Mexico is expansive. Sitting at the intersection of four tectonic plates, the country covers 1.9 million sq. km of territory (about a quarter the land mass of the contiguous United States), much of it split up by mountain ranges. Jungle blankets much of south while vast deserts (the Chihuahua and Sonora) dominate much of its north. That northern portion of largely desert includes approximately 2,000 miles of border with the United States.

In part due to this geography, governments have long struggled to exert centralized control over Mexico. Today, the Mexican has a federal government composed of 32 federal entities (31 states and Mexico City). Much like its northern neighbor, its government has a legislative, judicial, and executive function, and it relies on democratic elections. This final facet of Mexico’s government is also its newest, and it came painfully.

Sadly, the political history of Mexico features almost nonstop periods of violent upheaval, many of which ended in dictatorship. The Spanish arrived in 1521 and conquered through war and disease. Three hundred years later, Mexicans overthrew the Spanish after a ten-year civil war. The United States invaded its nascent republic only 25 years later and stripped it of 55% of its territory. The French intervened in 1864 and installed an emperor who ruled for less than three years. Then, after over 30 years of relative peace under a repressive dictator, the country exploded into a disastrous civil war in 1910. Almost 20 years later, Mexico entered a new era of stability under a one-party system. That party dominated until 2000, when Mexico adopted democracy in earnest.

This history of a beautifully rich and diverse country—cruelly summed up in 150 words—is tragic and violent. Its geography is immense and divisive. It’s out of this environment that modern Mexican drug cartels grew.

Bolstered by these soaring profits, they grew in power and violently competed for prime trafficking routes into the United States. All the while, they continued to bribe their way into the highest levels of the Mexican government, at times using the power of the state against rivals. Gone were the days of bribing the local police chief; now cartels were big enough to pay off the President’s inner circle.

Only when Mexico embraced democracy in 2000 did its government begin to turn on the cartels. Mexicans were fed up with narcos and their violence. Democracy gave them an outlet to voice that frustration and change things. Felipe Calderón became president in 2006 and promised a crackdown on the cartels. He employed the military. Violence skyrocketed—some estimate over 120,000 people died during his six-year presidency. Mexico’s Narco War had begun.

The Narco War's Staggering Cost and Corruption

This is the same fight that Mexicans struggle with today. It has claimed over 460,000 lives. These are recorded homicides. The figure does not include disappearances: Over 115,000 people have been officially listed as missing since 2006. This raises the toll to at least 575,000 people.

For context, 646,596 Americans died fighting in all of the wars in American history combined.

575,000 

The number of Mexicans confirmed dead or missing since the start of the Narco War in 2006.

646,600

The number of American combat deaths during all wars in U.S. history combined.

The durability of the cartels in this conflict is in part due to their insidious infiltration into the Mexican state. The corruption goes to the highest levels. Calderón’s successor as president, Enrique Peña Nieto, was accused of taking a $100 million bribe from Jaoquin “El Chapo” Guzman in the latter’s trial in 2019. And Calderón’s own Minister of Public Security, Genero García Luna, was convicted in an American court—beyond a reasonable doubt—of taking bribes from Guzman and his rivals. 

At Garcia Luna's sentencing hearing, the judge took the opportunity to compare García Luna to the drug lords that the Mexican people had trusted him to fight: “Aside from your pleasant demeanor and your apparent articulateness, you have the same thuggishness as El Chapo.”

After enduring a history marked by violence and tumult, Mexicans deserved better than some of the corrupt leaders that they suffered when the country finally emerged as democracy. But was this predictable? The previous 70 years were ruled by a privileged elite. Patronage was the name of the game. Into this system fell a new generation of politicians who grew up watching that privileged elite from the outside. When this new generation came to power, doubtless some of them believed it was their turn for the spoils. And when they took their offices, the devil came to their door offering just that.

One in a group of 100 law enforcement officers is enough to frustrate earnest efforts to fight the cartels. What happens when that corrupt one is top law enforcement officer? Or the President? Perhaps half a million murders.