U.S. Military Engagement with Mexico: Uneasy Past and Challenging Future

摘要

Mexico's deteriorating security environment over the last 24 months has been accompanied by growing United States (U.S.) concerns over the stability of an important ally and key trading partner. The associated prospects of intensified cross-border narcoviolence, waves of refugees, other humanitarian emergencies, and new international terrorist staging opportunities have joined an already challenging border security milieu. New cooperative initiatives and aid spurred by these developments involve a number of U.S. Government institutions, particularly those having political, economic, and law enforcement venues. The U.S. Department of Defense and Armed Forces also remain engaged in ways that promise to develop and change as both countries judge to be appropriate, useful, and feasible. This monograph addresses major benchmarks in U.S.-Mexican military relations generally, reviews events over the last 40 years as U.S.-Mexican military relationships have unfolded, and in particular focuses on changes and trends underway since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on U.S. targets.