Is There a Mexican Surprise in Obama's Future?

A little known Pentagon study entitled "the Joint Operating Environment (JOE): Challenges and Implications for the Future Joint Forces" has some rather shocking conclusions about the threats facing the United States. While it advertises itself as serving as a starting point for discussions about the "future security environment", the report posits that two large and important states could collapse rapidly--Pakistan and Mexico. President-elect Obama met recently with Mexican President Calderon to discuss Mexico's security requirements for its on-going war against drug traffickers.

More than 5,700 people have been killed in drug-related violence this past year. That figure is more than all the US deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan since those wars began. The JOE report cheerfully concludes that the collapse of Mexico is less likely than Pakistan but noted that its government,police and judicial infrastructure are all under a sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and the drug cartels. How this internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on whether Mexico can survive or just become a narco-state. Any plunge into chaos would put enormous stress on an America already preoccupied with its own internal economic crisis. The Obama transition team has already voiced concern about whether we can bail out another country at this time or in the near-term. Let alone the massive immigration problems--it would be illegal immigration on steroids.