Criminal Insurgents in Mexico and Latin America: A Small Wars Journal—El Centro Anthology

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Table of Contents

Preface:

A Compromised Social Contract

Samuel Logan

Introduction:

Criminal Insurgents in Mexico and Latin America

John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker

Chapter 1:

President Peña Nieto and Mexico’s Ongoing War on Drugs

Chris Ince

Chapter 2:

Film Review: Narco Cultura – A Tale of Three Cities

John P. Sullivan, Khirin A. Bunker, and Robert J. Bunker

Chapter 3:

Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 1: The Year of Living Dangerously: Peña Nieto’s Presidency of Shadows

Paul Rexton Kan

Chapter 4:

Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 2:

Peña Nieto’s First Year: Iraq on Our Southern Border

Molly Molloy

Chapter 5:

Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 3: Peña Nieto’s Security Strategy: We Need to Talk

Nathan P. Jones

Chapter 6:

Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 4: The Energy Reform: A Re-appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe?

George W. Grayson

Chapter 7:

Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 5: Vandals or Complex Criminal Networks in Mexico?

Eduardo Salcedo-Albaran and Luis Jorge Garay

Chapter 8:

Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 6: Disappointment is the Hallmark of EPN’s First Year in Office

Sylvia Longmire

Chapter 9:

Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 7: Mexico: Crucible of State Change

John P. Sullivan

Chapter 10:

Mexican Cartel Strategic Note No. 16: Recent Santa Muerte Spiritual Conflict Trends

Robert J. Bunker and Pamela Ligouri Bunker

Chapter 11:

Mexican Cartel Strategic Note No. 17:

Civil Self-Defense Groups Have Emerged in 11 Mexican States

Robert J. Bunker

Chapter 12:

Grounded Theory Study Defining Mexican Drug Trafficking Organization Cross-border Violence

Clint Osowski

Chapter 13:

Colombian Cartel Tactical Note #1: The Evolution of ‘Narco-Submarines’ Engineering

Byron Ramirez

Chapter 14:

Institutionalizing a Risk-Based Approach in the U.S. Border Patrol

Robert D. Schroeder

Chapter 15:

Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 8: Will Joaquin El Chapo Guzman Loera be tried in Mexico or the United States?

Malcolm Beith

Chapter 16:

Narco-Submarines: Applying Advanced Technologies to Drug Smuggling

Byron Ramirez

Chapter 17:

BACRIM in Colombia: Security Micro-Ecosystems and Violent Non-State Actor Fragmentation

Juan-Camilo Castillo

Chapter 18:

Man, The State and War Against Drug Cartels: A Typology of Drug-Related Violence in Mexico

Irina Alexandra Chindea

Chapter 19:

The Hidden Power of Illegally Armed Groups in Latin America

Magdalena Defort

Chapter 20:

Narco-Cities: Mexico and Beyond

John P. Sullivan

Chapter 21:

El Chapo’s Capture, Gulf Cartel Divisions, and an Attempted Zeta Comeback

George W. Grayson

Chapter 22:

Coordination Failures Among Mexican Security Forces

Irina Alexandra Chindea

Chapter 23:

Autodefensas, Vigilantes and Self-Policing in Mexico: Civilian Dominance over Public Safety Policies?

Gary J. Hale

Chapter 24:

Mexico Is Not Colombia: Seeking More Productive Analogies for Responding to the Challenge of Violent Drug-Trafficking Organizations

Christopher Paul, Colin P. Clarke, and Chad C. Serena

Chapter 25:

Should Migrants Fleeing Gang Violence in Central America Be Accorded Refugee Status?

Sylvia Longmire

Chapter 26:

Criminal Groups: Multifarious Threats to State Security, Regional Stability and Individual Wellbeing

Irina Alexandra Chindea and Byron Ramirez

Chapter 27:

Threat Analysis and Spillover Effects of Organized Criminality

Irina Alexandra Chindea and Byron Ramirez

Chapter 28:

Responses and Reactions to the Threat of Organized Criminality Across Levels of Analysis

Irina Alexandra Chindea and Byron Ramirez

Chapter 29:

Mexican Cartel Tactical Note #21:

Cartel Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

Robert J. Bunker

Chapter 30:

More Than a Mexican Problem: How the US Can Adapt Plan Colombia to Mexico

Michael Osborne

Chapter 31:

Competitive Control: How to Evaluate the Threats Posed by Ungoverned Spaces

Daniel Fisher and Christopher Mercado

Chapter 32:

Sheriff and State Advisor Border Summits

Robert J. Bunker

Chapter 33:

The Circum-Caribbean (or Bolivarian-Grenadine) War

Geoffrey Demarest

Postscript:

A Year in Mexico’s Security through the Lens of El Centro

Nathan P. Jones

Appendix 1:

¿Escalada Explosiva? Reflexiones sobre el ataque con Coche bomba en Ciudad Juárez

John P. Sullivan

Notes

Notes on Contributors

Cover Image: Cartel del Golfo (CDG) weapons on pickup truck that has suffered battle damage. Weapons include .50 caliber Barrett sniper rifle, 40mm grenades with M-79 type launcher, and five assault-rifles. The picture is sourced to the CDG sicario in the interior image. Source: CDG related social media, undated.

A Cartel del Golfo (CDG) member holding a .50 caliber Barrett sniper rifle; note gold plated pistol handle, gold necklaces, arm tattoos, and military style haircut. Former Mexican military personnel serving as cartel enforcers and contract mercenaries is not uncommon. Source: CDG related social media, undated.

The views expressed in this anthology are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government, or any other U.S. armed service, intelligence or law enforcement agency, or local or state government.

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Preface:

A Compromised Social Contract

Samuel Logan

San Pedro Sula, Cortes, Honduras—January 2015

As Latin America settles into 2015, we must recognize that few fundamental improvements have been made in public security across the regions most violent states. Root causes—such as the lack of education, employment, heath care, and constituent services— remain largely undisturbed beneath the turbulent array of superficial or proximate causes—for example, murder, kidnapping, illicit economics—that capture the most amount of political capital and international attention. Latin America offers several rich examples and complex case studies of where a minimal level of security must be achieved before sustainable development gathers traction and momentum. This book, the Fourth Annual Anthology of El Centro’s commentary on the region, adds to a larger body of work that seeks to understand the drivers and principal actors behind Latin America’s greatest security challenges, beginning with politics.

Politics lie at the core of the social contract. An individual will cede some rights to an authority in exchange for protection of the remainder of his rights. Strong democratic institutions ensure, at least on paper, that those in power will not abuse granted authority. Across any region of the world where democratic institutions are weak and corruption hobbles their strongest components, we will find rampant abuse of power. This historical trend in Latin America has not abated despite the best efforts of civil society, local governments, and international interests. Indeed, we have grown accustomed to talking not of corruption inside institutions but of institutions of corruption.

Latin America presents an additional twist. Individuals, communities, entire municipalities and, in some cases, cities have chosen the lesser of two evils. Instead of governments, criminal organizations—from street gangs to sophisticated illicit enterprises—offer a consistency of protection, of civil service, and of employment. In a limited number of cases, reminiscent of the Medellin Cartel of Pablo Escobar, the support of a community-wide patron ensures the physical and economic welfare of those under his rule. While there is a sort of ‘bastard’ social contract in place, those in power abuse it by nature, twisting politics to serve their social vision and economic agenda. On the surface, however, those in power often appear to be legitimate, well organized, and successful in their attempts to fill spaces of authority left open by government.

Mexico in 2014 presented an exemplary case study of communities that chose neither the distant government nor the devil at their door. Rather, they chose self-governance. So-called self-defense groups emerged in 11 states across Mexico, and currently remain remarkably active in two of Mexico’s most complicated public security and governance challenges: Michoacán and Guerrero. Though many of these groups did align with organized crime behind the scenes, their appearance on the landscape of public security concerns challenged the Peña Nieto government. As was this administration’s custom, leadership concerned itself with the negative image presented by self-defense groups; it forced focus on a national narrative and tried to control the message. After several false starts, Mexico’s political leadership failed to deal effectively with the threat presented by these groups and their linkages with the surrogates of local criminal groups.

The president’s management of the auto-defensas story, and public security issues in general, has disappointed many in Mexico. Enrique Peña Nieto has ignored pieces of the social contract his compatriots laid at his feet, cherry-picking aspects that most serve his political interests. The disappointing leadership on public security concerns in Mexico has also defied international observation, stamping his first two years in office with a mediocre score on that front. The president took a risky gamble by focusing the domestic agenda on economic reforms and sidelining public security in a country not yet past the worst of what its criminal underworld has to offer. History will be his judge. A review of the past two years—what actually happened not what was reported—yields little cause for praise. Less reporting on security and violence does not equate to less action in the streets, as this anthology details in the pages to follow.

Meanwhile, Mexico’s plight feels manageable contrasted with Central America, where neither resources nor complete political will exist to combat organized crime. The narrative unfolding in Honduras presents a distinct and bleak chapter for 2015. At the top of government, a young president leans forward into an aggressive agenda for his country’s public security. At the bottom of the social ladder, no apparent change has occurred in his first year of office. Street gangs still rule the streets of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. Private enterprise seeks accommodation with local criminal elements rather than support from local law enforcement. The recent nomination of a military leader as the Minister of Security adds consistency to the president’s message but does not directly translate to cleaning up the 14,000 or so active duty officers under his ministerial oversight.

Across Central America’s northern triangle states—Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—the use of the military in the role of essential police functions remains a strong trend and a troublesome reality. Supporters would be quick to argue that there is little to no other recourse. Yet, in Mexico, where funds are abundant and international support at the ready, the military still engages in a policing role, where traditionally and theoretically it should not, while the police remain unreformed and problematic.

After several years of combatting organized crime with the military in Mexico and the Northern Triangle, we find that criminal organizations present a level of historical resiliency. Though their individual organizations may be weak, the ability of the criminal ecosystem to evolve is a fundamental strength that military-centric security solutions cannot tackle. As we’ve seen in Mexico and Colombia, the more top-down pressure is placed on criminal systems, the more fragmentation occurs. Yet this strategy remains in place and popular in many countries in the region, despite evidence that it does not work as a stand-alone solution.

Even under pressure, from government and rival forces as well as the the supply and demand curves of the illicit marketplace, criminal organizations across the region have doubled-down on well-established technology investments while exploring new horizons. We are now beyond the consideration of self-propelled semi-submersibles (SPSS) and into the realm of fully submersible units capable of evading even the most dogged state surveillance. Meanwhile, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have opened up an entirely new level of intelligence collection and observational capability for the region’s more sophisticated intelligence organizations and criminal entrepreneurs alike. Cyber security, bank fraud, and virtual extortion that take place in both the cyber and real world have shown criminal groups evolving into the new domain faster than governments can prepare to defend their citizens.

From the perspective of the region’s criminal enterprise, opportunity appears abundant in 2015. From an economic perspective, demand markets for drugs, human trafficking, organs, kidnapping, cargo theft, extortion, and money laundering services have grown despite global fluctuations in the licit economic space. Deviant globalization, described as the dark side of global trade in the 2011 publication of the same title, remains alive and well in 2015, across the region.

There are several individuals in government in many Latin American states that deserve applause and much more support than they ever expect to receive. Against the weight of a broken system that dictates their mandate and motion, the task of securing public interests feels more Sisyphean than not. Yet these individuals and those who would follow in their wake must continue forward, even if only to take two steps back. Superficial causes must be pierced before root causes may receive attention. The following Anthology and other publications within this body of work bring our collective task of understanding these causes one more step in the right direction as we push deeper into the mire that is resolving the region’s most stubborn public security challenges.

Introduction:

Criminal Insurgents in Mexico and Latin America

John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker

Los Angeles, California—January 2015

Mexico and Latin America are challenged by transnational organized crime, ranging from gangs through drug cartels and mafias. The gangs come in several configurations starting with local neighborhood pandillas through more complex Bacrim (bandas criminals emergentes), transnational gangs, including Maras (such as Mara Salvatrucha and M-18) and cross-border gangs and networks like Barrio Azteca and La Línea.[1] These gangs and cartels (which are effectively poly-crime mafias) interact to form robust, protean criminal networks that incorporate co-opted and corrupt elements of the state.

The Fourth Volume

This volume is the fourth Small Wars Journal—El Centro anthology; it covers developments in the crime wars and criminal insurgencies[2] in Mexico and Latin America during 2014 (the second year of Enrique Peña Nieto’s sexenio). The works included are representative, not encyclopedic, in that they are those articles published at SWJ during the past year, along with this introduction and a preface and postscript by SWJ-El Centro Fellows Samuel Logan and Nathan P. Jones, respectively.

As expected from the trends illustrated in the past three volumes of this anthology series, Mexico and Latin America are still under the gun and facing complex and corrosive challenges from criminal insurgents—some of whom employ narcocultura and spiritual dimensions in their battle with the state and among themselves.[3] During the past year, several issues have been at the forefront. These include the expansion of autodefensas (self-defense groups or vigilantes), the capture of Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán,[4] disappeared persons (desaparecidos) including the massacre of teaching students (normalistas) at the College of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, and the demonstrations following their disappearance.[5]

Disappearances and Demonstrations

The widespread demonstrations are in protest of the kidnapping and massacre of those 43 students at the hands of corrupt police (both municipal and federal police as well as military personnel have been accused of participation in this massacre) and gang sicarios from the Guerreros Unidos cartel.[6] The demonstrations are morphing into a powerful civic movement that is questioning Mexico’s narcopolitics (e.g. 25 mayors in Guerrero have been accused of maintaining ties with organized crime) collusion with cartels, and impunity.[7]

Human rights abuses, including brutality by the police and military, are a significant concern throughout Mexico. Both torture and extra-judicial killings have been alleged.[8] An example of such potential human rights abuse includes possible involvement of the Mexican Army in the disappearance of the 43 Students, an allegation being investigated by Mexico’s Human Rights Commission (CNDH: Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos).[9]

Kidnappings are a significant issue throughout Mexico. The states with the highest number of kidnappings from January-November 2014 are Tamaulipas with 538 victims, Edomex with 186 victims, Veracruz with 150 victims, Morelos with 123 victims, and Michoacán with 121 victims.[10] The disappearance of the 43 students on 26 September ignited a national crisis, but the total number of disappeared is much greater with 8 persons disappeared each day or 54 person a week across Mexico. There have been about 2,826 disappearances per year since 2007 so the 5,098 persons disappeared in 2014 make that the worst year ever (2013 being the next highest with 4,514 disappearances while the highest year in Calderón’s sexenio was 2011 with 3,957 persons disappeared).[11]

Police Reform

To address the criminal erosion of state capacity and chronic instability, the Mexican government has implemented the long awaited La Gendarmería Nacional. The Gendarmería was initially proposed in April 2012 and was activated as part of the Policía Federal (Federal Police) on 22 August 2014.[12] Upon activation, the new force was immediately deployed to contested zones including Michoacán and Guerrero (especially Iguala and Acapulco).

The Presidencia de la República has also proposed a plan to reorganize Mexican police in the aftermath of the Iguala mass abduction. The 43 students were allegedly kidnapped by police and turned over to gangsters who killed them and then incinerated them. The mayor of Iguala Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda have been arrested and implicated as masterminds of the attack. [13]

As a result, confidence in municipal police has eroded. Peña Nieto has advocated replacing Mexico’s 1,800 municipal police with state-level police forces. In addition, he seeks to give the central government the power to dissolve local governments that have been corrupted or co-opted by drug cartels and gangs and enhance the deployment of federal security force to contested areas.[14]

Continuing Instability

This continuing instability, corruption, and impunity is eroding the state and its institutions. Contested zones (current hot spots) include Tamaulipas, Guerrero, Michoacán, and Edomex (Estado Mexico). In Latin America, Colombia continues to experience conflict related to both the FARC insurgency and Bacrim (such as the Urabeños and Rastrojos).[15] In El Salvador, the Maras continue to pose a security risk as attempts to forge a gang truce fell apart.[16]

Overview of Contents

This volume contains 33 substantive chapters reprinted from the 2014 volume of SWJ-El Centro. These chapters review many of the major developments of the past year and range from tactical and strategic notes to detailed assessments of specific issues. After the preface and this introduction, Chapter 1 by Chris Ince provides an overview of President Peña Nieto’s war on drugs. This is followed by a review of the film Narco Cultura by John P. Sullivan, Khirin A. Bunker, and Robert J. Bunker. After setting the scene with these essays, the collection moves on to a series of Op-Eds designed to assess the first year of Peña Nieto’s sexenio.

These op-eds include: Chapter 3: Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 1: The Year of Living Dangerously: Peña Nieto’s Presidency of Shadows by Paul Rexton Kan; Chapter 4: Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 2: Peña Nieto’s First Year: Iraq on Our Southern Border by Molly Molloy; Chapter 5: Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 3: Peña Nieto’s Security Strategy: We Need to Talk by Nathan P. Jones; Chapter 6: Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 4: The Energy Reform: A Re-appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe? by George W. Grayson; Chapter 7: Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 5: Vandals or Complex Criminal Networks in Mexico? by Eduardo Salcedo-Albaran and Luis Jorge Garay; Chapter 8: Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 6: Disappointment is the Hallmark of EPN’s First Year in Office by Sylvia Longmire; and Chapter 9: Mexican Cartel Op-Ed No. 7: Mexico: Crucible of State Change by John P. Sullivan. Collectively, these chapters suggest that the intense violence, insecurity, corruption, and inter-penetration of cartels, politicians, police, and state institutions are having a significant detrimental influence on the Mexican state.

Next, Chapter 10: Mexican Cartel Strategic Note No. 16: Recent Santa Muerte Spiritual Conflict Trends by Robert J. Bunker and Pamela Ligouri Bunker looks at the continuing evolution of narcocultura as a spiritual component of the conflict.

Chapter 11 by Robert J. Bunker is a Strategic Note entitled Civil Self-Defense Groups Have Emerged in 11 Mexican States, addressing the rise of autodefensas. This theme is also addressed in Chapter 23: Autodefensas, Vigilantes and Self-Policing in Mexico: Civilian Dominance over Public Safety Policies? by Gary J. Hale.

Several chapters address theoretical considerations. These include Chapter 12: Grounded Theory Study Defining Mexican Drug Trafficking Organization Cross-border Violence by Clint Osowski; Chapter 17: BACRIM in Colombia: Security Micro-Ecosystems and Violent Non-State Actor Fragmentation by Juan-Camilo Castillo; Chapter 18: Man, The State and War Against Drug Cartels: A Typology of Drug-Related Violence in Mexico by Irina Alexandra Chindea; Chapter 19: The Hidden Power of Illegally Armed Groups in Latin America by Magdalena Defort; and Chapter 20: Narco-Cities: Mexico and Beyond by John P. Sullivan.

Narco-Submarines are explored in both a tactical note and essay: Chapter 13: Colombian Cartel Tactical Note #1: The Evolution of ‘Narco-Submarines’ Engineering and Chapter 16: Narco-Submarines: Applying Advanced Technologies to Drug Smuggling, both by Byron Ramirez. Another technology piece is contained later in the collection by Robert J. Bunker in Chapter 29: Mexican Cartel Tactical Note #21: Cartel Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).

The capture of El Chapo is assessed by George W. Grayon in Chapter 21: El Chapo’s Capture, Gulf Cartel Divisions, and an Attempted Zeta Comeback while Irina Chindea comments on Coordination Failures Among Mexican Security Forces in Chapter 22. Border and migration issues are discussed in three chapters: Chapter 14: Institutionalizing a Risk-Based Approach in the U.S. Border Patrol by Robert D. Schroeder; Chapter 25: Should Migrants Fleeing Gang Violence in Central America Be Accorded Refugee Status? by Sylvia Longmire; and Chapter 32: Sheriff and State Advisor Border Summits by Robert J. Bunker.

Irina Alexandra Chindea and Byron Ramirez teamed up to provide three chapters that essentially address threat group impact assessment. These are: Chapter 26: Criminal Groups: Multifarious Threats to State Security, Regional Stability and Individual Wellbeing; Chapter 27: Threat Analysis and Spillover Effects of Organized Criminality; and Chapter 28: Responses and Reactions to the Threat of Organized Criminality Across Levels of Analysis.

The situation and distinction or similarities between Mexico and Colombia are examined in Chapter 24: Mexico Is Not Colombia: Seeking More Productive Analogies for Responding to the Challenge of Violent Drug-Trafficking Organizations by Christopher Paul, Colin P. Clarke, and Chad C. Serena and Chapter 30: More Than a Mexican Problem: How the US Can Adapt Plan Colombia to Mexico by Michael Osborne. Geoffrey Demarest discusses Bolivarian potentials in the region in Chapter 33: The Circum-Caribbean (or Bolivarian-Grenadine) War.

Chapter 31: Competitive Control: How to Evaluate the Threats Posed by Ungoverned Spaces by Daniel Fisher and Christopher Mercado is an analytical piece that will prove valuable as the criminal insurgencies in Mexico and Latin America continue to morph and perhaps become replicated elsewhere as suggested in David Kilcullen’s treatise Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerilla.[17]

The Appendix ¿Escalada Explosiva? Reflexiones sobre el ataque con Coche bomba en Ciudad Juárez by John P. Sullivan is a Spanish language version of the paper Explosive Escalation? Reflections on the Car Bombing in Ciudad Juarez and is provided to build out the bilingual archives of criminal insurgency studies.

Fragmentation and Competitive Control

Intense competition for control of terrain and markets while under pressure from the state’s enforcement efforts have led to fragmentation and reconfiguration of criminal gangs and cartels throughout the duration of the Mexican drug war. Consider the situation in Michoacán where members of La Familia Michoacana and the Knights Templar (Caballeros Templarios) have become active members of new enterprises such as The Viagras and H3 cartel.[18]

This disintegration and fragmentation has led cartel and gang members to join autodefensas groups (some of which have been incorporated into state sanctioned Fuerzas Rurales—Rural Police). Clashes between state forces and vigilantes (autodefensas)[19] are a consequence of the endemic instability and lack of state solvency (capacity and legitimacy)[20] in contested zones such as Michoacán.

The dangers of living in such a zone where there is a battle for competitive control are illustrated in La Ruana, a town of 10,000 where Grupos de Autodefensa, or Self-Defense Groups, and subsequently the Rurales, challenged the Knights Templars for control and set off a multilateral competition for power.[21] This vacuum of state control is complicated as [a]ll sides are suspected of being infiltrated by drug traffickers trying to take over from the Knights Templar, which controlled commerce, politics and daily life in much of the state until self-defense groups rose up in February 2013.[22]

Conclusion: Reform or Revolution?

The challenge for the coming year is to see if the equilibrium among the state, gangs, cartels, and mafias (organized crime) is reset and, if so, how. There is a continuing protest movement: Will it trigger reform or revolution?[23] In addition, continuing criminal enclaves and corruption promise to challenge the state and are likely to shape governance in the domain of the state, the underworld, and the interactions among them. Similar dynamics to varying degrees are present throughout Latin America. The progress of these trends, as well as novel developments, is the subject of the next anthology.

Chapter 1:

President Peña Nieto and Mexico’s Ongoing War on Drugs

Chris Ince

Originally Published 10 December 2013

According to the US Congressional Research Service (CRS), Mexico’s brutal drug trafficking-related violence has been dramatically punctuated by more than 1,300 beheadings, the public hanging of corpses, killing of innocent bystanders, car bombs, torture, and assassination of numerous journalists and government officials. Beyond the litany of these brazen crimes,[i] the violence has spread deep into Mexico’s interior. Organised crime groups have fragmented and diversified their criminal activities, turning to extortion, kidnapping, auto theft, human smuggling, resource theft, and other illicit enterprises.[ii] The wave of cartel violence began as Mexico moved from what was in effect a one-party state to a multiparty democracy.[iii] In this setting, having campaigned on a pledge to reduce violence and make changes to the federal governments public security strategy, many believe that, following a polished campaign and first few months in office; political, security and economic gravity are starting to take effect and President Enrique Peña Nieto is rapidly approaching a defining moment in his Presidency. Against this background, and in the context of Mexico’s current security landscape, this essay identifies some of the perceived failings of the Calderón Administration and looks at the change in tack taken by Peña Nieto and attempts to come to a conclusion on whether or not this new strategy is proving effective.

Calderón’s Strategy

Undoubtedly, a key factor behind the ousting of the PAN (Partido Acción Nacional) in Mexico’s 2012 presidential elections was the reaction to the high levels of violence and perceived insecurity that resulted from President Felipe Calderón’s ‘war’ against organised crime.[iv] According to Mexican Interior Ministry statistics there were more than 60,000 drug-related executions and 26,000 people unaccounted for during Calderón’s six-year Presidency.[v] This said, the reality (while bleak) was never quite as bad as the International media painted it[vi] and, by the end of 2012, drug related killings were on the decline and Ciudad Juarez, once reputed to be the most dangerous city in the world, had significantly cut its levels of violence, experiencing some 10% growth. Moreover, during 2012, foreign investors poured more than $55bn into Mexican Stocks and Shares - some five times more than that invested during the same period in Brazil.[vii]

When Calderón took office the power and economic influence held by the country’s largest criminal organisations posed a significant national security threat. With this in mind he put in place a strategy aimed at reducing the sway of the country’s largest criminal organisations[viii] while trying to create a truly functional state with laws that were effectively enforced. The military-led crackdown on the Drug Trafficking Organisations (DTOs) was at the center of his domestic policy, having launched his aggressive approach almost immediately after coming in to office in December 2006. In the course of his campaign, he deployed 50,000 Mexican military forces - at its height in 2011 reportedly 96,000 troops were engaged - and thousands of federal police around the country to combat the DTOs.[ix]

While his actions were entirely justified, Calderón failed to put an effective communication strategy in place to explain the reasons behind his actions and, as a result, escalating levels of violence and murder[x] generated heightened levels of public dissatisfaction with the Federal Government that ultimately contributed to his downfall.[xi]

On assuming the Presidency in 2006, Calderón faced seven major drug cartels as well as numerous other medium sized, yet nevertheless powerful, DTOs. As a result of his war against organised crime a number of these, notably Beltran Leyva, the Gulf Cartel and La Familia, were significantly weakened. However, while inroads were made against some of these organisations, his government’s actions also prompted them to diversify and adopt new tactics and techniques in order to reduce risk and increase revenues. This increased diversification was also accompanied by the emergence of a plethora of smaller players emulating the methods of the larger groups and a growing geographic dispersion of criminal activity with organised crime increasingly reaching smaller cities and communities that had not previously witnessed it.[xii] More importantly however, the largest players (in particular the Sinaloa Cartel and the Zetas) were able to weather all government attempts to weaken them and emerged even stronger.[xiii]

Peña Nieto’s Very Different Approach

Seizing on public dissatisfaction with the effects of Calderón’s war, the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) candidate Enrique Peña Nieto campaigned on a pledge to reduce violence and make changes to the federal government’s public security strategy. This pledge included a commitment to de-emphasise the fight against drug trafficking and focus on drastically reducing levels of criminal activity, protecting ordinary citizens from those activities that most affected them (such as extortion, gun violence, kidnapping etc.). In this context Peña Nieto promised to reduce levels of violent crime by 50% within a year.

Since being elected, Peña Nieto has launched a series of institutional changes to better fight crime.[xiv] These changes are intended to demonstrate both a security strategy that is distinct from Calderón’s and that the PRI is no longer prepared to tolerate the systematic corruption (including the paying-off of criminal bosses in exchange for freedom to operate