Understanding Options for Military Deployments to the U.S. Southwest Border
Timothy Clark
Federal troops have had a long, but at times controversial history of operations along the U.S. Southwest Border going back as far as military conflicts with Mexican in the 1840s, with subsequent basing and excursions along and even across the border with Mexico to show force, hold territory and exhibit hegemony, defend settlers, suppress and combat Native Americans, defend against excursions from bandit and Mexican revolutionary forces, and more recently counter smuggling efforts.[1] While these U.S. military forces were originally relatively large-sized and by necessity self-sufficient forces, the scale of the forces and their missions have been greatly reduced during the last half of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twentieth first century. While the U.S. does have thousands of active duty military forces on bases nearby the border (such as at Ft. Bliss, Ft. Huachuca, White Sands, Coronado, the Naval Air Station at El Centro, etc.), only very few these federal military forces are currently authorized and tasked with operations along the U.S. Border. In addition to federal active duty military forces, state-run National Guard forces have been often used by Border State Governors to support their state’s law enforcement, but these deployments are typically either small in scope or short in duration due to the high costs of these deployments given the relatively limited budgets of these states.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/understanding-options-military-deployments-us-southwest-border
