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little attention to the deeper structural problems that fuel the drug trade and drug-related violence. These problems, ranging from official corruption in Mexico to large-scale drug consumption in the United States, have so far frustrated Mexican attempts to rein in the cartels, and will likely hinder the effectiveness of the Merida Initiative as well. For the Merida Initiative to be fully successful, the United States must therefore forge a more holistic, better-integrated approach to the drug trade. This strategy should aim not simply at strengthening the forces of order in Mexico, but also at addressing the root issues that the Merida Initiative comparatively slights. It should partner enforcement and interdiction programs with a wide range of measures: anticorruption initiatives, social and economic development, institution-building, and efforts to restrict U.S. domestic demand and illicit arms trafficking into Mexico. Implementing such a strategy will not be easy, but it will be central to improving U.S. counternarcotics policy and ensuring that the Merida Initiative is more than a mere palliative for the problems associated with the Mexican drug trade. vi
MEXICO’S NARCO-INSURGENCY AND U.S. COUNTERDRUG POLICY INTRODUCTION In April 2006, individuals linked to one of Mexico’s powerful drug cartels left the severed heads of two police officers in front of the municipal building in the southern port city of Acapulco. The two officials were apparently abducted and killed in retaliation for their participation in a shootout with drug traffickers several days earlier. Their bloodied heads were accompanied by a hand-written note reading, “So that you learn some respect,” a message meant to make clear that the cartel would brook no interference from the authorities. 1 Such occurrences have become alarmingly common in Mexico. A remarkably similar episode played out 2 months later in front of the same municipal building, while drug-related murders have become so common in Acapulco that the city is now colloquially known as Narcopulco. 2 Such events in Acapulco are merely part of a broader trend sweeping the country, where the past several years, especially the period since 2006, have seen the emergence of a multi-sided war over the drug trade. Heavily armed cartels and their enforcers struggle viciously for control of the drug-trafficking routes running north into the United States, and have recently turned their fire against a government desperate to restrain this bloodshed. For now, the cartels seem to be winning this battle; despite the best efforts of Presidents Vicente Fox (2000-06) and Felipe Calderon (2006-present), the drug trade has continued apace and drug-related violence has reached ever- 1
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R.J. Godlewski’s The Independent
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FOREWORD The presence of drugged fi
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SUMMARY The complexity of many ongo
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Page 23 and 24: DRUG DEMAND AMONG COMBATANTS Drugs
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Page 29 and 30: Conflict Supply/Demand Type(s) of D
Page 31 and 32: that many fighters do not act in a
Page 33 and 34: Giving drugs to individuals coincid
Page 35 and 36: in war occurs for a variety of reas
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Page 39 and 40: use. A type of drug quagmire can de
Page 41 and 42: “There’s guys who have to have
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Page 45 and 46: law enforcement institutions like E
Page 47 and 48: parameters of any possible peace ac
Page 49 and 50: Unlike the Vietnam era, the U.S. mi
Page 51 and 52: tions of professional military educ
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Page 55 and 56: 22. Addressing Organized Crime and
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Page 59 and 60: 68. See, for example, Richard Rawso
Page 61 and 62: MEXICO'S NARCO-INSURGENCY AND U.S.
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Page 69: major foreign traffickers, with dom
Page 74 and 75: taken to recruiting former military
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Page 84 and 85: Coahuila in 2006. 71 These practice
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Page 94 and 95: poor farmers and thus undercut the
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Page 100 and 101: it needed to attack them,” report
Page 102 and 103: honest, professional manner. The Me
Page 104 and 105: In congressional hearings on the Me
Page 106 and 107: unresolved. Similarly, while interd
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Page 110 and 111: addict rehabilitation—can have a
Page 112 and 113: have long nourished the drug trade
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in 2007. “Homicidio de presunto z
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49. U.S. Immigration and Customs En
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71. Sarah Miller Llana, “Military
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for Mexico and Central America, Was
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106. Gabriel Marcella, The United S
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123. “Visit to Cucuta, on Colombi
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FROM THE NEW MIDDLE AGES TO A NEW D
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***** The Strategic Studies Institu
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and restoring order, and remains ov
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SUMMARY Security and stability in t
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disengagement at the other. The fir
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FROM THE NEW MIDDLE AGES TO A NEW D
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Observers who see the dominance of
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government has dominated U.S. plann
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ecome regarded as a global “space
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countries at the bottom that are fa
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The medieval order was a highly fle
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skewed in the direction of the ethn
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group, religion, or sect—has crea
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control of drug trafficking routes
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to illicit activities is a natural
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ability of the various nonstate act
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ted urban spaces that are no longer
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Although it might appear contrived
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where the riots discussed above wer
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spite of such measures as the Conta
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ecome increasingly apparent, while
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analyzed within the context of the
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a nuclear weapons state. Conditions
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demands are likely to “encounter
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spreading. To some extent, these co
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V. GLOBAL INSTABILITY AND U.S. STRA
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indivisible. From this perspective,
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of loyalty to the mission, and focu
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assumption that although these tren
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order discussed above. Yet this mig
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15. Ibid. 16. John Rapley, “The N
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Crime, New York: Simon and Schuster
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2007, posted by and available at ww
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93. Ibid., p. 7. 94. Ibid., p. 34.
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