The fact that a drug cartel was able to fight the army to enough of a stalemate that the government acceded to their demand seems … significant. Personally, I find it surprising, and I suppose somewhat impressive in its own right, that a non-state entity has been able to amass this much weaponry and organize such an effective response plan, and that they were so effective in executing it. I suspect more than a few of the world’s militaries would struggle to put together a similar response that they could enact on short notice.
OTOH, perhaps the article is making too much out of one botched operation. What do you think? Does this signal darker days ahead for Mexico? The author concludes:
The situation with the cartels is not new at all. Or with police corruption. Things have gone seriously downhill in some areas; Monterrey now has a lot more cartel penetration than it did 20 years ago, but it also still has one of the best engineering schools in Latin America (if not the best one). In other areas, things have gotten better. More people have jobs and better jobs now than twenty years ago, globally. Does Mexico have problems? Yes, big ones, and some of them are structural (the whole land-ownership problem for example), but it’s far from a failed state.
Mexico is a big country and not everywhere is like that.
But… a monopoly on the use of force is a fundamental qualification of a functioning nation-state. A drug cartel being able to fight the army to a draw and extract concessions is a profound failure of the apparatus of state. There isn’t any point in denying that, and the fact Monterrey has a good engineering school has nothing whatsoever to do with that.
Mexico is in the middle of an ongoing civil war. I don’t think the government has failed yet. If their wealthier neighbor to the north would stop sending guns and money to the insurgency, then the government would quickly regain power in the areas that it was lost.
It was just a way to indicate that most people still manage to live lives that people in developed countries would consider “normal”. A lot of the day-to-day stuff still works roughly as intended.
To be fair, I don’t think this time the US government is doing it on purpose. It has many policies which result, among other things, in drug money and drug guns going to Mexico, but it seems to be more through short-sightedness than on purpose.
I have some friends who moved to the Lake Chapala area about five years ago. They love it and have no desire to move back to the US. I almost joined them, but I got a job offer in Canada.
If the narcos move in, they move in. San Miguel de Allende is an awesome, little town, and it has a sizeable expat community as well. I’m not sure how serious the situation is, but I read a few weeks ago that some cartel was making overtures by trying to extort some restaurants. Once that happens, it’s really hard to stop the cascade.
Most / all countries have problems. Relatively few countries have gangs capable of fighting their army so ferociously that their president capitulates to their demands.
Sadly enough, México is dangerously close to becoming a failed state. In many areas the cartels have become the defacto rulers. The government may still run the day to day operations such as infrastructure and many civil matters but the justice system has pretty much been taken over. Law enforcement has either been intimidated or bought off. The cartels know who is who and what is what. Step out of line and pay a heavy price. It is really sad situation and there doesn’t seem to be a remedy. There is no hero with a white hat riding into town like in American cowboy movies to deal with the bad guys and restoring the rule of law.
I specified capitulation by their president to hopefully head off this tangent. It apparently didn’t work. I’m sure that at times and places in this country various entities have been intimidated. Rarely has that intimidation come in the form of open battles with authorities and I can’t readily recall any incidents where the president capitulated to their demand(s) because of open gun battles.
I don’t know about a hero with a white hat riding into town, but there have been incidents where the townspeople rose up and defended their town themselves:
Its not somalia but they are a middle income nation with a GDP of over a trillion dollars.
People move here because of higher wages. If Canada offered $70/hr for unskilled labor then tons and tons of Americans would move there legally and illegally to work.