Does the deteriorating security situation in Mexico affect us here in the U.S.? Is it really a U.S. national security issue? If Mexico continues on a downward spiral, as long as you’re not vacationing there, does it matter?
The answer is a big yes. We share a long 2,000-mile border with Mexico and we enjoy an incredibly robust commercial relationship. Our economies and our people are closely linked on many levels.
Someone asked me the other day if I thought Mexico was safe, and I puzzled at the question. “It completely depends where you are,” I noted. Mexico is a big place; some areas are dangerous and other areas are safe, because the crime and violence in Mexico are very geographically specific.
One of the main reasons for this is that some areas of the country are almost completely lawless. About ten years ago, while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, then Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo paraphrased the old real estate industry line, stating that Mexico’s three biggest challenges were: Rule of law, rule of law, and rule of law.
Unfortunately, things have gotten a lot worse since then. In private remarks, a senior Mexican law enforcement official commented that there were probably five provinces in Mexico that were completely run by criminal elements and where the Mexican government had no resources.
Mexico is worse off today than it was ten and twenty years ago in almost every important category. This is a big problem, especially considering others in Latin America have been able to steer their countries in a positive direction. Take Colombia, for example, which is a much better country today than it was ten, or twenty years ago and is moving in the right direction. Crime is down, kidnappings are down, drug trafficking is down, murders are down, the rule of law is clearly improving, and the government’s reach into areas previously seen as ungovernable is improving.
Mexico? Not so much.
When Mexican authorities were searching for the clandestine graves of the 43 students murdered in Guerrero in 2014, they repeatedly thought they had found them, because they inadvertently stumbled across several other mass graves. Amazingly, there are literally hundreds of unmarked mass graves in Mexico.
Earlier this month, the shocking picture of a seven-month old baby lying face down and dead on the sidewalk between his mother and father, slain in a drug-related gang shooting in Oaxaca, ran on the front page of several Mexican newspapers. It stunned even the most hardened observers of Mexico’s long running orgy of drug-related violence.
The Center for Impunity and Justice Studies at the Universidad de Las Américas recently published a study that found less than one percent of crimes were actually punished in Mexico. The vast majority of crimes are not even reported or investigated, and when there actually is a trial, over 95 percent of the accused walk free. When I first arrived in Mexico many years ago, a friend pulled me aside, and he gave me some good advice, “Now listen,” he said, “if your home ever gets robbed, DO NOT call the police.” “Why not?!” I asked incredulously. “Because they will come and take everything else,” he answered seriously.
In 1953, when President Dwight Eisenhower nominated then CEO of General Motors Charles Wilson to be Secretary of Defense, Wilson famously said during his confirmation hearings that, “what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa.” But the nuance of what he was trying to say has often been lost in the story’s retelling. Wilson made the statement when he was asked if, as Secretary of Defense, he could take action that might harm General Motors. He paused and uttered his famous line.
The line reminds me of Mexico, because on the flip side, what is bad for Mexico is usually bad for the U.S. too. We don’t want a country on our southern border that is lawless, violent, and corrupt. A deteriorating Mexico creates a growing national security challenge for the U.S., and it creates serious issues with illegal immigration, smuggling, corruption, violence, and crime—especially on the border but not limited to it.
The traditional Mexican drug cartels have morphed into other lines of business and should probably more accurately today be called “criminal cartels.” Paradoxically, Mexican authorities’ “success” against the cartels by way of decapitating their leadership often leads to more violence. The fractured groups branch out into other illegal activity to include extortion, kidnapping, stealing oil, robbery, illegal mining, illegal logging, and otherwise, while the remaining deputies jockey and fight for position to fill the vacuum created by the leader’s death or capture.
So, the fracturing of the drug cartels has created additional problems for Mexican authorities. The answer, however, is not to let up, but rather to keep one’s foot on the gas. Things will get better.
Colombia was in horrible shape in the 1970s. The Medellin and the Cali cartels were exploding car bombs on the streets in Bogota and boldly assassinating five presidential candidates with whom they disagreed. The cartels killed 11 of 25 Supreme Court Justices, violence and instability were increasing everywhere, and Colombian institutions across the board were systematically undermined and corrupted. But with great determination and resolve, the Colombians turned the situation around.
Mexico can be turned around as well, but it will take more of a plan and sustained efforts by Mexican authorities. If they lack the resolve, there is the real risk of them going into a downward spiral, where their institutions are further weakened, there is a shrinking tax base, legitimate companies close, unemployment rises, illegal immigration to the U.S. spikes, foreign direct investment declines, kidnappings rise, and so on.
Mexico should take a page from the Plan Colombia playbook. In Plan Colombia, the U.S. offered (and Colombia readily accepted) financial, intelligence, military, and tactical aid to fight the drug cartels. This multifaceted aid plan, coupled with the aggressive use of extradition of Colombian drug lords to the U.S. for trial and incarceration, turned the tide in Colombia.
Improving the rule of law in Mexico will require a plan, time, and money, but most importantly, it will require the political will that, sadly, Mexico seems to be lacking. But Mexico could do this, and we should help them, because the risks from a collapsing Mexico are profound.
