While on the campaign trail, Enrique Peña Nieto — now Mexico’s president — sought to de-emphasize the military’s role in the drug war by supporting the creation of a national gendarme and the widespread expansion of the Todos Somos Juarez, a civil society development plan. Yet the proliferation of vigilantes taking up arms to defend their villages against drug-related violence recently forced the federal government to send soldiers to Michoacán. Like his predecessor, Felipe Calderón, Peña Nieto seems poised to again put his country’s military front and center in the fight against cartels. In the second of a five-part Baker Institute Viewpoints series, we evaluate a fundamental question for all democratic societies facing organized crime threats: Is the deployment of troops in a domestic conflict with organized crime an appropriate use of combat forces?
Mexico is embroiled in a violent and persistent drug war. Criminal cartels are battling each other and challenging the state for control of both the lucrative narcotics trade and territory. While the military has been involved in narcotics eradication for at least four decades, its role in combating the cartels rose in prominence during the administration of Felipe Calderón.
Calderón turned to the military for two reasons: first, the Mexican police lacked capacity to address the situation and second, the cartels were actively challenging the state in many places. The police were incapable of responding to the high-intensity violence. The police lacked weapons, training and doctrine for addressing these threats. In many cases, they were also suborned by the cartels. Corruption and impunity hobbled the rule of law and democratic governance.
Enter the military
In order to address spiraling cartel violence, Calderón deployed the military. His predecessor, Vicente Fox, deployed an average of 19,293 troops annually to fight the narcos. Calderón increased this number 133 percent to about 45,000 troops from both the Army (Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional, or SEDENA) and Navy/Marines (Secretaría de Marina, or SEMAR). The military became the cornerstone of internal security as police reform, including a new Policia Federal, was initiated. Large-scale military operations and efforts to capture high-value targets — “a kingpin strategy” — were employed.
The militarization of policing posed several challenges. First, while military operations were essential to stemming insecurity, the military is not designed for policing communities. The skill sets of police and military are different most of the time. Certainly some military personnel — especially those engaged in counterinsurgency — gain police skills, but it takes time, training and immersion in the community. Immersion in the community without requisite training and oversight exposes the military to corruption and opens the avenue for human rights abuses.
The massive deployment of military forces to stabilize the country has led to an increase in human rights abuses. Indeed, the military has been accused of being “armed with impunity.” The deployment of military counter-cartel operations has resulted in a surge of formal complaints (quejas) and recommendations for action by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos, or CNDH). While both SEDENA and SEMAR were mentioned, the bulk of the incidents involved SEDENA troops. These incidents peaked in 2009 and decreased as direct military confrontation were scaled back. On its face, this confirms the problematic nature of using the military to fill the police vacuum.
Alternatives to the military: Police reform and the Gendarmería Mexicana
Mexico’s current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has formulated a new security strategy. Peña Nieto’s strategy involves emphasizing counter-violence, unifying police commands into five regional centers of effort, and creating a National Gendarmerie. Clearly, a counter-violence approach has the potential to decrease instability. The prospects for the other approaches are controversial. The regions are all contested by the cartels. Unifying state and municipal police may exacerbate the potential for cartel penetration and the spread of corruption if not carefully executed. It also has the potential to distance the police from the community. In addition, this approach raises constitutional questions on the balance over power among the states and central government.
The creation of a gendarmerie is perhaps the most controversial measure proposed by Peña Nieto. In many ways, it is just one more instance of ongoing police reform in Mexico. Every few years a new approach is tried and ultimately fails as corruption intercedes and police collusion with organized crime is uncovered. In many ways this approach is attractive, as it fills the gap between civil police and the military and provides a law enforcement capacity to address extreme hyperviolence and barbaric acts.
The gendarmerie is slated to begin operations in September 2013. Several analysts — notably Peter Chalk and Alejandro Hope — question its utility. Central to their concerns is the assessment that this is not really new and merely moves military officials from military status to gendarmerie status, effectively continuing the militarization of Mexico’s internal security. There are benefits in creating a gendarmerie as a stability force that bridges the police and military responses to insecurity. The municipal and state police have been out-armed and challenged by the cartels’ armed bands. Forming a new gendarmerie to support civil police at all levels can provide an effective foundation for returning the military to their garrisons and the police to community policing and law enforcement investigations. Clearly Hope is right: a debate about the formation of this new force structure is warranted in order to ensure transparency and constitutional balance.
Conclusion
The military is a tool of last resort for internal security. Police are a better fit for maintaining order. Until the police have the capacity to act effectively against the cartel threat and preserve the public peace, the military necessarily plays a role in restoring order.
Guest author John P. Sullivan is a lieutenant in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. He is also a senior fellow at the Stephenson Disaster Management Institute at Louisiana State University and a senior fellow at Small Wars Journal-El Centro. His current research focus is on the impact of transnational organized crime on sovereignty in Mexico and other countries.