Will Sheinbaum Confront the Cartels?

Foreign Affairs

Will Sheinbaum Confront the Cartels?

The technocratic tack may prove more fruitful than the drug war or its softer replacements.

Claudia Sheinbaum, the recently inaugurated president of Mexico, released additional details last week on the security strategy she intends to pursue during the course of her term. This issue is of grave importance to both citizens of Mexico, facing a growing wave of cartel violence, and to Americans, who suffer from cartel violence and trafficking (both drug and human) across the southern border. In Mexico, cartel violence has exploded since the United States captured—under somewhat mysterious circumstances—the drug kingpin El Mayo, one of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel. Just this month, 34 people were killed in the space of a single day in the state of Guanajuato; in the city of Chilpancingo, cartels killed the newly elected mayor and left his severed head on top of his car as a warning to the public.

Controlling the cartels will undoubtedly be one of Sheinbaum’s biggest challenges. Organized crime in Mexico has proven extremely difficult to root out. During his presidency, Felipe Calderón attempted, without success, to destroy the cartels by force during the Mexican Drug War—the principal result of which was a massive increase in murders as cartels militarized in response, a development that continues to haunt Mexico to this day. Successive presidents have tried adjustments and alternative strategies to little avail. Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (popularly known as AMLO), famously advocated a somewhat softer approach, proclaiming that cartel violence must be solved with “hugs not bullets” by addressing the root social causes, although he less conspicuously continued to deploy the armed forces against organized crime in affected areas. The result was a modest decline in the homicide rate during his term in office, little consolation in a country whose raw numbers remain near historical highs.

Sheinbaum’s security strategy builds off that of her mentor, but adds some promising new elements to the mix. It consists of four points: solving the root social causes of organized crime, reforming the National Guard, increasing cooperation with state and local governments, and the strengthening of state intelligence and investigative services through the creation of a new national intelligence coordination agency.

During the October 8 press conference at which she presented her new plan, Sheinbaum remarked, “Calderón’s narco war is not coming back. We’re not looking for extrajudicial executions, which was what was happening. What are we going to use? Prevention, a focus on root causes, intelligence, and [security] presence in this four-pronged strategy.”

The first two points of this approach are a clear continuation of AMLO’s “hugs not bullets” approach. The use of social programs—particularly employment and educational training for young men—to dissuade vulnerable sections of the population is a trendy but probably low-impact idea for fighting organized crime. The revenue from the drug trade is simply too vast for social programs to act as much of a counter-incentive. Cartel money is sufficient to suborn Mexican law enforcement, judicial officers, politicians, and even the head of Calderón’s own war on drugs; a few welfare programs cannot compete with the economic possibilities available to Mexicans willing to sign on with narco gangs. But the remainder of the program shows a sharp understanding of the limitations of the Mexican state and the reforms necessary to effectively confront organized crime.

The fundamental issue that faces all Mexican presidents attempting to deal with the cartels is that the Mexican government has limited state capacity. Its institutions are often inefficient and corrupt, with poor organization and oversight. As a result, the government is frequently unable to take decisive action when needed, and what actions it does take are often blunt and ineffective. The farther away from the capital and direct federal oversight, the bigger the issue. Cartels, with their more efficient and less compromised chains of command, are thus able to outmaneuver the Mexican government in the great game of crime suppression. The latter three points of Sheinbaum’s program work directly to address this issue and build the state capacity of the Mexican government and make it capable of confronting cartels effectively.

The reform of the Mexican National Guard was one of AMLO’s signature reforms during his final year in office, and one that Sheinbaum has faithfully followed. The proposal is to incorporate it as an arm of the Mexican Armed Forces, placing it under the command of the Secretary of Defense and providing it with access to military resources. This will, according to the Mexican government, allow for the National Guard to be trained to much higher standards, be issued higher-quality military equipment, and most importantly improve coordination between the Guard and other branches of the armed forces during security operations.

Improving cooperation with, and oversight of, state and local government is also an absolute necessity for the suppression of organized crime in the country. The failure of the Mexican federal government to effectively respond to local conditions and protect citizens and government officials is a major contributor to the power of cartels, who are able to extort local officials and citizens and incorporate them into their power base as collaborators and recruits. In many places, Mexicans are left with few other options: Those who do not cooperate with the cartels simply end up dead. Effectively providing security and protection by responding to the needs of localities denies the cartels this path to expanding and maintaining their influence.

Finally, increasing the capacities of Mexican intelligence services is a major step towards eliminating one of the cartels’ major advantages: initiative. The vast financial resources available to the cartels from the drug trade allows them to co opt portions of the Mexican state for their own ends, including for gathering intelligence on the Mexican government’s plans and organizing operations in anticipation of them. In contrast, the Mexican government has relatively little insight into the cartels’ own operations, and must react to situations that are unfolding or have already unfolded. An effective intelligence agency can reverse this dynamic, eliminating compromised points in the Mexican state and providing insight into cartel operations, allowing the government to be proactive and take the initiative in any conflict with organized crime. This is absolutely necessary for the pacification of the nation and the elimination of cartel violence.

Some commentators have criticized Sheinbaum for not taking a harder line on organized crime. The example of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador has made many on the right underestimate the difficulties faced by anyone attempting to confront organized crime in Mexico, a country orders of magnitude more massive and with vastly more complex issues. Sheinbaum’s subtler technocratic approach is in fact a very intelligent way of solving the fundamental problem that enables the persistence of organized crime in Mexico: a state that lacks the capacity to maintain order internally and externally and to respond to challenges quickly and efficiently. Once that is achieved, taking a harder line against the cartels will be both natural and, unlike Calderón’s attempt, effective.

The big question in all of this is, of course, execution. The same lack of state capacity that leaves Mexico relatively helpless to respond to cartel violence makes it difficult to build an effective intelligence apparatus and cooperate with local governments. And it’s unknown what priority Sheinbaum places on security relative to her other concerns, like the environment and social welfare programs—all of these proposed reforms will be expensive to accomplish. But, as a plan, it’s a promising start.

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