> First paragraph sums it up in a nutshell, but putting aside the violence, why would a fishing boat, or some other non-illegal-operations vessel, not comply with an airplane or boat that is clearly attempting to interdict?
For one thing, the US forces aren't even attempting to “interdict”, so the question has a false implicit premise.
Second, consider if it Venezuelan government vessels or aircraft attempting to “interdict” US vessels in US or international waters on the premise that they were suspected of running arms that might be used in Venezuela.
You don't. There is such a thing as Maritime Law and this completely flouts it, it is simply extrajudicial killing by an administration on a power trip. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. The USA will pay for this for decades to come.
Just for a second consider Canada bombing a US vessel that they suspect is running drugs.
Indirectly, undermining our own credibility when we try to foster a rule-based order that doesn't require constant resort to expensive (in both lives and treasure) applications of hard power, OTOH, will have a cost.
> And is that cost less or more than the cost of hundreds of thousands of opioid deaths?
It doesn't matter, because this campaign won't in any reasonable scenario prevent hundreds of thousands of opioid deaths, it will just add a bunch of deaths from international armed conflict on top of it.
Supply follows demand. Address the demand and the supply will disappear. You can't just go and kill other people on the high seas without due process just because you believe that they are criminals. Unless they're attacking you (piracy) there isn't much you can do until they (a) enter your waters or (b) you board them, find out that they are indeed smuggling and that the product is intended for your country (not everything that is illegal in the USA is so elsewhere). This is not controversial.
As for who will make you pay: the future. That's how it's always been.
Remember how 9/11 was just a bunch of guys in a tent far away being pissed off at the USA and it caused you a national trauma that has pretty much set the country on a path of self destruction. Make no mistake: Bin Laden won the war, even if he got killed. And for peanuts. Right now the same is happening with Russia and the USA still has not learned its lesson: morality of action is important because otherwise there will be a reaction even if you can't image that the bill will be presented at some point.
As for my own country: we got stupendously lucky given all of the blood and the crimes this country is built on, not unlike the USA. But at least we refrain from giving the world the finger and pretending we're too big to fail (we're not). It really pays off to realize that the USA is not larger than the rest of the world and if you make enough enemies sooner or later they join up against you.
This is one of the reasons why people in general are well behaved, even the ones that don't have a good moral compass: they know that the future will catch up with them and that there usually is an interest component so it pays off to play nice.
The principle is that of self-defense. Drugs have killed more Americans in recent years than did all of our 20th century military actions. We are right to use military force (and not judicial force) to meet this threat.
For one thing, the US forces aren't even attempting to “interdict”, so the question has a false implicit premise.
Second, consider if it Venezuelan government vessels or aircraft attempting to “interdict” US vessels in US or international waters on the premise that they were suspected of running arms that might be used in Venezuela.