Cristine Delsol
First, the bad news. Although the media feeding frenzy has toned down in the past year, and Tijuana, the initial front line in the drug war, has quieted down considerably, Mexico's drug cartels show no signs of retreating from their spectacularly gruesome violence. The battleground has been shifting to border towns south of Texas, and Ciudad Juárez has replaced Tijuana in the headlines.
These are sad days for travelers with an affection for Mexico. For an educated assessment of what we can expect in the next year or two, I went to Stratfor, a global intelligence company that advises government agencies, international corporations and other organizations on security issues. Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton says his team has been watching Mexico with a laser focus for the past three years, and "Quite frankly, it appears the crime is getting worse".
The former deputy chief of the counterterrorism division of the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service, Burton believes that "Mexico is facing clearly the most severe security challenge it has experienced in nearly a century. You're looking at battles between the government and the drug cartels, among the various cartels themselves, and violence inflicted by organized crime groups against civilians".
