convergence

Sullivan
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Guatemala and Honduras, El Salvador, Panama and Costa Rica, indeed all Central
America, are currently at risk of being caught in the “cross-border” spillover of Mexico’s
drug wars. Controlling these border zones is key to transnational gangs and cartels.
Los Zetas, for example, not only train in sparsely populated border areas, they seek to
sustain military control of the frontier and adjoining terrain on both sides of Mexico’s
southern border between Chiapas and Guatemala. 48
The informal economies that have emerged in Latin American border zones demonstrate
the transition of states that is emerging from the twin engines of globalization and the
information age. The shift of government authority from the state (or in cases where the state
has always been weak, the rise of criminal governance) to dark side criminal actors/criminal
netwarriors is a consequence of globalization impacting loose frontier economies that serve
as in-between zones for illicit goods within a common regional network. This exploitation
of regional economic circuits, albeit illicit, illustrates the transition into a reconfiguration of
power within the state, where traditional informal networks link with globalized forms of
illicit commerce to create a new base of power.
Criminal Enclaves
In Mexico and parts of Central America, cartels and gangs have gained control over specific
plazas ranging from a few city blocks to entire states or subnational regions. Exploiting weak
state capacity in urban slums or rural border zones 49 either from the aftermath of civil war
(Central America) or during the transition from one party rule (Mexico), criminal mafias of
various stripes have exploited the vacuum of power. In Mexico, for example, the drug-trafficking
organizations were traditionally moderated by the ruling party, the Partido Revolucionario
Institucional (PRI). The end of the PRI monopoly on power allowed the cartels to seek new
business and political arrangements. Cartels, now free from the influence of the PRI, could
strike independent arrangements with local political actors. This freedom converged with the
increasing globalization of crime. As a result, organized crime could then establish boundaries
for the authorities, not the other way around. 50
Drug cartels and criminal gangs are challenging the legitimacy and solvency of the state
at the local, state, and national levels in Mexico and Central America. As Max Manwaring
stipulated, these state challengers are applying the “Sullivan-Bunker Cocktail,” where nonstate
actors challenge the de facto sovereignty of nations. 51 In Manwaring’s interpretation, gangs and
irregular networked attackers can challenge nation-states by using complicity, intimidation,
and corruption to subtly co-opt and control individual bureaucrats and gain effective control
over a given enclave.
Essentially, the cartels and their networked 3 GEN gang affiliates exploit weak zones of
governance, expanding their criminal turf into effective areas of control. They start by corrupting
weak officials, co-opting the institutions of government and civil society through violence
and bribes. They attack police, military forces, judges, mayors, and journalists to leverage their
sway, communicate their primacy through information operations, and cultivate alternative
social memes adapting environmental and social conditions toward their goals. Then they