On HUMINT and the Mexican Cartels

When I was speaking at the Naval War College last week, a Mexican Fellow at the NWC asked whether I thought the U.S. would start targeting leaders of the Mexican drug cartels in strategic manhunts.  I said "No," but relied more upon the definitional distinction that Mexican law prohibits U.S. military personnel from overtly operating on Mexican soil in way necessary to meet the standards of a strategic manhunt.  I consciously avoided the question of whether our law enforcement agencies were targeting the cartel leaders, partly because it falls out of the purview of my work, and -- to be honest -- partly because I just don't know that much about the topic.

Coincidentally, on Monday The New York Times had an interesting article on how U.S. agencies are infiltrating the Mexican drug cartels.  Specifically, the Times reports that by building up large networks of Mexican informants, U.S. law enforcement agencies "have helped Mexican authorities capture or kill about two dozen high-ranking and midlevel drug traffickers."  The article cites Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution, who says that even in an age of high-tech surveillance there is no substitute for human sources' feeding authorities everything from what targeted traffickers like to eat to where they sleep most nights.

In other words, even if these operations don't meet my definition of a strategic manhunt (i.e. there is no overt deployment of U.S. military personnel targeting one individual), this appears to support the conclusions of my book, namely that HUMINT still trumps technical surveillance in kill/capture operations, and that the "human terrain" is key (i.e. cooperation of indigenous forces and the local population/members of the target's network).