The Scariest Unread Document in Texas State Government

On Thursday, Feb. 12, counter-terrorism expert Fred Burton of Stratfor.com addressed Austin InfraGuard, a professional association of local/state/federal emergency management, disaster planning, law enforcement, and homeland security professionals.

While Mr. Burton spoke about lawlessness and violence in the US-Mexico border area and its implications for local homeland security and emergency planning purposes, Texas state legislators should also pay heed.

The big problem is that Mexican criminal gangs are now strong enough to seriously impede and/or corrupt the government and military of Mexico. Mr. Burton chronicled the following issues:

• The lethality of Mexican drug-related violence is increasing due to more powerful weapons being used: IED’s, fragmentation grenades, and light anti-tank weapons (LAW’s). 
• Multinational firms with a presence in Mexico are impacted by vandalism, violence, and kidnapping. While these firms moved to Mexico for the lower cost of doing business, increasing lawlessness is going to require stronger security measures that will increase costs and may make other countries more attractive. If big multinationals leave Mexico, the ensuing joblessness could fuel further unrest. 
• Texas, Georgia, Alabama, and Arizona have all seen incidents of Mexican drug violence. Kidnapping in particular is a problem because of the familial and fluid nature of the US-Mexico border, as kidnapped persons are trafficked there and back again with relative ease (kinda’ makes you wonder if terror suspects and WMD components could move as easily).

These unhappy developments have drawn the attention of the US Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), a military organization charged with forecasting joint service needs and developing cross-service capabilities. In a recently released document titled Joint Operating Environment 2008, JFCOM claims:

“In terms of worst-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico. …

The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police, and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.”

First, the fact that Mexico is even mentioned in the same breath as Pakistan should make all Texans choke on their migas. But more sobering is the potential security and humanitarian crisis if the Mexican government falls to internal subversion.

For comparison’s sake, consider the impact from Hurricane Katrina. At the time of Katrina, the population of New Orleans was approximately 454,000. Once source put the number ending up in Texas at approximately 200,000 (44%), which I think is probably low, but let’s use a conservative estimate.

Now let’s look at the populations of the Mexican provinces bordering or near Texas from 2000:

• Chihuahua   3,047,900
• Coahuila De Zaragoza 2,295,800
• Nuevo Leon 3,826,200
• Tamaulipas 2,747,100
• Total 11,917,000 

Let’s say in the (albeit unlikely) event of a collapse of the Mexican government, 10% of these provinces’ populations flee to Texas, that would be 1.1 million displaced persons to deal with, approximately five times more than Katrina.

While the federal government is technically in charge of border security and international diplomacy, the fact of the matter is that the State of Texas will be at the forefront of addressing any lawlessness and refugee issues stemming from cross-border unrest. It would behoove the Legislature now in session in take up the matters of strengthening law and order on the border and planning for the worst.