More Than a Mexican Problem: How the US Can Adapt Plan Colombia to Mexico Michael Osborne - Small Wars Journal
go to original September 30, 2014

Sharing 1,933 miles of border with the United States, Mexico is a foreign policy concern for the US government based on its sheer size and proximity. Mexico is also a crucial trading partner with the US. In 2012, U.S. exports to Mexico accounted for 14 percent of overall U.S. exports and Mexico was the United States’ third largest supplier of goods imports. According to the US Census Bureau, in 2012 Mexican-Americans accounted for nearly 11 percent of the US population. The US-Mexico border has more people cross it annually than any other border in the world. Given so many significant relationships, the strategic implications of Mexico’s security and stability are inherently obvious. Yet the US is inexplicably passive in regard to an enormous problem sitting right on its doorstep: the violence and growing power of Mexican drug cartels.

Since 2006, more than 60,000 people have been killed in Mexico at the hands of drug trafficking organizations. That’s a number greater than the KIAs the US suffered in Vietnam. Drug trafficking organizations control vast areas of Mexico, using violence as a bartering tool and bribing authorities at all levels of the government. “Barbarous murders, military-like firefights, rampant corruption, a traumatized citizenry, and high-stakes political gamesmanship frame Mexico’s ongoing challenges.” Given the enormous number of Mexican immigrants in the US, it may only be a matter of time before US law enforcement, rather than Mexican law enforcement, is at war with the narco-kings of Mexico. Based on the foregoing, the US must begin a serious dialogue with the Mexican government to propose long-term solutions to the grave situation in which the police and military forces as well as the people of Mexico find themselves.

The US can begin to analyze the Mexican problem by examining Plan Colombia which, although encompassing a vast myriad of political, economic, and military goals, significantly reduced violence in that troubled country. Plan Colombia, crafted in 1999, was America’s primary instrument for providing aid to the government of Colombia. It focused primarily on the provision of military and law enforcement assistance, but it has furnished other kinds of aid as well. At the same time, as Colombia has become less of an American focus, Mexico is becoming an unavoidable concern because of the high rate of lawlessness and conflict occurring in the US’s own “backyard.” Given its long and costly involvement in Colombia, the question necessarily follows: How can the US most effectively apply lessons learned from the execution of Plan Colombia to support the Government of Mexico’s efforts to curb violence in Mexico?

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