Mexico - The Drug War in Mexico as "Fourth Generation War (4GW)"

[Expat98]

William S. Lind is a military analyst who specializes in the analysis of "Fourth Generation War (4GW)". In a nutshell, 4GW is when non-state entities assert themselves against state powers. These are the types of wars currently being fought by the U.S. and Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What does this have to do with Mexico? Lind believes that in the 21st century we will not see many conflicts between states, but instead we'll see more and more non-state entities growing in power and engaging in conflict with states. Drug cartels are an example of this.

Lind has been writing a weekly column since the beginning of the Iraq war called "On War". His latest column (On War #261) is about the crisis with the drug cartels in Mexico. I have posted it below.

I read his columns regularly, and they have a lot of great insights. I could say a lot about them, but instead I will just give the link to the archive, and anyone who's interested can take a look. I especially recommend his earliest columns about Iraq. He has predicted the way things would unfold in Iraq with remarkable prescience.

On War Archive

On War #261: Not Checking Six

By William S. Lind
June 2, 2008

As the U.S. remains fixated on two Fourth Generation wars half a world a way, in Iraq and Afghanistan, 4GW is knocking at our back door. The death spiral of the Mexican state appears to be accelerating. To quote just one illustrative bit of evidence, the Cleveland Plain Dealer recently reported that

The fact that seven government agents were killed and four wounded while only one 4GW fighter died suggests the raid was tipped off. The Mexican security forces have been so thoroughly penetrated by criminal gangs of every sort that the government’s hands have been cut off. It may want to reassert the state’s authority, but it has no uncompromised means of doing so.

Here we see a model of 4GW that is likely to be much more common than what we are now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the state has disappeared, despite our frenetic efforts to make its corpse gibber and dance (the al-Maliki and Karzai “governments”). Most 4GW entities, unlike al Qaeda, have no need to overthrow the state. They just need to render it impotent to interfere with their activities (as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon).

This will generally best be accomplished quietly, by taking relevant aspects of the state from within. Those aspects may include the security forces, which usually are not difficult to penetrate; leading politicians, who can be bought, bullied or both; and at least elements of the media. Mexican drug gangs have been effective in killing local political leaders and media figures who have opposed them. Others can be counted on to get the message.

The result is not the disappearance of the state but its hollowing out. To the outside world it remains a state, with all the sovereign rights of a state. Internally, it becomes a Potemkin village, a stage-setting on which dramas like “elections” can be played out while 4GW entities go about real business. Often, that business will include much of the country’s economy, which the state dares not throttle even if it could.

As I have noted previously, operating within a hollowed-out state may benefit many 4GW entities more than replacing the state. A Potemkin state protects 4GW organizations from foreign attack; the U.S. cannot go after drug gangs within Mexico except in a surreptitious manner, because doing so would violate Mexican sovereignty. The penetrated Mexican government will ensure that any “cooperation” with U.S. anti-drug efforts will not go beyond a “check the box” level. Everyone benefits from maintaining the fiction of a state: the 4GW gangs, the Mexican economy, the bank accounts of Mexican politicians and the U.S. government, which can tell the rubes back home we are “fighting the drug war” in what amounts to shadow boxing.

Our continued fixation on just one 4GW threat, that from Islam, in a geographically remote part of the world has left our back door wide open. Like an aviator who doesn’t check six, we have set ourselves up to get hosed. In effect, to borrow from General Patton’s famous metaphor, we have grabbed our own nose and presented our tail to our opponent for a good kicking. Anyone with the misfortune to live on or near our southern border, or have responsibility for security in that area, will attest that it hurts.

All this and much more is the price we are paying for our twin Syracuse Expeditions, the quixotic crusades to force “democracy” (really Brave New World) on Iraq and Afghanistan. America desperately needs leadership that will at least attempt to reconnect with reality, including the fact that the U.S.-Mexican border does not presently exist. Those who insist on keeping their head in the clouds will find their ass on the ground, shot down in flames.

Here's On War #1 from back in 2003. For others in the series, see the link above.

ON WAR # 1: Can A Government Wage War Without Popular Support?

By William S. Lind
January 28, 2003

Beginning this Tuesday, January 28, 2003, I will offer an "On War" commentary each week until the Iraq business is over and done. I suspect that may be awhile.

Who am I? At present, I am a center director at the Free Congress Foundation. But in 1976 I began the debate over maneuver warfare that became a central part of the military reform movement of the 1970s and 1980s. The U.S. Marine Corps finally adopted maneuver warfare as doctrine in the late `80s (I wrote most of their new tactics manual).

In 1989, I began the debate over Fourth Generation warfare—war waged by non-state entities—which is what paid us a visit on September 11, 2001. The article I co-authored then for the Marine Corps Gazette was formally cited last year by al Quaeda, who said, "This is our doctrine." My Maneuver Warfare Handbook, published in 1985, is now used by military academies all over the world, and I lecture internationally on military strategy, doctrine and tactics.

In this series, I propose to look at what is happening—with Iraq, North Korea, Afghanistan and other outposts of the new American imperium—from the standpoint of military theory. Hopefully, that will enable us all to make sense out of the bits and pieces we get each day as "news." One of the most important things military theory offers to this end is a framework developed by Col. John Boyd, USAF, who was the greatest military theorist America ever produced. Col. Boyd said that war is fought at three levels: moral, mental and physical. The moral level is the most powerful, the physical level is the least powerful, and the mental level is in between. The American way of war, which is Second Generation warfare—there will be more on the Four Generations of Modern War in future commentaries—is physical: "putting steel on target," as our soldiers like to say.

But how does the coming war with Iraq look at the moral level? Here, the U.S. seems to be leading with its chin. Why? Because the Administration in Washington has yet to come up with a convincing rationale for why the United States should attack Iraq.

The argument that Iraq, a small, poor (it didn't used to be, but it is now), Third World country halfway around the world is a direct threat to the U.S.A. is not credible. Yes, Saddam probably has some chemical and biological weapons. But few tyrants are bent on suicide, and the notion that he would use them to attack the United States, except in self-defense, makes no sense. Nor does it seem likely he would give them to non-state actors like al Quaeda—again, except in self-defense—because non-state forces and Fourth Generation warfare are as much a threat to him as to us.

It is of course true that Saddam is a tyrant (his model, by the way, is obviously Stalin, not Hitler). So what? Mesopotamia has been ruled by tyrants since before history began, and it will be ruled by tyrants long after North America is once again tribal territories. The last President who tried to export democracy on American bayonets was Woodrow Wilson. That's one of the reasons he counts as America's worst President, ever. Very few people, in America or the rest of the world, wish to see us revive the practice.

Most importantly, the real threat we face is the Fourth Generation, non-state players such as al Quaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. They can only benefit from an American war against Iraq—regardless of how it turns out. If we win, the state is further discredited in the Islamic world, and more young men give their allegiance to non-state forces. If Saddam wins, their own governments look even less legitimate, because they failed to stand with him against the hated Crusaders. A recent cartoon showed Osama bin Laden, dressed as Uncle Sam, saying, "I want you to invade Iraq!" Undoubtedly, he does.

So what is the real reason for this war? Oil? Revenge for Saddam surviving the first Gulf War? Israel? The ordinary Americans I know are wondering, because the reasons stated by the Administration don't add up.

Military theory says that, in a democracy, a government cannot successfully wage war unless the war has popular support. In turn, a war cannot obtain popular support if the people do no understand why it is being fought. Today, the people, at home and overseas, do not understand why America wants to go to war with Iraq. That means the Administration is losing this war before the first bomb is dropped.