its absolutely the framing being pushed in the NatSec genre slop machine, so it is not going anywhere. it is a key feature of Clancy-verse and the Sheridan-verse political thrillers. [I watch all that shit because I like stories about people sneaking into your base and killing your dudes.]

by "it" I mean specifically that the PRC MSS is backing drug cartels to destabilize the southern US border.

the thesis, I guess, is that there would be no drug demand or diseases of despair in the US, and therefore no reason to militarize the border, because everything is actually so great and full of hope in the US, no one would even be doing illegal drugs and dying in the street. just the good, orthodox ones from GSK, Phizer, and the Sackler capital formations prescribed by an insurance compliant AI physicians assistant.

it would be less insulting if financing and arming drug trafficking gangsters along the border of a rival or uncooperative country to destabilize it wasn't the gold standard move out of western playbook of the last hundred plus years.

the people who believe this shit are deeply cooked in ahistorical propaganda and straight up flag-fucking ignorance.