Book Review: Narcos Over the Border by Robert J. Bunker (Ed.)

Narcos Over the Border: Gangs, Cartels and Mercenaries by Dr. Robert J. Bunker (Ed.)I just finished my review copy of Narcos Over the Border. It is one of the more disturbing academic works recently published in the national security field, not excluding even those monographs dealing with Islamist terrorism and Pakistan. If the authors of this granular examination of Mexico’s immense problems with warring narco-cartels, mercenary assassins, systemic corruption, 3rd generation gangs and emerging “Narcocultas”of Santa Muerte are correct – and I suspect they are – Mexico’s creeping path toward state failure reprsents a threat to American national security of the first order.

The 237 page, heavily footnoted, book is organized into three sections: Organization and Technology Use by the narcos networks, Silver or Lead on their carrot and stick infiltration/intimidation of civil society and the state apparatus, and Response Strategies for the opponents of the cartels. Bunker’s co-authors Matt Begert, Pamela Bunker, Lisa Campbell, Paul Kan, Alberto Melis, Luz Nagle, John Sullivan, Graham Turbiville, Jr., Phil Wiliams and Sarah Womer bring an array of critical perspectives to the table from academia, law enforcement, intelligence, defense and security fields as researchers and practitioners. The effort to blend disciplinary approaches in Narcos Over the Border is both an intentional and commendable effort to break down academic and policy silos and bureaucratic “turf” perspectives that prevent analyzing Mexico’s security dilemmas as an interrelated threat increasingly resembling a full-fledged insurgency (albeit not on the classic Maoist Model).Some impressions I gained from reading Narcos Over the Border include:

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