Cartel Violence and U.S. National Security

For several years now, Mexico has been plagued by horrific violence associated with drug-trafficking cartels.  Some parts of the country are relatively unaffected.  Other areas suffer appalling levels of violence, particularly along the northern border where cartels compete for control over regions that are valuable both as plazas (i.e., transhipment corridors) and as local distribution markets in their own right.  Still other parts of the country may see less in the way of overt bloodshed, but nonetheless experience the displacement of public authority and civil society by what amounts to shadow-governance by a cartel (see this piece by William Finnegan for a stunning example).  Both the second and third categories are relevant to Secretary Clinton's recent observation that circumstances in Mexico could be described in terms of an insurgency, though most commentator tend to focus (for understandable reasons) on overt violence when considering the fit of the insurgency label.  No one doubts that this state of affairs amounts to a grave national security crisis for Mexico.  But to what extent does it implicate U.S. national security?   This question is beginning to receive a lot of attention from the policy community.  To note just two recent examples:  CNAS, through Bob Killebrew and Jennifer Bernal, recently published a detailed report on the policy aspect of the question: "Crime Wars: Gangs, Cartels, and U.S. National Security," and hosted a related event you can watch here;  Heritage had an event today on the topic as well (watch here). Relatively little attention has been paid, in contrast, to the vast array of international and domestic legal issues that the cartel violence raises (though certainly there are some notable exceptions). Greg McNeal and I were both struck by this state of affairs some time ago, and have been collaborating on the topic on and off ever since.  We're still at an early stage in our efforts, but do expect to hear much more from us on this front in 2011, and do not be surprised to find cartel-related posts on this blog in the meantime.