It Is An Insurgency In Mexico

There has been a low level rumbling sort of debate regarding this proposition: Resolved, the violence in Mexico does constitute an insurgency.  The negative in the debate argues correctly that Mexico is not so gripped with violence that it is being pushed to the edge of failure.  The advocates of the negative also contend with some accuracy that the organized cartels are not seeking any political goal such as overthrowing the government.

In the second prong of their argument, the upholders of the negative are being disingenuous.  The cartels are seeking two goals.  One is strictly commercial, the allocation of turf.  The other is political, the carving out of zones free of governmental control in which the cartels can operate freely.

Once the second cartel goal is recognized, it follows that the gunslingers are waging a defensive insurgency.  True it is a unique form of defensive insurgency, but that is what it is nonetheless.

Historically, the vast majority of defensive insurgencies have been wars of national liberation.  The insurgents have been either a self-defined and recognizable society and polity ruled by outsiders (think--the American War of Independence) or an identifiable minority living in a defined geographic region within a larger polity (think--the North Caucasus.)  In both instances the ultimate goal of the insurgents is replacement of the status quo regime by one organic to the society supporting the insurgency.

The cartels have a far less expansive goal in Mexico.  The several groups desire to carve out what might be best conceived of as "police free zones" covering the approach routes to the border and, deeper in the interior, areas where illegal products might be manufactured, grown, or stored without anxiety.

There are no indications that any of the cartels want to take over the tedious, mundane quotidian functions of government at any level.  They are perfectly willing to let those who do those jobs now keep on doing them.

Even policing is OK provided the cartels, their members, and activities are exempt.  Everything reduces to the need to conduct business without any hassles from government, press, civic society, or the church.  If and when that occurs, the insurgency will come to an end.

While the smuggling of illegal drugs may have been behind the commencement of the violence, the insurgency now exists independent of drugs per se.  President Calderon may have declared a war on drugs three years ago, but the nature of the stakes has changed greatly as the blood has flowed in ever more impressive quantities.

Even if by some miracle every American who currently uses products transported or grown in Mexico were to wake up with the thought, "Today I join the Nancy Reagan Just Say No club," and followed through, the insurgency south of the border would not collapse.  The same would apply if the morality driven majority of the American polity awoke with an attack of sanity deciding that the game of prohibition was not worth the manifold costs.

The cartels long ago expanded their scope of operations.  Not unlike American organized criminals of an earlier period, the cartel leaders have come to understand that their capabilities were cross elastic.  As a result kidnappings for ransom, hijackings, human trafficking, extortion, loan sharking, and other illegal activities have become major profit centers.

The cartels have also expanded geographically extending their networks and franchises into the US.  There are no major and few medium sized cities here which lack their local affiliate with one or more cartels.  This outreach program not only has made for more profits back home but an expansion of influence, political and otherwise, into domestic communities of Mexican descent.

With the vast expansion of capabilities and consequent cash, the cartels have too much at stake to do other than continue and escalate the insurgency.  To a significant extent the outcome of the insurgency is existential for the cartels.

The outcome of the insurgency is not existential for the Mexican central government nor the elites which support it.  The government and elite can come to an understanding with the cartels, a tacit agreement to live and let live.  Winding down the military operations would be welcomed by the many ordinary people caught in the crossfire.  It would be welcomed by the business community as the ongoing war may have not crippled investment yet, but it bodes well to do so in the not so distant future.

Ending the war, reaching an understanding, deciding to live and let live does not require the government to declare defeat.  It does not even demand an immediate pulling back of the troops and new federal agents to their barracks and offices.  All that need happen is a slow ramping down of "offensive" operations, a bit less zeal in collecting or acting upon information received, a tardy response to cartel actions.  Should the cartels respond by tamping down their violence (roadblocks, shootouts, and similar high profile activities) the tit-for-tat detente will continue.

Money will change hands.  Heads will be averted.  Brave statements will be issued.  Promises to foreign governments will be made.  But, in the real world, affairs will slip to the status quo ante.  Life will go on.

President Calderon has two years left in office.  The next election will be a referendum on his war of drugs.  To continue that war or end it will be the centerpiece of the campaign whether openly or not.  The "war on drugs" is not popular now.  It will be less so two years hence.  It is unlikely to the extreme that any amount of Merinda Initiative money will alter this fact or serve to make the counterinsurgent efforts more effective.

Improvements in intelligence sharing and more US training for Mexican forces will have some slight benefits, but not sufficient to be game changing.  In this context it must be recalled that even the most mediagenic events such as discovering a tunnel equipped with light rail running under the border, or the seizing of thirty plus tons of pot are not indications of the game tilting in favor of the law and order side.  As has been the case ever since Dick Nixon started our "war on drugs," such spectacles are mere blips on the long term trajectory.

It is fully expectable that the Mexican insurgency will come to an end shortly before or after the next presidential elections.  It will come to an end because the Mexican government and elite recognize that Mexico is not Columbia.  They will understand (if they do not already) that the outcome of the cartel insurgency is not existential for the government and elite unlike the previous case in Columbia.

Provided a Mexican equivalent of the Columbian FARC does not emerge from the scrub and sierras and the cartels remain limited in their ultimate goals, there is no threat to the traditional Mexican approach to social organization and politics.  It was the existence of FARC and other expansive goal offensive insurgent groups in tandem with the Columbian cartels which made the situation in Columbia existential for the government.

In short, the Mexican government at all levels can afford a "victory" by the cartels.  What the government at all levels cannot afford is a continuation of the social and political disruption caused by the insurgency.  The violence saps the soul of the nation, rips the Mexican social compact, undercuts the ability of the individual to have any faith in the future, to envision a tomorrow which is not worse than today.  Not even a culture as resilient or as inured to death as the Mexican can survive the current and projected onslaught of blood and disruption with equanimity.

Mexico can survive the coming to pass of the cartels' limited goals.  It can survive the inter-cartel battle for turf.  The question is what the limited "victory" of the cartels means to the US.

The establishment of "police free zones" in which the cartels can carry on their operations without any governmental hindrance will constitute a national security threat for the US.  The capacities of the cartels, their networks, their experience would facilitate the clandestine introduction of hostile personnel and equipment into the US.  And, given the established presence of agents from Hezbollah, Hamas, and other groups advocating and practicing violent political Islam in Mexico in areas dominated by one or more cartels, the highest probability is the cartels will provide essential services to these groups and their state sponsors.

It is this probability far more than any fear of a further flooding of drugs or illegal aliens into the US which assures the US has a dog in the fight.  Unfortunately it is dog which cannot be named.  The Obama administration has great difficulty admitting, let alone defining, the pressing but not yet readily apparent threats from abroad confronting us.  So, rather than focusing on the most essential component of the Mexican question, it tiptoes around mouthing platitudes regarding drugs.  The anti-administration groups are no better preferring to view with alarm the matter of illegal immigrants.

While emotionally appealing both drugs and wetbacks do not have the inherent political power to force the government of the United States to take more robust action to assist the Mexicans in controlling the insurgency--or securing the border with greater effect.  Admittedly, there is little that can be done directly to counter the cartels and their insurgency given the very prickly hyper-nationalism of the Mexican public, particularly the political and chattering classes, but more can be done to stiffen the willingness of the government and elite to continue their efforts.

Some of what can be done is not politically popular given the anti-immigrant sentiments so widely spread in our society.  However, one of the most effective ways in which the US can buck up Mexican political will is a reform of immigration laws and procedures which favors the Mexican demands.  By enhancing our role as a critical safety valve for economically excess Mexicans we would put a whopping big obligation on the Mexican government as well as providing ourselves with a lever on their actions regarding the cartels.

The irony in all of this is while the insurgency is in Mexico, it is the US with the most at stake in its outcome.  This means we have no realistic choice other than defining just what is at stake and, given the long term magnitude of that stake, what we must do to help ensure the proper outcome.

Even if the insurgency is not existential for the Mexican government, in the long run it may well be for ours.