The historical irony here is almost too loud to ignore, so why don’t you come on in and snuggle up and enjoy some of it with us?

The Opium Wars are back! It is what China wants to do to us by self-driving cars as we have done to them in other generations- by a sideshow UK that once portrayed itself as the greatest Empire since Rome. It is poignant to mark it as we have celebrated the brevity of our 250 years of history.

Welcome back from that! We watched the start of the United Nationals General Assembly this morning and are still suspended in the air over the gathering, It brought back a lot of memories about the state of our Opium Wars with that of the wars we imposed on the Chinese over the last couple centuries.

We counted the number of times we had visited Hong Kong, Britain’s outpost of the rich brown waters of the South China Sea. We stopped the count at 4 current ones, with vigorous discussions about previous visits going back to the big military actions of the 1960s and ‘70’s. In context, they were times when young men with wallets full of cash were set loose on otherwise harmless societies after bright brief exposures to life and death.

The experience captured historical moments where a massive, heavily armed Western superpower used high-tech gunboats to violently crush a foreign nation’s maritime defense in an attempt to force them to the brink of something entirely new that looks a lot like what has happened before.

Like when open borders can lead to an unregulated, highly addictive illicit drug trade.

Fast forward to today’s operations by U.S. Southern Command. In a complete 180-degree geopolitical plot twist, we now have a massive, heavily armed Western superpower using advanced airstrikes, double-tap drone interventions, and joint task forces to violently blast “go-fast” drug boats out of the water—all to stop an unregulated, highly addictive illicit drug trade from crossing its borders.

The military playbook here Looks remarkably similar if slightly inverted—advanced naval tech absolutely overwhelming low-tech wooden or fiberglass boats in international waters. But the corporate branding has been completely inverted:

1830s Britain: “We have a right to free trade! How dare you destroy our product and disrupt the global economy! Taste the power of steam-powered gunboats!”
2020s America: “We have a right to self-defense! How dare you poison our population and run unmonitored logistics in our ocean! Taste the power of Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere!”

Naturally, the UN is handling both eras with the exact same level of frantic, unheeded paperwork. Back then, they didn’t exist to write sternly worded letters about Britain burning down the Summer Palace. Today, the UN Special Rapporteur is actively filing briefs arguing that blowing up 70 consecutive suspected drug vessels and killing over 230 people without a trial might constitute “crimes against humanity” under international maritime law.

Meanwhile, the superpowers just keep the boats moving. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it certainly loves a good pharmaceutical punchline, doesn’t it?

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com