The deepening drug-related violence in Mexico poses a serious risk to U.S. national security. At the same time, the Mexico problem demonstrates the imperative of national security reform. Specifically, the response to problems south of the border has been hampered by the unnecessary division between the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council.

The current U.S. program to counter Mexican drug violence dates to March 2007, when President George W. Bush met his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderón. In an unprecedented move, Calderon asked for U.S. assistance to curb arms and drug trafficking, as well as help to strengthen Mexico’s judicial, military and intelligence systems.

As the department primarily responsible for counternarcotics and foreign aid to Mexico, the State Department took the lead in what became a “steering group” to coordinate the U.S. efforts. But absent shared protocols and cultures between agencies, the NSC necessarily became increasingly involved in coordinating and mediating the inter-agency effort. The Office of Management and Budget came on board. The Department of Defense had money in discretionary accounts that could be quickly tapped. Moreover, to the extent that the Mexican military supported Mexican law enforcement efforts, the defense department was its preferred interlocutor.

The Department of Justice accepted a dual role—pursuing enforcement and helping Mexican agencies carry out needed reforms. The Treasury Department, Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; and the Office of National Drug Control Policy had niche roles and seats at the table. The Department of Homeland Security provided Border Patrol, Customs, and Coast Guard inputs as well as expertise in dealing with state and local authorities in the United States. Eventually, border surveillance capabilities developed by the U.S. Border Patrol, were tapped to supply intelligence to Mexican authorities.

In other words, multiple major agencies and departments were involved in the process. Coordination between them evolved naturally, not by design. The NSC-HSC division is counter-productive when dealing with circumstances such as the problems in Mexico, which clearly falls into the category of both foreign and domestic affairs. Staff efforts are duplicated, turf wars ignited, and the effort unnecessarily hindered before it has even begun. As Secretary of State Clinton said this week in Mexico City, “clearly what we’ve been doing has not worked.”

The White House is currently reconsidering the NSC-HSC division. It should combine the councils to create a single forum for interagency groups to cooperate and coordinate. Mexico shows why.

Mexico is a problem for only as long as Washington wants it to be. So far our leaders seem to be doing their best not to take the easiest and most effective remedial action; instead, they are doing the kind of psuedo-sophisticated strategizing that will make sure Mexico becomes a long-term festering problem that will do America untold harm. The necessary steps to protecting U.S. interests are not: (a) blaming Mexico's problems on Americans (Mrs. Clinton); (b) giving hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons and training to the utterly corrupt and cartel-penetrated Mexican military and law enforcement community (President Obama); or (c) acting out the cynical masquerade of moving border control officers around on the border to make Americans believe Washington is “doing something.”.

The correct goal is complete border control, which is an essential component of national defense and territorial sovereignty. The first step, therefore, is building an unbroken, effective, defendable, and heavily armed system of border defenses from Galveston to the Pacific. We could use some of the taxpayer money being shoveled to failed businesses, criminal financiers, and foreign governments, and instead use it for something completely unique to Republican and Democratic politicians -- defending the American people, their families, and their property. Our leaders should lock down the border under the auspices of what Obama has long promised -- bipartisan action for the benefit of all Americans. Such an action will cost both parties equally among Hispanic voters. This is a bad way to work, but it would satisfy the moral cowards in both parties by making sure both suffer and neither gains an electoral advantage. With the border controlled, we can stop shoveling U.S. taxpayer money to corrupt Mexicans and step back and let them kill each other to their hearts’ content.

But doing the right thing for all Americans is probably beyond the current Washington crowd. The border is unlikely to be effectively controlled. Indeed, Mrs. Clinton, Rahm Emanuel, and other senior administration officials have already said things that appear to be setting the stage for what will be the Democrats’ major effort in response Mexico's troubles. Their simpering about how weapons being purchased in the United States are responsible for Mexico's violence -- part of Mrs. Clinton's blame-America gambit -- surely signals the start of a federal government move to undermine 2nd Amendment rights. Closing the border tight ends the southward flow of weapons, but it also would negate a chance for the Democrats to attack the 2nd Amendment. Thus the border will stay open to the detriment of all Americans and probably their constitutional rights. Obama will fail to protect the continental United States from Mexican spill-over and his party's anti-gun Crusaders will cause more divisiveness among Americans.

Of course we all now see the problem with the cartels. But this didn't happen overnight, and it would be a grave error on the part of the U.S. to treat it as we tend to do -- an overnight issue that we solve by moving some border police around, and then move on to the next media hit. In fact, problems South of the Border have been brewing for years, and we have overlooked them for far too long.

Think of the issue as a combination of crime and terrorism both within and outside the U.S. For ease of discussion, it has four largish components.

The first is the world's black economy. Since about the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the world has been in the grip of a crime wave. The dissolution of the Soviet empire released, besides great energy, huge amounts of weaponry, political instability, criminal behavior and black markets in practically everything from missiles to white slavery. The black economy touches virtually every city and town in the world (ever wonder how all those Chinese restaurants get staffed?). A principal trade in the black economy is drugs, of course, as well as human beings -- both mainstays of the cartel economy.

Second, our pal Hugo Chavez, who I long regarded as a clown, has opened Venezuela as a conduit for Middle Eastern terrorism. He has established close ties with Iran, has at least one Hezbollah training camp in his country, and is supporting anti-US terrorism and gang activity throughout South and Central America; for example, we all know about his support to FARC, the Columbian drug gang that formerly was a Marxist insurgency. Hezbollah and al Queda both are active among the Middle Eastern Diaspora in South America, which is fairly large. Both are involved in the drug trade, and the "threat stream" increasingly includes these groups as well as drug gangs.

Third, and right now more serious than Chavez, are the Central American gangs that are challenging the governments of El Salvador and Honduras, and which are operating in force inside the US today -- in all states, and largest concentration being in LA and the second-largest being in DC. These are incredibly violent gangs that shelter inside the large Latino immigrant population and traffic in drugs (mostly), but also in prostitution, extortion, theft, murder for hire -- you name it. They are run, in a loose sort of way, from San Salvador. Scary.

Finally are the cartels, who are extending their reach to inside US drug markets -- there are currently takeover wars going on in Atlanta and Vancouver, BC, for example -- and southward, where they are coming into contact with the Central American gangs. These guys are everything you have read about in the paper -- violent in the extreme. Their modus is to wipe out or coopt local gangs, then to intimidate public officials and civic leaders that oppose them. Some LA police, for example, have had to enter witness protection programs after busting cartel and MS-13 members. We can count on such things happening on the East Coast before too long.

Clearly, this is a considerable public policy challenge for the U.S., both in terms of our support for friendly governments in South and Central America, in our relations with Mexico, and within the U.S. as well. Since the main driver in all of this is the North American drug market, then we have a stake, as well as a responsibility, in how this comes out. To keep this brief, my research thus far indicates five general lines of policy that we should be taking:

1. We should assist friendly governments in Latin America to support or restore the rule of law in their countries. Such security assistance is far more likely to require police and paramilitary assistance than military assistance, and should include assistance in setting up legal systems, courts and effective prison systems. We aren't good in any of this, in my opinion.

2. We must assist the Mexican government wholeheartedly and unstintingly, to include military assistance (the gangs are better armed than the Army), intelligence, border security and whatever else is required. Immigration reform is a big piece.

3. Inside the U.S., at least three big policy pieces are necessary. The first is immigration reform. The gangs shelter inside the immigrant population, both legal and illegal, which fears the police and has nowhere to turn. I don't care whether we make every illegal Mexican immigrant a citizen, or bring up the black trucks in the night and drive them all across the Rio Grande, but we have got to have some kind of reform that takes away the "cover" the gangs depend on. (Well, I do care, but we don't need that discussion here.)

4. The next piece is drug policy. By every measure, legalization is not the answer. But drug treatment, education programs and other measures that give us more options other than just putting people in jail are desperately needed. We will never end the demand for drugs. But we can reduce it, make it less glamorous, treat the people who are caught up in it, and thus reduce the gangs' income. By the way, the last President who had a balanced drug policy was Richard Nixon.

5. Finally, we need to reinforce the enforcement end -- the courts., border patrol and state and local police. Courts are undermanned, overcrowded, and have their hands tied by unrealistic and putative drug laws. The border patrol is too small. Our prisons have become "crime academies" where first-time offenders are recruited by gangs and turned into hardened crooks. And your local cops, who are the front line of the war inside the U.S., (and who are usually pretty good) can't communicate from one jurisdiction or area of the country because we still do not have common statewide or regional ways for police to quickly pass sensitive data or tips. I suggest anyone who is interested should pay a call on your local anti-gang unit in the local police department -- they have one. You'll be impressed. And scared. It's not too much to say that civil order in the US is ultimately on the line, as it is today in Mexico.

Those who have studied Mexico's history know that our southern neighbor will never reach state failure. There is the possibility, however, that Mexico will become a hollow state.

The so-called "Hollow State Theory" evolved as analysts in South America watched how corruption and organized crime deteriorated the state of Paraguay from within. After years of this evolution, Paraguay became little more than a shell, one that looked like a relatively well functioning democracy from the outside, but was a machine of corruption, organized crime, terrorist financing, and the hub of South America's largest black market on the inside. The hope of taking back the Paraguayan state under the leadership of Fernando Lugo is in part why his election was such a cause for celebration.

In Mexico, Felipe Calderon's election will have the effect of accelerating Mexico's evolution into a hollow state.

For many years, under the leadership of the PRI, Mexico's drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) existed in relative peace with one another and with the federal government. They were left to freely corrupt and compromise state and local governments but were largely satisfied with not confronting the federal government.

The violence we saw in the year before Calderon came into office, security analysts in Mexico have told me, was little more than the cyclic nature of Mexico's black market and the ambition of the DTO leaders, always looking for more power. It was also partially due to the break down of old, uneasy alliances - especially the alliance between the Arellano-Felix organization and Osiel Cardenas' Gulf Cartel.

Once Calderon came into office, his close relationship with the Mexican army facilitated his direct-confrontation approach to ridding Mexico of organized crime - an unprecedented policy.

Calderon has displaced the traditional balance between the federal government and Mexican organized crime. He has disrupted chains of corruption that reached to the top levels of local and state government. He has also uncovered some of the ugly realities of corruption at the federal level in his own government, proven to have been compromised by astronomical payoffs.

Calderon faces a challenge he cannot possibly overcome alone, but the Mexican government is reticent to accept anything more than a cursory offer of help. Enter the Merida Initiative, a policy that shows just how far the Mexican government is willing to accept help from the US. Relative to the need, the answer is not much.

The idea of a hollow state, when I explained it to a number of Mexicans during my recent trip to the border, was not entirely unacceptable. They pointed out the example of Agua Prieta, a small city in Sonora, just across the border from Douglas, Arizona. The most recent violent event in memory occurred before Calderon entered office, largely because the head of the Sinaloa DTO, known simply as "El Chapo" or "Shorty", completely controls the turf.

In Agua Prieta, from the top of local government down to police and border guards, El Chapo controls everything, and there is peace and some prosperity. In a way, it is a "hollow city", but one where the locals rest and relax at night and are not scared.

I was told that it was always like this in Mexico, until Calderon came into office, and many of Mexicans, it seems, would prefer if Calderon left the cartels alone. They've been there for nearly a hundred years, and will be there a hundred more.

I'm convinced that Mexican organized crime will outlast Calderon, and we can see that his fight wears thin an already weak mandate. In the upcoming legislative elections, we will see just how far the voting populace is willing to support him and his PAN allies. With the next presidential election, it is quite possible that Mexico elects someone who will back away from challenging the DTOs and focus on Mexico's economic and social challenges.

With a weaker president at the helm, Mexican organized crime will likely begin anew with its efforts to facilitate business through bribes and corruption of government officials. Only now, it has learned that it needs to buy politicians at the local, state, and federal level to hollow out the state as much as possible - lest another Calderon comes along and makes life difficult again.

Mexico is not a failing state, but it is a deeply troubled one. JFCOM was wrong to equate it to Pakistan, whose troubles are deeper and gov't less capable than Mexico's is. That said, JFCOM's Joint Operational Environment (the JOE) document is one of the best studies out there.

There are a number of things that we can do to help Mexico. First, get control of the border and stop the export of huge amounts of cash and guns. If we had treated border security seriously, the US and Mexico would both be in a better position to deal with the drug problem. Second, work seriously on controlling the demand for drugs. We treat the drug problem as if it were only about drug traffic and not the demand for drugs. Third, punish the use and trafficking in hard drugs, not pot. We are wasting too much of our energy on busting pot users and suppliers. We need to focus enforcement power on cocaine, crack, meth, and heroin. Pot can in part be controlled through taxes. Law enforcement, of course, needs reliable tests to keep people from driving stoned.

Fourth, there is lots that the military and the National Guard can do to help our border patrol and local police. Transportation, manpower support, surveillance assets all should be made available to assist trained law enforcement personnel, or our friends in Mexico. We should drastically increase slots in CONUS military and police school houses for Mexican officers.

Finally, we need to offer advice and assistance where we can to help the federales and the Mexican armed forces to do what needs to be done. Sadly, our ability to do this has been weakened by our image as imperialists and our incredible inability to mount effective, large-scale, culturally sensitive military/police advisory efforts. With a burn rate of 2.5 to 3 billion dollars per month in Afghanistan, we have not been able to do a good job building and advising their security forces. We don't have much to offer Mexico with the paltry funds available. This is another reminder that we lack some of the common, useful tools for irregular warfare. When will we get smart about training and advising/assisting others to get security tasks done?

North of the Border

We can do a lot on our side of the border to help Mexico deal with cartels. First, and most important, is to continue to support, extend, and expand the Merida Initiative, which provides assistance to Mexico in building up its capacity to battle the drug lords.

Second, on the US side of the border we can do a much better job of not just battling the drugs and people being smuggled north, but the guns and money being smuggled south. On the US side the answer is not to send the National Guard to the border. There is no real mission or justification for a mass deployment of the military. Most of the violence on the American side is “bandit” on “bandit” as they attack and try to rip-off one another. What is called for is strong “community policing” in the border communities and substantial coordination and joint effort between federal, state, and local governments in combating the “networks” that facilitate trafficking in drugs, people, money, and arms.

I have been following the trials and travails of Mexico for the past 25 years. While it is unlikely to collapse into a Colombia/Lebanon type failed state any time soon, it is again going through one of its periodic and sad traumas.

In most ways, Mexico is the typical resource based state -- a version of Nigeria for the Western Hemisphere. As the price of oil goes up, there is no real effort to move the wealth beyond the upper ruling class; to develop a truly broad based middle class outside the cities and broad based and deeply entrenched non-oil industries. And in that fundamental fact, there lie the seeds of Mexico's problems.

That squandering of vast wealth and the enormous level of poverty provides fertile soil for corruption and anger. On the former point, the level of corruption accepted within the Mexican state is sadly outstanding and exists at all levels. On the latter point, the anger provides an incentive for those already broken on the wheel of poverty to cooperate with the cartels. Money is money; dirty or not.

The breaking of the cycle will obviously take time. Mexico City's first efforts must be directed at the cartels. Sorry to say that experience suggests the only way to do this in the short term is through a forceful police and military effort. The cartels have to pay in blood -- they understand little else and have little incentive to do anything without this mortal pressure.

Obviously the US is closely working with the current Mexican government to cap some of the violence along the border. We simply cannot accept that cartel violence is coming across the border at will. The border in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas is already porous to the extreme. Allowing this kind of paramilitary action to take place by cartels in the US in totally unacceptable. Mexico knows this and as long as we stay of our side of the border, we should be fine with our relationship. Aid is one thing. US police or troops in sovereign Mexican territory -- invited or unvited --would be something else.

In the long term, the Mexican government and the Mexican people have to come to grips with the weakness of rule of law and the grinding poverty in Mexico. I am not sanguine on either point. They are long terms efforts, as best, and any government could only - at best -- ameliorate the problem over an extended period of time.

I have been closely engaged on the issues facing Mexico for the past 14 years---first as the US Joint Commander for the Latin-American region 1994-1996 and then as US Drug Policy Director from 1996 to 2001. I am currently a member of an international advisory panel supporting the Mexican Federal Police with the issues of drugs and crime.

The current chaotic situation is extremely threatening to the rule of law and the stability of the Mexican government. Mexico is not on the verge of being a failed state. However, thousands are being murdered in the enormous battles between Mexican drug cartels for control of the smuggling routes into the US. Mexican police and military units also find themselves frequently outgunned by aggressive and heavily armed drug criminal enforcement groups. The violence of murder, kidnappings, drugs, money laundering, and corruption is now spilling over the US border and seriously affects two hundred plus American cities.

You may find my recent academic report covering my most recent visit to Mexico as an Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at West Point useful to your own thinking. It is available at www.mccaffreyassociates.com.

I am a biased observer. I love Mexico and her people-- hard working, spiritual, family oriented, tremendous personal courage...fiercely proud of their culture, traditions and language. Mexicans are great friends to have...they are superb and loyal business partners...their senior leadership both political and military are extremely talented and well educated. The current President Calderon is a figure of great personal courage and integrity.

Mexico, however, faces some daunting challenges. Their institutions of government are weak (with the exception of the Armed Forces which tends to be very respected by the Mexican people, apolitical, courageous, responsive to civilian authority and highly disciplined). Corruption is pervasive. Impunity in deference to the law is widespread among the general population. Governmental bodies lack structure, rules, training, equipment, and values that support effective governance.

Looming in the background is a huge economic challenge which is engulfing Mexico. Tourism is drying up because of the extensive violence. The oil industry lacks adequate capital and management expertise to successfully exploit the needed off-shore drilling to replace rapidly depleted land field reserves. The global recession and in particular the huge drop in US demand for consumer products threatens Mexican industry--- as well as the remittances of hundreds of thousands of illegal Mexican workers in the US. There is no social safety net in Mexico. Unemployment brings not just loss of income ----but hunger, homelessness, and attraction to crime to survive.

The US must help. We must pay attention and listen. We must devote resources to the problem that are commensurate with the challenge. We must acknowledge Mexico's 105 million people, her oil, her gift of labor from the 12 million illegal workers many of them Mexican who help shape our economy, and the presence of 500,000 Americans living in Mexico. Mexico is a vital interest to the American people.

We must more effectively control the 2000 mile US-Mexican border. The brave men and women of Customs and Border Protection are inadequate in numbers (18,000 officers...should be 45,000 personnel), are under-resourced, ill-equipped (we need a robust and modernized CBP aviation arm, all terrain vehicles, automatic weapons for each officer, night vision equipment, new border trails and roads, better sensors, more fencing and vehicle barriers, and better training and intelligence.)

We owe the Mexican people better protection of their security forces by effectively interdicting the huge US flow of automatic weapons and laundered drug money back south. (26,000 weapons seized last year.)

Finally, we need to wake up. Most of us in this enormous and wealthy nation of 305 million people do not use drugs. However, five million chronically addicted Americans cause enormous harm to their families, their employers, and their communities. We need more effective drug prevention and education programs among our youth. That starts with parents, pediatricians, coaches, teachers, and all those who care about young people. We also need to fully fund treatment options that get and keep people sober like the 2000+ national drug courts.... and science based drug treatment centers.... and methadone and buprenorphine programs for opiate addiction.

A lot to do. Now is the time to act.

A recent Pentagon study concluded that Mexico, like Pakistan, could suffer a “wholesale collapse of civil government,” which would cause a major national security problem for the United States. The report understandably has attracted attention here and has caused alarm in Mexico, where any U.S. concerns about border security summon bitter memories. In 1848, half of what was then Mexico was lost to the United States as the result of a war, which both sides eagerly sought. And during the Mexican Revolution, the last time the United States deployed large numbers of troops on the border, General Pershing invaded Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa, bringing the two countries to the brink of war.

Nothing on the political horizon even vaguely indicates that Mexico is on the brink of collapse. Mexico is a vigorous if tumultuous democracy. Unlike Pakistan, there are no significant insurgent challenges, and no history of coups since the Mexican Revolution nearly a century ago. Until the current global financial crisis, Mexico’s economic situation has much improved.

Instead, the threat comes from the proliferation of criminal gangs profiting from the traffic in illegal drugs headed for the United States. Law enforcement efforts are hampered by corruption that extends high into Mexico’s political apparatus. Local police in the border towns simply have been out-gunned. President Calderon has ordered the army to restore order, and it has had a measure of success in killing or capturing some of the most notorious gang leaders. But Mexico’s gangs have not been reluctant to fight back, taking on the state through assassination of high-ranking officials and local terror campaigns.

The violence could escalate. Mexico’s gangs could turn to large-scale terrorist bombings, as the narco traffickers did in Colombia, as a warning to authorities to back off. They could also create and finance local terrorist groups to distract authorities. And they can finance public protests and, as we have seen in Colombia, back political candidates to oppose the government’s crackdown and protect their interests.

While collapse is highly unlikely, the near- and long-term trends are worrisome. With 85 percent of its exports going to the United States, Mexico is being hit hard by the sharp decline in the U.S. economy. Remittances from Mexican workers in the United States—Mexico’ second largest source of foreign exchange—are also down. Mexico wisely hedged its 2009 oil revenues, but unless oil prices again rapidly ascend, the country’s oil revenues will fall in 2010.

The deteriorating security situation also directly impacts the economy. Growing violence discourages foreign investment and tourism, thereby increasing unemployment. Meanwhile, domestic drug consumption continues to increase.

The Mexican Army may retake the border towns, but that will not alter the fundamental equation. The continuing demand in the United States for illegal drugs enriches and empowers the criminal cartels that provide them. The United States has also become the principal source of weapons for Mexico’s gangs. As a consequences of drugs going north, and billions of dollars and thousands of guns going south, the growing wealth and firepower of Mexico’s crime lords raises a long-term threat to the security of both countries.

The deterioration of northern Mexico from crime-ridden to crime-ruled is likely to be gradual and insidious. Nominal state authority would still exist. Police would continue to deal with petty crime. Commerce would continue. Superficially, northern Mexico might appear normal—a failed state does not necessarily have to look like Somalia. But no-go areas and untouchable crime bosses protected by heavily armed private armies would point to the real locus of power.

Although this situation would hardly be good news, the United States could live with it. Concerns would increase if the violence were to spread across the border into the United States.

Mexico’s drug traffickers are already in the United States, making drug deals, looking for locations to grow marijuana, establishing new distribution channels. And the violence ahs followed, although thus far, it appears to be mostly confined to those involved in the traffic. What we have not witnessed here—some would add “yet”—is the same kind of violent challenge to police that we see in Mexico—threats, abductions, assassinations. Nor have we seen a proliferation of ransom kidnappings on this side of the border. Either development would trigger a reaction the traffickers would be wise to avoid.

The United States could, of course, take two bold steps: It could dramatically reduce the Mexican traffickers’ profits—and therefore their power to corrupt, hire killers, and buy weapons—by investing more in reducing domestic demand for drugs and partially decriminalizing their use, as some studies and several Latin American presidents have recommended. As long as U.S. demand remains high, criminals will draw huge profits. (Others favor vigorous aerial crop destruction.)

The United States could also move to legalize and fully integrate the millions of illegal immigrants in the country, and adopt a system of work visas that reduces the need for running the border, thereby taking the profit out of human smuggling. However, neither of these approaches seems likely to implemented.

If violence emanating from Mexico reached intolerable levels on the U.S. side of the frontier, the United States could gradually seal the border. The Great Wall approach already has popular appeal and political traction. But it would have serious adverse consequences, increasing unemployment on both sides of the border and disrupting trade between the two countries.

The United States could offer more material and technical assistance to Mexico’s under funded law enforcement establishment, and try to expand its cooperation with a stand-offish Mexican Army. The United States could discreetly assist Mexican authorities with intelligence that could enable them to operate more effectively against the gangs, but the problem here is the disturbing degree of penetration of Mexico’s criminal intelligence and law enforcement by the criminals themselves.

Despite current talk about troops and contingency plans, there are no attractive military options. By 1916, in the middle of the Mexican Revolution, the United States deployed half of its regular army plus 150,000 National Guardsman on the border—close to 200,000 troops. It is hard to envision General Pershing’s columns again moving south. Covert action? Predator-armed drones seeking most wanted traffickers?

The threat the gangs pose to U.S. national security, as opposed to U.S. law enforcement, is not immediate. There will be time to develop intelligent strategies and intelligence sources, which can take years. It should be made a priority now. We will be dealing with this for a long time.