How Close Is Mexico To Collapse?

The Mideast continues to exercise black hole level appeal to the US mainstream media and the attention of those few politicians who can tear their eyes (and calculations) away from failing banks, collapsing auto makers, and an imploding economy. Everyone has gotten into the act of offering advice to Barack Obama on what he should/must/can do to assure Mideast peace in our time.

From former Iranian presidents to the current Nobel Peace Prize recipient come torrents of well-intended suggestions for peace. When not gazing like a spotlighted deer at the Israel-Palestinian morass, attention is given to the swamp called Iraq and the ongoing war in Afghanistan and, most recently, the attacks in Mumbai. Except for an occasional glance tossed in the direction of the Merry Pirates of Puntland or the "humanitarian crises" in Darfur, Zimbabwe, and the Congo, the foreign policy and national security focus of the US stays firmly on the Mideast and Northwest Asia.

This is in keeping with the sweep of American foreign policy over the past century or so. Things falling apart far from our shores and even only tangential to our interests get the attention. Grave matters right next door are met with yawning indifference.

It's true that a few people looked askance at the rise of Hugo Chavez and his stridently anti-American agenda backed by improving relations with Iran and Russia. But hardly a soul noted the advent of equally anti-American regimes in Bolivia and Ecuador. Even fewer seemed to notice that Paraguay is lurching into the anti-US, pro-Hezbollah constellation.

Now to the nitty-gritty. Mexico. A place more deadly than Iraq. More lethal than Afghanistan.

The government of Felix Calderon inaugurated a full scale war on narcotrafficking in 2007. The use of the term "war" is appropriate as the Mexican army has been employed on a massive scale and the body count is impressive to say the least. The term "war" is also appropriate as the drug industry has grown to a level of power and has so penetrated the government and police forces that it poses an existential threat to the central regime.

This year the violence of the war has increased greatly--no--monumentally. Through the end of November some 5,376 people have been killed in the fighting between the government and the drug smugglers or in the inter-gang violence. In comparison only 2,477 died during the same period of 2007. (A further comparison of interest: The body count for 2008 alone is greater than the aggregate total of Americans killed in both Iraq and Afghanistan from day one through today.)

The killings have not only escalated in numbers, they have escalated in sheer barbarism as well. The drug gangsters have adopted the jihadist notion of decapitation with an exuberance which boggles the mind. They have even added some wrinkles which have eluded the jihadists such as rolling cut off heads like bowling balls into restaurants and bars.

The drug related massacre has been accompanied by a grotesque increase in the number of kidnappings for ransom. No longer are the victims of this practice (which often ends with the victim's body being found in an abandoned car) confined to members of the Mexican rico class. Now even the children of street market booth proprietors are at risk. Since the overwhelming majority of kidnappings are never reported to the police (often from fear that the police are themselves involved in the crime), the exact number of snatches will never be known with precision. Estimates range from a low of not quite one per day to a conservative high of three each and every day.

The apprehension felt by many Mexicans that the police are involved in crime has been borne out in recent weeks by the high profile arrests of individuals ranging from file clerks to department heads on charges of corruption--of being bought and paid for employees of the smugglers.

While low level corruption has been endemic among the poorly paid and badly trained Mexican police for decades, the recent revelations of corruption in the highest levels of law enforcement have rocked confidence not only in the criminal justice system but in the capacity of the central government to provide even the most fundamental service of government: protection of the citizen from violence.

There are other very disturbing indicators of a state in distress, a state on the verge of collapse. Over the past eight years more than 150,000 men have deserted from the Mexican armed forces. That's right 150,000! Of these, some fifteen hundred have been members of various "elite" formations. These are the units most often called upon for the most dangerous operations against the drug cartels.

It might also be mentioned that at least some of these deserters, including those from the elite units which have received training by Americans or in the United States, now provide the most effective "muscle" for the cartels. Los Zetas has gained the highest notoriety in this area of endeavor but is not the only such group.

There is yet another consideration. Mexican stability like the well-being of many Mexican families depends upon the flow of cash from the US. In 2007 the Bank of Mexico reported that a record amount of dollars--23 billion, 979 million--flowed to the country from "migrants" primarily those resident in the US. This year the total is expected to reach 23.5 billion.

That's only a slight decrease. But it is a sign of things to come. Remittances are falling along with the US economy. They may drop to less than 20 billion next year. They may drop more.

While the total loss of remittances from "migrants" in the US can not be predicted with certainty, we can get a grip on one inevitable consequence. Social instability will increase. Another consequence is almost as inevitable. Reliance upon drug smuggling will grow. Along with that, violence will escalate.

Mexico's neighbor to the south, Guatemala, is suffering partial collapse as the result of the operations of drug cartels. Last week, cartel violence along the Mexico-Guatemala border reached a level that the redeployment of Mexican national army units was necessary to contain it. Much of Guatemala is outside the control of the central government. This government is fragile in the extreme. It must be remembered that the country underwent some thirty-six years of insurgency which ended only in 1996 after costing more than 100,000 lives.

The drug cartels move into governmental vacuums and such has been the case both in Guatemala and the southern states of Mexico. (You might remember the uprising in Chiapas state which garnered an inordinate amount of transient media attention some fifteen years ago.)

The vacuum is spreading in Mexico as the economy goes south and the drugs flow north. Thus, it is to be expected that violence--including an increase in attacks on the less than robust infrastructure of the southern Mexican oil fields--will reach the level that so far has been experienced only in the northern states along the US border.

Columbia almost went down the abyss of collapse. It was almost destroyed by a combination of drugs and insurgency. It still isn't a model of stability although it no longer teeters on the ragged edge of failure. But, Columbia survived due in large measure to an unprecedented amount of American attention and assistance The direct US aid to the Colombian military and police forces exceeded the four hundred million dollars promised Mexico under current plans by more than an order of magnitude.

So there it is. Violence which touches the lives of many, many Mexicans. Fear in the middle class that has resulted even in migration. Loss of confidence in the government and the instruments of national security. The prospect of even more of the same in the foreseeable future.

It is long past time that the situation in Mexico can be ignored by the US government and media. There is a collapsing state on our southern border. The implications of this are not at all good from an American perspective. The US government and We the People have several options available to us. None are completely palatable. But, one must be discussed, chosen, and implemented.

It is time for a change. One can only hope that the President-elect and his policy crew are aware of this. One can only hope that they get a firm grip on the reality to the south and move quickly to help Mexico solve the existential threat it faces.