Mexico’s National Guard, explained

The government gave up on a civilian police long before it handed security to the military.

“I don’t know how many gunfights you’ve been in,” Ryan McBeth asked The Mexico Political Economist, “but I can tell you this; when you’re in a gunfight, you’re in combat. You’re not in police combat, you’re not in soldier combat,” said the Iraq War veteran, currently a military and disinformation analyst.

Omar García Harfuch understands this firsthand. Over 400 bullets were fired at his van in 2020 by the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, killing two of his staff and injuring him. As of this month he is president Claudia Sheinbaum’s national Security Secretary. He is faced with the daunting task of bringing the successful results of his tenure as then-mayor Sheinbaum’s Mexico City security chief to the national stage. 

In unveiling the federal government’s strategy yesterday he made it clear that Mexico is a very different beast from the fortified capital city. The main difference lies in the fact that while García Harfuch had close to 80,000 police officers at his disposal in Mexico City, today, at the national level, he has none.