Drug War: The ‘Fantasia’ effect and the emergence of Mexico’s new cartels

Justice in Mexico: "Experts point out that the militarized strategy pursued by President Felipe Calderón that focuses on destroying leadership within cartels is not having a real effect in the fight against drug trafficking and violence. They argue that while the arrest of top cartel bosses disrupts their operations, it consequentially contributes to greater infighting between and within competing organized crime groups.

This strategy of breaking cartels into smaller, more manageable pieces seems to be causing a “Fantasia” effect (Shirk, 2011), a name that is inspired by the animated Disney film where a wizard trying to control an animated broom destroys it, but every fragment of the broken broom thereby becomes its own uncontrollable tiny broom. The comparison is that breaking down organizations and cartels does not necessarily destroy them, but rather creates divisions that lead to the emergence of much smaller organizations that operate in lower, less manageable, and more violent levels." read more