NORAD: A Model to Address Gaps in U.S.-Mexico Security Coordination - Transnational Organized Crime and the Merida Initiative, Canada Cooperation as Model for Institutional Solution

This report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. The 2007 Merida Initiative marked a major shift in Mexico-U.S. commitment to address transnational organized crime. The organized crime networks view international borders as opportunities, making a profit by operating both as multinational corporations and violent armies. Yet the U.S.-Mexico boundary frustrates law enforcement and military organizations, which suffer from overlapping jurisdictions and competing authorities. This monograph proposes the U.S.-Canada organization of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) as a model for a U.S.-Mexico body to coordinate the law enforcement and military means across borders and across agencies.

This monograph explores the development of U.S. security relationships with both its North American neighbors to the north and south, examining how the countries overcame historical social and economic frictions, how the nature of the threat shaped the formation of their existing security cooperation institutions, and proposes the NORAD model as an institutional solution to better coordinate Mexico-U.S. means to address the threat of transnational organized crime.

Mexico's dynamic evolution toward democracy remains a hidden success story to most people in the United States. The Mexican government's incremental legislative and election reforms since 1977 paved the way for the historic 2000 election of Vicente Fox and the country's first peaceful democratic transition of presidential power after seventy-one years of single-party rule. These reforms continue today. In 2013, the country's three major political parties came together in an unprecedented move and signed the Pact for Mexico, a joint agenda to affect a broad range of labor, education, tax, and economic reforms. These efforts are bearing fruit. Although widespread poverty still exists, Mexico is no longer a poor country. In just a few decades, Mexican society has experienced the rise of a middle class that is "younger, more educated, wealthier, [and] healthier" than any previous generation, attaining a status that took more than a century to achieve in Europe when industrialization created the first modern middle classes. Internationally, Mexico now assumes a greater role on the world stage. The Mexican government asserts more leadership in Latin America, negotiated favorable terms in the Transpacific Partnership trade deal, and now sends military observers and specialists to participate in United Nations peacekeeping missions.6 All of these efforts help boost the country's economy and demonstrate to the world community that Mexico is a defender of international law, a promoter of free trade, a guarantor of foreign investment, and a responsible nation that champions peace.

The Mexican government recognizes that to achieve its ambitious domestic and foreign policy goals while maintaining the confidence of world nations, the country must also confront transnational organized crime within its borders. Transnational crime groups in Mexico use violence in pursuit of profit rather than political change, and they see international boundaries as opportunities rather than barriers. Their cross-border profiteering ranges from fraud and peddling pirated goods to robbery, kidnapping, extortion, and human trafficking. In 2007, the governments of Mexico and the United States developed a robust plan to address this threat.