The US military thinks it could happen, says the El Paso Times:
Mexico is one of two countries that "bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse," according to a report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats.The command's "Joint Operating Environment (JOE 2008)" report, which contains projections of global threats and potential next wars, puts Pakistan on the same level as Mexico. "In terms of worse-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.
"The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone."
Don't forget about the steep decline in Mexican oil production as its vast Cantarell field reaches the end of the road, and the state oil company struggles to get its act together to develop new sources. Petroleum exporting accounts for 40 percent of the Mexican economy.
Poor Mexico. You watch: I'd bet money that Obama will have to fully militarize the US-Mexico border before he leaves office. The only question is whether it will be his first or his second term. Another question: under what circumstances would the US invade Mexico? It would be to fight the narcotraffickers and prop up the government -- but how would that work, exactly?
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Jon - perhaps I'm showing my ignorance here...but what sort of "problems" do you see overflowing onto us from a collapsed Mexico?
Has there ever been a mag 9 earthquake? Probably at some era of the past, maybe after the Earth was walloped by an asteroid. But I think the strongest earthquake ever recorded was 8.4.
Nope, four megathrust eathquakes in the past century alone: 1952 off Kamchatka (9.0), the 2004 Tsunami Earthquake off Sumatra (9.3), the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake in Anchorage (9.4), and the Great Chilean Earthquake of 1960 (9.5!). It is suspected the last >9 one to hit what is now the US West Coast was the Cascadia Earthquake on 26 January 1700, but no one was there to accurately measure it. We're overdue.
Thus even megathrust quakes along the Pacific Rim can't be called true black swans, because they do happen with some perceivable regularity. For a true black swan quake, you have to look to the All Saints Day quake and tsunami that hit Lisbon in 1755. Experts still can't figure out what caused that one. And it was so out of left field that it upended Western Civilization at its philosophic foundations.
The only way to keep Mexico from collapsing is to stop the massive profits flowing to the people destabilizing it, the drug cartels.
The only way to stop the massive profits flowing to the drug cartels is to stop the war on drugs.
It is that simple. There are no other options.
This reminds me of a couple of lines from that great Billy Joel song, "Miami 2017." It was written and recorded around 1976, but it accurately predicted much of what happened on 9/11. The pertinent lines are:
"before the Mafia
took over Mexico."
WTF? Is Mexico a failed state? Damn, I cant believe that the people in USA are that ignorant about Mexico
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