Mexico: The Switzerland of the American Hemisphere?

I was recently told that Mexico has never declared war on anybody and that its foreign policy is basically neutral. After giving this some thought for awhile, I decided to investigate. The first thing I realized was that I had not lived in a country that had never declared war on anybody. While I am sure Mexico has its problems on the international scene, it has never found a good enough reason to want to attack someone on account of a disagreement or even suspected weapons of mass destruction.

In fact the history of this region, long before there was a Mexico as such, indicates there were invasions of all kinds. The Spaniards brought the art form of invasion and pillage from Europe after many centuries of refinement there. Landing in the “New World” and finding out the natives were missing one giant piece of technological advancement that they had (gunpowder), the Spaniards had a field day on a scale never before seen. Wholesale slaughter of kingdoms, and tribes over a whole continent! Score that as one huge victory for really bad karma.

The United States attacked Mexico in 1846 to secure some real estate ranging from Texas, through New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and right on through to California. After having taken all this land via an unprovoked invasion, the U.S government, possibly out of guilt, wrote a check to Mexico for $15 million which were the closing costs on the real estate deal. By reason of provocations like these, the Mexicans have never really trusted the gringos to the north. Judging by the state of things in those states now, Mexico looks to be on the better side of that deal.

The French and the English also had their day in the “invasion sun” attacking Mexico, and even the Russians gave it some thought at the very same time as the French. In the end both parties decided to call it off to avoid fighting the bigger war between each other.

For Mexico, all these invasions are seen as victories revealing the fact that while Mexico has been beaten around the head and shoulders quite a bit, they have not capitulated to anyone since becoming a nation all their own and declaring independence from Spain in 1810. Their independence war lasted many years until the general of the Spanish army formed an alliance with the “rebel” army and together they fought against Spain. There you have it, Spanish expatriates, siding with the Spanish army to fight Spain. Could it get any better than that? Karma came fast and furious to the Spaniards.

Of course in 1910 yet another revolution took place to overthrow the “monarchy” government that had been in charge since the first revolution. But what does this all mean? What it means is that while Mexico has been neutral in the sphere of international politics, it is no stranger to fighting wars, albeit wars against fellow Mexicans. To be fair, the revolutions were mostly wars between groups of expatriated Spaniards (much like the gringos to the north), but to Mexico’s credit a 20th century that can be characterized on the world’s stage as a century of wars, finds Mexico sitting for the most part as an observer.

Eventually though the infection of war on a global scale caught hold and Mexico in a fit of hysteria felt that it just had to declare war on something, after all everyone seems to be doing it so it must be right. With that in mind Mexico searched for who or what it could dazzle with its army. Based on historical research the leaders decided to do what had been done so well in years past and so they declared war on themselves yet again. You know I am referring to the War on Drugs. You have seen the figures, over 20,000 casualties in the last few years.

The idea of declaring war on “things” may not have been invented in Mexico or even in the U.S. (I really do not want to research this), but the U.S. has certainly had its share of declared wars against poverty, drugs, crime and civil rights to name a few. It is of note, that while the United States has had some modicum of success (define success) declaring wars on other countries, it has had a dismal record in the four “wars” I just mentioned. Mexico seems to be following a similar path with its war on drugs.

The most glaring reason to me why these wars on “things” do not work out so well is that there is no signal for victory. How would Mexico know the war on drugs is over, if in fact it ever was over? Would the cartels voluntarily lay down their arms (and drugs), giving up multibillion dollar businesses, then kiss and make up? Someone please explain to me who would not be tempted to pick up the vacuum created by such an act? Even the initiatives in the U.S. to eradicate, drugs, crime, civil rights and poverty if they did have goals to indicate when the wars were over, they did a poor public relations job letting the U.S population in the loop.

I do not want to be the pessimist here. I would be thrilled to see the Mexican government have a ceremony with the beaten drug lords on an aircraft carrier in the Sea of Japan signing a peace treaty, or how about the last person to emerge from poverty being invited to officially declare the war over as they ring the bell on the N.Y stock exchange? I cannot help but visualize the end of the war on crime from a prison cell where we all now reside. Or would that victory be signified by everyone being let out of prison?

The one gleaming beacon we can say we won is the war on civil rights. Isn’t that right? It must have been won, after all there is a black man living in the White House. Racism is now a thing of the past. Hmmmmm, maybe the jury is still out on that victory. What do you think?