InherencyMexico is behind in cyber-terrorismGrant Gross 12The new report from McAfee and SDA ranks Finland, Sweden and Israel as the countries most prepared for cyber-threatsBy Grant Gross (Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government) (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223836/Cybersecurity_report_All_countries_lag_behind_the_bad_guys?taxonomyId=17&pageNumber=2)January 30, 2012 04:24 PM ETThe U.S. and U.K. are relatively well prepared for cyber-attacks, compared to many other developed nations, but everyone has more work to do, according to a new cyber security study from McAfee and Security & Defence Agenda (SDA). The report, which ranks 23 countries on cyber security readiness, gives no countries the highest mark, five stars. Israel, Sweden and Finland each get four and a half stars, while eight countries, including the U.S., U.K., France and Germany, receive four stars. India, Brazil and Mexico ranked near the bottom.¶ No country is ahead of cyber attackers, said Phyllis Schneck, CTO of the public sector for McAfee. The bad guys are "faster and swifter" than the good guys, she said. Cybercriminals don't have to wrestle with legal and policy questions and freely share information with each other without worrying about competitive issues, she said. "We're up against an adversary that has no boundaries, and we have to go to meetings and write reports to put data together," Schneck added. "We're at a huge disadvantage." SDA, a cyber-security think tank in Brussels, interviewed 80 cyber security experts for the report and surveyed an additional 250. Fifty-seven percent of survey respondents said they believe a cyber-arms race is happening, and 36 percent said they believe cyber security is more important than missile defense. Nearly half, 45 percent, said cyber security is as important as border security. A common theme among the cyber security experts was a need for real-time global information-sharing about cyber-threats. Cyber-experts have long called for the better sharing of information among companies and between private businesses and government, Schneck said, but the report opens up the idea of new global agreements -- short of difficult-to-approve treaties -- that can lead to information sharing. Countries can work together to establish information-sharing "rules of the road," Schneck said. "

PlanPlan: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its economic engagement by making investments towards the cyber security companies in Mexico.

SolvencyGovernment Intervention is a NecessityKelly Jackson Higgins February 20, 2014 (http://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/it-pros-okay-with-governments-role-in-cy/240166240)So much for the Snowden effect: nearly 80 percent of U.S. IT leaders say the federal government plays a key and positive role in protecting enterprises from internal and external cyberthreats, a new survey commissioned by Dell Software found.¶ "How people think about government is particularly interesting, [as] 78 percent [in the U.S.] say it's helping," says Bill Evans, senior director of product marketing for Dell. The survey of 1,440 IT decision-makers worldwide in organizations with more than 500 users was conducted between October and November of last year.¶ "I don't know if people are believing there is a business value in compliance and government mandates or if frameworks are of value. This is one of the areas I'd like to delve deeper into," Evans says. But it seems to bode well for the new NIST Cyber Security Framework, he says.¶ Close to 90 percent of all respondents worldwide say government should help determine security defense strategies of organizations.¶ Meanwhile, three-fourths of organizations say they have been hit by a security breach within the past 12 months, while more than 80 percent say their current security processes let them identify a breach, but actual detection takes an average of seven hours.¶

Mexico and U.S. Say Yes: US Investment in Mexico is beneficial to both countriesNYT (Thomas L. Friedman), Feb 23, 2013, “How Mexico Got Back in the Game”, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-mexico-got-back-in-the-game.htmlIN India, people ask you about China, and, in China, people ask you about India: Which country will become the more dominant economic power in the 21st century? I now have the answer: Mexico. Impossible, you say? Well, yes, Mexico with only about 110 million people could never rival China or India in total economic clout. But here’s what I’ve learned from this visit to Mexico’s industrial/innovation center in Monterrey. Everything you’ve read about Mexico is true: drug cartels, crime syndicates, government corruption and weak rule of law hobble the nation. But that’s half the story. The reality is that Mexico today is more like a crazy blend of the movies “No Country for Old Men” and “The Social Network.” Something happened here. It’s as if Mexicans subconsciously decided that their drug-related violence is a condition to be lived with and combated but not something to define them any longer. Mexico has signed 44 free trade agreements — more than any country in the world — which, according to The Financial Times, is more than twice as many as China and four times more than Brazil. Mexico has also greatly increased the number of engineers and skilled laborers graduating from its schools. Put all that together with massive cheap natural gas finds, and rising wage and transportation costs in China, and it is no surprise that Mexico now is taking manufacturing market share back from Asia and attracting more global investment than ever in autos, aerospace and household goods. “Today, Mexico exports more manufactured products than the rest of Latin America put together,” The Financial Times reported on Sept. 19, 2012. “Chrysler, for example, is using Mexico as a base to supply some of its Fiat 500s to the Chinese market.” What struck me most here in Monterrey, though, is the number of tech start-ups that are emerging from Mexico’s young population — 50 percent of the country is under 29 — thanks to cheap, open source innovation tools and cloud computing. “Mexico did not waste its crisis,” remarked Patrick Kane Zambrano, director of the Center for Citizen Integration, referring to the fact that when Mexican companies lost out to China in the 1990s, they had no choice but to get more productive. Zambrano’s Web site embodies the youthful zest here for using technology to both innovate and stimulate social activism. The center aggregates Twitter messages from citizens about everything from broken streetlights to “situations of risk” and plots them in real-time on a phone app map of Monterrey that warns residents what streets to avoid, alerts the police to shootings and counts in days or hours how quickly public officials fix the problems. “It sets pressure points to force change,” the center’s president, Bernardo Bichara, told me. “Once a citizen feels he is not powerless, he can aspire for more change. ... First, the Web democratized commerce, and then it democratized media, and now it is democratizing democracy.” If Secretary of State John Kerry is looking for a new agenda, he might want to focus on forging closer integration

with Mexico rather than beating his head against the rocks of Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan or Syria. Better integration of Mexico’s

manufacturing and innovation prowess into America’s is a win-win. It makes U.S. companies more profitable and competitive, so they can expand at home and abroad, and it gives Mexicans a reason to stay home and reduces violence. We do $1.5 billion a day in trade with Mexico, and have been spending $300 million a day in Afghanistan. Not smart. We need a more nuanced view of Mexico. While touring the Center for Agrobiotechnology at Monterrey Tech,

Mexico’s M.I.T., its director, Guy Cardineau, an American scientist from Arizona, remarked to me that, in 2011, “my son-in-law returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan and we talked about having him come down and visit for Christmas. But he told me the U.S. military said he couldn’t come because of the [State Department] travel advisory here. I thought that was very ironic.” Especially when U.S. companies are expanding here, which is one reason Mexico grew last year at 3.9 percent, and foreign direct investment in Monterrey hit record highs. “Twenty years ago, most Mexican companies were not global,” explained Blanca Treviño, the president and founder of Softtek, one of Mexico’s leading I.T. service providers. They focused on the domestic market and cheap labor for the U.S. “Today, we understand that we have to compete globally” and that means “becoming efficient. We have a [software] development center in Wuxi, China. But we are more efficient now in doing the same business from our center in Aguascalientes, [Mexico], than we are from our center in Wuxi.” Mexico still has huge governance problems to fix, but what’s interesting is that, after 15 years of political paralysis, Mexico’s three major political parties have just signed “a grand bargain,” a k a “Pact for Mexico,” under the new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, to work together to fight the big energy, telecom and teacher monopolies that have held Mexico back. If they succeed, maybe Mexico will teach us something about democracy. Mexicans have started to wonder about America lately, said Bichara from the Center for Citizen Integration. “We always thought we should have our parties behave like the United States’ — no longer. We always thought we should have the government work like the United States’ — no longer.” This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: February 24, 2013 An earlier version of this column misstated the amount the United States has been spending in Afghanistan. It is $300 million a day, not $1 billion a day.

Mexico says yes: Mexico wants increased tech investmentLaura Vargas-Parada and Eric Vance, 19 November 2013, “Mexico bolsters science funding,President aims to boost spending and reform research laws”, http://www.nature.com/news/mexico-bolsters-science-funding-1.14204

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has resolved to improve the country’s standing in science. It has the world’s 11th-biggest economy and is home to the largest university in the Western Hemisphere. But for all that, Mexico has had surprisingly little influence on global science output and innovation. Its annual rates of patents and spending on science lie below those of Brazil, its chief Latin American competitor. But when Enrique Peña Nieto was sworn in as president last December, he promised to grease the rusty wheels of Mexico’s science and technology infrastructure. And one year in, he has started to deliver. On 13 November, the Mexican Congress approved a 20% rise in the 2014 budget of the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) in Mexico City, the country’s main research funding agency. Congress increased the country’s overall science budget by 12%, to 82 billion pesos (US$6.3 billion). Peña Nieto is also pushing several other pieces of legislation through the pipeline: an intellectual-property bill that would allow researchers and universities to commercialize their publicly funded work; a bill that would reform the academic retirement system and encourage talented young researchers to stay in Mexico; and tax breaks that could

incentivize private investment in research and development. As head of the party that dominates both houses of Congress, Peña Nieto is in a

strong position. By the end of his six-year term, he wants Mexico’s combined public and private spending on science and technology to rise to at least 1% of gross domestic product (GDP). For years, the country’s spending has languished at a level of about 0.4%. By comparison, Brazil spends more than 1% of its GDP on science and technology and the United States almost 3% . “Since the

campaign, as a president-elect, and finally when he took office, President Peña Nieto has made clear that science, technology and innovation would be central for economic development and social well-being,”says Gabriela Dutrénit, head of the Scientific and Technological Advisory Forum, a prominent independent science think tank in Mexico City. She says that last week’s budget would put the nation on track to reach spending of almost 0.55% of GDP in 2014 — a pace not quite fast enough to reach 1% in 2018, but still an important first step. One of the most important signs of change might not be a policy, but the creation of a scientific institution. Within days of taking office, Peña Nieto tweeted that he would form an executive-branch office modelled on the US Office of Science and Technology Policy, to advise the president on scientific matters, coordinate policies between science ministries and propose legal reforms

TerrorismCyberattacks more of a national security risk than conventional terrorismGreg Miller, Nov. 14 2013, “FBI director warns of cyberattacks; other security chiefs say terrorism threat has altered”, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-director-warns-of-cyberattacks-other-security-chiefs-say-terrorism-threat-has-altered/2013/11/14/24f1b27a-4d53-11e3-9890-a1e0997fb0c0_story.html FBI Director James B. Comey testified Thursday that the risk of cyberattacks is likely to exceed the danger posed by al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks as the top national security threat to the United States and will become the dominant focus of law enforcement and intelligence services. Appearing before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Comey said he expected Internet-related attacks, espionage and theft to

emerge as the most consuming security issue for the United States by the end of his 10-year FBI term. “We have connected all of our lives — personal, professional and national — to the Internet,” Comey said. “That’s where the bad guys will go because that’s where our lives are, our money, our secrets.” The warning underscored the growing sense of alarm among officials in Washington over the nation’s vulnerability to online attacks as well as the diminished ability of al-Qaeda to mount plots against the United States after more than a decade of CIA drone strikes and other counterterrorism operations. Comey was among three of the nation’s top security officials to testify Thursday that the risk of a major terrorist attack in the United States is seen as lower now than at any time since before the strikes on Sept. 11, 2001. The threat has diminished overall but “is more dispersed geographically” because of al-Qaeda’s ability to gain footholds in Syria, North Africa, Yemen and elsewhere, said Matthew G. Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center. As a result, Olsen said, the terrorism risk “has become more significant from a geographic perspective and more complicated from an intelligence perspective.” The officials cited a spate of seemingly unrelated attacks over the past 14 months that were linked to al-Qaeda or aligned groups but not orchestrated by its leadership core in Pakistan. Among them were the mass shooting at a shopping mall in Kenya, the seizure of a petroleum plant in Algeria and the assault on U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya. In Syria, Olsen said, the intelligence picture for U.S. counterterrorism officials has been clouded further by a “blurring of the line” between terrorist, insurgent and criminal groups that have collaborated to varying degrees in that country’s civil war. Rand Beers, the acting homeland security secretary, said his agency is working with European allies to identify and track militants from Western nations who may travel to Syria and then seek to return. Despite that potential danger, officials said that the main terrorist threat inside the United States is that U.S. citizens or residents could adopt militant ideologies and develop plans for domestic attacks without communicating with terrorist networks or traveling overseas. Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, ethnic Chechen brothers accused of carrying out thebombings at the Boston Marathon this year, had “no formal or direct ties to al-Qaeda” but had embraced aspects of the terrorist group’s ideology, Olsen said. He added that cooperation with Russian intelligence services has improved since the Boston attacks. The officials said counterterrorism efforts had been damaged by leaks of U.S. intelligence operations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, and they warned of the impact of the budget cuts known as sequestration. Comey said the FBI is in the process of eliminating 3,500 positions because of budget pressures. Despite concern about “homegrown extremists,” Comey said that he had concluded after just two months on the job that cyberthreats are likely to be more worrisome in the long term. “That is why we anticipate that in the future, resources devoted to cyber-based threats will equal or even eclipse the resources devoted to non-cyber-based terrorist threats,” Comey said. On a separate issue, Comey said he had no objection to congressional testimony by survivors of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi. The Justice and State departments have resisted congressional requests for testimony by Diplomatic Security officials who were present at the attack, saying that their appearance could compromise possible future prosecution of the perpetrators. Under subpoena, two DS agents provided sworn depositions last month to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The majority of U.S. personnel present that night were from the CIA, assigned to an intelligence annex near the diplomatic site. Among a total complement of two to three dozen State Department, CIA and contractor personnel at the two locations, four were killed in the attacks, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens.

Cyber Terrorism is a problemBy Frederick Reese | March 6, 2014 “We believe this lowball amount is a trick to see if we are the kind of target who would pay. We believe if we pay, the criminals would simply demand much more.”¶ This type of “cyber-hostage taking” is appearing more frequently among the business community. A DDoS attack is typically in response or

protest to a particular issue or policy — such as the hacktivist community Anonymous’ attacks of government websites, but a growing number of hackers are turning to DDoS to make money.¶ A DDoS attack occurs when a large pool of computers — either under attack participants’ control or, more likely, influenced by a virus — requests a single resource on a server repeatedly. This cascading wave of requests eventually exceeds the allocated bandwidth of a server, forcing the server to ignore all requests. The net effect of this is that all of the websites serviced by that server go off-line and stay off-line until a technician can reset the server and find a way to block or stop the cascading request wave.¶ As a DDoS attack does not involve personal or subscriber data, there is no legal requirement for a business to disclose that it was subject to a DDoS attack. Law enforcement tend to ignore these types of attacks, as they usually only last for a few days and usually result in no physical damage to the server or network. However, the loss of business the server’s websites suffer can be crippling.¶

“It’s no different than a criminal standing outside the door of your business and not letting anybody in,”John Pirc, chief technology officer for NSS Labs, told NBC News. “That being said, the likelihood of getting caught is not very high.”¶ Meetup.com reported that 60,000 meetings were scheduled during the time of the attack, leading to upset and frustrated users.¶ Meanwhile, the attacks seem to be escalating. Last month, the largest single DDoS attack recorded — an almost 400 gigabyte per second assault that was 30 percent larger than the previous largest documented attack — was stopped by Internet security firm Cloudflare. February also saw attacks on bitcoin processors, the Internet registration firm Namecheap and Internet address redirector bit.ly. A report from security firm Prolexic shows that DDoS attacks were up 32 percent in 2013 and responsible for 18 percent of all outages in American data centers.¶ As attacks become more targeted and more focused, the damage a DDoS attack can cause is expected to rise. Currently, the average DDoS attack and outage costs $630,000, according to the Ponemon Institute. But with security software and proactive defenses from DDoS potentially costing hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, many companies are willing to accept a DDoS attack as the more economical option.¶ As the means to launch a DDoS attack become easier and cheaper to acquire, though, the economics of being hacked may force significant changes in how businesses respond to DDoS attacks.¶ “It’s very hard to know what to do,” said Alexander Klimburg, a cyber security expert at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs. “The tools to do this can be purchased online incredibly cheaply, while the damage they can do and the cost of mitigating it is exponentially higher.”

Cyber terrorism results in nuclear terrorismMAR 25, 2011 By Talitha DowdsAn article by Global Security Newswire highlighted how, in light of the unfolding nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, a nuclear terrorist attack could be carried out. It states that,¶ “nuclear reactors across the US are encased in enough concrete to withstand a direct hit from an airliner and can be shut down remotely in case of a terrorist strike or natural disaster. But that is true in Japan as well and something entirely different caused the disaster there: the failure of the cooling systems that prevent nuclear reactors from overheating. The cooling systems aren’t encased in concrete, and key components – from pumps to water-intake pipes – sit outside the reactor complexes and are far less protected, leaving them vulnerable to a well-planned terrorist strike or a natural disaster. As the dire situation in Japan shows, disabling or destroying the cooling equipment – regardless of how it happens – can trigger a full-scale nuclear emergency.”¶ Charles Faddis, a retired CIA operations officer and former head of the agency’s unit on countering terrorism supported this view. He stated,¶ “even if you shut a reactor down, you still need to cool it off. That’s just physics. If terrorists have disabled the cooling system, the reactor heat will eventually lead to a complete meltdown. They won’t produce mushroom clouds, but the results – clouds of radioactive materials drifting over vast areas – would be just as horrific.”¶ The idea that terrorists will one day strike a US nuclear power plant resulting in a “full-scale meltdown, killing tens of thousands of people and rendering nearby cities uninhabitable for decades,” according to the article, has “long been the stuff of nightmares for America’s top homeland-security officials. However, it is interesting to note that not all states share this fear. As Scott Sagan pointed out recently, there is a lack of consensus among non-nuclear states regarding the potential threat of nuclear terrorism. Many of the non-nuclear states think that the US exaggerates the threat of nuclear terrorism, and are therefore unwilling to spend money to protect their nuclear assets in the manner in which the US wants. For obvious reasons, the lack of investment into protecting against nuclear terrorism for non-nuclear states is understandable when they don’t see it as a direct threat to their national security. However, regional

attacks whether they are carried out by terrorists or states have a worldwide effect.¶ Nuclear terrorism, coupled with cyber warfare. could be the next greatest threat facing states.

Nuclear Terrorism is a problem.

Terrorism isn’t a problem in U.S.: United States already has plan for cyber security Wyatt Kash 2/14/2014 9:25 PM (http://www.informationweek.com/government/cybersecurity/why-businesses-cant-ignore-us-cybersecurity-framework/d/d-id/1113838)It also represents a welcome reprieve from the frosty government-industry relationship on matters of cybersecurity preparedness.¶ Industry leaders as well as President Obama were quick to acknowledge that the framework is just a first step in creating a cybersecurity playbook for the nation's 16 critical infrastructure sectors, including financial services, communications, and energy providers. It establishes an important precedent not only by defining common security standards, but also by offering carrots to the private sector rather than wielding a regulatory stick. The framework also serves notice to a gridlocked Congress that the White House can give traction to issues of national importance.¶ Critics will fault the framework as little more than a compilation of established industry security practices -- created to help companies identify security risks and protect themselves against, respond to, and recover from common attacks and breaches. It also includes standards and approaches for industrial control systems.¶ Four factors, however, make the framework more than just a reference manual.¶ First, the framework has cred, as its recommendations come not from Washington regulators, but from industry experts who've combatted cyberattacks.

Cyber security solves for drug cartel violence Jose Abreu(http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/mexican-cartels/)Mexican Drug Gangs Kidnap Computer Hackers and Programmers¶ Mexican drug trafficking organizations are increasingly demonstrating a desire to make money from cyber-crime, attracted by the high profits and minimal risks, offered by such activities as fraud, theft, and piracy.¶ These gangs lack the needed technical know-how within their ranks, which means they would be desperate to recruit programmers with the expertise to break into the world of cyber-crime.¶ Recent claims that computer programmers are being forcibly recruited by Mexican drug gangs, if true, suggest that these groups are acquiring the ability to reap the potential profits of cyber-crime.¶ It has emerged that this computer and IT experts have been hacking into bank systems and program credit card fraud scams, among other activities, in order to acquire additional funds for the cartels, on top of what they already get from selling drugs.¶ According to specialists, the potential profits generated for this kind of criminal activity is already comparable to that coming from the drugs.¶ Dmitry Bestuzhev, a specialist with Kaspersky Lab, stated that attacks on the world’s largest banks in the US, Europe or Russia are taking place on a daily basis.¶

Cartel violence in Mexico will spill over and threaten Latin American stability David A. Shirk the director of the Trans-Border Institute and associate professor of political science at the University of San Diego. Heconducts research on Mexican politics, U.S.-Mexico relations, and law enforcement and security along the U.S.-Mexico border. Dr. Shirk received his PhD in political science at the University of California, San Diego, and was a fellow at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies from 1998 to 1999 and from 2001 to 2003. In 2009–2010, Dr. Shirk was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC. He is currently the principal investigator for the Justice in Mexico project (www.justiceinmexico.org), a binational research initiative

“The Drug War in Mexico Confronting a Shared Threat” Council of Foreign Relations Special Report No. 60 March 2011 onlineMexico urgently needs to reduce the power of violent organized crime¶ groups; a prolonged failure to do so has seriously impaired both Mexican¶ governance and Mexican economic prospects. Mexico’s

security¶ crisis increasingly threatens U.S. interests, as well as the security¶ and prosperity of other countries in the region, particularly in Central¶ America, given the rapidly rising homicide rates, geographically¶ expanding patterns of violence, and growing effects of violent organized¶ crime on society. Though far from being a failed state, Mexico’s¶ current trajectory is dire, and doing nothing will ensure that greater¶ violence and instability continue. The danger of recent strategies is that¶ they have greatly exacerbated extreme violence among DTOs for the¶ near term, and even if successful in the long run will merely cause them¶ to relocate to neighboring countries—such as Guatemala, Nicaragua,¶ and Costa Rica—that are less prepared to respond to the challenge.

Latin American instability causes nuclear war and extinctionManwaring 2005 – adjunct professor of international politics at Dickinson(Max G., Retired U.S. Army colonel, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Bolivarian Socialism, and Asymmetric Warfare, October 2005, pg. PUB628.pdf)President Chávez also understands that the process leading to state failure is the most dangerous long-term security challenge facing the global community today. The argument in general is that failing and failed state status is the breeding ground for instability, criminality, insurgency, regional conflict, and terrorism. These conditions breed massive humanitarian disasters and major refugee flows. They can host “evil” networks of all kinds, whether they involve criminal business enterprise, narco-trafficking, or some form of ideological crusade such as Bolivarianismo. More specifically, these conditions spawn all kinds of things people in general do not like such as murder, kidnapping, corruption, intimidation, and destruction of infrastructure. These means of coercion and persuasion can spawn further human rights violations, torture, poverty, starvation, disease, the recruitment and use of child soldiers, trafficking in women and body parts, trafficking and proliferation of conventional weapons systems and WMD, genocide, ethnic cleansing, warlordism, and criminal anarchy. At the same time, these actions are usually unconfined and spill over into regional syndromes of poverty, destabilization, and conflict.62 Peru’s Sendero Luminoso calls violent and destructive activities that facilitate the processes of state failure “armed propaganda.” Drug cartels operating throughout the Andean Ridge of South America and elsewhere call these activities “business incentives.” Chávez considers these actions to be steps that must be taken to bring about the political conditions necessary to establish Latin American socialism for the 21st century.63 Thus, in addition to helping to provide wider latitude to further their tactical and operational objectives, state and nonstate actors’ strategic efforts are aimed at progressively lessening a targeted regime’s credibility and capability in terms of its ability and willingness to govern and develop its national territory and society. Chávez’s intent is to focus his primary attack politically and psychologically on selected Latin American governments’ ability and right to govern. In that context, he understands that popular perceptions of corruption, disenfranchisement, poverty, and lack of upward mobility limit the right and the ability of a given regime to conduct the business of the state. Until a given populace generally perceives that its government is dealing with these and other basic issues of political, economic, and social injustice fairly and effectively, instability and the threat of subverting or destroying such a government are real.64 But failing and failed states simply do not go away. Virtually anyone can take advantage of such an unstable situation. The tendency is that the best motivated and best armed organization on the scene will control that instability. As a consequence, failing and failed states become dysfunctional states, rogue states, criminal states, narco-states, or new people’s democracies. In connection with the creation of new people’s democracies, one can rest assured that Chávez and his Bolivarian populist allies will be available to provide money, arms, and leadership at any given opportunity. And, of course, the longer dysfunctional, rogue, criminal, and narco-states and people’s democracies persist, the more they and their associated problems endanger global security, peace, and prosperity.65

Continued crime and drug violence will risk economic recovery in Mexico.Shannon K. O'Neil, Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies Mexico Makes It A Transformed Society, Economy, and Government March/April 2013 Foreign Affairs http://www.cfr.org/mexico/mexico-makes/p30098Even more pressing, Mexico must deal with its crime problem. Extortion, kidnapping, and theft, not to mention rampant assault and murder, stunt economic growth -- particularly that of small and medium-sized enterprises (the job creators in most economies), which cannot afford private security. Violence discourages domestic and foreign investment, preventing the construction of new factories that would provide jobs and boost local economies. Estimates by the Mexican government, as well as by private-sector investors, such as J.P. Morgan, suggest that insecurity shaves more than one percent off Mexico's GDP annually.¶ Crippled by corruption and impunity, the state fails to provide basic safety for many of its citizens. Several parts of the country lack effective police forces and sound court systems. New tools, such as the freedom of information act and enhanced press coverage, have helped expose wrongdoing, but such liberties are often fitfully employed, especially at the state and local level, where politicians and vested interests push back. So far, only a few heavy hitters have been successfully prosecuted for their misdeeds. Mexico's ban on the reelection of any official, from the local mayor to the president, makes politicians more concerned with pleasing party leaders (who can nominate them for their next position) than with serving their constituents. Civil-society leaders have called for a reform of this part of the constitution, but so far their efforts have failed.¶ Mexico City has taken some corrective steps in recent years, and levels of violence are declining in hotspots such as Ciudad Juárez and seem to have plateaued nationally. But the process of fundamentally transforming Mexico's law enforcement and justice systems is still ongoing. Mexico needs to expand its police training and reforms beyond the national level to reach state- and local-level forces and to finish revamping its justice system, creating courts that can punish the guilty and free the innocent. Although the new government has promised both, it remains to be seen if Peña Nieto will do what is necessary, throwing the full force of his administration behind these efforts.¶ If Mexico addresses these challenges, it will emerge as a powerful player on the international stage. A democratic and safe Mexico would attract billions of dollars in foreign investment and propel the country into the world's top economic ranks. Robust growth would both reduce northbound emigration and increase southbound trade, benefiting U.S. employers and employees alike. Already influential in the G-20 and other multilateral organizations, Mexico could become even more of a power broker in global institutions and help construct new international financial, trade, and climate-change accords.

Mexican economic decline causes a flood of refugees, resulting in terrorism.Brown ‘9 (Michael Brown, Undersecretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response in the Department of Homeland Security, “Border Control: Collapse of Mexico Is A Homeland Security & National Security Issue,” 1/14/2009, http://michaelbrowntoday.com/journal/2009/1/15/border-control-collapse-of-mexico-is-a-homeland-security-nat.html)

By failing to secure the borders and control immigration, we have opened ourselves up to a frightening scenario. The United States could face a flood of refugees from Mexico if it were to collapse, overwhelming state and local governments along the U.S.-Mexico border . During a time of economic duress, the costs would be overwhelming and would simply add to the already burgeoning costs at the federal level. Immigration and border control never was nor should it ever be about racism. Immigration and border control are national

security and homeland security issues. Sleeper cells from numerous terrorist groups could, and probably already have, infiltrated the United States, just laying in wait to attack at an appropriately vulnerable time.

That causes extinctionAyson 10 - Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies: New Zealand at the Victoria University of Wellington (Robert, July. “After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic Effects.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Vol. 33, Issue 7. InformaWorld.)But these two nuclear worlds—a non-state actor nuclear attack and a catastrophic interstate nuclear exchange—are not necessarily separable. It is just possible that some sort of terrorist attack, and especially an act of nuclear terrorism, could precipitate a chain of events leading to a massive exchange of nuclear weapons between two or more of the states that possess them. In this context, today’s and tomorrow’s terrorist groups might assume the place allotted during the early Cold War years to new state possessors of small nuclear arsenals who were seen as raising the risks of a catalytic

nuclear war between the superpowers started by third parties . These risks were considered in the late 1950s and early 1960s as concerns grew about nuclear proliferation, the so-called n+1 problem. It may require a considerable amount of imagination to depict an especially plausible situation where an act of nuclear terrorism could lead to such a massive inter-state nuclear war. For example, in the event of a terrorist nuclear attack on the United States, it might well be wondered just how Russia and/or China could plausibly be brought into the picture, not least because they seem unlikely to be fingered as the most obvious state sponsors or encouragers of terrorist groups. They would seem far too responsible to be involved in supporting that sort of terrorist behavior that could just as easily threaten them as well. Some possibilities, however remote, do suggest themselves. For example, how might the United States react if it was thought or discovered that the fissile material used in the act of nuclear terrorism had come from Russian stocks,40 and if for some reason Moscow denied any responsibility for nuclear laxity? The correct attribution of that nuclear material to a particular country might not be a case of science fiction given the observation by Michael May et al. that while the debris resulting from a nuclear explosion would be “spread over a wide area in tiny fragments, its radioactivity makes it detectable, identifiable and collectable, and a wealth of information can be obtained from its analysis: the efficiency of the explosion, the materials used and, most important … some indication of where the nuclear material came from.”41 Alternatively, if the act of nuclear terrorism came as a complete surprise, and American officials refused to believe that a terrorist group was fully responsible (or responsible at all) suspicion would shift immediately to state possessors. Ruling out Western ally countries like the United Kingdom and France, and probably Israel and India as well, authorities in Washington would be left with a very short list consisting of North Korea, perhaps Iran if its program continues, and possibly Pakistan. But at what stage would Russia and China be definitely ruled out in this high stakes game of nuclear Cluedo? In particular, if the act of nuclear terrorism occurred against a backdrop of existing tension in Washington’s relations with Russia and/or China, and at a time when threats had already been traded between these major powers, would officials and political leaders not be tempted to assume the

worst ? Of course, the chances of this occurring would only seem to increase if the United States was already involved in some sort of limited armed conflict with Russia and/or China, or if they were confronting each other from a distance in a proxy war, as unlikely as these developments may seem at the present time. The reverse might well apply too: should a nuclear terrorist attack occur in Russia or China during a period of heightened tension or even limited conflict with the United States, could Moscow and Beijing resist the pressures that might rise domestically to consider the United States as a possible perpetrator or encourager of the attack? Washington’s early response to a terrorist nuclear attack on its own soil might also raise the possibility of an unwanted (and nuclear aided) confrontation with Russia and/or China. For example, in the noise and confusion during the immediate aftermath of the terrorist nuclear attack, the U.S. president might be expected to place the country’s armed forces, including its nuclear arsenal, on a higher stage of alert. In such a tense environment, when careful

planning runs up against the friction of reality, it is just possible that Moscow and/or China might mistakenly read this as a sign of U.S. intentions to use force (and possibly nuclear force) against them. In that situation, the temptations to preempt such actions might grow, although it must be admitted that any preemption would probably still meet with a devastating response. As part of its initial response to the act of nuclear terrorism (as discussed earlier) Washington might decide to order a significant conventional (or nuclear) retaliatory or disarming attack against the leadership of the terrorist group and/or states seen to support that group. Depending on the identity and especially the location of these targets, Russia and/or China might interpret such action as being far too close for their comfort, and potentially as an infringement on their spheres of influence and even on their sovereignty. One far-fetched but perhaps not impossible scenario might stem from a judgment in Washington that some of the main aiders and abetters of the terrorist action resided somewhere such as Chechnya, perhaps in connection with what Allison claims is the “Chechen insurgents’ … long-standing interest in all things nuclear.”42 American pressure on that part of the world would almost certainly raise alarms in Moscow that might require a degree of advanced consultation from Washington that the latter found itself unable or unwilling to provide. There is also the question of how other nuclear-armed states respond to the act of nuclear terrorism on another member of that special club. It could reasonably be expected that following a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States, both Russia and China would extend immediate sympathy and support to Washington and would work alongside the United States in the Security Council. But there is just a chance, albeit a slim one, where the support of Russia and/or China is less automatic in some cases than in others. For example, what would happen if the United States wished to discuss its right to retaliate against groups based in their territory? If, for some reason, Washington found the responses of Russia and China deeply underwhelming, (neither “for us or against us”) might it also suspect that they secretly were in cahoots with the group, increasing (again perhaps ever so slightly) the chances of a major exchange. If the terrorist group had some connections to groups in Russia and China, or existed in areas of the world over which Russia and China held sway, and if Washington felt that Moscow or Beijing were placing a curiously modest level of pressure on them, what conclusions might it then draw about their culpability

Economy

U.S. Businesses in Mexico are already weary By Paul Crespo on September 25th, 2013Posted in Corporate Governance, international business, International Risk (http://www.internationalbusinesslawadvisor.com/2013/09/articles/corporate-governance-2/is-security-for-american-businesses-in-mexico-improving/)A special guest post by Global Security Consultant and Political Risk Expert, Paul Crespo. This is the fifth post in the series.¶ Mexico is a top Latin American location for American business operations. A vast market with close proximity, Mexico represents the United States’s second largest export market and its third largest source of imports.¶ Recently however, the battle against, and between, powerful drug cartels has given Mexico a black eye. Roughly 70,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since 2006. Constant reports of gruesome and escalating violence have dominated headlines for the past few years, making some American businesses wary of Mexico.¶ Mexico’s new President Enrique Peña Nieto, has vowed to reduce the violence by tackling crimes like extortion and kidnapping rather than focusing on hunting down drug bosses. The security situation however, remains problematic. Some parts of the country are still in virtual lock down.¶ US Businesses Feeling More Secure?¶ Despite all this, the security situation for US businesses in Mexico actually may be improving. Or at least the perception of security is improving.

Cyber Crime Negatively Impacts the Economy(http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/021101_risks_of_cyberterror.pdf)James A. Lewis December 2002Businesses face greater damage from financial fraud and theft of intellectual property over the

Internet, crimes that continue to grow in number. Emphasizing the transnational nature of cyber security issues, the last few years have seen the emergence of highly sophisticated crime gangs capable of exploiting vulnerabilities in businesses networks. Their aim is not terror, but fraud or the collection of economically valuable information. Theft of proprietary information remains the source of the most serious losses, according to surveys of large corporations and computer crime.

Mexico is key to the United States EconomyInterview by Kai RyssdalThursday, April 25, 2013 - 15:16Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road AheadAuthor: Shannon K. O'NeilPublisher: Oxford University Press, USA (2013)Binding: Hardcover, 264 pagesPresident Obama travels to Mexico next week. Among the items he'll discuss with new President Enrique Peña Nieto: immigration, drug cartels, and the boom and bust of the Mexican economy.¶ And sure, those are persistent issues, but Shannon O'Neil of the Council of Foreign Relations says a big chunk of American prosperity depends on what happens south of the border.¶ "From the food on our tables, to the parts in our cars, to the consumers for our products, to the drugs on our streets, Mexico...

affects our everyday lives here in the United States."¶ In her new book, "Two Nations Indivisible," she argues that the bilateral relationship has changed signficantly, but the thinking in Washington has not kept pace. ¶ "We've seen the economy transform, we've seen politics open up -- it's now a democracy. We've seen the rise of a middle class there," O'Neil says, adding, "Often good things don't attract the attention of policymakers."¶ Take the Mexican economy for one. Known for booms and busts in the 1980s, it's increasingly stable. The middle class has grown to nearly 50 percent of the population, in a country known for Carlos Slim's

billions and millions of poor people. And NAFTA has boosted all both countries, and Canada, according to O'Neil. ¶ "Trade between Mexico and the United States is over half a trillion dollars worth of goods, [it's] one of our most vital partners," O'Neil says. "Mexico is a far better partner than [China, Brazil, or the EU] for us, because we really make things together."¶ Going forward, O'Neil believes Mexico is positioned to become a top 10 global economy, further boosting the United States. But, it could also succumb to its challenges, including widespread corruption and economic monopolies. ¶ Her advice for President Obama? "We need to think about how to work in partnership... so that Mexico isn't -- but also so that we don't perceive Mexico as -- such a problem." ¶

US key to the global economyCaploe ‘9 (David Caploe is CEO of the Singapore-incorporated American Centre for Applied Liberal Arts and Humanities in Asia., “Focus still on America to lead global recovery”, April 7, The Strait Times, lexis)

IN THE aftermath of the G-20 summit, most observers seem to have missed perhaps the most crucial statement of the entire event, made by United States President Barack Obama at his pre-conference meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown: 'The world has become accustomed to the US being a voracious consumer market, the engine that drives a lot of economic growth worldwide,' he said. 'If there is going to be renewed growth, it just can't be the US as the engine.' While superficially sensible, this view is deeply problematic. To begin with, it

ignores the fact that the global economy has in fact been 'America-centred' for more than 60 years. Countries -

China, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Korea, Mexico and so on - either sell to the US or they sell to countries that sell to the US. This system has generally been advantageous for all concerned. America gained certain historically unprecedented benefits, but the system also enabled participating countries - first in Western Europe and Japan, and later, many in the Third World - to achieve undreamt-of prosperity. At

the same time, this deep inter-connection between the US and the rest of the world also explains how the collapse of a

relatively small sector of the US economy - 'sub-prime' housing, logarithmically exponentialised by Wall Street's ingenious chicanery -

has cascaded into the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression. To put it simply, Mr Obama

doesn't seem to understand that there is no other engine for the world economy - and hasn't been for the last six decades.

If the US does not drive global economic growth, growth is not going to happen. Thus, US policies to deal with the current crisis are critical not just domestically, but also to the entire world. Consequently, it is a matter of global concern that the Obama administration seems to be following Japan's 'model' from the 1990s: allowing major banks to avoid declaring massive losses openly and transparently, and so perpetuating 'zombie' banks - technically alive but in reality dead. As analysts like Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman have pointed out, the administration's unwillingness to confront US banks is the main reason why they are continuing their increasingly inexplicable credit freeze, thus ravaging the American and global economies. Team Obama seems reluctant to acknowledge the extent to which its policies at home are failing not just there but around the world as well. Which raises the question: If the US can't or won't or doesn't want to be the global economic engine, which country will? The obvious answer is China. But that is unrealistic for

three reasons. First, China's economic health is more tied to America's than practically any other country in the world.

Indeed, the reason China has so many dollars to invest everywhere - whether in US Treasury bonds or in Africa - is precisely that it has structured its own economy to complement America's. The only way China can serve as the engine of the global economy is if the US starts pulling it first. Second, the US-centred system began at a time when its domestic demand far outstripped that of the rest of the world. The fundamental source of its economic power is its ability to act as the global consumer of last resort. China, however, is a poor country, with low per capita income, even though it will soon pass Japan as the world's second largest economy. There are real possibilities for growth in China's domestic demand. But given its structure as an export-oriented economy, it is doubtful if even a successful Chinese stimulus plan can pull the rest of the world along unless and until China can start selling again to the US on a massive scale. Finally, the key 'system' issue for China - or for the European Union - in thinking about becoming the engine of the world economy - is monetary: What are the implications of having your domestic currency become the global reserve currency? This is an extremely complex issue that the US has struggled with, not always successfully, from 1959 to the present. Without going into detail, it can safely be said that though having the US dollar as the world's medium of exchange has given the US some tremendous advantages, it has also created huge problems, both for America and the global economic system. The Chinese leadership is certainly familiar with this history. It will try to avoid the yuan becoming an international medium of exchange until it feels much more confident in its ability to handle the manifold currency problems

that the US has grappled with for decades. Given all this, the US will remain the engine of global economic recovery for the foreseeable future, even though other countries must certainly help. This crisis began in the US - and it is going to have to be solved there too.

Global economic crisis causes nuclear war Cesare Merlini 11, nonresident senior fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Italian Institute for International Affairs, May 2011, “A Post-Secular World?”, Survival, Vol. 53, No. 2Two neatly opposed scenarios for the future of the world order illustrate the range of possibilities, albeit at the risk of oversimplification. The first scenario entails the premature

crumbling of the post-Westphalian system. One or more of the acute tensions apparent today evolves into an open

and traditional conflict between states, perhaps even involving the use of nuclear weapons. The crisis might be triggered by a collapse of the global economic and financial system, the

vulnerability of which we have just experienced, and the prospect of a second Great Depression, with consequences for peace and democracy similar to those of the first. Whatever the trigger, the unlimited exercise of national sovereignty, exclusive self-interest and rejection of outside interference would self-interest and rejection of outside interference would likely be amplified, emptying, perhaps entirely, the half-full

glass of multilateralism, including the UN and the European Union. Many of the more likely conflicts, such as between Israel and Iran or India and Pakistan, have

potential religious dimensions. Short of war, tensions such as those related to immigration might become unbearable. Familiar issues of creed and identity could be exacerbated. One way or another, the secular rational approach would be sidestepped by a return to theocratic absolutes, competing or converging with secular absolutes such as

unbridled nationalism.

RelationsMexico wants to normalize rels

Plan key to rels

Rels key to stop china-mex rels

China mex coop leads to bad things

Miscalc

War and escalation

Random Crap