For as long as there has been a Mexico, there have been cartels. Geography is not always destiny, but in Mexico’s case it has been stubbornly close. For centuries, states have tried to impose order on Mexico’s northern frontier. None have succeeded. Power in Mesoamerica always radiated outward from the Valley of Mexico. The Aztecs built their empire there. The Spanish consolidated their rule there. The modern Mexican state governs from there. To the north lies a harsher landscape – arid, mountainous, thinly populated and historically resistant to centralized control.
Deserts and mountains provide space. Space creates autonomy. Autonomy, in weakly governed regions, creates opportunity for dissent, for rebellion, for smuggling, for criminal enterprise. In the 18th century, this was Comanche raiding territory. In the 19th century, there was pervasive and omnipresent banditry. In the 20th century, the cartels emerged. And the cartels, just like the Comanche and the bandits, did not remain in the borderlands. The richer and more powerful they became, the more they began to dominate the entire country. Mexico’s inability to maintain sovereignty over its north became an inability to claim sovereignty anywhere.
Decapitation without consolidation creates vacuums. Vacuums do not remain empty for long
This is the geopolitical context one needs to understand the assassination of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, aka El Mencho, leader of Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), one of (if not the) most violent nonstate actors to stain the pages of North American history. In recent years, CJNG has expanded aggressively beyond its areas of territorial control, expanding its tentacles into almost every Mexican state. So El Mencho’s assassination is a big deal. But it is not exactly clear to me exactly what kind of big deal it is and, as the story plays out, there are three possible scenarios.
This was a targeted move against CJNG specifically, not the opening salvo in a generalized war on Mexico’s cartels. CJNG had become uniquely destabilizing – more violent, more expansionist. As nearshoring and economic fragmentation create new streams of revenue across Mexico, many criminal organizations have incentives to preserve a workable equilibrium. CJNG often appeared uninterested in equilibrium. So perhaps (and this is just a hunch) the Mexican state wasn’t the only actor fed up with CJNG? Maybe Mexico’s other cartels were feeling threatened, too. Perhaps they even saw benefit in cutting CJNG down to size.
The Sinaloa organization in particular has long-standing reasons to want its territory back. Cooperation, or at minimum, tacit understandings between the state and nonstate groups (a nice euphemism for cartels) are not unprecedented in Mexico’s history. If this was a corrective strike designed to rebalance the ecosystem rather than dismantle it, violence will spike in the short term but remain geographically concentrated and then abate. It may also suggest that the Mexican state is warning other cartels not to stand in the way of progress – immense wealth and investment will come Mexico’s way if outsiders aren’t worried about cartels. Maybe other cartels are already on board with this plan and CJNG was holding out.
The second scenario is more ambitious: perhaps this marks the beginning of a sustained effort to reassert sovereignty in all regions where it has long been diluted. The cartels are powerful, but they are not capable of repelling the Mexican military in a prolonged, coordinated campaign. They certainly could not withstand direct US military involvement if such involvement were invited or imposed. A serious campaign like this would produce an immediate surge in violence, but over time it could restore deterrence and shrink the cartels’ operational space. But this would require political will, institutional coordination, and endurance – all of which have historically proven difficult to sustain.
The third scenario is the most troubling because it is the most familiar. If this assassination is not embedded in a broader, coherent strategy – or if Mexican capacity flags midway through – fragmentation becomes the dominant risk. This is what followed the 2006-07 campaign under former Mexican president Felipe Calderón: major organizations fractured, splinter groups proliferated, territory became fluid and violence intensified as new actors competed for control. CJNG itself emerged from that environment. Decapitation without consolidation creates vacuums. Vacuums do not remain empty for long.
I am on record as being bullish on Mexico’s immediate economic future, but that optimism carries a condition: the state’s relationship with non-state actors cannot remain unresolved. Mexico generated real wealth after joining the North American Free Trade Agreement in the early 1990s, but its rise was blunted by China’s arrival and the gains from free trade were unevenly distributed. It’s not a coincidence that cartel power increased around this time of dislocation. Nearshoring and multipolar fragmentation are now offering Mexico another opening – its best (and perhaps only) in a generation – to translate geography into durable prosperity.
But growth alone does not solve the cartel problem. A rising tide lifts cartel boats, too. If this next wave of opportunity once again produces concentrated wealth without deeper institutional consolidation, criminal organizations will adapt faster than the state.
