I can’t make it a fucking day without making a sardonic, cynical joke based on old sci-fi nerd shit till BAM yeah, getting degrees in poli sci and econ were a waste of time, my nerd sense as a child ( + the ability to discern fantastical elements from plausible elements of a story) was all that was actually needed to learn about the future.

So anyway, Ghost in the Shell timeline it is then.

Obviously minus the impossible robotic/cybernetic tech.

Season 2, Episode 14 of Stand Alone Complex.

Most of the episode is a flashback to the 2020’s, where its established that America invades Mexico with the goal of stopping the cartels, and both sides are using PMCs/Mercenaries.

(Blackwater never went away, they just changed names a bunch of times, now they’ve merged/consolidated with a bunch of other similar PMCs into Constellis… Trump pardoned 4 of the Blackwater guys in the Nisour Square massacre in Iraq at the end of his last term, so they’re obviously in his rolodex)