Multilateral Solutions to Multilateral Problems

A few thoughts for kicks and giggles:

1. I’m pretty sure I’m reading too much Ayn Rand. Expect a post or two on Atlas Shrugged in the days to come. Whatever happened to all of my talk and insistence on the social good!?
2. I’ve finally decided to suck it up and not try to walk around DC in heels all day… even when it means wearing dirty leather flipflops with hose on my way to the Metro. Embarrassing. I really need to go shoe shopping.
3. I never realized how many titles, positions, bureaucracies, departments, committees, subcommittees, secretaries, assistant secretaries, directors, vice-directors, and managing directors there were until coming to DC and reading the mailing lists of the Wilson Center. It’s really kind of reassuring…  For the time being, I think there are plenty of jobs out there, at least in the public service sector. USAID is on a hiring spree in the midst of the economic “crisis,” for the record.
4. I’m happy to finally be taking a course on China. Even if it means 3 hours of class after a nine-hour workday (yay, Monday!), learning basic Chinese history and what the Cultural Revolution really was is putting lots of other bits of history and modernity into perspective.

I’m really tired this evening, but I did hear something today at a conference on Mexico that I think is worth sharing. The conference, sponsored by the Mexico Insitute at the Wilson Center, was “Renewing the Partnership between the United States and Mexico: Shared Responsibility and Shared Strategies.” As was to be predicted, much of the conference dealt with immigration and the drug trade. Several former ambassadors addressed the problems by citing the need for “better education” – a solution I’m starting to view as a catch-all safety answer that people have been mentioning for decades to no avail. Improve education in Mexico, they say, and then we can eradicate poverty, reduce the development gap, and resolve all these drug problems and immigration debates and save the world! Maybe they’re right… if so, I won’t complain! In the meantime, I  suggest we look at the public education system in America – “schools within schools;”  budget cuts that mean laying off two of the top teachers in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (Layton and Benzenhoeffer); talks of cutting out middle school sports; the list goes on… – and then reconsider how and with what resources we plan to reform the Mexican education system as well.

Anyway, people talked about the signs of progress for US-Mexico relations under the Obama administration. Secretary of State Clinton has come a long way towards addressing transnational problems (i.e. the drug trade and immigration) and “shared responsibilities,” and most of the panelists were grateful for that rhetorical gesture.  The focus, however, should be on developing “shared strategies” to address these “shared responsibilities,” and that’s what today’s speakers were here to discuss. The substanceless “education” talk got a little dull and repetitive, then there was talk about Mexico needing a proper civilian police force (which it has not had for decades, and shows no signs of establishing anytime soon) to help the military fight the drug lords, then of course the need to reduce arms trafficking southbound was addressed (do we really think the 2nd Amendment is ever going to be seriously reinterpreted), and FINALLY I heard what sounds like a potentially viable solution:

Peter Smith, the Simon Bolivar Professor of Latin American Studies at UC San Diego, pointed out that the current situation in Mexico is NOT simply a drug war – it’s a governability war, waged by the Mexican government against its illicit counterparts. The problem with this situation is that if Mexico wins this “war,” although they will succeed in reasserting their ability to govern, the drug trade will simply be rerouted elsewhere (Brazil, other parts of Central America, emerging markets in Africa… you name it, but with a progressively more globalized economy, drug trade anywhere is going to be a problem for the US eventually). The best thing, Smith suggested, would be a bilateral agreement between Mexico and the US: a cooperative initiative to reduce the demand for drugs in our own countries and throughout the hemisphere.

It’s been said before, but there’s more. It’s clear that current policies to reduce the supply of drugs are ineffective. These policies make trafficking more dangerous and thus more profitable. Demand reduction is much cheaper, and rehabilitation is proven to be the most cost-effective way to reduce demand by curing addiction. Why not, Smith suggested, set up drug rehabilitation centers in jails? Of course, this is considered “being soft on criminals,” but I personally think there are other ways to make prison an undesirable place even for the most wretched of individuals. Sure, it’s not a perfect solution, but it’s definitely one of the better that I’ve heard. It acknowledges a responsibility shared not only by the US and Mexico, but other countries in the hemisphere whose strategic importance cannot be neglected, AND it establishes strategies (not glossy, catchall, empty but politically safe words) to tackle these responsibilities.

I think I sound much more cynical here than my last entry… Hope you’ve enjoyed the thoughts!