Within hours of the death of cartel leader Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes — better known as “El Mencho” — Mexico descended into chaos. Cartel operatives set up more than 250 roadblocks across 20 states. Vehicles burned. Entire highways were shut down.
In Jalisco alone, 25 Mexican National Guard members were killed in six separate attacks, and at least 73 people have died in the explosive aftermath.
Though critics have pointed to this violence to argue nothing has changed — that America’s siege on drug cartels is fruitless and destructive — this large-scale retaliation reveals how powerful and dangerous these organizations become when left unchecked. The death of El Mencho creates an opportunity for sustained pressure to penetrate the cartel organization and break it down before it has a chance to reorganize itself.
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Santiago Vidal Calvo is a Cities policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute.
Photo by Ulises RUIZ / AFP via Getty Images