The Seven Deadly Questions
How to Think about Mexico and Beyond
by Roger Pardo-Maurer, Small Wars Journal
How to Think about Mexico and Beyond (Full PDF Article)
Quick Quiz
By the beginning of the new counterinsurgency strategy and arguably a turning point of the War in Iraq (late 2006 - early 2007), which country after the United States and Great Britain had the next largest combat-related loss of citizens in Operation Iraqi Freedom?
The answer is - Mexico .
Blood is indeed thicker than water, or at least thicker than the Rio Grande. If ever proof were required of how our two peoples have become intertwined in ways we can hardly begin to imagine, one could hardly do better than to point to the fact that Mexico, or rather, the people of Mexico, were in effect an invisible member of the Coalition.
A Country Taken for Granted
Since the Spanish-American War, the grand strategy of the United States has been to rely on stability in the Western Hemisphere in order to pursue its interests in Europe and Asia. If Mexico is not already our most vital strategic relationship, it will become so over the next generation: as a trade partner, as a source of demographic and cultural renewal, and as a pillar of our strategic worldview so taken-for-granted that it is difficult to imagine how things could be otherwise.
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Comments
Very good overview--the seven questions make an awesome framework for people to start paying attention to this very important security question.
One question I'm hearing that this article didn't directly address was the allegations of corruption in the Calderon government and perhaps an alliance between Calderon (or at least sections of his government) with the Sinaloa cartel. I'd be interested in Mr. Pardo-Maurer's view on that allegation.