MEXICO'S DILEMMA

The successful series of attacks on Mexico's energy infrastructure in early July that disrupted 1,200 business (including several very large Just-in-Time assembly facilities) and refinery infrastructure, was very sophisticated. Not only were the bombs well constructed, the selection of a the targets were excellent examples of systempunkts.

Notes on Method

Instead of attacking guarded facilities, the attacks were made against sections in the pipeline infrastructure that were not guarded (survivability). Timing devices were used to spread the attacks out over a ten day period (repetition). Multiple points of attack on the same pipeline multiplied the scale of the damage and caused fires (one forced the evacuation of parts of a nearby city) that complicated/delayed recovery efforts. Finally, by focusing the attacks on a limited geography critical to three major pipelines, the attack maximized almost all of the following dependencies while limiting the size of the team necessary for the attack:

• Input -- material delivered by one network is used by another.
• Mutual -- networks that serve as inputs for each other. Example: oil and power generation.
• Co-location -- different networks that are located in the same geography.
• Shared -- networks that share physical components, transport, or facilities.
• Exclusive -- a network that can only support one or few outputs, may be transient.

As a result, there were multiple cascades of failure that swept through large sections of Mexico.

The Dilemma

The immediate impact of this attack, beside the significant economic damage, was to force Mexico to deploy the recently created United Forces for Federal Support to guard energy infrastructure. However, with only 5,000 troops, the force is unlikely to provide any serious opposition to the attackers. The bulk of Mexico's forces are now allocated to an increasingly militarized drug war in the north with narco-guerrillas.

The dilemma is that with Mexico's future as part of the global supply chain at risk, follow-on attacks could quickly put Mexico into a position similar to Turkey in WW1 -- when Lawrence's (of Arabia) guerrilla attacks on Turkish railway infrastructure forced a massive misallocation of forces from the front facing the Brits to infrastructure protection. This dilemma will be exacerbated by the fact that amount of infrastructure that needs to be protected is several orders of magnitude larger and more complex.

Like the US, Mexico is about to find out that playing with war while embroiled in cut-throat global economic competition is increasingly difficult as offensive 4GW gains strength.

Comments

[SunTzuMelange]

I just got back from Mexico, doing art not war. Although the signs are evident from outside, it was stunning how the real underlying problems were palpable in Mexico.

The core failure is the war on drugs. The USA is pushing the Mexicans into solving this Yankee problem on Mexican territory, but economics is such that the drug distributors can always win this battle. So as resource after resource is thrown into the war on drugs, the distributors eat the resources.

The net effect is that the USA has destroyed the civil society in Mexico. The courts and the police are 'owned' from top to bottom ... which of course has knock on effects to the rest of society. There, the worst thing that can happen to anyone is to be involved with the police, and for a person to 'call the police' is considered akin to starting a war, with all the consequences.

Now, the army is being thrown into the war on drugs. They will be 'owned' in due course, and probably are already suspect. Once the army loses its integrity, Iraqi-style collapse would be the next step.

Question I cannot answer is, "how does this align with USA policy objectives?" I can see how it makes sense for the USA to create and maintain collapse in Iraq, in a 'great game' strategy, but to do it on ones doorstep, within NAFTA even, does not match any theory I've ever seen.

[Cash]

The idea that "the USA has destroyed the civil society in Mexico" does not resonate with me at all. In truth, I can find little evidence to support it. I realize it's fashionable to blame the US for all the world's ills, but Mexico's government and civil society have been riddled with corruption and prejudice for centuries. Its history is filled with revolutionary movements that have sprung from the countryside and, when successful, promptly been co-opted by power and money. Instead of Pancho Villa blowing up rail lines, the current crop of rebels is using open-source warfare to strike far more effectively.

The current unrest does not align with USA policy objectives, which require a relatively peaceful and compliant Mexico to continue the corporate exploitation of cheap labor in the factories along the border. The destruction of the pipelines is a blow to those objectives and the profits they generate.

[AE]

Yes, I would have to agree with Cash that the US is little at fault here.

I do wonder whether Mexico is going to become a hollow state.

[Riskline]

Mexico is an interesting case, one that can be studied from many different angles. As a competitor on the world stage, Mexico certainly has much to contribute, much more than cheap labor as many are quick to point out. The current administration knows this and has ramped up security in an effort to bolster what essentially was the weakest mandate for any Latino president in decades. After all some political mandate is needed to push through the reforms necessary to keep Mexico competitive.

This strategy has had some unforeseen consequences. The mess in Oaxaca would be one. The resurgence of an once forgotten insurgency is another. I doubt, however, that either will cause a significant problem. The Mexican army, after all is equipped to deal with poor insurgents.

Organized crime and the future of Mexico as the world's back door for smuggling any and all things into the United States is what we should be most concerned with, not a bunch of rebels with dynamite.

[Duncan Kinder]

According to the L.A. Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-oaxaca24jul24,1,6269881.story?coll=la-headlines-world

quote:

OAXACA, MEXICO — Angry protests, tight security and empty hotel rooms marked the celebration Monday of Guelaguetza, a folk festival that is traditionally the biggest tourist draw of the year in this city dependent on the money visitors spend here.

A year ago, protests forced the cancellation of Guelaguetza. This month, a new round of violent demonstrations over the rule of Oaxaca state Gov. Ulises Ruiz led to hundreds of cancellations and delivered a "death blow" to the tourist industry, local business groups said.

On Monday, Ruiz joined 15,000 people for the official celebration in a hillside amphitheater on the outskirts of the city. Access to the area was blocked by hundreds of state riot police. Simultaneously, an estimated 30,000 people marched in the center of this state capital.

The clashes that many feared did not materialize, although two soldiers were briefly detained by activists from the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (known by the initials APPO in Spanish). The soldiers were released unharmed.

:end_of_quote

[Gordon Housworth]

Today's press (sample below) shows that probable EPR attackers gained, and used, detailed knowledge of PEMEX distribution infrastructure so as to surgically switch off segments of Mexico's energy net:

"Not only were oil and natural gas pipelines targeted, but the bombers also knew enough about energy installations to destroy the shutoff valves along several pipelines that allow for the wide national distribution of oil and natural gas... And the bombers knew which side of the valve they should strike, ensuring that crude oil didn't flow to a nearby refinery and that natural gas didn't flow to foreign and Mexican manufacturers in the central Bajio region".

Data suggests that specific 'system tuning' was more important than survivability in selecting the attack points. This sensitivity to network rivals or exceeds work by the FARC in Columbia and is more worthy of al Qaeda's thinking. From the initiation of these attacks in early July, we began warning clients that the supply chain infrastructure in Mexico was at risk and that in-country assets could face disruption on demand:

Mexican bombers also hit crude oil pipeline
Bombers in Mexico, who targeted crucial gas pipelines, had detailed knowledge of the vulnerable energy installation.
BY KEVIN G. HALL
Miami Herald
Wed, Jul. 25, 2007
http://www.miamiherald.com/579/story/181292.html

[DanO]

McLatchy has a similar report, with additional information.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/18325.html

[Duncan Kinder]

Background concerning Mexico's oil industry:

"Hurricane Dean Update: Here's What We Know about Mexico's Oil and Gas Infrastructure and Supply"
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2901#more

[Duncan Kinder]

The Oil Drum has published "How To Get A Pipeline Built," which is essentially the flip side of a study of attacks on pipelines.

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/2918#more