Growing tumult along the U.S.-Mexico border poses a strategic threat to both countries. In the main, deteriorating conditions there spring from Mexican drug cartels (feeding demand from within the United States); the cartels’ ability to easily procure sophisticated weaponry—again, from the United States; and the entrenched U.S. practice of using immigrants—mainly Mexicans—for labor that many Americans consider demeaning or inappropriate.
The resultant instability cloaks a Hydra comprising:
• A continued spread of the cartels’ presence and power within the United States and Mexico—and south into Central America1
• A seeping-in of international terrorism, particularly Islamic terrorism, through the border2
• An erosion, if not smothering of the emergence of a true Mexican democracy3
• An undermining of lawful authority and the principle of community along the border4
As somber as events have become since Mexican President Felipe Calderón ordered the army into northern Mexico in late 2006, the crisis is not without hope. Results of July elections in 14 of Mexico’s 31 states were encouraging and may be a harbinger for next year’s gubernatorial election in Mexico State and the 2012 presidential election. The crucial need now is decisive, quick action with forethought, perseverance, and policy sustainment from both U.S. political parties and the Mexican government. The road will be long and arduous.
From the latter part of President George W. Bush’s administration to the present, the U.S. government has assessed the current upheaval on the border—and within Mexico itself—as the death throes of the Mexican drug cartels.5 Mexico’s government, less sanguine, maintains that U.S. support and President Calderón’s decisiveness are the appropriate responses to the cartels’ long-standing existence. However, Calderón has all but said Mexico is not winning the fight. The two governments’ current approach to an entrenched and spreading malignancy ignores reality. Though their aims are complementary, and their working together is essential, their strategic ends differ.
The United States is, or should be, strategically focused on the defense of its borders against transnational terrorism and criminality. That illegal immigration and human smuggling into the United States, distorted and obfuscated by emotive political rhetoric, is intrinsic to the debate is not incidental. For Mexico, the advancement of a budding democracy and the ability to guarantee the rule of law throughout its sovereign territory are foremost among strategic goals.
A Failed War on Drugs
The effort to curb drug abuse in the United States has been a failure. Forty years after President Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs in its modern guise, illegal substance and drug abuse has increased steadily. According to the Department of Justice Web site the Drug Enforcement Administration has estimated that 4 million people abused drugs in 1960. Today that estimate is 74 million.6 Drug abuse has been called “one of the most salient and multifaceted threats to the Americas. Illegal drug consumption, particularly in the United States, creates demand and criminality.”7 Though administrations of both political parties have made resounding pronouncements on the need to curb illegal drug consumption, little of substance has been achieved. The irrefutable fact is the demand for drugs in the United States is the raison d’être for the cartels’ existence. A sustained effort similar to that used to expose the perils of tobacco could serve as a model to tackle this national disgrace.
Has the Surgeon General of the United States consistently spoken to the dangers of illegal drug consumption, as has been done regarding tobacco or HIV transmission? Moreover, drug abuse is conveniently pigeonholed, in the minds of many, as the refuge of minorities, scofflaws, and ne’er-do-wells. (HIV initially was categorized as a “gay,” or “needle-user” affliction, thus worth little more than often lewd, speculative, and sensationalist journalism.) Until the national laissez–aller attitude toward drug abuse is challenged and changed, and while drug abuse continues unabated in the United States, those in governance must recognize that the demand for illegal substances is directly aiding and abetting the border crisis. The fact is that it ensures the crisis worsens over time with all the concomitant consequences of inaction.
The ingenuity, resilience, and above all, the adaptability of the cartels are legendary. They are amoebalike in their self-perpetuation. They have shifted their earlier drug ingress routes from air and sea through the Caribbean Sea area to concentrate in Mexico for transborder shipments. U.S. efforts in the Caribbean are a success story. Constant vigilance, however, remains critical. Emerging evidence indicates that human smuggling, primarily, is shifting to sea lanes along the U.S. Pacific Coast.8
While steadily spreading south into Central America, Mexican cartels are establishing large marijuana farms on public and private lands in the United States; increasingly, drug proceeds are used to buy upscale houses in comfortable, suburban U.S. neighborhoods for indoor cultivation of hydroponic marijuana, ensuring a more potent form of the drug. Thus is eliminated the nuisance of border checks. That the influential environmental movement in the United States has not spoken out forcefully on the despoliation of the Southwest deserts and the damaging of pristine forestlands by large-scale marijuana operations is curious and troublesome.9 Further, armed and unsophisticated foreign nationals increasingly are found to be tending those large crops. The uncomfortable fact is that the United States has a serious drug problem that has not been effectively addressed.
The Thorn of Illegal Immigration
Nationally, illegal immigration is a volatile political issue. It is also integral to the worsening border situation for both countries.10 The United States has been politically reluctant to follow through with comprehensive and effective immigration reform, a major incentive in Arizona’s enactment of the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” (S. B. 1070), signed into law on 23 April this year by Governor Jan Brewer. The primacy of the federal government in “establishing and enforcing immigration policy” being generally accepted, some contend that not to enjoin Arizona from implementing the law “invites a patchwork of inconsistent state policies, with results as untenable as having states set their own defense or foreign policies.”11
Lost in the debate is that illegal immigration and the nasty collateral business of human trafficking are driven more by economic opportunity and soaring internal social upheaval than they are restrained by tighter border control. The simple fact is this: Illegal immigration and human smuggling have become inextricably entwined with drug smuggling. The U.S. government has devoted considerable resources to border control and protection. A partial listing of federal entities involved in some aspect of controlling, protecting, or monitoring the border includes: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Customs and Border Protection; Drug Enforcement Administration; Department of Homeland Security; Defense Intelligence Agency; National Counterterrorism Center; Transportation Security Administration; and the FBI. The complexity of border-control assignments and their significant allocation of resources are rather numbing.12 In sum, the current unwieldy arrangement is a hindrance to effective border control, not an asset.
Much like the unchecked bloating of the national intelligence apparatus, more is not necessarily better along the border—political expediency and pandering to emotionalism notwithstanding. Both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and CIA Director Leon Panetta have said that the financial burden of the behemoth national intelligence apparatus is not sustainable.13 The same can be said of the U.S. border security apparatus: It is plagued by the same “throw-money-at-the-problem” attitude and lacks a well thought-out, sustainable strategy. Moreover, notably absent since 9/11 has been meaningful congressional oversight of the appropriations enacted in the name of national security or counterterrorism.
A Flood of Drug Money
As illegal drugs flow relatively unimpeded northward into the United States, so do unhindered bulk-cash shipments of illicit U.S. dollars and increasingly sophisticated weaponry in turn flow south. (Depending on the source, estimates of the cash going to Mexico are between $18 billion and $39 billion annually.) As illegal drugs go north to satisfy a growing U.S. appetite, so U.S. dollars go south to ensure that the appetite continues to get fed. Just as U.S. drug consumption is more than a mere blight on the nation’s well-being, character, and strength, so, too, are the money and arms illegally entering Mexico insidiously eroding Calderón’s commendable efforts to bring true democracy to Mexico.
In the public discourse, little attention is given to what the flow of vast amounts of illicit cash is doing to Mexico’s economy and social fabric. Does an unprecedented level of liquidity during recessionary times augur well for legitimate development and maturation of those sectors? The continuous seepage of illegal monies into Mexico’s economy inexorably and inalterably transforms that realm as the modus operandi accommodates itself to the continued influx of unprecedented sums. The flow of illegal cash into Mexico is of strategic concern to both the United States and Mexico. Yet its consequences—for example, the removal of the economic imperative to engender and encourage the long-term growth of legitimate instruments of national economic health—are not fully appreciated.
It is pure folly, not to mention disingenuous, to speculate that the common strategic threat can be addressed with anything less than a full U.S.-Mexico partnership. To date, the ad hoc approach of the United States lacks an overarching, properly focused, long-term strategy, and is encumbered by a plethora of government organizations. It has not been successful in efficiently tailoring resources to match the desired ends. Mexico, meanwhile, is experiencing its own growing national drug problem as many of the cartels there now accept payment in kind rather than in cash, particularly from Colombian cocaine suppliers. Furthermore, war-weariness and a certain national despondency are emerging in Mexico.
The Steps That Must Be Taken
U.S. policymakers of both parties have misread the depth, pervasiveness, and seriousness of the deteriorating situation on the border. It is only a matter of time before transnational terrorist organizations begin to successfully exploit this worsening fissure in national security. The crux of the problem is threefold:
• The lack of a comprehensive national security policy to contend with a failed national drug-abuse prevention policy
• The inability to agree on an effective, fair national immigration policy
• The growing strength and audacity of Mexican drug cartels
Corruption, gunrunning, extortion, kidnapping, and other associated criminal enterprises further exacerbate an already tenuous situation.14 The threat is no less acute for Mexico, with whom the United States is enjoying some of the closest cooperation in the history of the two countries. Mexico is taking significant steps toward democracy after more than seven decades of one-party rule. But time is of the essence: there is no guarantee that a like-minded president—or political party for that matter—will replace Calderón in 2012. That reality, too, must be factored into a comprehensive national security strategy.
Any new strategy must be long-term in scope, with Mexico a constant and equal partner. Ultimately it must strive to be hemispheric as well. The United States must get its own house in order. The Mérida Initiative is a start, but it must be strengthened to be of real value.15 For starters, it needs to provide for the reform and training of Mexico’s local and state police officers on a par with the vetting and training that Mexico’s Federales receive. (Law enforcement professionals argue persuasively that uncorrupted local police are the key to gaining the population’s trust and confidence.) Second, Mexico’s armed forces should be put under clear civilian control, as was done in Colombia; they should be taken out of the law-enforcement business. Third, some provision is needed for training of law enforcement and judicial partners as Mexico’s judicial system moves from a written, inquisitorial approach to one that is oral and adversarial. In support of the latter, professional and collegial exchanges between U.S. and Mexican law schools should be initiated and sustained.
Additionally, intelligence unquestionably is crucial to any security strategy, yet the lack of creditable human intelligence assets continues to be crippling. Current U.S. enchantment with technical intelligence-gathering is instrumental in the paucity of human intelligence from within the Mexican cartels. A policy of not assigning language-proficient and culturally aware professionals where they are needed exacerbates the problem. Finally, the entire border control and protection apparatus must be streamlined and made more responsive to the on-the-ground realities of today.
The United States and Mexico are at a crucial juncture as neighbors with a common border. The path taken in addressing the shared strategic threat will be critical to both countries—a harbinger of U.S.-Mexican relations in this century, and of foreseeable hemispheric interactions.
1. Nick Miroff and William Booth, ¨Violence accompanies cartels in move south,” The Washington Post, 27 July 2010, p. A1.
2. “Report: Hezbollah on U.S.-Mexico Border,” NewsMax-Online, 6 July 2010, http://www.cafemom.com/group/99198/forums/read/11782401/Hezbollah_Hamas_are_joining the Mexicans_Chinese_Russians_Iraqis_at_the_SW_border_crossing_into_the_?last. “Congresswoman Raises Red Flag on Hezbollah-Cartel Nexus on U.S. Border,” 25 June 2010, http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/search?q=Congresswomen+Raises+Red+Flag+on+Hezbollah-Cartel+Nexus+on+U.S.+Border&submit=Search. Also see “EXCLUSIVE: Hezbollah uses Mexican drug routes into the U.S.,” 27 March 2009, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/27/hezbollah-uses-mexican-drug-routes-into-us/?page=1.
3. Arturo Sarukhán Casamitjana, Mexican Ambassador to the United States, presentation delivered at Georgetown University´s Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service Center for Latin American Studies on 22 April 2010; and, subsequent discussion between the ambassador and the author.
4. William Booth, “Violence with growing sophistication,” The Washington Post, 22 July 2010, p. A10.
5. U.S. Department of Justice, Statement for the Record of Anthony P. Placido, Assistant Administrator for Intelligence, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Anthony L. Perkins, Assistant Director, Criminal Investigative Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, United States Senate, ¨Drug Trafficking Violence in Mexico: Implications for the United States,¨ 5 May 2010, p. 4.
6. DEA website http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/history/1970-1975.pdf.
7. Betty Horwitz, “The Role of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Commission (CICAD): Confronting the Problem of Illegal Drugs in the Americas,” Latin American Politics and Society 52, Issue 2 (Summer 2010): p. 1.
8. Elliot Spagot, “Migrants turn to the sea to enter U.S. illegally,” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100826/ap_on_re_us/us_sea_smuggling.
9. James C. McKinely, Jr., “As Arizona Morgue Grows Crowded,” The New York Times, 29 July 2010, p. A14.
10. Jill Abrams, “Calderon Speech to Congress: Mexican President to Address Immigration During Joint Session,” The Huffington Post, 20 May 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/calderon-speech-congress-mexico-immigration_n_582934.html. See also Deborah Solomon, “Questions for Vincente Fox - Border Rap,” The New York Times Magazine, 25 July 2010, p. 14.
11. See Doris Meissner and James W. Ziglar, “Why Arizona had to be challenged,” The Washington Post, 22 July 2010, p. A19.
12. See: Executive Office of the President, Office of National Drug Control Policy, National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy, Appendix B: Resources, June 2009.
13. Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, “Top Secret America,” The Washington Post, 19-21 July 2010, p. A1. Also see “The overgrowth of intelligence,” The Washington Post, 22 July 2010, p. A18.
14. Corruption on the border is not solely a Mexican phenomenon. See: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Congressional Testimony of Kevin L. Perkins, Assistant Director, Criminal Investigative Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation: Statement Before Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness, 11 March 2010.
15. The Mérida Initiative is an agreement on cooperation between the United States and Mexico; it is not a single document. See: http://www.state.gov/p/inl/merida/index.htm; also refer to: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=5949&fuseaction=topics.item&news_id=407349 For questions and problems of implementation: United States Government Accountability Office, Mérida Initiative: The United States Has Provided Counternarcotics and Anticrime Support but Needs Better Performance Measures, GAO-10-837, July 2010.