Military Capabilities Against Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations - Research Proposal Example

Should additional U.S. military capabilities be brought to bear against Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs) to increase interdiction effectiveness along the U.S.-Mexico border? Chapter I: Definition of the problem Problem statement According to the National Drug Intelligence Centers “National Drug Threat Assessment, 2010”, published in February 2010, “Mexican DTOs [Drug Trafficking Organizations] dominate the transportation of illicit drugs across the Southwest Border. They typically use commercial trucks and private and rental vehicles to smuggle cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin...” (“National Drug Threat Assessment, 2010”) The tables in the appendices outline the statistical extent of the problem and the geographic penetration of Mexican DTOs within the United States. This is the problem under consideration in this proposal. Research objective The research objective is to determine if additional U.S. military capabilities brought to bear against Mexican DTOs would increase interdiction effectiveness and reduce the flow of drugs into the United States across the Southwest Border. RQ 1: How are DTOs Exploiting Gaps in Border Security to be Successful? RQ 2: What Weapons and Specialized Equipment are Employed by DTOs that Over-match the Capabilities of U.S. Law Enforcement Agencies? RQ 3: What Laws and Regulations Currently Govern the Limits of Military Support to Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies (MSCLEA)? RQ 4: What is the History of MSCLEA for Counter-drug Operations? RQ 5: In What Ways is the Military Most Suited to Contribute to the National Counter-drug Effort? Assumptions This research is based on one significant assumption: Namely, that interdiction at the border will have a positive impact on the penetration of DTOs into American society, the profitability of the drug trade, and the level of drug use in the United States. There are other approaches to the problem. Some groups advocate legalization, others focus on the demand side and advocate more treatment programs for users and abusers of illegal drugs. On the supply side diplomatic pressure on the countries that produce the drugs or assistance to their military and police organizations to increase their effectiveness. This proposal assumes that enhanced interdiction efforts on the Southwest border will negatively impact Mexican DTOs and reduce use of illegal drugs within the United States. Define Terms The most important term to be defined is Military Support for Civilian Law enforcement Agencies (MSCLEA). Recent text defines it as “technical assistance rendered to civilian law enforcement agencies. This can include military resources that are not available to civilians such as aerial surveillance, technical assistance with these resources, and tactical advice. It does not include actual law enforcement powers.” (Sergienko, 2006, p. 395) United States Northern Command (USNORCOM) defines MSCLEA as “precluding members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps from direct participation in a search, seizure, arrest, or other similar activity unless participation in such activity by such member is otherwise authorized by law.” (“USNORCOM”) In law the restrictions on MSCLEA are outlined in “U.S. Code TITLE 10 > Subtitle A > PART I > CHAPTER 18—MILITARY SUPPORT FOR CIVILIAN LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES” and “U.S. Code TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 67 > § 1385. Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus.” There is also a large body of legal and academic literature on the subject and the term may have evolved considerably since 9/11. The details of the debate and the current state of MSCLEAs will be explored thoroughly in the literature review. Interdiction efforts will be defined as all efforts to reduce the flow of illegal drugs into the United States on the ground (or under the ground) across the Southwest border. The success of these efforts will be defined as increased levels of drug seizures measured by weight and value, using standard valuation techniques. Limitations and delimitations This study is limited to ground interdiction. Drug smuggling is an incredibly profitable enterprise. If ground interdiction efforts were to prove effective it is presumed that DTOs would attempt to move their operations into marine and aerial operations. However, this study will only consider the deployment of marine and aerial assets as they relate to ground operations. This study is limited to the Southwest border. Strategies proposed or dismissed in this research may or may not be appropriate with regard to interdiction efforts on other borders such as the northern border with Canada. This study will be limited to cooperation with civilian law enforcement agencies within the United States. It will not consider support for Mexican CLEAs nor will it consider cooperation with the Mexican military although it will be acknowledged that they are now the lead agency in struggle with DTOs within Mexico. All proposals for MSCLEA will be governed by the U.S Constitution, relevant U.S. laws and the USNORCOM directives on MSCLEA, “Military support to civilian law enforcement is carried out in strict compliance with the Constitution and U.S. laws and under the direction of the president and secretary of defense.” (USNORCOM) The original research for this project will be conducted using surveys and selected interviews with relevant personnel in the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the U.S. Border Patrol, the U.S. Army, and to a limited extend the Coast Guard Navy and Air Force. It will, therefore, confront all of the limits associated with self-reporting. That said the structure of the research, particularly the unique chronology of the research will, hopefully overcome some of the limits of self- reporting. (This structure will be detailed in the chapter on methodology. Chapter II: Literature Review There exists a huge body of literature on the subject of DTOs, drug smuggling, MSCLEAs and the current situation along the Southwest Border. Consequently, this literature review will be organized in sections that address the individual research questions identified in the previous chapter, following some preliminary considerations. The Mexican border states have become much like a war zone with heavily armed military units on the street (since the President deemed local police too corrupt to deal with the cartels) and frequent firefights between the military and the cartels. According to L.A. Times, as of November 29, 2010, 28,288 people have died in Mexico since January 2007 as a consequence of the drug wars. In relative terms that number is higher than the number of American troops that have died in Iraq in the last 7 years. (“Mexico Under Siege – The Drug War on Our Doorstep”, 2010) “Mexico Under Siege – The Drug War on Our Doorstep”, is an L.A. Times website that includes all of their coverage of drug smuggling along the Southwest border along with interactive maps, links to television coverage and a host of other information. In terms of details of recent events and media coverage of the situation that website is the principle primary source. It can be supplemented by the website “Drug Trafficking in Mexico” maintained by latinamericanstudies.org. This website traces the history of the drug trafficking between Mexico and the U. S. from 1998-2009 and provides links to hundreds of other articles on the subject. There is also a large body of literature that deals with the political, philosophical and legal idiosyncrasies of the Southwest border. While the drug war has garnered much of the popular attention of late there are also significant issues with illegal immigration and human trafficking as well as debate over the construction of a border fence and Arizonas recent legislation regarding illegal immigrants. In “Neoliberal globalization and the war on drugs: Transnationalizing illiberal governance in the Americas” Domenic Corva argues that drug interdiction is simply a means to an end, the illiberalization of America and the export of the penal state and neoliberalism. (Corva, 2008) M Coleman takes the exact opposite track arguing that the border has largely dissolved as an international border as a result of becoming a political/economic nexus. (Coleman, 2005) One broader phenomenon of greater relevance to this study is the Minuteman Project a civilian militia that has appropriated to itself the responsibility of patrolling the border. James Walsh argues that its practices and interactions with authorities demonstrate its members attempt to appropriate and extend many of the principles of governance and statecraft including surveillance, policing, security and territoriality to the civilian population. (Walsh, 2008) Their assistance to or interference in drug interdiction efforts will need to be explored during interviews with U.S. Border Patrol during the research component of this project. Interestingly, increased MSCLEA issues emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with regard to the interdiction of drugs. However, since 9/11 they have largely revolved around the role of MSCLEA around terrorism related incidents. The official policy of the United States Army on MSCLEA is contained in the Catastrophic Disaster Response Staff Officers Handbook “Appendix I: Legal Considerations/Law Enforcement” published by the United States Army Combined Arms Center in May 2006. This document is supplemented by a paper prepared by Colonel Thomas W McShane entitled, “United States Northern Commands Mission to Provide Military Support to Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies: The Challenge to keep Homeland Security and Civil Liberty Dancing in Step with the Current Legal Music” (2004). The Congressional Reporting Service publication “Terrorism: Some Legal Restrictions on Military Assistance to Domestic Authorities Following a Terrorist Attack” by Charles Doyle and Jennifer Elsea presents the legal definition of MSCLEAs in the wake of post 9/11 developments. (Doyle and Elsea, 2005) A variety of publications deal with the history of MSCLEA for Counter-drug Operations. Two of these stand out as having particular importance for this proposal. The first is The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1978-1992: Low-Intensity Conflict Doctrine Comes Home by Timothy J Dunn, published in 1996. The second is a Rand Corporation report entitled Sealing the Borders: The Effects of Increased Military Participation in Drug Interdiction written by Peter Reuter, Gordon Crawford, and Jonathan Cave published in 1988. Immediately, the age of these two documents must be noted: A point that has both pros and cons. Both documents are roughly twenty years old and this means that their consideration of everything from the technology of interdiction efforts to the scope and influence of DTOs is dated. On the other hand, both documents precede the emergence of the overwhelming threat of terrorist attacks and so focus on MSCLEAs in a pre-9/11 context with the emphasis on drug interdiction not anti-terrorism operations. Most importantly, both of these documents present a negative picture of interdiction efforts in general and of the involvement of the US military in interdiction efforts, although they criticize this approach from two different perspectives. The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1978-1992: Low-Intensity Conflict Doctrine Comes Home was published by the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas, Austin. It focuses on the negative effects of the militarization of the border in terms of lost economic opportunities and threats to civil liberties. More damning, however, is the Rand Corporation document, Sealing the Borders: The Effects of Increased Military Participation in Drug Interdiction. It concludes that interdiction efforts in general have little impact on the flow of drugs into the United States. It also concludes that the increasing involvement of the military had not improved the effectiveness of interdiction efforts and was unlikely to do so in the future. “It [their analysis] strongly suggests that the services cannot be primary interdiction agencies and that a major increase in military support is unlikely to significantly reduce drug consumption in the United States.” (Reuter, Crawford and Cave, 1988) The findings do not bode well for exploring renewed efforts to employ enhanced MSCLEA in the interdiction effort in the twenty-first century. However, there are numerous reservations about applying this study directly to the current situation. This study will examine interdiction in terms of interdiction (seizure) rates not reduced consumption and the price of illicit drugs as the Rand study did. Also, the circumstances of the drug trade across the Southwest border have changed considerably as have the resources available to the US military that could be employed in the interdiction effort. By way of illustration the DTOs are now using RPGs and other military type weaponry while the military have UAVs and other surveillance equipment that was not available in the 1980s. The Rand study is incredibly important to understanding the history of military involvement in drug interdiction on the Southwest border. However, being over twenty years old it cannot be considered the final word on the subject today. A final body of literature also needs to be examined in this literature review. That relates to the policies and procedures for MSCLEAs and the organization of cooperative efforts between the military and civilian law enforcement agencies. Doctrines for this already exist on both sides of the fence. The Joint Task Force North, “JTF-North Operational Support Planning Guide 2010” outlines the military perspective on joint military-civilian operations. The police understanding of he relationship is outlined in “Civilian and Military Law Enforcement Cooperation” published in The Police Chief. (Awtry, 2004) Chapter III: Methodology The research will commence with distribution of two types of questionnaires. Field officers and senior officers in the regional offices responsible for the Southwest border of the DEA and the US Border Patrol, and field officers and senior commanders of law enforcement agencies proximate to the Southwest border involved in drug interdiction will receive surveys. These surveys will ask general questions about drug interdiction on the Southwest border and the interdiction methods currently in use. Then the surveys will ask whether an increased role for the military would be helpful, and which particular interventions they believe would be most useful. The latter questions would be comprised of a list of potential roles for the military and participants asked to rate them on a scale from zero (not helpful) to five (very helpful). At the same time a similar questionnaire would be directed to military personnel. However, it would not go to the military equivalent of agents in the field (i.e enlisted men) but rather to officers that would be involved in decisions relating to MSCLEAs. The results of these questionnaires, particularly the final section on potential intervention methods will then be analyzed to provide statistical validity to the interpretation of results for the military and for the other agencies, using such common concepts as measures of central tendency, dispersion, significance levels, confidence levels or intervals. These results will then be compared in a similar manner to determine the congruence of lack thereof between the other agencies perceptions of what the military could contribute and the militarys perception of where they can make a useful contribution. For example, the military may perceive aerial surveillance as the most valuable contribution they can make while the other agencies perceive personnel, more boots on the ground, as the most valuable contribution the military might make. Divergence and variation in these results will constitute valuable and original research in the area of MSCLEAs in drug interdiction on the Southwest border. This quantitative research will then be followed up with interviews with senior officials in the military and the other agencies. These interviews will explore the differing perceptions of the civilian agencies and the military. For example, continuing with the illustration used in the previous paragraph the military officers could be told that the civilian agencies perceive their greatest need as more personnel in the field as their greatest need and asked if that fact influences their estimation of its importance and if they are capable of providing that. Conversely, officers of the civilian agencies could be told that the military felt that increased aerial surveillance was the most valuable assistance that they could provide and be asked if that fact influences their estimation of its importance and if they could utilize that type of assistance. Most immediately, the questions of congruence of perceived need and the potential for cooperation could be evaluated based on this data. In the longer term, assuming that increased MSCLEAs was instituted, data relating to drug seizures would have to be evaluated in further research to determine if the increased cooperation actually had a positive impact on interdiction efforts. Appendices Table 1: Southwest Border Area Marijuana Seizures, in Kilograms, 2005-2009 Source: National Seizure System. Data as of December 1, 2009. Table 2: Southwest Border Area Methamphetamine Seizures, in Kilograms, 2005-2009 In 2005, 1,034,102 kilograms of methamphetamine were seized along the Southwest Border. In 2006, 1,146,687 kilograms of methamphetamine were seized along the Southwest Border. In 2007, 1,472,536 kilograms of methamphetamine were seized along the Southwest Border. In 2008, 1,253,054 kilograms of methamphetamine were seized along the Southwest Border. In 2009, 1,489,673 kilograms of methamphetamine were seized along the Southwest Border. Source: National Seizure System. Data as of December 1, 2009. Table 3: Drug Seizures Along the Southwest and Northern Borders, in Kilograms, 2005-2009   2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Cocaine Southwest Border 22,653 28,284 22,656 16,755 17,085 Northern Border >1 2 >1 >1 18 Total 22,654 28,286 22,657 16,756 17,103 Heroin Southwest Border 228 489 404 556 642 Northern Border 3 2 1 136 >1 10 Total 2,919 2,799 1,996 2,202 3,488 Source: National Seizure System. Data as of December 1, 2009; totals are rounded to the nearest kilogram. Map 1: Drug Distribution by Select DTOs, by HIDTA Region Map 2: 2009 Greatest Drug Threat, by Region, as Reported by State and Local Agencies References Awtry, John S. (February 2004). “Civilian and Military Law Enforcement Cooperation”. The Police Chief. http://policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=227&issue_id=22004. Coleman, M. (2005). “U.S. statecraft and the U.S.–Mexico border as security/economy nexus” Political Geography 24: 2, 185-209. Corva, Domenic (2008). “Neoliberal globalization and the war on drugs: Transnationalizing illiberal governance in the Americas”. Political Geography 27: 2 , 176-193. Doyle, Charles and Jennifer Elsea. (May 27, 2005). “Terrorism: Some Legal Restrictions on Military Assistance to Domestic Authorities Following a Terrorist Attack”. Congressional Reporting Service. Retrieved from http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS21012.pdf. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/dea/index.htm. “Drug Trafficking in Mexico”. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/mexico-drugs.htm. Dunn, Timothy J. (1996). The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1978-1992: Low-Intensity Conflict Doctrine Comes Home. Austin, TX: Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Texas at Austin. Joint Task Force North. (2010) JTF-North Operational Support Planning Guide 2010. “Mexico Under Siege – The Drug War on Our Doorstep”. (2010). The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://projects.latimes.com/mexico-drug-war/#/its-a-war. Reuter, Peter, Gordon Crawford, and Jonathan Cave. (1988). Sealing the Borders: The Effects of Increased Military Participation in Drug Interdiction. Santa Monica, CA: RAND. Retrieved from http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/2007/R3594.pdf. Sergienko, Eric. (2006). “Integration of Law Enforcement and Military Resources with the Emergency Response to a Terrorist Incident” in Disaster Medicine, 3rd ed. Philadelphia, Mosby Elsevier . pp. 391-398. Trebilcock, Craig T. (October 2000) “The Myth of Posse Comitatus”. Retrieved from http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/articles/Trebilcock.htm. U.S. Code TITLE 10 > Subtitle A > PART I > CHAPTER 18—MILITARY SUPPORT FOR CIVILIAN LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES. Retrieved from http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode10/usc_sup_01_10_10_A_20_I_30_18.html. U.S. Code TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 67 > § 1385. Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus. Retrieved from http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00001385----000-.html. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. World Drug Report 2010. Retrieved from http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2010/World_Drug_Report_2010_lo-res.pdf. United States Army Combined Arms Center. (May 2006). “Appendix I: Legal Considerations/Law Enforcement”. Catastrophic Disaster Response Staff Officers Handbook. Retrieved from http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/call/docs/06-08/ap-i.asp. United States Northern Command. “About US NorthCom: The Posse Comitatus Act”. Retrieved from http://www.northcom.mil/about/history_education/posse.html. Walsh, James. (2008). “Community, surveillance and border control: The case of the minuteman project”. Sociology of Crime Law and Deviance 10, 11-34. Read More