Shannon O’Neil

CFR just released a very thoughtful report by David A. Shirk, “The Drug War in Mexico: Confronting a Shared Threat,” that explores the Mexican government’s capacity to fight organized crime.

Between March 19 and 23, President Obama will take his first foreign trip this year – and his first ever to South America.

I published an article with my colleague Dora Beszterczey in the Winter 2011 issue of the Americas Quarterly on the impact of opportunities and jobs lost to insecurity and the disproportionate costs of violence borne by small businesses and entrepreneurs.

I was interviewed by Globo TV's "Sem Fronteiras" about strategies to fight crime and drug violence across some of Latin America's largest cities.

Open any Mexican newspaper today and the drug carnage is front and center. In the last three years, narco-related murders surpassed 18,000, nearly 8,000 of these occurred in 2009 alone. Yet crime-related violence in Mexico is not new. What has changed in recent decades is the scale of Mexico’s narcotics operations.

Three weeks ago, Reynosa, Mexico--just across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Texas--exploded in violence. The Zetas and the Gulf cartels, once allies, began what may become a fight to the death. But what happened some eight hundred miles to the west on Saturday in Ciudad Juarez, when three U.S. consulate workers--two of them U.S. citizens--were killed in their cars in broad daylight wasn't likely masterminded by drug cartel leaders.

In May 2009 I participated in a workshop entitled “American Foreign Policy: Regional Perspectives” sponsored by the Naval War College.

What are the 6 books you find most useful in thinking about Mexican politics? Foreign Affairs asked me for my list. I’d be interested in yours…

For those of you who may prefer to read in Spanish, my Foreign Affairs article on Mexico has been translated and appears in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs Latinoamerica.

I wrote the following piece on crime in Venezuela for foreignpolicy.com. Mention violence in Latin America today and most people think of Mexico. But if you want to talk about murder, the region's hot spot is somewhere else entirely: Venezuela.