Document Type

Article

Department

Politics and Economics (CGU)

Publication Date

2011

Disciplines

Political Science | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration

Abstract

This short essay is about impression—gut feelings combined with a certain amount of analytical skill—about recent trends taking place in Mexico concerning the ongoing criminal insurgencies being waged by the various warring cartels, gangs, and mercenary organizations that have metastasized though out that nation (and in many other regions as well). The authors spent over eight hours sequestered together about a month ago on a five-hundred mile ‗there and back again road trip‘ to attend a training conference as instructors for the Kern County Chiefs of Police. Our talks centered on Mexican Drug Cartels, 3rd Generation Gangs, 3rd Phase Cartels, Criminal Insurgency Theory, and a host of related topics most folks just don‘t normally discuss in polite company. In the car, and at the conference, we were bombarded by Sullivan‘s never ending twitter and social networking news feeds—in Spanish and English—linked to the criminal violence in Mexico. If Dante had been our contemporary, we fear, he could just have easily taken a stroll through some of the cities and towns of Mexico using those news feeds and substituting the imagery for the circles of hell he described in his early 14th century work the Divine Comedy.

Comments

"Extreme Barbarism, a Death Cult, and Holy Warriors in Mexico: Societal Warfare South of the Border?" by Robert Bunker and John P. Sullivan is reprinted from Small Wars Journal per the Creative Commons license granted upon its original publication.

Rights Information

© 2011 Small Wars Foundation

Terms of Use & License Information

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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