Internships

On December 2^nd, a panel, moderated by Robert S. Leiken and featuring commentary from John Bailey of Georgetown University and Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue, presented analysis and elicited conversation on the current situation in Mexico. Leiken opened the session by reading Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s observation that Mexico is facing an insurgency somewhat like Colombia’s, framing the discussion. He noted that despite President Barack Obama’s explicit repudiation of these remarks, Senator Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, echoed them two weeks later. Leiken also noted that the Center for a New American Security had published an influential analysis drawing the same analogy, one repeated in a piece by a Washington Post columnist.

Shifter suggested that while the usage of the term “insurgency” and the analogy to Colombia may have been prompted by legitimate alarm at Mexico’s spiraling and spreading violence, it is a misleading characterization. Bailey drew a distinction between a “high-intensity crime war” (Mexico) and “low-intensity warfare” (Colombia), between what is essentially a gang war, albeit one unprecedented in scope and arsenal, and a true political insurgency. Whereas the Colombian combatants sought national political power, the Mexican syndicates are motivated by their need to maintain access to plazas, or drug trafficking routes. Consequently they seek to control local territory and governance, but they do not challenge state power. Most of the Mexican fighting is among the crime syndicates, not between them and the government. Nor are these syndicates working in alliance against the government. All this is in sharp contrast to the political insurgency of the FARC in Colombia today or the behavior of the Medellin Cartel twenty years ago. Whereas the Mexican syndicates target municipal and transit police in an effort to control drug corridors, both the FARC and the Medellin cartel struck at national targets. However, in Colombia the kind of exemplary violence now common in Mexico (hanging bodies from bridges, heaping corpses on street corners) rarely occurred. On the other hand, Mexico has not seen adversaries striking airplanes or blowing up national government offices as happened in Colombia.  Panelists and participants conjectured whether Clinton’s analogy, one not supported in statements by State Department officials closer to the situation, and explicitly rejected by President Obama, may have echoed views held in the Pentagon and by other Washington players who see the counterinsurgency (COIN) model implemented in the Iraq “surge” as widely applicable.

Do the distinctions represent two different kinds of problems-a national security threat and a law enforcement crisis? Bailey applied to the differing situations in Colombia and Mexico a distinction between a “counterinsurgency tool box” and a “high-intensity crime tool box.” The former was deployed in Colombia as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus the US “is quite familiar with that tool box.” But neither Mexico nor the US has built a “high-intensity crime tool box.” Certainly that will require judicial and police reform, but those reforms may take “generations” and there is pressure for immediate action in the headline grabbing crisis to our south. Bailey envisioned tools from the COIN box as useful elements in a crime tool box for Mexico, particularly the emphasis on protecting the population. Nor is it clear what role the US should play beyond the Merida Initiative, which initially stressed military assistance, e.g. helicopters, and more recently has focused on institutional reforms. Respecting the latter, an important role for the Department of Homeland Security was envisioned.

In regard to any US role, Shifter stressed that Colombia and Mexico had very different relations and “sensitivities” respecting US assistance. The two panelists also pointed out that counterinsurgency in Colombia, supported by US materiel, advisers and training, had produced three million internal refugees, a situation that, if replicated in Mexico, could flood the US southwest.

In Colombia, one of two “cartels” dominated its narcotics crisis; in Mexico there are at least seven major syndicates and as many as 200 gangs. Bailey pointed out that although Mexico has an elaborate anti-narcotics strategy, that strategy is mainly declaratory.  While Mexico has a strong presidential commitment it lacks similar commitments by opposition political parties as well as coordination with local and state authorities. The alternative is simply applying quick yet trusted counterinsurgency methods that may be appropriate for Iraq or Afghanistan, but may not fit into the “high intensity crime box.” Another striking analogy was used in this instance: were Mexico on fire, one would think to throw water (counterinsurgency tactics) on that fire because it is a method that has worked in other instances (Iraq). However, water only aggravates other kinds of fires, such as electrical fires.

Participants discussed the nefarious role of US arms smuggling to Mexico and acknowledged a shared US responsibility for the situation. Leiken announced that the State Department’s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemispheric Affairs, Roberta Jacobson, former Mexico desk officer, would speak at the next luncheon on January 12.