - much less our advanced aircraft and smart weapons. We can not only find them but turn them into a fine pink mist at our leisure; there's an old military aphorism that if you can see it, you can shoot it, and we can see pretty much everything. We can disrupt any supply chains they have, we can interdict their smuggling operations, we can in fact roll them up like cheap carpet if we choose; they have faced civil law enforcement but have no idea what the American military, even now after four years of Biden incompetence, can do if unleashed.

Eventually, though, boots on the ground are required for mop-up and to make sure that all the bad guys have had their birth certificates revoked. And that is where things have the possibility of going south.

And Then What?

Any such incursion into Mexico should have three phases: Go in, delete goblins, get out. Under no circumstances should the United States military maintain any long-standing presence in Mexico. That's asking for trouble. Even if the Mexican government agreed to that - not likely - if we've learned one thing about Mexico in recent decades, it's that the government has only tenuous control over large parts of the country. There would certainly be a long-term insurgency directed against our troops, just as happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. Whatever remains of the cartels and, very likely, Mexican citizens would do like insurgencies do everywhere: hit our supply chains, hit housing areas, hit any Mexican people or organizations seen as helping the American invaders. We could very well get drawn into a quagmire.

We should, yes, keep a tight grip on our border. But we should strive to do so from our side of that boundary. If we do strike at the cartels in their holes, we should use our vaunted tech and stand-off capacity to do so - not men with guns on the ground.