Curious Editorial Decision

Proceso's recent cover story summing up a series of Small Wars Journal articles, which tended to see security in Mexico through a military lens, strikes me as odd for two reasons. One is that it's just odd to see one of the most connected magazines in the country basically cribbing the analysis, most of it esoteric and some of it not very well informed on Mexico, of a group of foreign military officers. Imagine Newsweek dedicating an article to the musings of Russian generals on American foreign policy. Or Sports Illustrated using a cover story to summarize the analysis of Mexico's top football experts.

Of course, Proceso presumably was convinced that the article would fit by the fact that the authors by and large considered Mexico as something like a war, which is exactly the line Proceso has been pushing since spring 2007. But, while the two groups' diagnoses have much in common, the prescriptions are very different: the people writing for Small Wars Journal mostly want a much larger American footprint in Mexico, especially with regard to the military, while such a result would be anathema to Proceso.