Has Mexico made progress with fighting back the cartels
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Executive summary
Mexico has made patchwork, uneven progress: targeted arrests and seizures have disrupted some cartel leaders and logistics, but overall violence and cartel capacity have largely not diminished—cartels remain large employers and homicide rates have been among the highest in the country’s recent history [1] [2]. Recent academic modelling argues that current incapacitation-focused strategies can actually allow cartels to grow unless recruitment is cut, and that meaningful, sustained reductions in violence will require broad social and institutional reforms rather than only policing [3] [4].
1. Arrests and seizures: tactical wins, strategic limits
Mexican and U.S. law enforcement continue to score tactical victories—high-value arrests, drug seizures, and cross-border investigations—but these actions have not translated into a lasting reduction in cartel size or violence; models calibrated to 2012–2022 data suggest incarceration of thousands annually has coincided with cartels growing by tens of thousands of members and cartel-related deaths rising sharply [4] [1] [3]. Government incapacity to convert arrests into long-term disruption is reinforced by analyses showing high impunity rates and that criminal groups adapt to losses by recruiting and reorganizing [5] [1].
2. Violence trends: the hard numbers tell a grim story
The past decade has seen homicide counts and localized campaigns of terror that make the period among the bloodiest in modern Mexico; researchers point to over 30,000 homicides in single recent years and a dramatic rise in cartel-related deaths between 2012 and 2021, while other sources document episodes of mass public violence and sudden urban flare-ups tied to cartel power struggles [2] [1] [6] [7]. Even where national homicide figures show short-term dips, experts warn those changes may be “noise” and do not reflect reduced cartel control of illicit markets, extortion, or territorial influence [8].
3. Recruitment as the sticking point—and the policy implication
A prominent line of recent research concludes that cutting cartel recruitment is the only policy lever with the mathematical capacity to substantially reduce violence: models estimate halving recruitment could lower weekly casualties by roughly 25% and reduce cartel size meaningfully by 2027, while intensifying arrests under current conditions would likely increase violence and cartel membership over time [4] [1] [3]. This reframes the problem from kinetic suppression to long-run prevention—social programs, economic alternatives, and institutional reforms—because detention without dismantling recruitment pipelines appears insufficient [4] [5].
4. Institutional obstacles: impunity, corruption, and the limits of force
Analyses from think tanks and policy reviews underline persistent institutional weaknesses—very high impunity for homicides, porous accountability, and security forces constrained to less-visible uses of force—that blunt the impact of security operations and allow cartels to entrench themselves economically and politically in many regions [5] [8] [9]. Where cartels have diversified into extortion, kidnapping, resource theft and money laundering, law enforcement gains against drug flows have not removed incentives for organized crime to control territories and populations [10] [9].
5. International dynamics and political rhetoric complicate progress
U.S. policymaking and rhetoric—ranging from deeper DEA cooperation and new enforcement teams to public threats of cross-border strikes—adds pressure but risks political backlash, unintended displacement, and sovereignty tensions; experts caution that unilateral military action or heavy-handed cross-border measures could trigger migration and destabilize operations without addressing root causes [11] [12] [13]. Meanwhile, international criminal networks and evolving technologies (drones, crypto-laundering) keep cartels adaptive and resilient across borders [10] [7].
6. Bottom line: real progress is mixed and conditional
Mexico has achieved tactical successes but has not yet made decisive strategic progress in “fighting back” cartels: cartel size, territorial influence, and violence indicators remain high and in many cases growing, and leading academic work argues that only a shift toward cutting recruitment and strengthening institutions—rather than relying principally on arrests—offers a plausible path to sustained reductions in violence [4] [1] [3] [5]. Reporting limitations prevent a full accounting of every local policy effort or recent, small-scale improvements, but the weight of evidence in the provided sources points to stalled strategic gains and a need for policy reorientation [2] [8].