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Abstract
Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs) – commonly called drug cartels – are challenging states and their institutions in increasingly brutal and profound ways. This is seen dramatically in Mexico's drug wars and the expanding reach of Mexican organized criminal enterprises throughout Latin America and other parts of the world. This essay updates a 1998 paper ‘Cartel Evolution: Potentials and Consequences’ and examines current cartel and gang interactions. The paper links discussion of cartel phases to gang generations; updates and applies the discussion of third phase cartel potentials to Mexico; and assesses four alternative futures for Mexico, as well as their cross-border implications for the United States.
Notes
1. See CitationSullivan and Elkus, ‘Red Teaming Criminal Insurgency’, Citation‘State of Siege’, and Citation‘Plazas for Profit’; and CitationSullivan, ‘Criminal Netwarriors in Mexico's Drug Wars’.
2. Sur stands for Sureños (Southerners) and 13 for the letter M (Eme) and that means that those street gangs are subordinate to Mexican Mafia (Eme) authority.
3. Bunker and Sullivan, ‘Cartel Evolution’, 55–74.
4. Few works have been produced on the potential for cartel evolution. In addition to the original paper ‘Cartel Evolution: Potentials and Consequences’, see CitationFatic, ‘The criminal syndicate as para-state in the Balkans’, 137–56.
5. CitationCreveld, The Transformation of War.
6. CitationBunker, ‘Epochal Change’, 15–25.
7. CitationClawson and Lee III, The Andean Cocaine Industry, 47. See also CitationCañon, El Patrón, 20, 129.
8. CitationLogan, ‘Los Zetas’.
9. See CitationBriscoe, ‘The Proliferation of the “Parallel State”’.
10. CitationPaternostro, ‘Mexico as a Narco-democracy’, for an early discussion of the emergence of criminal enclaves in Mexico.
11. Bunker and Sullivan, ‘Cartel Evolution’.
12. CitationHawley, ‘Bold New Cartels Emerging in Mexico’.
13. CitationHawley, ‘Bold new cartels emerging in Mexico’
14. CitationHawley, ‘Bold new cartels emerging in Mexico’
15. CitationSullivan, ‘Maras Morphing’, 487–504 for a detailed discussion of the current state of maras and third generation (3 GEN) gangs worldwide.
16. CitationSullivan, ‘Transnational Gangs’.
17. CitationFranco, ‘The MS-13 and 18th Street Gangs’, 2.
18. CitationSullivan, ‘Third Generation Street Gangs’, 95–108.
19. CitationSullivan, ‘Gangs Hooligans, and Anarchists’, 99–128 for a discussion of the analysis underlying this section.
20. CitationBruneau, ‘The Maras and National Security in Central America’.
21. CitationLlorca and Bajack, ‘AP Impact’.
22. CitationCasas-Zamora, ‘‘Guatemalastan’: How to Prevent a Failed State in our Midst’.
23. See CitationSullivan and Bunker, ‘Third Generation Gangs’, 1–10 for a discussion of ‘third generation’ gang literature. A newer contribution is CitationBrands, ‘Third-Generation Gangs and Criminal Insurgency in Latin America’.
24. See, for example, CitationSullivan, ‘Future Conflict’ and notably Fatic, ‘The Criminal Syndicate as Para-state in the Balkans’, 137–56.
25. CitationSalazar, ‘Young Assassins of the Drug Trade’.
26. CitationManwaring, A Contemporary Challenge to State Sovereignty, 20.
27. The computer seized in 1994 was valued at one million dollars. See CitationChepesiuk, ‘The Fall of the Cali Cartel’.
28. This comparison does not take into consideration the guerilla FARC group which suggests that second phase cartel evolution and mutation is alive and well in Colombia with that hybrid guerilla-cartel entity's larger spheres of operation than those achieved by the Cali Cartel.
29. CitationLogan, ‘Mexico’.
30. CitationLacey, ‘In Drug War, Mexico Fights Cartel and Itself’.
31. CitationSkaperdas and Syropoulos, ‘Gangs as Primitive States’, 61–82.
32. Early participation of individual Mexican Mafia members as hit men for the Mexican cartels is not well known. See CitationRafael, The Mexican Mafia; and CitationBlatchford, The Black Hand.
33. Fatic, ‘The Criminal Syndicate as Para-state in the Balkans’, 137–56.
34. CitationBunker, Five-Dimensional (Cyber) Warfighting, 1–42; and CitationBunker and Sullivan, ‘Cartel Evolution’, 55–74.
35. CitationStanislawski, ‘Transnational “Bads” in the Globalized World’, 155–70 and ‘Para-States, Quasi-States, and Black Spots’, 366–96.
36. Email correspondence concerning the characteristics of Black Spots with Dr. Bartosz CitationStanislawski, October 17, 2008.
37. CitationLovelace, ‘Foreword’, iii–iv; and CitationManwaring, A ‘New Dynamic’ in the Western Hemisphere Security Environment, ix.
38. CitationLogan and Sullivan, ‘Mexico's “Divine Justice”’.
39. Ibid. See also CitationBunker et al., ‘Torture, Beheadings and Narcocultos’, in this work for additional information on La Familia.
40. CitationSullivan and Elkus, ‘Mexican Crime Families: Political Aims and Social Plans’.
41. This synopsis is drawn from the Narcocultos section of Bunker et al., ‘Torture, Beheadings and Narcocultos’, found in this work.
42. An excellent background debate on Mexican failed-state potentials, narco related conflict, and futures for that country can be found in CitationRonfeldt's Two Theories blog. See ‘Why Mexico May NOT Fall Apart – and a Way to Think about it’ and Citation‘Mexico Plagued by Myriad Interlaced Netwars – a TIMN Analysis’.
43. The bulk of the security cooperation money will go to Mexico with some also earmarked for Central America and the Caribbean. See CitationJohnson, ‘The Merida Initiative’.
44. See CitationLogan and Sullivan, ‘Costa Rica, Panama in the Crossfire’.