To him it doesn’t matter how foolish it is, how much money it would cost, or how many lives, Mexican or American, it would grind up. If it’s a viable vehicle for him to consolidate emergency powers, rile up a fervent base, and become an American Emperor, he will take it.

It may start out relatively focused as a counterterror/counterinsurgency op…but once he pisses off the Mexicans enough for them to fight back, he’ll have his casus belli (to his base) for open war. The unrestrained conservative order of battle will make the invasion of Iraq look positively pleasant. It was very common for war hawks back then to pine for the day we could just wipe Iraqi cities off the map and “let god sort them out”. It’ll be less Fallujah, more Gaza.

If he can get away with launching a Special Military Operation against the cartels and then Mexico as a whole, then Greenland and Panama are next. Then Canada. Then god knows who else. Maybe our war chest will bottom out by then, but that chest runs very deep.