Paul Kennedy’s excellent book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, charts out the interactions and dynamics of the leading states in the international system from 1500 until 1980, especially focusing on war and economics. With my apologies to him for paraphrasing his book title, I think that it is worthwhile to view the Mexican cartels in Kennedy’s lens as Great Powers. Both states and cartels control territory, battle for hegemony with their rivals, have massive financial stakes, and operate in a world where power is the most important currency. I hope to broaden out this into a larger set of more historical posts at some point, but for the moment, let’s examine the state of the Mexican narcotics cartels in 2014. This might be an unnecessary overview, but I believe that it’s important to know the background context, especially with such a fractured and complex system.
The most obvious place to start while looking at the current distribution of power is the leading power, the Sinaloa Cartel. The Sinaloa, led by the infamous Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman up until his capture earlier this year, have been the most powerful narcotics cartel for decades, mainly operating in the western portion of the country. If there was ever the chance for a hegemon to take control of the majority of the drug trafficking, it was the Sinaloa. Their bitter rivals, as well as one of the more recent upstart cartels, is Los Zetas. Los Zetas, first a Mexican Army special forces unit, became the enforcement wing of the Gulf Cartel in the late 1990s. They later split off in 2010 from the Gulf Cartel to form their own organization. Since then, they have become notorious for their brutal methods and the speed in which they became the second largest narcotics power in Mexico. The Zetas have mainly operated on the eastern part of the country. The rest of the cartels listed here have sided either with Sinaloa or Zetas, as they are easily the two superpowers. Despite this, the Mexican cartels do not exist in a truly bipolar world, as there are multiple mid-level powers that exert serious influence over the proceedings. Up until a last week, the Juarez Cartel would likely be listed as one of the leaders in this second tier, but like many of the other organizations this year, Juarez lost its leader to Mexican law enforcement. Allied against the Sinaloa and with the Zetas, the Juarez Cartel controls one of the most important border crossings, that of Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. The Gulf Cartel, which initially employed the Zetas unit, controls a limited portion of their former empire on the eastern part of the country, but they continue to work with Sinaloa against the Zetas. The Beltran-Leyva Organization, a former Sinaloa branch, is also dealing with the recent loss of a leader, although it has lent its support to the Zetas alliance bloc. One of the more interesting dynamics in recent years has been the evolution of the cartels based in southwest Mexico, especially in Michoacan. Initially controlled by the Michoacan Cartel, itself a breakaway from the Gulf and Zetas cartels, it was eventually usurped by the Caballeros Templarios group, which have themselves been followed by the Jalisco Cartel-New Generation. The final relevant group is the Tijuana Cartel, which really only controls the border city of Tijuana at this point, although they were once much more powerful.
I realize that comparing any geopolitical conflict to 1914 Europe has been vastly overused, this being the centennial year of World War I. I really do hate to add to the use of such a cheap journalistic trope, but looking at the cartels through the lens of realism and multipolarity can be useful for analysis. Within the convoluted mix of alliances and defections in the cartel system, there is a clear division between the Sinaloa and Zetas blocs, but the smaller organizations each play a role in the balance of power. Just as would be expected in a realist system of states, the cartels each balanced with or bandwagoned against the two largest powers. Going forward, the cartel alliance dynamics will be crucial for the security of Mexico as a state. If history is any lesson, multipolarity is significantly more violent and volatile than any other system, which fits with the pattern of cartel wars in the past decade. Perhaps if Sinaloa and Zetas become the only independent actors, Mexico could see a decreased level of violence, effectively a Cold War for narcos. This is not to argue that this is necessarily likely, though. Defections and secessions appear to be more frequent in the world of cartels than in the world of international relations. As long as there is the chance for increased profit by going at it alone, it seems apparent that cartel factions will continue to seek independence from the blocs.
This may seem like a fairly academic and historical musing, but there are real policy implications from viewing the cartels through the great powers lens. Based on international relations and realism theory, we can make some reasonable assumptions about how these cartels will act as the system shifts and power distribution changes. Mexican organized crime is not monolithic and the actors are not unalterable. As an example, look to the Mexican cartels’ predecessors, Colombia. The Cali, Medellin, and Norte de Valle Cartels no longer exist in any capacity. Cartels, just like states, rise and eventually fall.
More on this down the road. Thanks for reading.
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