First thing is, while cartels are powerful and do have access to top shelf equipment, one thing you see over and over again when you follow the cartels is that 99% of the time when they go up against trained military they get their asses handed to them. Because they're basically a bunch of farmers and methheads and street thugs dressed up in tacticool. The smart cartels wouldn't dream of going up against the military. Dumber cartels (Like CDN) were notorious for years for constantly attacking and ambushing military and became a laughing stock because even with the element of surprise they'd get fucked up more often than not. People shit on the Mexican military but they're held back by corruption. Any time they get a green light to go after cartel targets (ie whenever a cartel does something that embarrasses the government) they get the job done more often than not. The Mexican military is well-equipped for war on the cartels and full of badasses who'd love to fight that war, but there a ton of legal roadblocks as well institutional corruption that prevents them from doing it
The military is traditionally way harder for the cartel to corrupt because they'll bring in troops from all different locales who don't have any ties to wherever they're patrolling. Cartels have a much easier time corrupting cops who live in the areas in which they work, who have more connections to the locals and who have family and friends that can be threatened. Often times cartels will send police to try and interfere with military operations against them. Not saying military corruption doesn't happen, but it's not as prevalent as police/government corruption
This being said, I think US military intervention would be a disaster because cartels guys blend into society, and have huge support networks. It's actually very difficult to tie cartel guys to actual cartel activity. Often times major players will get caught, but their legal cases will take years and years and they're often thrown out due to lack of evidence. And there is definitely corruption in the Mexican justice system that protects them, but the point is legally it's difficult to prove someone is working for the cartel, and is based more on tracing money through their laundering networks than proving they skinned this dudes face off. They have a world of people ready to take falls for them, kill and threaten witnesses, lie to authorities, and their biggest expenditure is bribery of government officials. You go after the guys who actually do the dirty work you kill a few expendable methheads with no direct links to the top guys in the cartel
Also, the same threshold of evidence that could implicate citizens as cartel members could totally apply to police officers and government officials too. So could America kill those guys? There's also a factor that many people are unwillingly forced into working for or supporting cartels because they extort local businesses for money and services, and 100% recruit people with threats and intimidation. If a cartel guy dies while carrying a debt to his cartel, his family will be forced into working for them to clear his debt for example. They're also notorious for busting into rehab clinics, rounding up methheads and sending them on suicide missions. The point being that designating targets is a big grey area, wide open both to be abused and for the US to make big mistakes that will turn the country against them (And cartels will totally lure them into making these mistakes and happily sacrifice innocent people). The US will 100% accidentally kill genuinely innocent people along with cartel guys who are 'legally' innocent
The US also cannot be trusted whatsoever to dish out justice, because their alphabet agencies have been directly working with and supporting cartels since the beginning of the cartels. 1000% the US will start playing favourites, protecting and ignoring their favoured cartels while smashing their rival cartels (Something the Mexican gov also does). An easy example is last year the US struck a deal with Los Chapitos of the Sinaloa Cartel, to turn in El Mayo (Massively important leader of another Sinaloa cartel faction), with Los Chapitos apparently getting deals and favorable treatment in exchange. A situation the Mexican government is pissed about because now they have a big, messy civil war within the Sinaloa cartel breaking out. As they always do, the US will abuse their powers for their own gains and engage in a universe of shady, illegal behaviour probably in collusion with certain cartels, and to the detriment of Mexico
And there are a ton of different cartels which operate in different ways. In fact, while a cartel on the surface looks like one clean organization, more accurately they're a huge network of criminal cells all operating with a level of independence and all covering different criminal enterprises. Which is why the internal politics of a cartel are usually full of war and betrayal. The Sinaloa cartel being an example I used above where two different factions within it are now in open warfare. But you have highly militarized cartels like CJNG who like big public displays of power and want to expand their territory, and then highly secretive cartels who do their business very quietly like modern day BLO. In fact CJNG is a strange example where they are very infamous and visible, but their main financial backers, Los Cuinis, are incredibly secretive and very quietly became the richest cartel in Mexico with most people probably unaware of their existence (El Mencho, leader of CJNG, married into the Valencia family aka Los Cuinis which is why they wound up allied like this, despite having two completely different approaches to business).
Point being naturally some cartels will be boliterated, either because they're the more visible, notorious targets or because the US has an interest in targeting them specifically to help out their favoured cartels. Other cartels though, who know how to operate out of sight, will benefit. And all cartels will be encouraged to move towards that approach of keeping their operations hidden. It could even cause more alliances and consolidation between cartels, because this era of openly militarized cartels would end if such behaviour will catch them drone strikes or Seals or whatever. If they can't act out and start openly attacking each other when there are disagreements, then they have to suck it up and keep working more closely together beneath the increased scrutiny. Cartels can totally do their thing without attracting the attention of authorities or engaging in the kind of open warfare you see from cartels like CJNG, and there are a number of cartels operating right now who prove this.
I've already written a lot, but there are other reasons I think it'd be a disaster overall. The only way it could work is if the US had a highly-cooperative Mexican government, justice system, police force and military. Under the current circumstances, the US would really have to act independently of all of these because they'll be more inclined to tip off the cartels to US activity and plans. I don't think they'd have any chance of stopping the cartels because everyone within them is instantly replaceable. The best way to stop them is to cut them off from money aka cut off the supply of drugs to the US, which idk is even feasible
