The Military Remains President Peña Nieto’s Most Effective Tool in the Drug War

Given the sorry state of Mexico’s police forces, newly elected Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto must continue to rely on the military in fighting the drug war.
With the dust just starting to settle following the election of Enrique Peña Nieto, there has been already much speculation about the direction of the war against the drug cartels in Mexico. There are certainly many lessons that Peña Nieto can learn from his predecessor, Felipe Calderón, who has faced criticism for his overreliance on the Mexican military to police the most hazardous areas of the country. The militarized approach to combating the drug cartels has certainly raised a number of legitimate concerns, yet for the time being it remains the most viable strategy to maintain order for three reasons: (1) the cartels outgun and outman the local Mexican police forces; (2) rampant corruption within the local police forces has severely eroded public trust and their capacity to maintain rule of law; and (3) this strategy has already produced positive results, including the arrest of 16 high-profile drug traffickers and the killing of 7 more, including the head of the Zetas, Heriberto “The Executioner” Lazcano.The lack of proper training, funding, and manpower for local police forces continues to hamstring their ability to effectively combat the drug cartels without military assistance. Currently Mexico had some 400,000 policemen in hundreds of different forces. On average, these policemen have only six years of education, receive only two weeks of training, and are paid just $370 a month. In contrast many cartel members, such as the Zetas, are deserters from the military’s elite special forces who have trained as paratroopers and intelligence operatives, introducing a paramilitary element to drug trafficking that has overwhelmed many police units.More than 400 communities in Mexico do not even have a local police force, and in places with municipal forces, 90 percent have fewer than 100 officers. In contrast, the two most deadly drug cartels together are estimated to field more than 100,000 foot soldiers, and in some instances they have used their superior numbers to take over entire towns. In addition to outmanning the local police forces, the cartels typically outgun them as well. The weapons of choice for cartel soldiers are often AK-47 and AR-15-type rifles, high caliber pistols, and rocket-propelled grenades. Local police officers are often only equipped with worn-out pistols, for which they are expected to buy their own bullets, and body armor is scarce.Corruption on both the local and federal level has become so egregious that many citizens have come to distrust, and even fear, the police. In 2010, 3200 Mexican federal police officers, nearly a tenth of the force, were fired under suspicion of corruption, and an additional 465, 4 of which were commanders, were charged with breaking the law. Even the former head of Mexico's organized-crime unit was convicted of taking $450,000 a month in bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel.These issues have had a ripple effect throughout the Mexican justice system. The Center for Research and Development (CIDAC), a think-tank in Mexico, has estimated that nearly 96 percent of crimes in Mexico went unpunished between 1996 and 2003, and that three-quarters of crimes now go unreported. In contrast, the military continues to be viewed favorably by the majority of Mexican citizens. Nearly three-in-four respondents to a 2012 Pew Research Poll said that the military is positively influencing the way things are going in Mexico.Despite local and federal police ineptitudes, the military has struck a number of resounding blows against the drug cartels. In March 2009, the Mexican government published a list of 37 men suspected to be high-level narco-traffickers, with rewards of up to 30 million pesos offered for their capture. Three and a half years later, 16 of those on the list had been captured and seven had been killed. Most notable of those killed was the head of the Zetas, Heriberto “The Executioner” Lazcano,” who was well known for the savage methods he employed to take out his adversaries and frighten the local populace. Former President Calderón can also point to the near total decimation of the Gulf cartel, one of the region’s oldest (and at one time, most influential) cartels as an extraordinary achievement. Additionally, the Beltrán Leyva organization, which gained much notoriety for infiltrating the attorney general’s office, has been nearly wiped out.Despite these successes, it remains clear that the military is a blunt tool. Mexican soldiers are not trained to investigate and collect evidence, and they lack the tact required to use minimum force against threats. However, the drug cartels, which have achieved an insurgency-like status, have forced Mexican leaders to recognize that a policing strategy that includes military participation remains the least bad option. In order to wean Mexico off of its reliance on the military, newly elected Peña Nieto must pursue police and judicial reforms more aggressively than his predecessor. The reforms must include a bolstering of internal checks-and-balances within local and federal police departments to weed out the “bad apples.” Additionally, proper training and increased funding for local police forces must be pursued if corruption is to be reduced and public trust in local government restored.

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