I am always amazed to read comments and blogs here were authors threaten Mexico's soveriegnty or threaten military action against our long time ally. To fight a war one must have an army.  Generally such statement is just taken as given.  But somehow perhaps of the large percentage of chickenhawks in their midst neocons seem to have lost sight of this truism.  Our armies are otherwise engaged at the moment.   The last thing we need is another military conflict.

The last time we invade Mexico it was in chaos already with despotic ruler who had little internal legitimacy.

Things are quite different now.  Mexico may seem backward to us but it is a quite modern country with a huge army, one of the largest in the world.  In addition there is a large number of Mexicans who have enough military training to be a problem if they are handed an AK-47.

Further Mexico and the United States have an integrated economy. You don't think that the people who pay for those fancy weapon systems are going let them be used against their own assets in Mexico.  If you think patriotism will triumph greed in such a conflict you have done very little reading about war indeed.

Further there are millions of persons of Mexican descent in the United States and in high positions in the military.  Thanks to lax gun laws you can imagine a fair number of these Americans of Mexican descent, still have their military training from service in Iraq, where Mexican Americans are over represented, and the .50 caliber rifles, so favoured by American snipers.

Any effort to prevent sabotage amongst these folks will certainly drive them into the arms of the enemy.   

The war is almost certainly to become sectarian. You will be surprised how many will chose god over country.   Further Catholics in the United States can depend on aid from Orthodox nations such as Russia.

One would think that African Americans would side with whites.  But in a shooting war anything can happen.   If the war takes on a sectarian tone it would not be surprising that African Americans would fight with Catholics against white protestants.

One must keep in mind that our current forces are tied down in Iraq.  If there was a civil war in the United States you can be assured that Iran and Russia will use this fact to press their advantage.   Russia by sweeping through Eastern Europe, Iran by exerting much more influence in Iraq.

Further Mexico is an important provider of petrol products for the United States.  You can count these products out of the world market for the duration of the conflict.  Further Venezuela would almost certainly supply the Mexicans with the most deadly of weapons of mass destruction, the AK-47.  If we responded by attacking Venezuela it would further throw the worlds petrol markets into chaos.

Talking about military solutions can certainly ratchet up the old testosterone, But, take pause, this is a war we could lose.