The United States has used military forces to fight the war on drugs almost from the official beginning of the war. American military forces are stationed along the U.S. Mexican border to help Border Patrol and Customs officers apprehend drug smugglers. U.S. troops were also once stationed at Howard Air Force Base (AFB) in Panama (before U.S. control of the Panama Canal was returned to Panama in 1999). The troops performed more than two thousand missions each year, gathering intelligence on drug operations in Central and South America. Military surveillance planes flew over drug-producing countries such as Colombia and reported suspected drug production and trafficking to national police and military detachments, who then arrived to make the arrests. With the closing of Howard AFB, the United States needed to develop a new strategy for waging war on drug producers...