Us Military Kills 14 in Attacks on Vessels in the Pacific, According to Hegseth

Retaliation (if the attacks were actually impacting cartels at all, which most reports that don't come from the US government cast doubt on) does not require a rational plan for victory. (OTOH, the way they could win by doing that is to provoke a reaction by a government intent on being seen to be doing something about the attacks so that it responds in a way which has either direct [because of poor targeting] or collateral [because of lack of restraint] adverse impacts on uninvolved domestic populations sufficient to make the government campaign unpopular independent of how unpopular its nominal targets are. Of course, this would take an administration that is both unusually prone to poorly aimed violent actions and unusually unconcerned with due process and the rule of law, but that’s exactly what produced the current situation, anyway.)