zenpundit.com

Are the Mata Zetas an open source counterinsurgency of loyalist paramilitaries, a “black hand” of frustrated state security personnel or an embryonic cartel?

Mexico Fears Rise of Vigilante Justice

MEXICO CITY-A self-styled drug-trafficking group calling itself the “Zeta Killers” claimed responsibility this week for the recent murders of at least 35 people believed to belong to the Zetas, Mexico’s most violent criminal organization.

The claim by the “Mata Zetas” has stoked fears that Mexico, like Colombia a generation before, may be witnessing the rise of paramilitary drug gangs that seek society’s approval and tacit consent from the government to help society confront its ills, in this case, the Zetas.

On Wednesday, Mexico’s national security spokeswoman Alejandra Sota vowed in a statement that the government would “hunt down” and bring to justice any criminal group that takes justice into its own hands.

….”Our only objective is the Zetas cartel,” said a burly, hooded man who said he was a Mata Zetas spokesman, in the video. The man said that unlike the Zetas, his group didn’t “extort or kidnap” citizens and were “anonymous warriors, without faces, but proudly Mexican” who would work “clandestinely” but “always to benefit Mexico’s people.”

The mysterious group appears to be part of the New Generation drug cartel, which operates in the northwestern state of Jalisco, according to an earlier video that showed some three dozen hooded men brandishing automatic rifles as a spokesman vowed to wipe out the Zetas in Veracruz. In that video, the spokesman lauded the work of the Mexican armed forces against the Zetas, and urged citizens to give information on their location to the military.

Given the small size and relatively meager investment in Mexico’s military, compared to it’s GDP, the endemic corruption of the Mexican police and judiciary, the scale and firepower of the cartels and the degree of violence unleashed, the real surprise is that paramilitary activity has not arisen sooner. Assuming that the Mata Zetas are a genuine, emergent, grassroots paramilitary group ( something that Mexico’s corrupt political elite would find more threatening than the narcos). Too soon to tell.

It is difficult to see how the Mexican state, left to it’s own resources, can regain the initiative in Mexico against the cartels without either adopting tactics similar to those employed by Colombia to beat back FARC and ELN or engaging in a military mobilization sufficient to create a crushing advantage in manpower.

ADDENDUM:

SWJ Blog – Mexican Cartel Strategic Note

Dr. Robert Bunker testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere on the descent of Mexico into narco-barbarism:

Criminal (Cartel & Gang) Insurgencies in Mexico and the Americas: What you need to know, not what you want to hear.

 ….Something very old historically, and at the same time very new, is thus taking place in Mexico. To use a biological metaphor, we are witnessing ‘cancerous organizational tumors’ forming in Mexico both on its encompassing government and its society at large. These tumors have their roots intertwined throughout that nation and, while initially they were symbiotic in nature (like traditional organized crime organizations), they have mutated to the point that they are slowly killing the host and replacing it with something far different. These criminalized tumors draw their nourishment from an increasingly diverse illicit economy that is growing out of proportion to the limited legitimate revenues sustaining the Mexican state. These tumors do not bode well for the health of Mexico or any of its neighboring states

Hat tip to SWJ Blog.

The Profession by Steven Pressfield 

Tequila Junction: 4th Generation Counterinsurgency by H. John Poole

Steve’s novel The Profession I have mentioned previously, but I confess that I am puzzled by the choice of book jacket on Tequila Junction, which looks somewhat like a children’s illustrated guide to COIN in 1980’s El Salvador. H. John Poole is a respected veteran and tactical expert and Tequila Junction carries the warm endorsements of General Anthony Zinni and William Lind. Maybe his grandson drew it? Odd.

In any event, small unit tactics are not a subject I pretend to know much about, so it will remedy a gap in my knowledge base.

Blogfriend Pundita turns an eye to Mexico, which is currently entering free fall despite official US policy that the cartels are not an insurgency, and has extensive comments on how the transnationally oriented, strategically inept, elite mismanaging US foreign policy no longer think in terms of a “US foreign policy”. Or perhaps, a “US”:

“Hollowed out” Mexico and hollowed-out USA

….I hate to be the one to break this news to Mark but there can no longer be an American policy on Mexico because there is no longer a United States of America. He doesn’t know this because he doesn’t watch much television news, but a few weeks of watching CNN will clue him that the USA is no more. In its place is a country called The Whole World (aka RIC – Republic of International Community), which for reasons known only to the rascals who run CNN excludes every world region where CNN is not in hot competition with al Jazeera.I myself speak of the “country” of the USA, which I think is what seems to be a box of cookies or a milk carton in the foreground of the above satellite photo of the RIC, only as a matter of convention.

As for FNC (Fox News Channel): currently too busy taking pot-shots at other TV news outlets for initially covering up the Weiner story and otherwise too busy trying to find a Republican who can win the White House to notice that a U.S. government is a memory.

(Memo to FNC: The other TV media were initially quiet about Weiner’s texting problem not because he’s a Leftist but because his wife is Hillary Clinton’s closest aide and they didn’t want to have to tell the American public that the person closest to the U.S. Secretary of State is an American Muslim of Indian-Pakistani heritage who was raised in Saudi Arabia, you nitwits.)So before we try to upgrade U.S. policy on the hollowed-out state of Mexico, as the Narcos book terms it, I say let’s examine how the U.S. got hollowed out.

One more point before I cede the floor to Mark: His summary doesn’t indicate whether the book addresses racism and apartheid in Mexico. I know that Mark is aware of the subject so I think he would have mentioned it, if any of the monographs dealt specifically with racism; frankly I’d be surprised if any did because the topics of Mexican racism and apartheid are taboo in both the USA and Mexico.

Later this week or the next I’ll try to rip myself away from the Afghan War long enough to return to those issues, which I touched on in an earlier post. For now, I’ll just say that I think Mexico’s type of racism is the true “virus” that Dr Bunker talks about….

Good question regarding the effects of racism in Mexico on the evolution of the cartel wars. An important point. I know why employees of USG entities do not raise it; for the same reason they will not use the “i” word – Mexican officials would go ape.

Dr. Bunker reads ZP from time to time and he’s best placed to explain why none of the authors delved into that aspect of narcocultas folk religion or Mexican elite behavior. My recollection is that most of the contributors to Narcos Over the Border were security specialists rather than social historians or sociologists.  Maybe David Ronfeldt, who also has a specialty in Mexican affairs, can also weigh in on this important point.

Hollowing out of the US requires a post of it’s own to consider.

“Criminal Insurgency” is becoming a preferred term of art to describe entities like the Narco-cartels of Mexico that have evolved from transnational criminal organizations into groups with paramilitary and intelligence capabilities or Colombia’s FARC which formerly was a model Marxist insurgency but devolved downward into a drug trafficking army. The term is used partly to placate doctrinaire purists among defense intellectuals who see insurgency definitively as armed political movements following Mao’s three stages or bust. After all, they have only had since the late 80’s and early 90’s, when Bill Lind and Martin van Creveld warned them this was coming, to get used to the idea.

Colonel Robert Killebrew, a smart fellow at CNAS, has an article in NDU‘s PRISM that puts the problem of criminal insurgency into a hemispheric context:

Criminal Insurgency in the Americas and Beyond

….Essentially, the United States faces external and internal challenges in reorienting to more effectively fight the cartels and their allies. Refocusing U.S. policy from a “war on drugs” to a more comprehensive fight against the cartels and gangs is essential if the United States and its allies are to prevail. Since the basis of the cartels’ survival lies in the control of regions where governmental control is nonexistent and populations may be impoverished and alienated, successful counter-cartel strategies are fundamentally counterinsurgency strategies developed by the concerned states themselves and supported by the United States. Counter-cartel strategies must first be political strategies, integrating military and police activity into a broader political approach that emphasizes the rule of law as an alternative to the rule of force. Four aspects of a Western Hemisphere counter-cartel strategy follow.

First, step up the direct attacks on the cartels. Over the past decades, U.S. law enforcement professionals have developed successful operational techniques that cartel leaders fear: partnerships with effective local police (often with U.S. training), expertise with judicially approved wiretaps and electronic surveillance, rewards programs that make criminal bosses vulnerable to betrayal, and, above all, when local laws permit, extradition to U.S. courts and prisons. The United States and its allies should increase the capability for multiagency field operations in all these dimensions, as well as the professionalization of host country military forces for operations requiring holding ground while the rule of law is reinstituted by other national agencies. DEA already operates throughout the region and has solid relationships with counterpart agencies; additionally, the agency has worked closely with U.S. combatant commands, notably U.S. Southern Command, where its powerful extraterritorial jurisdiction authority supplemented the military’s own programs to help U.S. allies in the region. DEA should continue to advise and assist host country police and counternarcotics forces, but the size of the agency must be greatly increased. With 5,500 agents spread over the hemisphere-including the United States-the agency that plays such a key role in the ongoing war with the cartels is spread too thin.

Second, the U.S. and its allies must continue to attack the cartels’ financial networks and money-laundering capabilities-a key strategy that requires more resourcing at Treasury. Cartel leaders fear U.S. indictments and extradition to American courts; extradition, exposure, and seizure of “dirty” money from criminal operations are all effective strategies that identify kingpins and threaten them with trials in U.S. courts and long terms in U.S. prisons. The United States has learned to use financial analysis and indictments as weapons against the cartels, even when they are beyond the immediate reach of U.S. law. Their use should be expanded.

Third, help our neighbors build more functional state institutions, particularly courts, and stimulate economic growth. In terms of the U.S. role and our assistance to allies, our understanding of security assistance must be broadened to include effective assistance to police and courts. For example, as part of Plan Colombia-a Colombian-developed counter-cartel strategy-the United States provided the Colombian National Police (CNP) with telecommunications-intercept equipment and, working through the Department of Justice, helped the CNP build a judicial process to support wiretap investigations. The result was a powerful tool that assisted indictments against cartel leadership and extraditions to the United States for prosecution. Likewise, assisting host nations to build strong, noncorrupt judicial systems is critical to assisting or restoring stable governments in areas threatened by cartel or other insurgent violence; courts, appellate courts, and efficient prisons are key pieces. Other U.S. agencies and contractors can provide other materiel assistance, training, partnership, and, when authorized, direct help in specified areas such as the collection of certain kinds of strategic intelligence. The U.S. Department of Defense can provide advisors and trainers on the Colombia model to supplement local military and law enforcement efforts, and occasionally direct aid in the form of helicopter transportation and naval support.⁶¹