According to a new report from the US Department of Defense cited by El Universal, Mexico and Pakistan head the list of countries at risk of a sudden collapse that would require military intervention.
I've not read the report, and I suspect that the article's author is leaping on the most sensational aspects of what is probably a much more anodyne analysis; otherwise, it'd be a much bigger story here. In any event, putting Mexico alongside Pakistan in terms of failed-state risk is, as I've written before, ridiculous. The drug dealers here are, Michoacán notwithstanding, not terrorists. They have no political designs. They don't want to replace the state; they merely want the state to accomodate their business interests. If you accept the murder-rate statistic provided by Pan-American Health Organization (I think it might be a little low, but not so far off), Mexico's murder rate is about 11 per 100,000 inhabitants, far less than Brazil's, Colombia's, or Venezuela's. Mexico exhibits very few of the characteristics of a failed state, such as sharp economic decline brought on by instability, or the mass dislocation of people by force.
4 comments:
I agree with you on the failed state issue; of course it's absurd to compare Mexico with Pakistan. But one shouldn't be sanguine either (not saying you necessarily are) - there have been many articles discussing the rise of other criminal activity, especially kidnapping and extortion, as criminals not the authorities' essential inability to combat insecurity. Still a long way from failed statehood of course but a bit more troubling than just narco-wars too. This article from El Uni serves as a good example:
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/editoriales/42596.html
I hear what your saying, and I'm not arguing that we should take it lightly, and I think a lot of the failed state stuff hails from people thinking that Americans dont pay enough attention to how bad Mexico has gotten, and they use failed state as a way to get people's attention. And as far as the other criminal activity aside from narcos, that's absolutely true. You have lots of low-level criminals taking advantage of the culture of impunity and fear, and running wild to a certain degree. At the same time, beyond getting the point across, the failed state label simply doesnt apply, neither in the specifics of the situation, nor in the possible prescriptions (Haiti-style UN intervention in Mexico? Of course not).
As far as Olvera's article, it seems like there's been a lot of stuff like that in Mexico recently, talking about the organic growth of ills, whether they call it a culture of death or a culture of crime or whatever. I don't remember seeing as much of that a year ago (but maybe I was just missing it). Some of it seems overblown, but I do think that reflects the fact that Mexico could get a lot worse, not just in the war on drugs, but in a more long-lasting, society-wide sense.
We definitely agree on the failed state issue. More relevant perhaps are the comparisons to Colombia. I've seen people swear that the Mexican border today reminds them of Colombia twenty (or less) years ago. Maybe possibly for TJ and CJ and a few other pockets, but that generally seems crazy to me.
Maybe Mexico's worst-case scenario looks something more like (most of 20th century) Sicily, where state institutions are truly hollowed out; even then, this would be unlikely to ever apply to DF, Monterrey, etc. Interestingly, when I was in Colombia a few months ago people suggested that Sicily might represent the GOOD scenario for that country, so that tells you something about the gap that still exists between Mexico and Colombia.
Funny you mention Italy (well, Sicily), I have a friend from Juárez who was in Naples recently, and he said it seemed pretty similar to Juárez in its worst years.
The Colombia comparison seems pretty weak to me too, the biggest reason being the absense of a civil war and a large chunk of territory where the government's control is essentially permanently non-existant.
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