The US Army on the Mexican Border

[Ski]

I went down to a few garden spots on the border in 06 during the planning phases.

Lots of issues - not many real good solutions.

[Norfolk]

Whenever I think of the issues surrounding the Mexican Border, I just can't help thinking about the issues the Romans had on their Rhine and Danube Frontiers. For some reason, there just seems to be a few too many similarities (mass migration, sporadic armed conflict, almost lawless society on one side of the border and low birth rate on the other, etc.) between the two to dismiss the Mexican Border issue as being just a "border" issue.

This has a lot more potential than Al-Qaeda to seriously harm the U.S. Even here in Canada, Mexican immigration is starting to have political ramifications, which is significant considering the sheer mass of immigration issues that have overtaken the country over the last generation or so.

You know you have a problem when other countries start catching the same problem too. Could the US Army even mount an effort on the scale of 1916-1917 if it had to?

[Tom Odom]

Whenever I think of the issues surrounding the Mexican Border, I just can't help thinking about the issues the Romans had on their Rhine and Danube Frontiers. For some reason, there just seems to be a few too many similarities (mass migration, sporadic armed conflict, almost lawless society on one side of the border and low birth rate on the other, etc.) between the two to dismiss the Mexican Border issue as being just a "border" issue.

This has a lot more potential than Al-Qaeda to seriously harm the U.S. Even here in Canada, Mexican immigration is starting to have political ramifications, which is significant considering the sheer mass of immigration issues that have overtaken the country over the last generation or so.

You know you have a problem when other countries start catching the same problem too. Could the US Army even mount an effort on the scale of 1916-1917 if it had to?

All relevant questions and very much the reasons I decided to issue this one as a history lesson. I am a native Texan and obviously that entails much baggage. But we have to look at this one with as much cold rationality as we can muster. I think Matt Matthews did a great job in capturing the turmoil, culkture clash, and mythology invloved here.

Best

Tom

[Ski]

Norfolk

All of those are concerns, add in drug smuggling, people smuggling, etc...

This problem's solutions lie in the political realm - it will only be acted upon when matters get so bad there is no other option than use the military. The ARNG missions were half-assed to say the least, and that's exactly how the politicos wanted it.

[slapout9]

Hi Norfolk,This happened before you got here to. We used to have a thread called the Next Small War and I used to to post about how it would be Mexico. Anyway I found this song and dedicated it to SWC member Bill Moore after much discussion on the subject. And now for your listening pleasure and cultural enhancement. Time for Goodbye Texas-Hello Mexico by Johnny Tex and Texicans. PS I haven't found one for Tom yet but I am looking


http://www.johnnytex.com/

[Norfolk]

slap, you are a gentleman, providing that fine Texas tune for my edification. Even if Johnny Tex swimming the Rio Grande to go live in Old Mexico is a little implausible...especially as I hear that you can walk across the Rio Grande in a lot of areas anyway!

Tom, Ski, slap, admittedly I come at the whole matter of the American acquisition of the former Mexican territories ("New Mexico", et al.) from a rather different perspective, and one that doesn't approve of it in the first place (here in Canada, we've historically viewed U.S. expanionism with a rather jaundiced eye, for obvious reasons, so please, don't take offence.)

That said, 150+ years of United States rule obviously matters, and no matter how many illegals come to live in the Southwest (or elsewhere), tens of millions of U.S. citizens living there are an immutable fact. Mexican nationalism, especially led by ideological elements that are mostly US citizens themselves, is going to meet American nationalism, and that ain't just goin' to go away. Politically, this issue had already passed the "possible" to deal-with phase by the 1990's, if not the 1980's. The illegal immigration bill doesn't really change a thing, substantively.

That leaves the U.S. in a serious strategic predicament that will grow more dire (and I mean to use that very word) in which it utterly lacks the political unity and will to effectively resolve the matter before it seriously destabilizes the Union, and will be left with having to resort to military, paramilitary, and like measures that have even less ability to handle the matter. What would, what could, the US Army do if a potent Mexican separatist movement gained real traction in California? Texas is one thing, but a state that has cities that pass resolutions against Marine Recruiting Stations is quite another.

The potential for things to get completely out of hand a generation or so down the line, because the political classes can't muster the guts to face the monster that they're afraid to stop tacitly feeding, may make the Recent Unpleasantness between North and South seem positively "clean", or at least civilized, by comparison to what may develop out of this.

Maybe if the US Army is able to retain the lessons that it has learned in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, it may at least be fairly well-prepared for what may lie in the future along the Mexican border.

[Ski]

I don't disagree with anything you've said.

I felt less secure in a few sectors down there than at any time I was in Afghanistan. The border itself is a joke, with a few strands of barbed wire -if that- and some ancient wooden pickets being the actual "border."

Nothing will be done because both political parties want Central American illegal immigration to continue - the Pubs want cheap labor, the Dems want votes. No one is willing to look at a clash of cultures or races because that is politically incorrect and no one could ever fight over such abstract concepts in the US.

Exceedingly shortsighted. We will pay in the end in blood I think.

[Gringo Malandro]

slap, you are a gentleman, providing that fine Texas tune for my edification. Even if Johnny Tex swimming the Rio Grande to go live in Old Mexico is a little implausible...especially as I hear that you can walk across the Rio Grande in a lot of areas anyway!

Tom, Ski, slap, admittedly I come at the whole matter of the American acquisition of the former Mexican territories ("New Mexico", et al.) from a rather different perspective, and one that doesn't approve of it in the first place (here in Canada, we've historically viewed U.S. expanionism with a rather jaundiced eye, for obvious reasons, so please, don't take offence.)

That said, 150+ years of United States rule obviously matters, and no matter how many illegals come to live in the Southwest (or elsewhere), tens of millions of U.S. citizens living there are an immutable fact. Mexican nationalism, especially led by ideological elements that are mostly US citizens themselves, is going to meet American nationalism, and that ain't just goin' to go away. Politically, this issue had already passed the "possible" to deal-with phase by the 1990's, if not the 1980's. The illegal immigration bill doesn't really change a thing, substantively.

That leaves the U.S. in a serious strategic predicament that will grow more dire (and I mean to use that very word) in which it utterly lacks the political unity and will to effectively resolve the matter before it seriously destabilizes the Union, and will be left with having to resort to military, paramilitary, and like measures that have even less ability to handle the matter. What would, what could, the US Army do if a potent Mexican separatist movement gained real traction in California? Texas is one thing, but a state that has cities that pass resolutions against Marine Recruiting Stations is quite another.

The potential for things to get completely out of hand a generation or so down the line, because the political classes can't muster the guts to face the monster that they're afraid to stop tacitly feeding, may make the Recent Unpleasantness between North and South seem positively "clean", or at least civilized, by comparison to what may develop out of this.

Maybe if the US Army is able to retain the lessons that it has learned in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, it may at least be fairly well-prepared for what may lie in the future along the Mexican border.

I have to disagree with you here. Latin America is much more fractious than the US. The "little brown guys" that come here to work are mostly indigenous people and they are treated worse in Latin countries than they are here. While we talk about "Mexicans" as a group, it is still a small group of rich white dudes at the top and a lot of poor brown folks at the bottom. This is a major part of the struggles throughout all of Latin America. We face a much bigger threat from a Mexico that is a failed state than from the state itself. Mexico can barely control its own population (i.e. Oaxaca) much less leverage them abroad for political control.

Mexico is almost entirely dependent on the US economy and its greatest threat to stabilization is financed by OUR drug habits. A secure and prosperous Mexico is vital to our national interest and that means greater integration with them, not walling them off.

I think a shifting cultural tide is a small price to pay for a stable border, especially in light of the aging if the US population and the much more insular Asian communities, who DO identify strongly with their government (at least with the Chinese).

Also keep in mind that an increasing percentage of Latin immigrants come from central and south America too, and they don't always get along with each other.