Uncivil

Malcolm Beith suggests that Mexico's battles with the drug cartels amount to civil war.

There's no question that in terms of the people being killed, Mexico increasingly seems beset by a civil war, but intuitively it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. There could never be a power sharing agreement between the Mexicans and the cartels. The cartels don't have a political manifesto outlining their plan for the nation, because their goal is simply to truck drugs across the border as easily as possible, not to govern. The cartels are not one organized force, but a proliferation of cells constantly changing loyalties.

Nor does the label apply according to the formal definitions of a civil war. Both the Geneva Convention and the US Military definition of Civil War require recognition of belligerent status, which the cartels don't enjoy. The US Military criteria, adopted in 1990, include five requirements for the two sides of the conflict (control of territory, a functioning government, foreign recognition, identifiable regular armed forces, and the carrying out of major military operations), of which the cartels as a whole fulfill at best two, and arguably zero. It's a tragic mess in Mexico, but a civil war it ain't.