INTRODUCTION

Mexico is in the midst of a worsening security crisis. Explosive clashes and territorial disputes among powerful drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) have killed more than thirty thousand people since President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2006. The geography of that violence is limited but continues to spread, and its targets include a growing number of government officials, police officers, journalists, and individuals unrelated to the drug trade. The Mexican government has made the war on drugs its top priority and has even called in the military to support the country’s weak police and judicial institutions. Even so, few Mexican citizens feel safer today than they did ten years ago, and most believe that their government is losing the fight.

Despite the most dismal assessments, the Mexican state has neither failed nor has it confronted a growing insurgent movement.1 Despite the most dismal assessments, the Mexican state has neither failed nor has it confronted a growing insurgent movement. Moreover, violence elsewhere in the Western hemisphere is far worse than in Mexico. Whereas, 45,000 homicides (14 per 100,000) have occurred in Mexico since 2007, Brazil and Colombia saw more than 80,000 (20 per 100,000) and 50,000 (30 per 100,000) murders, respectively.2 Even so, the country’s violent organized crime groups represent a real and present danger to Mexico, the United States, and neighboring countries. Even so, the country’s violent organized crime groups represent a real and present danger to Mexico, the United States, and neighboring countries. The tactics they use often resemble those of terrorist and insurgents, even though their objectives are profit-seeking rather than politically motivated. Meanwhile, although the Mexican state retains democratic legitimacy and a firm grasp on the overwhelming majority of Mexican territory, some DTOs capitalize on antigovernment sentiments and have operational control of certain limited geographic areas. DTOs have also corrupted officials at all levels of government, and increasingly lash out against Mexican government officials and ordinary citizens. The February 2011 killing of a U.S. immigration and customs agent signals that U.S. law enforcement officials are now in the crosshairs. If current security trends continue to worsen, the emergence of a genuine insurgent movement, the proliferation of “ungoverned spaces,” and the deliberate and sustained targeting of U.S. government personnel will become more likely.

The United States has much to gain by helping to strengthen its southern neighbor and even more to lose if it does not. The cumulative effects of an embattled Mexican state harm the United States and a further reduction of Mexican state capacity is unacceptable and provides a clear motivation for U.S. preventive action.

First, the weaker the Mexican state, the greater difficulty the United States will experience in controlling the nearly two-thousand-mile border. Spillover violence, in which DTOs bring their fight to American soil, is a remote worst-case scenario.3 Even so, lawlessness south of the border directly affects the United States. A weak Mexican government increases the flow of contraband (such as drugs, money, and weapons) and illegal immigrants into the United States. As the dominant wholesale distributors of illegal drugs to U.S. consumers, Mexican traffickers are also the single greatest domestic organized crime threat within the United States, operating in every state and hundreds of U.S. cities, selling uncontrolled substances that directly endanger the health and safety of millions of ordinary citizens.

Second, economically, Mexico is an important market for the United States. As a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), it is one of only seventeen states with which the United States has a free trade pact, outside of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT). The United States has placed nearly $100 billion of foreign direct investment in Mexico. Mexico is also the United States’ third-largest trade partner, the third-largest source of U.S. imports, and the second-largest exporter of U.S. goods and services—with potential for further market growth as the country develops. Trade with Mexico benefits the U.S. economy, and the market collapse that would likely accompany a deteriorated security situation could hamper American economic recovery.

Third, Mexican stability serves as an important anchor for the region. With networks stretching into Central America, the Caribbean, and the Andean countries, Mexican DTOs undermine the security and reliability of other U.S. partners in the hemisphere, corrupting high-level officials, military operatives, and law enforcement personnel; undermining due process and human rights; reducing public support for counter-drug efforts; and even provoking hostility toward the United States. Given the fragility of some Central American and Caribbean states, expansion of DTO operations and violence into the region will have a gravely destabilizing effect.

Fourth, the unchecked power and violence of these Mexican DTOs present a substantial humanitarian concern, and they have contributed to forced migration and numerous U.S. asylum requests. If the situation worsened, a humanitarian emergency could cause an unmanageable flow of people into the United States. It would also adversely affect the many U.S. citizens residing in Mexico.

Not only is solving the crisis in the U.S. national interest, the United States bears a shared responsibility for resolving it, since U.S. drug consumption, firearms, and cash have fueled much of Mexico’s recent violence.4 The United States should therefore take full advantage of the unprecedented resolve of Mexican authorities to work bilaterally to address a common threat. The best hope for near-term progress is to bolster U.S. domestic law enforcement efforts to curb illicit drug distribution, firearms smuggling, and money laundering. In the intermediate term, the United States should also make an overall commitment to the prevention and treatment of drug abuse and other societal ills caused by drugs, while reevaluating the effectiveness of current U.S. and international drug policies. With an eye to strengthening Mexico in the longer term, the United States should also redouble rule of law and economic assistance to Mexico, with an emphasis on professionalizing the judicial sector and creating economic alternatives to a life of crime. To prevent Mexico’s problems from spreading to Central America and the Caribbean, the United States should also work actively to reinvigorate and adapt regional security frameworks for the transnational challenges of the post–Cold War era.

A SHARED THREAT

On a day-to-day basis, no other country affects the United States like Mexico. More than ever, Mexico and the United States are deeply interdependent: they are connected by more than $300 billion in annual cross-border trade, tens of millions of U.S. and Mexican citizens in binational families, and the everyday interactions of over fourteen million people living along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.

Unfortunately, U.S.-Mexican interdependence has also been marked by the proliferation of powerful transnational organized crime syndicates, and extreme violence that has killed tens of thousands of Mexicans and hundreds of U.S. citizens in recent years. The ability of organized crime to corrupt elected officials and law enforcement authorities has long compromised U.S.-Mexican security cooperation, but now the Mexican government’s increased reliance on the military raises new dangers of institutional corruption and human rights abuses. Moreover, growing public frustration has led to increased vigilantism and support for heavy-handed security measures that lack transparency and violate due process. All of these trends present grave challenges for Mexico and have already begun to spread to Central America.5 Given the threat to U.S. interests and stability in the region, the United States, Mexico, and several Central American countries have already embarked on an unprecedented security partnership known as the Merida Initiative, a three-year, nearly $1.4 billion–aid package to provide U.S. equipment, training and technical assistance, counternarcotics intelligence sharing, and rule of law promotion programs in Mexico and Central America.6 Despite these important efforts, the proliferation of violence and the relentless flow of drugs into the United States continue. Improving the U.S. response to this shared threat demands a clear understanding of Mexico’s security crisis, counter-drug efforts in Mexico, and the role of the United States.