In recent years, violence along the U.S.-Mexico border has escalated dramatically as the admin. of Pres. Calderon has sought to combat the growing power of Mexican drug trafficking org. (DTO) and curb their ability to operate with impunity in certain areas of Mexico. Mexican officials have come to regard illicit firearms as the number one crime problem affecting the country's security. Mexican DTOs represent the greatest organized crime threat to the U.S., controlling drug dist. in many U.S. cities, and gaining strength in markets they do not yet control. Discusses challenges faced by U.S. agencies collaborating with Mexican authorities to combat the problem of illicit arms and the U.S. govt.'s strategy for addressing the issue.

Firearms Trafficking: U.S. Efforts to Combat Arms Trafficking to Mexico Face Planning and Coordination Challenges

In recent years, violence along the U.S.-Mexico border has escalated dramatically, due largely to the Mexican government's efforts to disrupt Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTO). U.S. officials note the violence associated with Mexican DTOs poses a serious challenge for U.S. law enforcement, threatening citizens on both sides of the border, and U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials generally agree many of the firearms used to perpetrate crimes in Mexico are illicitly trafficked from the United States across the Southwest border. GAO was asked to examine (1) data on the types, sources, and users of these firearms; (2) key challenges confronting U.S. government efforts to combat illicit sales of firearms in the United States and stem the flow of them into Mexico; (3) challenges faced by U.S. agencies collaborating with Mexican authorities to combat the problem of illicit arms; and (4) the U.S. government's strategy for addressing the issue. GAO analyzed program information and firearms data and met with U.S. and Mexican officials on both sides of the border. GAO is making recommendations to several departments, including

In recent years, violence along the U.S.-Mexico border has escalated dramatically, due largely to the Mexican gov¿t. efforts to disrupt Mexican drug trafficking org. U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials generally agree that many of the firearms used to perpetrate crimes in Mexico are illicitly trafficked from the U.S. across the Southwest border. This report examines: (1) data on the types, sources, and users of these firearms; (2) key challenges confronting U.S. gov¿t. efforts to combat illicit sales of firearms in the U.S. and stem the flow of them into Mexico; (3) challenges faced by U.S. agencies collaborating with Mexican authorities to combat the problem of illicit arms; and (4) the U.S. gov¿t. strategy for addressing the issue. Charts and tables.

Available evidence indicates many of the firearms fueling Mexican drug violence originated in the United States, including a growing number of increasingly lethal weapons. While it is impossible to know how many firearms are illegally smuggled into Mexico in a given year, about 87 percent of firearms seized by Mexican authorities and traced in the last 5 years originated in the United States, according to data from Department of Justice's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). According to U.S. and Mexican government officials, these firearms have been increasingly more powerful and lethal in recent years. Many of these firearms come from gun shops and gun shows in Southwest border states. U.S. and Mexican government and law enforcement officials stated most firearms are intended to support operations of Mexican DTOs, which are also responsible for trafficking arms to Mexico.The U.S. government faces several significant challenges in combating illicit sales of firearms in the United States and stemming their flow into Mexico. In particular, certain provisions of some federal firearms laws present challenges to U.S. efforts, according to ATF officials. Specifically, officials identified key challenges related to restrictions on collecting and reporting information on firearms purchases, a lack of required background checks for private firearms sales, and limitations on reporting requirements for multiple sales. GAO also found ATF and Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the primary agencies implementing efforts to address the issue, do not effectively coordinate their efforts, in part because the agencies lack clear roles and responsibilities and have been operating under an outdated interagency agreement. Additionally, agencies generally have not systematically gathered, analyzed, and reported data that could be useful to help plan and assess results of their efforts to address arms trafficking to Mexico.U.S. law enforcement agencies have provided some assistance to Mexican counterparts in combating arms trafficking, but these efforts face several challenges. U.S. law enforcement assistance to Mexico does not target arms trafficking needs, limiting U.S. agencies' ability to provide technical or operational assistance. In addition, U.S. assistance has been limited due to Mexican officials' incomplete use of ATF's electronic firearms tracing system, an important tool for U.S. arms trafficking investigations. Another significant challenge facing U.S. efforts to assist Mexico is corruption among some Mexican government entities. Mexican federal authorities are implementing anticorruption measures, but government officials acknowledge fully implementing these reforms will take considerable time, and may take years to affect comprehensive change.The administration's recently released National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy includes, for the first time, a chapter on combating illicit arms trafficking to Mexico. Prior to the new strategy, the U.S. government lacked a strategy to address arms trafficking to Mexico, and various efforts undertaken by individual U.S. agencies were not part of a comprehensive U.S. governmentwide strategy for addressing the problem. At this point, it's not clear whether ONDCP's "implementation plan" for the strategy, which has not been finalized, will include performance indicators and other accountability mechanisms to overcome shortcomings raised in our report.

The theory and practice of arms control seemed to have its heyday during the height of the Cold War, with its focus on the East-West conflict and nuclear arms. In the past twenty years, both arms technologies and various practices aimed at their control have continued to develop, but scholarly thinking has not kept up. This volume seeks to redress this scholarly neglect of the range of issues associated with the control of the means of violence, by asking the question: what does arms control mean in the 21st Century? In asking this question, the volume examines issues surrounding sovereignty, geopolitics, nuclear disarmament, securitization of space, technological developments, human rights, the clearance of landmines, the regulation of small arms and the control of the black market for arms and nuclear secrets. The book discusses terrorism with reference to the case of the suicide attacks in Beirut in 1983 and how the Obama administration is orientating its posture on nuclear arms. This book was published as a special issue of Contemporary Security Policy.

Sovereignty is a key factor to consider when studying the Mexico-United States relationship. During most of the twentieth century, as a result of the new character of the Mexican post-revolutionary regime, there was a decoupling between the state’s maximalist discourse on sovereignty, and its practice. Sovereignty as an undifferentiated whole does not exist; it should instead be disaggregated into the myriad issue areas in which it is constantly negotiated. Focusing on a tripartite classification relating to the construction of Mexico’s sovereignty towards its northern neighbor since 1920, this volume illustrates how Mexico’s sovereignty has varied not only according to the times, but also according to the issues at stake. In doing so, Arturo Santa-Cruz comprehensively covers a variety of issues in the bilateral agenda such as drug trafficking, electoral observation, human rights, investment, migration, security, and trade, as well as some defining moments in the relationship, such as the 1923 US granting of recognition to the Mexican post-revolutionary regime, the 1938 oil nationalization, the 1982 debt crisis, and the 1995 financial bailout. These diverse cases, analyzed through an original analytical approach, capture sovereignty’s multifocal meaning.