Narcos Over the Border
Narcos Over the Border: Gangs, Cartels and Mercenaries
Just received a review copy courtesy of Dr. Bunker and James Driscoll of Taylor & Francis – could not have arrived at a better time given several research projects in which I am engaged.
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.
Looks good – will get a full review here at a later date, but a work that will definitely of interest to those readers focusing on national security, COIN, 4GW, irregular or Hybrid war, terrorism, transnational organized crime and black globalization.
January 22nd, 2011 at 2:14 am
Hi Zen,I´ll be looking forward to reading your research. The war on drugs continues here in Monterrey, it is sometimes beginning to resemble Cd. Juarez here. We used to say Ciudad Juarez was not Mexico, now we are beginning to say all Mexico is Ciudad Juarez.However there have been a lot of arrests made by Calderon´s Administration, the killed and arrested drug lords from DTOs like the Cartel Gulf, they killed Tony Tormenta, the LFM (Familia Michoacana) lost their highest leader and there are been some progress on some arrests made of Zetas.Some people here are saying that the profile of the zetas has changed in the last few years, they used to be men in their thirties and forties with military background both in Mexico and Guatemala, but the mayority of those are gone, killed or arrested, and now the zetas are younger men, normally in their twenties and easy prey to the Mexican marines and soldiers.
January 23rd, 2011 at 2:32 am
Hi Jose,
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"Some people here are saying that the profile of the zetas has changed in the last few years, they used to be men in their thirties and forties with military background both in Mexico and Guatemala, but the mayority of those are gone, killed or arrested, and now the zetas are younger men, normally in their twenties and easy prey to the Mexican marines and soldiers."
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Interesting, if that is the case, the Mexican state is making progress of wearing the cartels down faster than they can evolve new leadership through indoctrination, training and experience. A similar pattern emerged in the vicious counterinsurgency war in Algeria in the 1990’s against the Islamists. The Islamic Salvation Army and the Armed Islamic Group saw their leadership cadre progressively grow younger, more radical and less operationally capable under the effects of assassination, combat and capture until one surrendered and the other imploded. A similar but less drastic process has happened to HAMAS in Gaza but not to the same extent because HAMAS has foreign havens in Syria and Iran for it’s leadership and for training.
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The cartels will either need to decamp and decentralize their drug operations to third countries or, if they intend to slug it out for domination of Mexico, establish secure areas to incubate their officer/leader/middle-level management to the quality level that made them a viable threat to the state in the first place. I would not be surprised if they tried to do so inside the US and Canada under some kind of false front company.
January 24th, 2011 at 4:17 am
The general perception about the zetas is that they are recruiting younger and younger kids. I have a feeling this has to do with the fact that the zetas´s core business is the kidnapping, extortions, car thievery, and of course drug dealing. While other organizations seem to focus more on drug smuggling, like Sinaloa Cartel. People also perceive that the government is going after the Zetas and LFM particularly because these cartels terrorize citizens with kidnappings and assasinations.I used to be optimistical about the war on drugs, but as the levels of violence rise and rise we are beginning to think that this is not going to go away very soon. I have a piece of land outside Monterrey and my wife and I decided not to go anymore, it is around the are where Don Alejo was killed, (http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/11/mexican-marines-reconstruct-death-of.html). The place is full of zetas and just a few days ago some decapitated bodies were trown in a plaza near by.I hope there has been a learning process for the Mexican authorities and that the learning curve, if any, is near the point where we can see more tangible results, at least less violence. Apparently Tijuana is now more calmed and they implemented the Unique Command, or "Mando Unico", which is a system to coordinate all municipal, state and federal authorities so that everyone works together.