Developments: There has been fighting and activity in the town of Ghanzi, in Eastern Afghanistan, with mixed reports coming from both sides about who is in control. Ghanzi is a town that would be strategically important for the Taliban to retake since it would help merge two large areas thought controlled by the Taliban and not the Afghan government. There is an important and strategic road at stake which could potentially help the Taliban move more freely throughout the country. This is a major road that forms a circle from the cities of Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat.
The major cities of Kandahar and Kabul are connected by this important road, and it does run through the city of Ghazni, which makes it such an important city to control for both the United States and Afghanistan.
What to watch: From the reports there seem to indicate that there are American and NATO advisors helping Afghan forces on the ground. The U.S. military has conducted airstrikes to deter advancement of the Taliban, along with at least 25 airstrikes within the city.
Analysis: U.S. officials are said to have actually sat down informally with members of the Taliban in Doha, Qatar opening up the possibility of actual talks between the United States and the Taliban. The attack by the Taliban is also said to be just about as much about intertribal disputes as it is between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Elements of Al Qaeda are said to have been with the fighters.
Mexican Drug Wars
The Mexican Drug wars have been bloody for decades, but the modern drug war (as referred to in the media) was generally thought to have started in 2006 when Mexican President Felipe Calderón sent over 6,000 Mexican troops to his native state of Michoacán. As a result, the drug wars have gotten significantly worse, and tens of thousands of murders have occurred since then, which was a dramatic increase from before 2006. Mexico’s drug wars have claimed up to tens of thousands of lives a year, with many reports of escalating brutality such as beheadings and torture.
Developments: If the murder rate continues at the current pace which is 16% higher in the first half than it was in the previous year it will surpass 30,000 murders from just over 25,000 murders for 2017.
What to watch: September 30, 2018, is the deadline for the funding, which would be the deadline to watch this play out in the next coming months.
Mexico has elected Andreas Manuel Lopez Obrador as new incoming President of Mexico and is expected to take over December 1, 2018, is reportedly considering a big change in how Mexico deals with its drug cartels and the country’s war on drugs which have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives since major developments in 2006. He is considering a number of new strategies such as more opportunities for the youth such as scholarships to divert them away from the drug cartels, more security at the ports, having the military move away from doing law enforcement and more emphasis on police taking over more law enforcement duties. This is according to Olga Sanchez, who is Obrador’s proposed interior minister.
Analysis: The incoming President will hopefully create better opportunities for those who may be tempted to go into the cartels for work. The President is self-described as left-leaning, while his incoming labor secretary wants to raise the minimum wage by double in some of the poorest areas of Mexico and is in talks with some organizations to see how that can be accomplished. The border wall will no doubt have an impact on the drug cartels, but they are already trying to expand into other areas such as kidnapping, human trafficking, and blackmail for other sources of income. The border wall debate in the United States continues to be a hot button topic. There are several numbers for how much it would cost though, but a little over 20 billion seems to be a starting point for the price tag of a possible wall with Mexico. For comparison, a new Ford Class Aircraft Carrier would cost roughly 13 billion. With many hot spots around the world such as the South China Sea, a rising Russia Navy threat this topic and the cost associated with having either one or possibly two new aircraft carriers or a border wall will be continued to be debated in Congress and the media. Trump has suggested at times that he could use defense funds to build the wall, which would directly impact the budget of the military, which as I pointed out is well over the cost of one and possibly two aircraft carriers for the Navy.
Guest Author — William Bayless: William spent nine years on active duty in the Navy as an analyst, serving aboard the USS John F. Kennedy for two years as well as serving at duty stations in Maryland and the U.K. William has an MBA, an Associate Degree in Information Systems and a solid foundation of basic cybersecurity principles and concepts.
Featured image: In this May 10, 2018 file photo, women carry a banner calling attention to the cases of people who have gone missing in the fight against drug cartels and organized crime, demanding authorities locate their loved ones, as they mark Mother’s Day in Mexico City. According to federal data, there have been more than 6,000 registered disappearances in Mexico’s Tamaulipas state alone since 2006, more than any other state. | AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File
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