America and the Battle for Mexico
A war is being waged just miles from American soil, but few people are paying attention to it. America has committed over a billion dollars, and the results so far are less than convincing. The stakes are high, yet President Obama almost never discusses it.
What is Mérida? The Mérida Initiative is a massive counter-narcotics aid package to help Mexico address spiraling violence from drug trafficking. It was originally the brainchild of Mexican President Felipe Calderón and the Bush Administration. Unveiled in October 2007, the Mérida Initiative was envisioned as a three-year, $1.3 billion assistance package consisting mostly of expensive equipment like helicopters, as well as training for Mexican police and other security personnel. In March 2010, the Obama and Calderón Administrations unveiled an extended and revised strategy, dubbed “Beyond Mérida,” with a stronger emphasis on Mexican institutional reform. For fiscal year 2012, the Administration requested $282 million for the Initiative.
Another Colombia? While Mérida shares many characteristics with assistance provided under Plan Colombia, there are important differences. Since the break-up of some of the major cartels in the 1990s, drug trafficking in Colombia was dominated by three guerrilla groups with ostensible political agendas. These groups, which had been designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the U.S. government, had long sought to undermine and replace the authority of the Colombian state, and moved into drug trafficking and kidnapping as a way to pay the bills. In the case of Mexico, while the drug traffickers also seek to influence politics, their aims are more profit-driven, similar to organized crime syndicates.
Another key difference is the role of the U.S. In Colombia, U.S. military personnel and others were invited to play a direct role, whereas in Mexico, the U.S. is more behind the scenes.
Is it Working? So far, Mérida has not been a runaway success. Despite the arrest or killing of at least 20 of Mexico’s 37 most wanted criminals, unprecedented levels of cooperation between the governments of the U.S. and Mexico, and substantial cocaine seizures resulting in higher price and lower purity here in the U.S., the violence persists. Since Calderón took office in 2006, Mexico has witnessed nearly 43,000 drug-related murders, and the trend is going in the wrong direction. Some estimates suggest 2011 may see a 15 percent increase in drug-related murders over 2010.
One problem was that Mérida’s initial phase of assistance was excruciatingly slow in getting out the door, particularly the hardware. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), as of March 2010, less than half of Mérida funds for fiscal years 2008-2010 had been obligated, and only 9 percent had been expended. The pace of assistance now seems to be quickening.
Also of note is the way the drug trafficking organizations have adapted to the pressure.
Simply taking out high-level leaders may provide a temporary boost, but personnel can always be replaced – a fact the Obama Administration would be well advised to consider when it comes to counter-terrorism policies in the Middle East. Additionally, success in weakening certain Mexican organizations has led to increased violence as others jockey to replace them. The organizations have also begun operating in a more diffuse manner, and many have branched out into new ventures like kidnapping, robbery, and extortion.
Another setback was the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms’ (ATF’s) Operation Fast and Furious. In what was intended to be a sting, ATF sold more than 2,000 weapons to suspected straw purchasers with the apparent intent of tracing them to larger Mexican criminal organizations. However, ATF completely lost track of the majority of the weapons, and Mexican authorities estimate they were subsequently used in at least 200 murders in Mexico (not to mention several in the U.S.). Among the fallout from the botched operation was a major trust deficit between the U.S. and Mexico at a time when our two governments need to be working together.
Calderón’s Blame Shifting? President Calderón is clearly frustrated by the lack of progress, but is too defensive and placing too much of the blame on the U.S. For instance, as the Wikileaks revelations went public earlier this year, he strongly protested the U.S. Ambassador’s private assessment of the Mexican government’s ability to combat the cartels, which ultimately led to our Ambassador’s resignation.
Calderón also has asked the Obama Administration for increased demand reduction efforts, “market alternatives” (a probable euphemism for legalization), and a reinstatement of the assault weapons ban. None of these is a silver bullet. Demand reduction programs, such as education and drug treatment, are worthwhile but unlikely to make a major dent in Americans’ appetite for illegal drugs. Legalization of marijuana would affect at most an estimated one-quarter of the cartels’ revenues according to RAND, while legalization of methamphetamine, cocaine, or heroin would have disastrous public health consequences. And while President Obama has wisely acknowledged the political impossibility of reinstating the ban on assault weapons, his Administration made a major blunder in the opposite direction with Operation Fast and Furious.
Supply, Demand, or Something Else? Opinions on counter-narcotics policy tend to split between those who advocate a stronger focus on cutting supply (through eradication, interdiction, and taking out the cartels) and those who believe demand reduction (drug treatment programs and education) is the key. All of these are worthwhile, but the debate misses the point. Lost in the disagreement is the fact that neither approach is going to stamp out drug abuse or drug trafficking entirely. So what should be Mérida’s goal?
Security. For example, when Plan Colombia was rolled out, among the metrics promised for gauging its success was the availability of cocaine in the U.S. After years of investment, the efforts made little dent in American cocaine usage. But Colombia was successfully brought back from the brink of becoming a narco-state. Plus, violence fell precipitously – between 2002 and 2008, murder and kidnapping rates fell by 40 and 83 percent respectively. That is how we should look at success.
As President Calderón recently pointed out, this year more Mexicans will have been killed by drug traffickers than Middle Eastern citizens killed in the Arab Spring. What’s more, the violence is happening right at our doorstep, and is tied to American communities through immigration and transnational gangs. If violence anywhere near the scale of what is happening in Mexico spills across the border, the results will be devastating. Let’s stop focusing on the purity of street drugs and instead worry about the consequences of a failed state next door.
An Insurgency? Increasingly, the thinking about how to handle the Mexican drug trafficking organizations is shifting away from the current law enforcement approach. Republican Presidential aspirant Rick Perry recently made headlines with the suggestion that U.S. troops be sent into Mexico. At a Congressional hearing this week, Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL) urged the Administration to treat the situation as an insurgency. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) proposed the cartels be designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
In reality, the situation in Mexico doesn’t fit neatly into any of these paradigms. Unlike al Qaeda or the Taliban, the Mexican organizations are driven by a profit motive, not an ideology. They endeavor to corrupt government officials, but their approach has much more in common with organized crime than terrorists.
As Rep. Mack points out, however, counter-insurgency strategy may provide some useful tactics which should be considered, particularly if our goal is to boost security. Mexican forces, with intelligence, training, and other support from the U.S., could concentrate on particular population centers, clear them of the bad guys, and hold them until uncorrupted local authorities are able to regain control and citizen confidence. Such efforts should begin with key cities along Mexico’s northern border where the violence has been most acute, and where the most direct threat to U.S. interests resides.
The direct participation of U.S. troops, as Governor Perry has suggested, would be counterproductive at present due to political sensitivites. However, should a wholesale spill-over into the U.S. take place, America would be within its rights to employ our military assets.
Where Do We Go from Here? First of all, patience is in order. It’s too soon to declare Mérida a failure. Plan Colombia was originally envisioned to be a six-year effort beginning in 2000, yet assistance continues to this day. Mérida is still relatively young, and its first phase was unacceptably slow. In terms of violence, a temporary spike should not be entirely unexpected in the event of a crackdown, as we’ve experienced in our fight against armed groups elsewhere. Making adjustments to the program from time to time is advisable, though, and the current emphasis on improving Mexican government institutions seems well placed.
The Mexican government should spend less time blaming the U.S. for their problems, Fast and Furious notwithstanding, and instead seek to deepen cooperation with us on the solutions. Intelligence sharing is critical. Cracking down on official corruption, training police at all levels of government, and improving the capacity of the Mexican judiciary to deal with crimes are all essential components. Some lessons of counter-insurgency strategy may also be instructive.
We also need to stay focused on security above all else. Keeping statistics on kingpin arrests, equipment deliveries, and the street price of cocaine is fine, but the key test must be this: is Mexico a safer place, and is violence coming across the border to the U.S.?
One of the main difficulties of counter-narcotics policies is what’s known as the “balloon effect.” Squeezing the “balloon” in one country tends simply to push the traffickers to another. The surge of drug activity in Mexico may well be a result of successes in Colombia and in cracking down on meth labs in the U.S. Even as we now focus on Mexico, we must not lose sight of security concerns in countries where drug trafficking could shift.
Finally, the Obama Administration needs to make the crisis in Mexico a bigger priority. In his speech at the UN, President Obama discussed problems all over the world, without a single mention of what’s happening in our neighborhood. In addition, U.S. government agencies need to better coordinate their work. Efforts like Fast and Furious and other programs should be vetted at high levels and understood across different agencies before they are ever allowed to do such damage. Lastly, border security needs to be taken seriously; it’s no longer just a matter of migrant workers.
