THE U.S. ROLE

As the world’s largest consumer of drugs and its largest supplier of firearms, the United States is a direct contributor to Mexico’s drug violence. According to the 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, roughly 8 percent of U.S. residents over the age of twelve—some 19.9 million people—had used drugs within the past month.28 Moreover, over the last three decades, a growing number of U.S. adults, including nearly half of individuals over the age of thirty-five, admit to some drug usage during their lifetime Because of the size of the U.S. black market for drugs and the inflationary effect of prohibition on prices, Mexican suppliers enjoy enormous profits, estimated at $6 billion to $7 billion annually, with at least 70 percent coming from hard drugs like cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and other synthetics.29 While drug traffickers’ financial operations are robust and sophisticated (including the use of cyber technologies and offshore accounts) efforts to combat money-laundering operations have been weak. Mexico typically nets fewer than ten money laundering convictions each year, and recent high-profile U.S. prosecutions targeting American Express, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo are more the exception than the rule.30

Firearms, ammunition, and explosives sold in the United States are also a major contributing factor to Mexico’s violence. While Mexican DTOs use a wide range of firearms—including some U.S.- manufactured hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades—the weapons of choice are AK-47 and AR-15 type rifles and high-caliber pistols. These are often imported legally to the United States from Europe, then sold illegally and in large numbers to surrogate or “straw” purchasers in the United States (with semi-automatic rifles frequently converted into select-fire machine guns). The United States is a convenient point of purchase for Mexican DTOs, given that an estimated 10 percent of U.S. gun dealers are located along the U.S.-Mexico border.31 Moreover, there are few obstacles to the purchase of firearms, ammunition, and explosives, since powerful U.S. gun lobbies have effectively hamstrung efforts to enforce existing laws, combat firearms trafficking, or otherwise restrict access to deadly, high-powered weapons.32 Failure to address money laundering and gun trafficking with greater commitment undermines Mexico’s trust and may close the present window of opportunity for binational cooperation.

While President Obama has pledged his support for international treaties that would facilitate information sharing, mutual legal assistance, and extradition to better combat arms trafficking, these treaties have not yet been presented to the Senate for ratification.33 At the same time, efforts to monitor gun trafficking, promote effective U.S. and Mexican law enforcement cooperation, and even enable collaboration among U.S. federal, state, and local agencies are constrained by a lack of access to aggregate trace data from the Department of Justice Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) on guns linked to violent crimes. Still, some U.S. states have made progress in reducing gun trafficking and violence by adopting certain registration and permit requirements, gun possession laws, dealer inspection policies, criminal penalties, local ordinances, and reporting mechanisms for lost or stolen guns.34 Ultimately, though, as with drugs, the illicit flow of firearms across the border will be difficult to control so long as market demand remains strong.

Opportunities for U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation

Security collaboration between the United States and Mexico has traditionally suffered from asymmetrical capabilities, divergent priorities, and frequent distrust. Even today, Mexicans tend to see their current plight as one caused by the factors mentioned above, as well as the deportation of criminal aliens from the United States to Mexico without any coordination with local authorities. From a U.S. point of view, Mexico’s institutional weakness and corruption are the source of its woes and the primary obstacle to more effective cooperation. Mexico’s current crisis therefore presents an unprecedented opportunity for the two countries to work together to address shared challenges and responsibilities.

In recent years, Mexico has been highly receptive to binational cooperation with the United States, resulting in record numbers of extraditions and cross-border prosecutions. Such progress helped pave the way for targeted U.S. assistance since 2007 under the Merida Initiative. The development of a clear framework for U.S.-Mexico cooperation is an achievement in itself. Working in an intense, sustained, and bilateral manner, authorities from both countries have successfully identified shared priorities, strategies, and avenues for cooperation. For Mexico, direct U.S. financial assistance provides a significant boost on top of the roughly $4.3 billion spent annually combating drug trafficking.35

As the initial allotment of funds for the Merida Initiative ended in fiscal year 2009–2010, the Obama administration worked with Mexican authorities to develop a longer-term framework for continued cooperation that has four “pillars”: more binational collaboration to combat DTOs, greater assistance to strengthen the judicial sector, more effective interdiction efforts through twenty-first-century border controls, and new social programs to revitalize Mexican communities affected by crime and violence.36 In parallel, the U.S. government also plans to increase its efforts to address the central causes of Mexico’s drug violence, with new funding to reduce arms smuggling, money laundering, and illicit drug consumption in the United States. Also, reacting to public concerns, the United States has deployed massive amounts of manpower and funding to the U.S.-Mexican border to prevent undocumented immigration and stave off “spillover” violence.

Interagency Cooperation

International cooperation under the Merida Initiative remains primarily coordinated by agencies in the U.S. Department of State.37 Within the Department of State, the most prominent roles are played by the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs (WHA), the Bureau of International Narcotics Affairs and Law Enforcement (INL), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).38 The Department of Defense (DOD), particularly the U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), has also begun to interact with its Mexican counterparts more regularly in recent years. High-level governmental coordination occurs through regular meetings of the Inter-Agency Policy Committee organized by the National Security Council (NSC), and the Merida Initiative Core Group. Midlevel and operational government task forces currently work together through several interagency and intra-agency coordination mechanisms, thanks in part to active leadership by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. The United States has much to offer in terms of formal governmental assistance, as well as academic and nongovernmental programs (such as the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies [CALEA], the Open Society Justice Initiative, the American Bar Association [ABA], the National Center for State Courts [NCSC], etc.).

The structures for coordination across current U.S. and Mexican government initiatives are still in development, and there are ongoing challenges associated with the sudden increase in funding that must be addressed to sustain and move beyond the current high-water mark in binational cooperation. Whether starting up or scaling up operations, many agencies and programs in both countries need additional resources, staff, and infrastructure. At the same time, many programs lack continuity beyond a specific budget cycle, have no coherent long-term strategy, and find it difficult to cooperate with complementary programs with whom they compete for the same funding. With 90 percent of Merida funding in 2011 channeled through INL, the emphasis will remain focused on “hard” approaches, leaving other agencies—notably USAID—at a disadvantage. Even where adequate funding is present, political and bureaucratic obstacles—on the part of both the United States and Mexico—have delayed some programs and deliverables, contributing to frustration and criticism toward the Merida Initiative. Meanwhile, since the Merida Initiative is formally coordinated by the State Department, no high-level U.S. agency shares direct responsibility or leadership for dealing with the “intermestic” problems associated with transnational organized crime networks. Finally, many programs place insufficient emphasis on monitoring performance indicators and measuring effectiveness.39 Left unaddressed, these problems may contribute to unnecessary inefficiencies, duplication of efforts, inconsistent metrics of success, and confusion and dissatisfaction among partners and stakeholders in Mexico.

U.S. Development Assistance to Mexico

Although there are major differences between Mexico and Colombia, U.S. efforts to support Mexico can draw some lessons from its efforts in Colombia. U.S. anti-drug assistance through Plan Colombia greatly bolstered the capacity of the Colombian state to combat DTOs and make long-term gains in citizen security. While Plan Colombia exhibited many flaws—including human rights violations and unresolved problems of violence and internal displacement—intense binational cooperation, intelligence sharing, and joint tactical operations provided a decisive advantage against both DTOs and insurgent threats. Military and law enforcement assistance was only part of the equation. Robust economic assistance, averaging $200 million a year over the past five years, has consolidated security gains in Colombia. Furthermore, this aid facilitated the transformation of Colombia’s urban slums into resilient communities and helped decrease unemployment from 15 percent to 11 percent.

In contrast, current U.S. priorities in Mexico remain focused on the “hard” and tactical measures that were more relevant to rooting out Colombia’s insurgents than to addressing the social, economic, and institutional factors that undermine public security in Mexico. The first three years of the Merida Initiative consisted primarily of funds for military assistance, narcotics control, and law enforcement, with more than half of all funding directed to aircraft, transportation units, and equipment. Meanwhile, even as the current binational strategy emphasizes judicial sector reform and building strong communities, only a trivial portion of U.S. aid to Mexico is slated for institutional strengthening and development assistance. As a result, Mexico ranks among the lowest U.S. priorities in Latin America, even though Mexico’s forty million poor people outnumber the individual populations of all but two other countries in the region (Argentina and Brazil). As a necessary complement to “hard” law enforcement measures, the United States should begin directing its money and efforts to the kind of social, economic, and institutional development assistance that can help fund crime prevention programs, educational assistance, workforce development in struggling communities, and greater professionalism and effectiveness in the judicial sector.

Rethinking U.S. Drug Policy

Mexico’s security crisis illustrates the limitations of current anti-drug strategies and offers an opportunity to shift the paradigm to a more sensible approach. Over the last four decades, the war on drugs has lacked clear, consistent, or achievable objectives; has had little effect on aggregate demand; and has imposed an enormous social and economic cost.40 A state-driven, supply-side, and penalty-based approach has failed to curb market production, distribution, and consumption of drugs. The assumption that punishing suppliers and users can effectively combat a large market for illicit drugs has proven to be utterly false. Rather, prohibition bestows enormous profits on traffickers, criminalizes otherwise law-abiding users and addicts, and imposes enormous costs on society.41 Meanwhile, there has been no real effect on the availability of drugs or their consumption, and three-quarters of U.S. citizens believe that the war on drugs has failed.42

One flaw of current U.S.-Mexico strategy is the false presumption that international trafficking of drugs, guns, and cash can be effectively addressed through interdiction, particularly along the nearly two-thousand-mile U.S.-Mexican border. After a three-decade effort to beef up security, the U.S.- Mexico border is more heavily fortified than at any point since the U.S.-Mexico war of 1846–48. The United States has deployed more than twenty thousand border patrol agents and built hundreds of miles of fencing equipped with high-tech surveillance equipment, all at an annual cost of billions of dollars—with $3 billion per year spent on border control alone. While this massive security build-up at the border has achieved maximum attainable levels of operational control, the damage to Mexico’s drug cartels caused by border interdiction has been inconsequential.43 Meanwhile, there have been several unintended consequences of heightened interdiction at the border, including added hassles and delays that obstruct billions of dollars in legitimate commerce each year, the expansion and increased sophistication of cross-border smuggling operations, and greater U.S. vulnerability to attacks and even infiltration by traffickers.44 Further efforts to beef up the border through more patrolling and fencing will have diminishing returns, and will likely cause more economic harm than gains in security for the struggling communities of the border region.45

Given the limits of U.S. drug policy, there is a need for more information and analysis to weigh the costs and benefits of current efforts against alternative policy options. For example, one recent study suggests that legalizing marijuana would cause as much as $1 to 2 billion in losses for Mexican drug traffickers, since competition from legally registered producers would drive them out of the business. Since these DTOs would continue to smuggle other profitable illicit drugs, the main benefit of marijuana legalization would be to allow U.S. border security and law enforcement to focus their resources on other problems.46 Of course, while support for this idea is growing, the potential hazards and limitations of drug legalization are substantial.47 Legalization would almost certainly cause drug traffickers to move into other illicit activities to maintain profitability, so U.S. and Mexican authorities would still need to develop better measures to combat kidnapping, robbery, extortion, and other forms of organized crime. Meanwhile, as with other controlled substances, like tobacco and alcohol, increased recreational drug use would likely result in widespread use and significant social harms in both countries, including traffic fatalities, fatal overdoses, addiction, and chronic health problems.

Any effort to legalize drugs would need to proceed with careful study, ample deliberation, and due caution. Yet, with or without legalization, authorities should work with greater urgency and focus to develop public health and law enforcement measures to prevent, treat, and reduce the harms associated with drug consumption.48 In the end, treating drug consumption and organized crime as separate problems will make it possible to address both more effectively. To make this possible—and before other countries or even some U.S. states venture further down the road toward drug legalization—the U.S. federal government should move quickly to examine the current approach and chart a course toward a more effective drug policy.