Author(s)
Issue Overview: A Transformation Raises Concerns
Public safety in Mexico is currently undergoing a significant transformation. Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected president in 2018 after promising to demilitarize the conflict against transnational criminal organizations by creating a new hybrid public safety institution in Mexico, the National Guard (Guardia Nacional or GN). The GN was originally placed under a new civilian-run Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection. However, after three years of existence, López Obrador moved the GN under the military-run Secretary of Defense (SEDENA). This has raised concerns over the militarization of public safety in Mexico and driven changes in security relations between the U.S. and Mexico.
In many ways, moving the GN under the control of Mexico’s military is a reversal of López Obrador’s original campaign promises. When Mexicans elected him president in 2018, they were expressing frustration with the existing political order and the failure of the previous administration to confront the nation’s security concerns. López Obrador, who had run for president two times previously in Mexico, now represented a new political party called the National Regeneration Movement, or MORENA. The rise of MORENA coincided with Donald Trump’s administration in the United States and his anti-Mexico, anti-immigration rhetoric that infuriated Mexicans. López Obrador represented political change, and many thought his populist, nationalist agenda would allow Mexico to stand up to the United States. The previous president, Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, was viewed as weak and too willing to cower to Trump.[1]
Due to the popular vote and López Obrador’s ability to tap into Mexicans’ frustration with the nation’s insecurity, he immediately sought to impact public safety by addressing the violence spawned by transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and corrupt public safety institutions. In his campaign, he promised to demilitarize the conflict and take the military out of its public safety role. Yet, in his first six months in office, López Obrador rolled out a new “National Plan for Peace and Security,” which called for the formation of a new hybrid military/police force — the Guardia Nacional — to lead the fight against organized crime.[2]
Political concerns no doubt complicated this decision. When former President Trump threatened to levy an import tax on Mexican goods coming into the United States to get Mexico to “pay for the wall,” López Obrador responded forcefully, expressing Mexico’s unwillingness to bow to U.S. pressure.[3] However, he did send the new GN to Mexico’s northern and southern borders to help stem the flow of migrants from Central America. Since then, the GN has been assigned other missions, including responding to the public health crisis of COVID-19; assisting with military construction projects, such as the new Felipe Angeles International Airport and Tren Maya (tourist train); replacing the federal police in patrolling highways; and generally providing a “show of force” presence throughout the country. In fact, the one thing the GN appears to not be doing is directly confronting transnational organized crime.
This paper provides an overview of the historic balance of power between civilian and military leadership in Mexico and assesses the creation of a new security institution along the lines of a stability police force (SPF) in light of the public safety challenges occurring in Mexico as well as recent policy changes regarding the GN. These public safety challenges include powerful transnational criminal organizations, corrupt police forces, mass migration, human rights violations, COVID-19, and moving control of the GN out from under the civilian Secretary for Security and Civilian Protection (SSPC). The methodology used to assess López Obrador’s policy decision to move the GN under the military’s Secretary of Defense (SEDENA) employs a structured analytical technique often used in intelligence analysis called pros-cons-faults-fixes (PCFF). The argument supported by this analysis is that while Mexico’s GN may not prove any more successful than attempts by previous administrations at confronting the country’s public safety challenges, it does represent an increase in the military’s power and influence in Mexico, thus impacting future civil-military relations as well as U.S.-Mexico security relations.
Background: A History of Civil-Military Power Sharing
Mexico’s military heritage is steeped in the country’s Spanish colonial history and its indigenous roots. The clash between these two cultures is best summarized by a plaque in Tlatelolco, or Plaza of the Three Cultures, which states:
“August 13, 1521: Heroically defended by Cuauhtémoc, Tlatelolco fell to the power of Hernán Cortés. It was neither a triumph nor a defeat. It was the painful birth of the mestizo nation that is the Mexico of today.”[4]
This was also the site of a massacre in 1968, when the Mexican military fired on student protesters just prior to the Summer Olympics. The symbolism of Tlateloloco is significant, as these themes of crisis and legitimacy — as well as culture and identity — have characterized civil-military relations in Mexico for centuries.[5]
During the three centuries of Spanish influence in Mexico (1520s-1820s), the military was a part of the oligarchy, which was also comprised of large landowners (hacendados), the Catholic Church, and governing institutions. That influence is still visible today when visiting the zocolo or main plaza in Mexico City, where the National Palace, Metropolitan Cathedral, and the former cuartel general (military headquarters) are juxtaposed. Each evening, the military holds elaborate retreat ceremonies lowering an enormous Mexican flag to the playing of the national anthem.[6] It is also evident in the murals of Diego Rivera which enliven the stairways in the National Palace, telling the history of Mexico from its Indigenous past, colonial subjugation, independence, and revolution of the 20th century. Military leaders are depicted throughout as playing a key role in Mexico’s transformation from its praetorian and authoritarian past. The question now is, “What role will Mexico’s military and new military institutions like the GN play in Mexico’s future?”
The Mexican Revolution took place in early 1900s, signifying a radical transformation of the country’s political and military structures. In 1910, Mexico had been ruled by a military strongman, Porfirio Díaz, for over 30 years. Díaz’s rule is viewed as both a low point and a high point in Mexico’s development. It is seen as a low point due to authoritarianism and the lack of political development toward a more representative liberal democracy. Others see it as a high point due to its economic and cultural achievements, which modernized Mexico and made it into a more progressive (read “European-like”) society. Yet, it was the political stability and economic development that came from Díaz’s efforts to draw foreign capital to the country that eventually led to his regime’s demise due to “an economic recession, increasing labor unrest, and a succession crisis [that] provoked the rebellion that deposed Díaz in 1911 and consigned him and his time to history.”[7]
The subsequent political leaders in Mexico included its revolutionary military leaders. Regional strongmen, like Emiliano Zapata from Morelos and Pancho Villa from Chihuahua, led uprisings in their respective states, challenging the centralized Porfirian government and its successors, which included revolutionary generals such as Álvaro Obregón, Plutarco Calles, Lázaro Cárdenas, and Venustiano Carranza. These military leaders — who became Mexico’s political leaders following the Revolution — created the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, that would eventually control Mexican politics for the next 70 years. The military, in fact, became one of the four pillars of support for the PRI (along with the labor unions, campesinos or peasants, and a catch-all popular sector). Álvaro Obregón played a key role in designing ways to keep the military from directly intervening in politics through co-optation and pay-offs, while at the same time reducing the military budget, which was about 60% of government expenditures at that time.[8]
Another component of “demilitarizing” Mexican politics after the Revolution was increased professionalization of the military through formal schooling. In 1932, the Escuela Superior de Guerra (ESG) was created, which provided a means by which the most promising military officers could rise up through the ranks, earning the title of Diplomado de Estado Mayor, which almost always assured them future general officer rank.[9] The ESG taught institutional loyalty first and foremost, seeing loyalty to the new political party structure as loyalty to the state. At the ESG, an inscription at the base of the central flagpole reads, La Patria es Primera (the country is first). Yet it was a PRI official who came each December to hand out the aguinaldo (bonus) to military students, thanking them for their loyalty to the party as well as their loyalty to the state.[10]
There have been a number of challenges to civil-military relations in Mexico since the Revolution, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, when Mexico, like many countries, faced significant social upheavals as well as threats due to armed insurgencies. In Mexico, the student uprising that led to the Tlatelolco massacre in 1968 challenged Mexico’s political and military institutions. Then, from 1971 to 1974, the Mexican military was involved in fighting a guerilla war on many fronts, the extent of which was not known or well publicized in the press.
Probably the best organized of the guerilla forces was the Movimiento de Acción Revolucionario (Revolutionary Action Movement) or MAR. The MAR had both urban and rural wings. The rural wing was headed by a schoolteacher, Genaro Vasquez Rojas, who frequently attacked military convoys to secure weapons and supplies.
One of the most active guerilla organizations was the Ejército de Liberación del Sur or ELS (Southern Liberation Army). The Mexican army waged a successful intelligence operation against the ELS, running a network of informants who aided in the capture of a number of ELS base camps.
One fringe group, the Frente Urbano Zapatista or FUZ (Zapatist Urban Front), was credited with numerous attacks against the military, including two ambushes in Guerrero against weapons convoys, one on June 25, 1972, when 10 soldiers were killed, and another on August 23, 1972, when 17 soldiers were killed.[11]
The army's most successful effort against these guerrillas came in 1974 with the killing of the rebel leader, Lucio Cabañas, a former schoolteacher who led the Ejército de los Pobres (Army of the Poor) and had eluded the authorities for seven years. Cabañas had led many successful guerrilla operations, including the abduction of the governor-elect of Guerrero, Ruben Figueroa.
Military Modernization Brings Change to Mexico
Throughout this time and into the 1990s, the military remained loyal to the ruling PRI party and supported its political leaders, despite tensions in civil-military relations. If the military paid a price for its role at Tlatelolco in 1968, the cost involved loss of prestige and further unravelling of its ties to the Mexican people. Yet, politically, the military gained greater respect (and fear) from the party, which owed its political survival to its armed protectors. In gratitude, the military fared well economically. Construction costs for military projects tripled in 1969 over the previous year. The promotion rate for generals and colonels doubled. The lessons of Tlatelolco were that loyalty has its price for both the military and the regime.[12] Former Mexican President Luis Echeverría feared the military after Tlatelolco and gave it free reign to respond to the insurgencies of the 1970s.
In the 1980s, Mexico’s newfound oil wealth gave civil-military relations some breathing space, further allowing the military to pursue long-delayed modernization programs. However, by the elections of 1988, fissures in the military’s support for the PRI were evident, particularly among younger military officers as seen through a crackdown on disloyalty within the ranks.[13]
Despite its efforts to shore-up support amongst its rank and file, in 2000, the PRI candidate Francisco Labastida lost the presidential election to Vicente Fox, the Partido de Acción Nacional, or PAN (National Action Party), candidate. The Mexican military fell in line and accepted the election results without any major opposition, since the PAN was considered a more acceptable replacement than the newly formed Partido de la Revolución Democrática (Revolutionary Democratic Party or PRD), and its candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas (son of the former revolutionary military leader, Lázaro Cárdenas), who had left the PRI over ideological issues.[14]
Vicente Fox did pursue a number of public safety reforms, such as creating the Federal Investigative Agency (the equivalent of the U.S. FBI); establishing the civilian Secretaría de Seguridad Publica (Secretariat of Public Security or SSP) which was intended to de-politicize security policy; and creating the Policia Federal Preventiva (Federal Preventive Police or PFP). None of these changes, however, directly threatened the military or reduced its roles and missions in safeguarding the nation’s security. Fox even resisted pressure from the United States and the Bill Clinton administration aimed at reforming Latin American militaries through the creation of civilian ministries of defense. The Mexican military continued to have uniformed officers serve as heads of the Secretary of Defense (SEDENA) and Secretary of the Navy (SEMAR) as separate cabinet-level agencies.[15]
The War on Organized Crime Elevates Military Visibility — and Spreads Corruption
The most significant threat to the military came from Fox’s PAN successor, President Felipe Calderón (2006–2012), and his “war on organized crime,” which elevated the role of the military by equating national security with public safety and putting soldiers and marines on the front lines in the fight against transnational criminal organizations (TCOs). In essence, by sending in the “cavalry,” Calderón was committing his strategic reserve to combat these TCOs, leaving the military stretched thin — and also subject to the same corrupting influences and charges of human rights abuses that police agencies have faced.
This was most evident in Ciudad Juárez in 2009, where the homicide rate was 133 out of 100,000 people, making the city the murder capital of the world.[16] In fact, the situation in Ciudad Juárez became the epicenter of President Calderón’s war on TCOs as he declared martial law and sent in 10,000 soldiers to take over control of public services in the city, including policing. The military was thrust into a more visible role in public safety, where it was soon accused of causing an increase in human rights abuses. Leaders in Ciudad Juárez protested, and the governor and mayors in the state of Chihuahua also opposed the militarization occurring in their cities and state triggered by Calderón.[17]
A National Guard Is Created to Fight Drug Trafficking
After six years of increasing violence and insecurity in Mexico, the public grew tired of Calderón’s hard-handed approach toward public safety and the resulting violence, returning the PRI to power in 2012. President Enrique Peña Nieto promised to reduce the military’s role and reform public safety, hoping to stem the violence and decrease the murder rate. He created the Gendarmeria Nacional (a stability police force or SPF), supposedly following the Colombian National Police model. However, it was ill-defined and incurred opposition from other agencies as well as non-governmental organizations. The Mexican military actually expanded its own military police forces during this time.[18] Despite these changes, violence continued unabated, and the murder rate continued to climb as Peña Nieto’s efforts came up short in Mexico’s attempt to create a more professionalized, less corrupt national policing institution capable of combating organized crime.[19]
Again, seeking change in 2018, Mexicans elected three-time candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president, this time running under a new political party called Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (National Regeneration Movement or MORENA).
López Obrador originally opposed a further militarization of the fight on organized crime.[20] Despite the claim of his predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto, to have ended the “war on drugs,” it was evident that Mexico was losing this fight and homicide rates were continuing to rise. Even though there had been some success in decapitating the leadership of certain drug cartels through the “kingpin” strategy — which involves weakening or destroying drug trafficking organizations by targeting their management and leadership structures — the ultimate result had been a fragmenting of large groups into smaller and more deadly rival gangs, as well as an increase in the influence of other organizations (such as the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel) that have since contributed to Mexico’s growing insecurity. Today, Mexico is not yet in danger of becoming a failed nation, but it does have failed “states,” where these criminal gangs have gained so much power and influence over political, economic, and security structures that they have become the de facto governing authorities.[21]
Reneging on a Commitment to Demilitarization
As mentioned earlier, López Obrador’s 2018 “National Plan for Peace and Security” proposed the creation of a new Guardia Nacional to replace the armed forces in its role of combating organized crime. Yet in March 2020, López Obrador issued a decree stating that the Mexican military would continue its public security role for the next four years, admitting that the GN had not been successful in demilitarizing the conflict. The decree further expanded the military’s role under the law that established the GN, La ley de la Guardia Nacional, giving the military the authority to conduct public safety functions that had been transferred to the GN from the Policía Federal (Federal Police).[22] In June 2021, López Obrador reneged on his earlier commitment that the GN would be civilian-controlled, by proposing a constitutional amendment, placing the GN under the control of the military, specifically the army and SEDENA.[23] Sensing opposition in Mexico’s Congress, López Obrador declared in August 2022 that he would bypass Congress, if necessary, to keep the GN under SEDENA and keep the military “on the streets” to fight crime past 2024.[24]
Although the official announcement by López Obrador to move the GN under SEDENA occurred in late 2021 with a proposed constitutional amendment, the transformation process had started as early as October 2020. The GN was originally to be comprised of both military and civilian members; however, it was always viewed as a de facto military organization since 70% of its members were from the armed forces, including all of its leaders.[25] At that time, López Obrador gave the military, not the SSPC, the authority to train and equip the GN.
Assessing the Decision to Move the National Guard Under Military Control
How sound was López Obrador’s decision to keep Mexico’s National Guard under the control of the military? A pros-cons-faults-fixes analysis (or PCFF) can provide some answers to this question. PCFF is a structured analytical technique used in intelligence circles to assess policy choices and provide intelligence support to decision makers.[26] It differs from other analytical methodologies (like SWOT) by directly connecting a faults analysis to each of the pros, while connecting a fixes analysis to each of the cons.[27] In other words, in assessing López Obrador’s decision to place the GN fully under military oversight versus keeping it under civilian authority, PCFF methodology can help identify the future consequences of such a decision when it comes to public safety in Mexico — and also more broadly when it comes to the impact on civil-military relations in general. In addition, it can be used to assess the role that the United States may be playing in contributing to the increased militarization of public safety in Mexico through recently expanded military-to-military programs between the two countries, as well as the previous Trump administration’s efforts to get Mexico to do more to control migration — particularly the flow of Central American migrants traveling through Mexico to the U.S. border.
The Pros: Streamlined Command and Control
The pros of this decision include the fact that it confirms what everyone already knew, removing any doubt that the GN would be a hybrid police/military force under civilian control. Placing it under SEDENA also streamlined command and control since the GN was being deployed in support of the military and did not have any real authority to function on its own.[28] Putting the GN under SEDENA also reduced the need for creating separate administrative and logistical functions for personnel management as well as programming and budgeting for a new public safety institution. From a security assistance standpoint, having the GN under SEDENA also facilitates communication and cooperation with U.S. counterparts responsible for military-to-military programs, such as the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program.[29]
The Cons: Increased Military Power and Decreased Oversight
The cons of the decision to place the GN fully under SEDENA include the inevitability that this move will increase the power of the military over public safety in Mexico, creating a situation similar to Colombia, where the Colombian National Police (PNC) fell under the Colombian Armed Forces (COLAR). In the case of Colombia, the National Police conducted counternarcotics activities and combatted transnational organized crime, whereas the COLAR held the role of counterinsurgency and combating the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). While Mexico has never faced an insurgent threat as robust as Colombia’s terrorist organizations, there are some similarities in the rise of Mexican cartels as para-military organizations.[30]
Placing the GN under SEDENA also further insulates it from both public and legal scrutiny, increasing the impunity of officers performing public safety roles and missions. This was already a problem for the federal police and represents one reason why that organization was disbanded to begin with. Yet, it has also been a problem for the military as well, evidenced by reports that the Mexican armed forces were complicit in the cover-up of the killing of 43 student teachers from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in Iguala in 2014 by a Mexican criminal gang.[31] By creating the GN and placing it initially under the SSPC, López Obrador declared that the GN would be more (rather than less) accountable for promoting human rights and the rule of law. However, by putting the GN under SEDENA, the military legal system — not the civilian legal system — is responsible for “policing its own” when it comes to any possible illegal activity by GN members.[32]
Placing the GN under SEDENA further impacts how public safety and policing assistance can be provided by the United States and Canada. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been supporting police reform in Mexico by providing training directly to Mexico’s federal, state, and local police forces.[33] The United States supports police reform in Mexico and other countries through programs like the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program, administered by the Department of Justice. Other federal agencies, such as those under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), also administer training assistance to Mexican public safety officials involved in policing, customs, and immigration. Legal statutes in both countries could restrict further public safety support by these agencies to the GN since it is now under the military control of SEDENA. Military-to-military training support from the United States is coordinated by the Department of Defense and administered by the U.S. Northern Command. Despite being called a National Guard, the U.S. National Guard is not involved in any direct training or any state partnership programs with the Mexican GN.[34]
Faults Analysis Reveals Inaccurate Assumptions
The faults in the PCFF methodology are meant to address each of the pros, identifying why they may not work or why the benefit of the decision would not be received.[35] Placing the GN under SEDENA may help to streamline command control; however, it assumes that the current command and control system of Mexico’s armed forces lends itself to a more efficient use of resources, personnel, and mission effectiveness than keeping the GN under the civilian SSPC. This is a faulty assumption. The Mexican armed forces operate under a fierce system of control that promotes loyalty over efficiency or effectiveness. Officers that rise up in the military are not necessarily the ones who demonstrate initiative, but rather those who demonstrate their loyalty to those officers above them.[36] It is evident that López Obrador values loyalty and has elevated the role of the military over their civilian counterparts due to their support and their ability to “get things that he wants done,” as he says.[37]
Another fault in this analysis is that, while placing the GN under SEDENA reduces the need for duplicating or creating new administrative systems, this pro assumes that the existing administrative, budget, and personnel systems in SEDENA would be a better option than creating new ones under the SSPC. The Mexican military plays shell games with personnel and budgets, contributing to its lack of transparency and accountability. It is hard to get an accurate count of active-duty forces, size, and staffing of actual units and how defense spending occurs in Mexico. Mexican presidents have historically kept a “special fund” available to reward the military for its loyalty, which has funded personnel promotions, as well as many of the modernization programs the military desires.[38] Placing the GN under SEDENA also impacts the pay and benefits of the GN members themselves, who will now have less control over their own budget, compared to being left under SSPC.[39] With the movement of the 110,000 member GN under SEDENA, Mexico’s reported defense budget for 2023 is $5.6 billion U.S. dollars, its largest in history, an increase of 7.5% over the current budget, which includes the GN budget of $1.7 billion dollars and its 11.5% increase over 2022 funding.[40]
As far as facilitating security assistance programs, particularly military-to-military exchanges with the United States, the primary fault of this pro is the assumption that those programs are having a positive effect on the Mexican armed forces. The creation of the U.S. Northern Command in 2002 and the inclusion of Mexico under its area of operational responsibility increased the amount of interaction between the armed forces of both countries. After some initial hesitancy, the Mexican military has become more open to exchanges of personnel, increased training, and operational cooperation with the United States, particularly as a result of the Mérida Initiative begun by the George W. Bush and Felipe Calderón administrations in 2007. Much of the $3.5 billion USD Mérida funding did go to the Mexican military due to their increased role in the fight to counter transnational organized crime.[41] But how that money was spent, and the results of that spending, are questionable when it comes to professionalization of the military.[42]
Increased charges of human rights violations and a lack of transparency in Mexico’s fight against transnational organized crime by the military also challenges the argument that putting the GN under SEDENA to facilitate more military-to-military cooperation is a good thing. Some Mexican and U.S. academics have even argued that the United States military is complicit in increasing the violence in Mexico by supporting the militarization of public safety as a result of Mérida and increased military-to-military programs.[43] Also, the arrest and detention in the United States of former Mexican Secretary of Defense, General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, on drug trafficking charges in 2020, underscores the limited effectiveness of such “professionalization” programs in addressing institutional problems related to corruption and transparency in the Mexican armed forces.[44]
Can Any of the Cons Be Fixed? Maybe.
The fixes in the PCFF methodology are meant to address each of the cons, identifying whether they can be “fixed” and identifying a modification that would significantly reduce the chances of a con from being a problem.[45] The fix for following the problematic Colombian model by putting the GN under military control would be to ensure that the GN is not solely responsible for combatting organized crime in Mexico, as was the case with the PNC in Colombia. Mexico has had its most significant success in taking down the leaders of Mexico’s most notorious cartels when the effort was led by SEMAR and the Naval Infantry, which is the equivalent of a Mexican marine corps. The capture of Sinaloa leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera was accomplished in 2016 by Mexican marines after he had escaped from a Mexican prison for the second time and was subsequently extradited to the United States.[46] The Mexican marines were also successful in the recent capture of Raphael Caro Quintero, one of Mexico’s most notorious drug cartel leaders, in July 2022, albeit at great cost: They lost 14 members in a helicopter crash during the operation.[47]
U.S. law enforcement agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Customs and Border Protection, work closely with SEMAR at the federal level, as well as at the state level through police forces such as the Special Operations Group (Grupo de Operaciones Especiales or GOPES) in Tamaulipas, providing training and resources.[48] The record with SEDENA is more complex, complicated by the indictment of General Cienfuegos who led SEDENA during the Peña Nieto administration (2012-2018).[49] Giving the GN the mission of confronting transnational organized crime, under the control of SEDENA, would likely lead to less, rather than more success in confronting the threat of organized crime, as well as less public scrutiny and accountability.
The fix for this con of increased impunity for GN members under SEDENA is to remove GN members from the existing military tribunal system (similar to the U.S. military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice), which increases their impunity and lack of accountability to civil authorities. Since GN members must resign their commissions as officers and non-commissioned officers when joining the GN, they technically lose such protections anyway.[50] Furthermore, since GN members are expected to perform public safety roles and missions, such as criminal investigations, and have arrest authority, they should come under separate legal authorities. An example of this in the United States is the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), an armed service with maritime law enforcement responsibilities and the ability to apprehend drug traffickers. The USCG comes under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), not the Department of Defense (DOD), except in wartime when they can be placed under the U.S. Navy in order to execute Title 10 U.S. Code war fighting responsibilities.[51]
The fix for administering U.S. law enforcement support to a military-controlled GN would be to channel that support through the Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), which has overall authority for all foreign assistance programs related to countering drug trafficking and transnational organized crime. INL’s lead role in coordinating the activities of all U.S. agencies providing counter drug support to any host nation is to have the U.S. ambassador in that country serve as the lead official for approving activities of the DEA, DOD, DOJ, ATF, DHS or any other U.S. agencies providing relevant support. This is to ensure that these agencies do not function as “rouge actors” outside of U.S. (or host nation) authorities, as well as to ensure compliance with the Leahy Law, which requires the vetting of any foreign government officials for human rights violations before they are permitted to receive U.S. training. [52]
In addition, any security assistance provided directly to the GN by the U.S. military through its military-to-military programs that are intended for counter-drug activities or for combatting transnational organized crime would require extra scrutiny by the Department of State INL to ensure accountability.
Table 1 represents a summary of each of the four variables used in the PCFF methodology. In the table, the faults are listed after the pros, and the fixes after the cons, to better illustrate the correlation between each.
Table 1 — Summary of PCFF Analysis of López Obrador’s Decision to Place the GN under SEDENA
Although the PCFF methodology is meant to identify potential policy changes the López Obrador administration could make to address the issues raised in this analysis, it is highly unlikely such changes will take place. The United States, however, can create leverage with Mexico by making policy changes identified in the analysis to address the military-to-military relationship that may be contributing to the militarization of public safety in Mexico.
The Road Ahead for the GN Is Likely Linked to López Obrador’s Fate
Since the Mexican Constitution currently allows presidents to only serve one 6-year term, López Obrador is required to step down in 2024 at the end of his current term in office — unless the Mexican people want him to stay in office and support a constitutional amendment allowing for his reelection. In 2021, López Obrador proposed a recall referendum giving voters a say on whether he should be allowed to stay in office until the end of his term or step down immediately. The referendum supposedly garnered enough support (signatures by 3% of the electorate) to gain approval by Mexico’s Supreme Court, and the referendum vote was held on April 10, 2022.[53] The result was overwhelming support for López Obrador remaining in office (over 90%), due to a voting boycott led by the opposition parties. In addition, the turn-out was so low (18%) that it did not meet the referendum requirement of turn-out by at least 40% of registered voters, thus the referendum had no binding effect.[54] Nonetheless, López Obrador claimed victory, stating that the vote reflected the will of the Mexican people that he continue in office for now and possibly even a second term should another referendum be called for in two years.
The future of the GN may rest with López Obrador’s future, since its current mandate only extends for the six years of his administration. If López Obrador, or his ruling party MORENA, do not continue to maintain control over the presidency of the country, it is highly likely that the GN experiment may end (like those actions of his predecessors: Fox, Calderón, and Peña Nieto), leaving Mexico once again with a failed attempt at public safety reform.[55] However, if López Obrador remains in office, or his party’s successor is elected president, it is conceivable that the GN could expand even further, taking on more roles and missions that would lead to a further militarization of public safety in Mexico.
One initial strength of López Obrador’s original decision to create a new National Guard using a stability police force (SPF) model, is that it could have helped to demilitarize public security in the country. Burgoyne’s comparative case study on how Mexico can benefit from the examples of the French Gendarmerie, the Spanish Guardia Civil, and the Italian Carabinieri offers insight into how these European SPF models have evolved to meet the public safety and security needs of those societies.[56] Yet they are not without risks; even in Europe, the Spanish Guardia Civil led a 1981 military coup to overthrow Spain’s prime minister.[57]
A positive note for López Obrador at the present time is that both he and the GN are enjoying high approval ratings in the country: López Obrador at 60% and the GN at 80%.[58] Yet, those numbers are skewed, particularly with regard to the GN, since the polling failed to ask the respondents why they had positive views. Right now, the public in Mexico sees the GN everywhere and assumes they are actually performing a public safety function. However, as Jorge Chabot notes, many in Mexico still don’t know what the GN does. Chabot argues that it is clear what the GN does not do, which is to actively confront organized crime — its supposed raison d’être.[59]
One final factor going forward that is sure to impact López Obrador’s future actions and success in maintaining support from the United States is the growing perception that Mexico’s relationship with the U.S. is critical in confronting America’s security challenges. The damage done by four years of Donald Trump and his vitriol toward Mexico still lingers. Although President Biden has taken a more amiable approach toward Mexico and suspended the building of the border wall, the control of migrants entering the United States from Mexico is a shared security problem that necessitates communication and coordination between local, state, and federal agencies in both countries.
The new Bicentennial Framework intended to replace the George W. Bush-era Mérida Initiative seeks to address some of the problems that policy created, such as its heavy dependence on a military-to-military support to confront the threat of transnational organized crime, which is argued to have contributed to the militarized response to public safety in Mexico.[60] The GN, by virtue of López Obrador’s giving it an active role in migrant control on both the northern and southern borders, is an actor in Mexico’s response to this public safety situation. If the GN does not remain after López Obrador’s administration ends in 2024, the migration problem it is being used to address remains, causing some questions as to what would replace the GN’s role in this dimension of public safety, as well as combating transnational organized crime, lest one forgets that threat.
Is There a Hidden Motive in López Obrador’s Actions?
One unresolved question this research uncovered is whether López Obrador’s policy choice to move the GN under SEDENA was his own doing or whether he was driven to this decision by the military. Was moving the GN under SEDENA done by López Obrador to gain military support for his recall referendum, possibly ensuring the military would support his remaining in office beyond his sexenio (six-year term limit)? Or was he pressured by the military leaders to subordinate the GN to the military in order to reduce its ability to function as a separate armed force outside of military control? This latter scenario is entirely possible since the military had genuine concerns that López Obrador was creating his own private army to support an autogolpe (self-coup).[61]
Mexico has not had a military coup since the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917 and the creation of the modern political system in the 1930s. Since then, despite political challenges that threatened the country’s division of power, the military has remained subordinate to Mexico’s elected president. But it is clear that since his election in 2018, López Obrador has not trusted the military, and many senior military officers do not trust him. Some of López Obrador’s initial actions after taking office further alienated him from the military, such as disbanding the Presidential Guards and the Estado Mayor (General Staff), not living in the presidential residence (Los Pinos), and even abandoning the use of the Mexican Air Force’s presidential plane and choosing to fly on commercial aviation.[62]
Given this situation, the question remains: What is López Obrador’s end game? What does he hope that this foray into public safety and military reform will create in Mexico over the long term? What will the impact on civil-military relations be going forward?
Those who discount the possibility of a military coup in Mexico, since there has not been one in almost 100 years, should look no further than January 6, 2021, in the United States. Few could have imagined how close the U.S. would come to such an event as former President Donald Trump tried to overturn the election results, calling on his supporters to “march on the U.S. Capitol,” a move that led to a violent insurrection.[63] Senior leaders in the U.S. military were so concerned that extremists on active duty would support Trump’s efforts that they went to great lengths to address this in the ranks. Yet, the threat of extremism in the United States military, which could lead to a coup, still remains.[64]
For Mexico, the threat of a military coup to either keep López Obrador in power or to remove him from office, should he refuse to leave, is unlikely. Yet, some of the conditions contributing to the possibility of such an event occurring in the United States in 2024, when the next presidential election is held, are evident in Mexico today as López Obrador continues to put the military into more roles and missions outside of their normal activities, including those that directly impact public safety and governance in Mexico. He has even increased the military’s direct role in the country’s economy by building and operating the new Felipe Angeles Airport, the Tren Maya tourist train, and other infrastructure projects. And, by creating the GN, he has fostered the public perception in Mexico that the military is the only government institution that can get things done in the country, due to corruption and inefficiency within the nation’s other institutions (particularly its public safety institutions) at the federal, state, and local levels.
Conclusion: While the GN’s Future Is Uncertain, Underlying Challenges Remain
Four years after its creation, Mexico’s National Guard remains a work in progress. Its deployment had been rushed and its roles and missions remain ill-defined. However, there was some initial hope that López Obrador would make the changes necessary to create a new public safety institution capable of addressing the nation’s insecurity and the continuing threat of transnational criminal organizations. As an SPF under civilian control, with a new identity, there was the promise of real change and a hope that demilitarization of responses to public safety threats would at least not produce the same ineffectual results as his predecessors’ policies. Unfortunately, by placing the GN under control of SEDENA, López Obrador has only further militarized public safety in Mexico while avoiding the underlying problems of insecurity in the nation, thus creating a new problem — one that may have significant implications for Mexico and its civil-military relations in the future.
Endnotes
[1] Christopher Woody, “Did Trump threaten to send US troops to fight Mexico's drug war? Here's what we know.” Business Insider, February 2, 2017, https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-mexico-enrique-pena-nieto-threatening-phone-call-2017-2.
[2] Andrés Manual López Obrador, Plan Nacional de Paz y Seguridad 2018 – 2024. 2018. https://lopezobrador.org.mx/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Plan-Nacional-de-Paz-y-Seguridad.pdf.
[3] Alexia Fernández Campbell, “Mexican president to Trump: tariffs and coercion won’t work,” Vox News, May 31, 2019, https://www.vox.com/2019/5/31/18647253/trump-mexico-tariffs-migrants.
[4] Jesus Chairez, “Mexico City: 1968 Student Massacre Memorial Exhibit,” August 17, 2008, http://www.jesuschairez.com/2008/08/17/mexico-city-1968-student-massacre-memorial-exhibit/.
[5] Richard J. Kilroy, Jr., Crisis and Legitimacy: the Role of the Mexican Military in Politics and Society [Unpublished doctoral dissertation] (Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1990).
[6] Author’s personal observations from living in Mexico City in the 1990s.
[7] Thomas Benjamin and Marcial Ocasio-Meléndez, “Organizing the Memory of Modern Mexico: Porfirian Historiography in Perspective, 1880s-1980s,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, 64, no. 2 (May 1985): 325, https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-64.2.323.
[8] Kilroy, Crisis and Legitimacy, 69-74.
[9] The ESG translates as the Mexican War College; however, it is the equivalent of the U.S. Command and General Staff College, a midlevel career course for military officers, rather than a senior service school like the U.S. War Colleges.
[10] Author’s personal observations having served as an exchange student to the ESG in the 1990s.
[11] Dan Hofstadter, Mexico 1946-73, (New York: Facts on File, 1974), 144-179.
[12] Kilroy, Civil-Military Relations in Mexico, 125.
[13] Comments made by Mexican military students attending the ESG in the 1990s.
[14] Mexican military students at the ESG said Cárdenas was a “communist” and they could never support him after leaving the PRI in 1988 to form the Democratic Revolutionary Party (Partido de la Revolución Democrática or PRD).
[15] This was an initiative proposed by then Secretary of Defense William Perry under the Clinton administration, through the Defense Ministerial of the Americas (DMA) agenda. The first DMA took place in Williamsburg, VA, in 1995. Mexico did not send either head of SEMAR or SEDENA to attend this event. Rather military attachés in Washington, D.C. and Mexican Ambassador Jesus Silva Herzog attended as observers. Observations of the author having attended the DMA as member of the of the support staff from U.S. Southern Command.
[16] Ed Vulliamy, “Life and Death in Ciudad Juárez, the Murder Capital of the World,” The Guardian, October 9, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/04/mexico-drugs-death-squads-juarez.
[17] Author’s personal observations from being in Ciudad Juárez in May 2009 right after Calderón sent in the military and having met with the head of public safety and the attorney general for the state of Chihuahua.
[18] Inigo Guevara Moyano, Mexico’s National Guard: When Police are not Enough, Wilson Center, January 2020, https://bit.ly/3o8stsj.
[19] Patrick Corcoran, “Is Mexico’s New National Guard Just Another Uniform?” InSight Crime, March 19, 2019 ,https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/new-mexico-national-guard/.
[20] Margaret Meyer, “Mexico’s Proposed National Guard Would Solidify the Militarization of Public Security,” WOLA, January 10, 2019, https://www.wola.org/analysis/mexico-national-guard-military-abuses/.
[21] Author’s personal opinion. In one interview, a Mexican government official challenged this characterization of “failed states” arguing that even in states with high crime and violence, the state still functions, in that people can still buy goods and governments provide services. He stated that the use of the term “failed state” is a U.S. invention and has no applicability to Mexico.
[22] Antonio Baranda, “Fracasa Guardia: Ejército a la calle,” Reforma, May 12, 2020, https://www.reforma.com/aplicacioneslibre/preacceso/articulo/default.aspx?__rval=1&urlredirect=https://www.reforma.com/aplicaciones/articulo/default.aspx?id=1940513.
[23] Melissa Galván, “La Guardia Nacional de AMLO: de cuerpo civil a formar parte de la Seden,” Expansión Política, June 16, 2020, https://politica.expansion.mx/mexico/2021/06/16/voces-guardia-nacional-amlo-cuerpo-civil-a-formar-parte-de-sedena.
[24] Maria Verza, “Mexico president to bypass congress to keep army in streets,” AP News, August 14, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/mexico-caribbean-army-constitutions-drug-cartels-d22e75da3e48c7efe635fb411c1e1a81.
[25] “La Guardia Nacional formaliza su incorporación ala Sedena,” Expansion Politica, October 16, 2020, https://politica.expansion.mx/mexico/2020/10/16/la-guardia-nacional-formaliza-su-incorporacion-a-la-sedena.
[26] Randy Pherson and Richards Heuer, Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis, 3rd Ed. (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2021).
[27] SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and is another structured analytical technique from Pherson and Heuer. For an earlier article on the GN that uses SWOT analysis, see Richard J. Kilroy, Jr., “Forging New Security Institutions: Mexico’s National Guard and the Challenges of Identity and New Nationalisms,” Center for the United States and Mexico, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, July 2021, https://doi.org/10.25613/ekvm-yq56.
[28] Conversations with Mexican officials.
[29] IMET programs with Mexico are administered through U.S. Northern Command, a combatant command stood up after 9/11 for purposes of coordinating homeland defense missions in the continental United States. It also placed Mexico and Canada under its operational area of responsibility. The two countries had previously been unassigned to a combatant command. Security assistance programs with the Mexican military did fall under the U.S. Southern Command previously.
[30] The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) were organized paramilitary organizations that threatened the country for decades. They were supported by state sponsors, such as Cuba and the former Soviet Union throughout the Cold War period. After the Cold War ended, much of their funding came through their ties to drug cartels, earning the title of “narco-terrorists” by the U.S. State Department. See Frank Gaffney, “Narcoterrorism in Colombia,” in Historical Perspectives on Organized Crime and Terrorism, 1st ed., eds. James Windle, John F. Morrison, Andrew Winter and Andrew Silke (New York: Routledge, 2018).
[31] Lizbeth Diaz, “Mexican armed forces knew about attack on 43 students, report says,” Reuters, March 28, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexican-armed-forces-knew-about-attack-43-students-report-says-2022-03-28/.
[32] Earl Anthony Wayne, former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, personal interview via Zoom, January 21, 2022.
[33] Conversation with former Royal Canadian Mounted Police official.
[34] General Daniel Hokanson, Chief of U.S. Army National Guard, Comments at the Homeland Defense Awareness Symposium, Colorado Springs, CO, July 13, 2022.
[35] Pherson and Heuer, Structured Analytical Techniques, 338.
[36] In Mexico, a “good” soldier is one who obeys orders unquestioningly. Officers are told not to question their seniors, nor are students in Mexican military schools allowed to challenge an instructor. Personal observations of the author.
[37] Wayne, personal interview. These comments were also supported by Mexican academics who have worked with the military and taught them in schools recently.
[38] For example, after the military supported President Díaz Ordaz by putting down the student uprising at Tlatelolco in 1968, the military underwent a large modernization program. Kilroy, Crisis and Legitimacy, 25.
[39] One Mexican official stated that former soldiers who left the military to join the GN will likely not be reinstated with full military benefits under SEDENA, even though they are performing many of the same functions as their army counterparts. He also intimated that there may be some resentment from those marines who left SEMAR to join the GN, now having to work under SEDENA. He intimated that SEMAR may be the biggest loser in this reorganization since they already lost personnel to the GN, impacting their budget.
[40] Alberto López, “Mexico apira al mayo presupuesto en defense de su historia para 2023,” Infodefensa, October 7, 2022, https://www.infodefensa.com/texto-diario/mostrar/3917100/secretaría-defensa-mexico-busca-2023-major-presupuesto-historia#.
[41] Claire R. Seelke, “U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation: From the Mérida Initiative
to the Bicentennial Framework,” Congressional Research Service (CRS) In-Focus, April 7, 2022, https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/IF10578.pdf. Mexico was the sixth largest recipient of US military training funds from 1999-2016 and seventh largest in numbers of personnel trained. Theodore McLauchlin, Lee JM Seymour, and Simon Pierre Boulanger Martel, “Tracking the rise of United States foreign military training: IMTAD-USA, a new dataset and research agenda,” Journal of Peace Research 59, no.2 (2022): 286–296, https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433211047715.
[42] Ryan Devereaux, “U.S. Military Training in Mexico Increased as Human Rights Waned, New Database Reveals,” The Intercept, November 17, 2021, https://theintercept.com/2021/11/17/mexico-military-pentagon-support-human-rights/.
[43] Catalina Pérez Correa, Center for Research and Teaching (CIDE), Mexico City, personal interview via Zoom, January 25, 2022; Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, University of California San Diego, personal interview via Zoom, February 1, 2022.
[44] Charges against General Cienfuegos were eventually dropped by the United States, and he was returned to Mexico, where he was exonerated. See Craig Deare, “Militarization a la AMLO: How Bad Can it Get?” Wilson Center Mexico Institute, September 2021, https://bit.ly/3Kt04ol. One Mexican official stated he was highly skeptical of the charges against Cienfuegos and believed some of the evidence was falsified by the U.S. government.
[45] Pherson and Heuer, Structured Analytical Techniques, 338.
[46] Azam Ahmed, “How El Chapo was finally arrested, again,” New York Times, January 16, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/world/americas/mexico-el-chapo-sinaloa-sean-penn.html.
[47] Lizbeth Diaz and Drazen Jorgic, “Mexico arrests drug lord Caro Quintero, wanted for killing U.S. agent,” Reuters, July 18, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/drug-lord-rafael-caro-quintero-accused-murdering-dea-agent-arrested-mexico-2022-07-15/.
[48] The GOPES fall under the Governor of the State of Tamaulipas and are comprised of 150 members in four operational groups. They have also been accused of human rights violations, including the killing of 19 Guatemalan and Mexican migrants near the U.S. border in February 2021. Parker Asmann, “The United States, a Special Operations Unit and a Massacre in Mexico” Insightcrime.org, February 12, 2021, https://insightcrime.org/news/united-states-special-operations-massacre-mexico/.
[49] Cienfuegos was not the first high ranking Mexican army official indicted on drug trafficking charges. Shortly after U.S. Southern Command leader General Barry McCaffrey was tapped by President Clinton to be his new director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) as the nation’s “Drug Czar,” he flew to Mexico City with then Secretary of Defense William Perry and met his counterpart, Mexican General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo. McCaffrey later called Rebollo a “man of absolute integrity” who he could work with to confront organized crime in Mexico. Within weeks of their meeting, Rebollo was indicted on drug trafficking charges. See Susan Reed, “Certifiable, Mexico’s Corruption – Washington’s Indifference,” PBS Frontline, 1997, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mexico/readings/newrepublic.html.
[50] Inigo Guevara Moyano, Atlantic Council, personal interview via Zoom, February 11, 2022.
[51] The USCG operates under Title 14 USC, which delineates its peacetime missions to include maritime law enforcement, search and rescue, aids to navigation, etc. During wartime, the USCG can be placed under the U.S. Navy under Title 10 USC for wartime duties. This is similar to U.S. National Guard forces who normally operate under Title 32, which is under their respective state governor’s authorities to perform disaster response and other local missions. When mobilized for wartime duty, they fall under Title 10 as “federalized” military forces augmenting active-duty units.
[52] The Leahy Law is named after U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy. It only pertains to the State Department and Department of Defense administered training programs. See “About the Leahy Law Fact Sheet,” Department of State, January 20, 2021, https://www.state.gov/key-topics-bureau-of-democracy-human-rights-and-labor/human-rights/leahy-law-fact-sheet/. An example of this was the infamous “Fast and Furious” gun running operation by the ATF in Mexico, meant to track the movement of arms across the U.S. border. When arms used in the operation ended up in the hands of Mexico’s drug cartels and were used to kill a U.S. border patrol agent in 2010, then Attorney General Eric Holder was brought before Congress to explain the program, of which he claimed he had no knowledge. During a visit to Mexico in 2018, the author met with members of Mexico’s federal investigative agency who said they “got burned” by the United States due to Fast and Furious and felt they could no longer trust U.S. agencies conducting counter-drug operations. This was before the Cienfuegos imbroglio which led the Mexican Congress to pass a law strictly limiting the ability of U.S. law enforcement agencies to operate in Mexico. See Mary Beth Sheridan, “Mexico lashes out at U.S. with law expected to harm cooperation on drug fight,” Washington Post, December 15, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/mexico-drug-trafficking-dea-amlo/2020/12/15/fea76612-3e47-11eb-8bc0-ae155bee4aff_story.html.
[53] “Mexican presidential recall referendum wins enough support: poll body,” France 24, January 18, 2021, https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220118-mexican-presidential-recall-referendum-wins-enough-support-poll-body.
[54] Dave Graham, “Mexican president wins 90% backing in leadership vote he sought,” Reuters, April 13, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexican-president-tests-political-muscle-with-referendum-his-future-2022-04-10/.
[55] Guevara Moyano interview.
[56] Michael Burgoyne, Building Better Gendarmeries in Mexico and the Northern Triangle, (Washington, D.C.: Wilson Center, May 2019).
[57] Matthew Yglesias, “Spain's king is resigning, watch his finest hour as he halts a 1981 military coup,” Vox, June 2, 2014, https://www.vox.com/2014/6/2/5771622/spains-king-is-resigning-watch-his-finest-hour-as-he-halts-a-1981.
[58] Carin Zissis, “AMLO Approval Tracker, AS/COA,” January 6, 2020, https://www.as-coa.org/articles/approval-tracker-mexicos-president-amlo. Guevara Moyano quoted INEGI figures which put the GN at 70% approval. Personal interview February 11, 2022.
[59] Jorge Chabot, University of Guadalajara, personal interview via Zoom, February 4, 2022
[60] There are differences of opinion on this. The U.S. Northern Command sees its relationship with the Mexican military as “better than ever” arguing that their programs have increased the professionalism of the military and increased its efficiency to confront the threat to public safety in Mexico. Mexican and American academics and think tanks disagree and see the United States as complicit in supporting the militarization of public safety in Mexico.
[61] Various interviews with Mexican officials provided different opinions on this. One official noted that López Obrador likes to compare himself to former Mexican Benito Juárez (1858-1872) who dealt with three threats: The Catholic Church, the United States, and the military. Moving the GN under SEDENA was possibly a means to appease the military, which likely viewed the GN as a threat.
[62] Deare, “Militarization a la AMLO.”
[63] Brian Naylor, “Read Trump's Jan. 6 Speech, A Key Part Of Impeachment Trial,” NPR, February 10, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial.
[64] Marek N. Posard, Leslie A. Payne, and Laura L. Miller, Reducing the Risk of Extremist Activity in the U.S. Military, (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, September 1, 2021).
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