The Case of Mexico: A Hard Pill to Swallow
Must we define drug traffickers in Mexico as terrorists and do more to prevent their disastrous effects?
Mexico
¿Por qué es más difícil desarticular las actuales redes criminales mexicanas que los carteles colombianos de los años noventa?
Peter J. Munson
Thu, 04/12/2012 - 1:25pm
Mexican criminal networks are far more decentralized and thus more resiliant than the Colombian cartels of the 1980s.
Understanding Informational Features of Transnational Criminal Networks: Cases from Mexico and Guatemala
A look at the gray agents - the public servants, political actors, or security agents - that promote criminal interests.
About the Author(s)
The Executioner's Men: Los Zetas
El Centro Fellows George Grayson and Samuel Logan have published the new work The Executioner's Men: Los Zetas, Rogue Soldiers, Criminal Entrepreneurs, and the Shadow State They Created
A new generation of ruthless pragmatists carves a parallel state across Mexico and Central America. Most powerful among them is Los Zetas, ruled over by Heriberto Lazcano, known as The Executioner. Lazcano and his men have forced a tectonic shift among drug trafficking organizations in the Americas, forever altering how criminal business is conducted in the Western Hemisphere. This narrative brings an unprecedented level of detail in describing how Los Zetas became Mexico’s most diabolical criminal organization.
Well, They're Not About Taking Over the Government
A few years ago Latin American specialists began warning the defense community at large that the Mexican cartels constituted an insurgency in the actual sense, though one that was strategically different from the ideologically-inspired ones with which we are all familiar. By now, the weakness of the oft-repeated response that "Well, they're not about taking over the government" ought to be plain. Sure they are. The pattern of cartel corruption of local governments in some areas of Mexico makes that plain. They just care about influence and compliance with their wishes, not about traffic law and picking up the garbage at the curb.
Some still think this is only about crime. It is not. Considering the full scope of criminality and terrorism in today's world, on a spectrum ranging from the local gangs inside the United States to the confluence of the cartels, international terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and criminal states like Iran and Venezuela -- there are others -- it seems obvious that what we're seeing is a new wrinkle in warfare itself, consisting of the blending of the huge resources of the black economy (estimated at a fifth or more of the world's GDP) with transnational state and criminal organizations that wage economic, cyber and kinetic warfare outside the bounds of what we have come to think of as "established" rules of warfare.
One ominous and imminent development along this line is the recent move by Iran to collude with the Mexican cartels -- the Zetas, specifically -- to strike targets inside the United States. Given the ongoing issue of Iranian nukes, international sanctions (which will not come fully on line until the summer), Israeli pressure to strike and the covert war inside Iran itself that includes the assassination of four nuclear scientists, the probability of an Iranian terror campaign inside the United States cannot be discounted. There are operational and strategic issues involved in the potential Iranian strategy and the US response that have not been fully -- or even partially -- discussed. Thanks partially to 9/11, we are much better prepared now to deal tactically with events -- remember that when the Quds representative reached out to the Zetas, he hit a DEA informant instead -- but thus far we are only playing defense.
On a larger canvas -- if a "larger canvas" can be found than dealing with attacks inside the US against our government & people -- is the whole issue about the conduct of war in the 21st century. We now have "criminal" nation-states that collude with existing transnational criminal and terrorist groups to make money, corrupt international financial systems and attack other states, all the while maintaining the rights & privileges of traditional states. We have these transnational groups that themselves attack states -- as the Mexican cartels are doing in Mexico, throughout Central America and along the Andean Ridge and we have the international, state-sponsored terrorist groups like Hamas, AQ and Hezbollah. All of these organizations are attacking, in one form or another, legitimate states and their populations. In many ways, Russia is very nearly, if not already, such a criminal state.
Their transnational nature means that they maintain viable "rat lines" across borders around the world, along which they move drugs, traffic in human beings (who are either voluntary refugees or slaves [ see the sex trade out of the Balkans]), arms or money, which moves through the international banking system, including US banks. Eventually, nuclear materiel, either finished weapons or otherwise, will move in those channels as well. And, I might add, one criminal state -- Iran -- is also developing IRBMs and shorter-range missiles at a good clip.
Defense specialists would so well to remember a quote from a nineteenth-century European general who complained about Napoleon that he never fought war according to the rules. We have even a more abrupt shift before us, which I believe is the decay of the old international "way of war" and the emergence of ... something else. What are we going to do about it?
Five Ps for a Violence Reduction Strategy in Mexico (Part III)
Guillermo Almada offers part three of his series on how to reduce violence in Mexico.
About the Author(s)
Five Ps for a Violence Reduction Strategy in Mexico (Part II)
Guillermo Almada offers the second in his three-part series on reducing violence in Mexico.
About the Author(s)
From Drug Wars to Criminal Insurgency
SWJ El Centro Fellow John P. Sullivan's paper "From Drug Wars to Criminal Insurgency: Mexican Cartels, Criminal Enclaves and Criminal Insurgency in Mexico and Central America, and their Implications for Global Security" was just published as Vortex Working Paper No. 6 at the Scientific Vortex Foundation, Bogota.
Synopsis: Transnational organized crime is a pressing global security issue. Mexico is currently embroiled in a protracted drug war. Mexican drug cartels and allied gangs (actually poly-crime organizations) are currently challenging states and sub-state polities (in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and beyond) to capitalize on lucrative illicit global economic markets. As a consequence of the exploitation of these global economic flows, the cartels are waging war on each other and state institutions to gain control of the illicit economy. Essentially, they are waging a ‘criminal insurgency’ against the current configuration of states. As such, they are becoming political, as well as economic actors.
This presentation examines the dynamics of this controversial proposition. The control of territorial space—ranging from ‘failed communities’ to ‘failed regions’—will be examined. The presentation will examine the exploitation of weak governance and areas (known as ‘lawless zones,’ ‘ungoverned spaces,’ ‘other governed spaces,’ or ‘zones of impunity’) where state challengers have created parallel or dual sovereignty, or ‘criminal enclaves’ in a neo-feudal political arrangement. The use of instrumental violence, corruption, information operations (including attacks on journalists), street taxation, and provision of social goods in a utilitarian fashion will be discussed. Finally, the dynamics of the transition of cartels and gangs into ‘accidental guerrillas’ and ‘social bandits’ will be explored through the lens of ‘third generation gang’ theory and ‘power-counter power’ relationships. This presentation will serve as a starting point for assessing the threat to security from transnational organized crime through lessons from the Mexican cartels.
(Source: John P. Sullivan, "From Drug Wars to Criminal Insurgency: Mexican Cartels, Criminal Enclaves and Criminal Insurgency in Mexico and Central America, and their Implications for Global Security," Vortex Working Paper No. 6, Bogotá: Scientific Vortex Foundation, March 2012.)
Five Ps for a Violence Reduction Strategy in Mexico (Part I)
In the first of a three part series, Guillermo Vázquez del Mercado Almada describes organized crime in Mexico and lays a basis for his "five Ps" proposal to reduce violence there.
About the Author(s)
Mexico's Challenges: Lessons in the War Against Organized Crime
Eduardo Guerrero, a consultant on security affairs at Lantia Consultores, addresses lessons in the war against organized crime in ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America.
… Given the disappointing performance of the Mexican government’s security strategy, I started collecting data and analyzing the origins and dynamics of the current crime and violence epidemics. Calderón’s strategy has certainly had some positive features, and some adjustments have already been implemented. However, the security situation in Mexico calls for major corrections in government strategy that the next president—to be elected in July 2012—will have to address…