The recent US delegation visit to Mexico has once more stirred debate on Mexico’s war on drugs. Commentators, notably Jorge Castañeda, have used the occasion to repeat claims that the drug war is President Calderón’s fault, and headway in defeating the cartels should include “some sort of tacit deal with some cartels” while extending “the full force of the law” to others.
Castañeda’s views, still wrongheaded in my opinion, are at least softening; he acknowledges some government successes and has become less strident in pinning blame exclusively on the Mexican president.
A more important trend is being exposed: Mexico is being ravaged by hundreds of drug gangs. These outfits are increasingly accounting for murders in northern Mexico, and they are not apart of Mexico’s known drug syndicates. As pointed out by Charles Bowden in his forthcoming book Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields, there are between 500-900 gangs operating from Juárez. Bowden faults both Mexican and American policies for the extent of the drug violence, but emphasizes the role of the military industrial complex in the US in supplying the arms used by the gangsters in Mexico, and the army.
This adds an altogether different dimension to the quandary. Policies aimed at dismantling the so-called cartels can notch success after success, as they have done, but produce no overall reduction in violence. Violence is spinning off from the major syndicates, becoming more decentralized, with varying objectives. Roving gangs solicit hits starting at $20, their violence uncoordinated by a kingpin’s decree. And in resolving this problem Castañeda and Bowden are both right: the Mexican army is ill suited to be a police force.
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
