The Mexican Army and Navy

On my weekly trip to the United States, I decided to ask why there were fewer Soldiers at the checkpoint this particular trip between Tecate and Ensenada. There were only three Soldiers and no Fifty Caliber Machine Gun or Vehicles. I also wanted to know why the Army seems to be the second line of defence these days, because the Navy Commandos are getting all the high profile Narcos to go out and find, capture and kill. I found a surprisingly articulate and knowledgeable Sargent who explained to me that the Mexican Army was spread so thin by all of its deployments all over the Country that it just couldn't cover all the choke points with adequate numbers of personnel. That's the same reason the Navy is getting more involved, he said. He explained rather emphatically that it was not because the Government was losing confidence in the Army as a first line of defence against losing control of parts of the Republica(the thinking here is that the Mexican State of Chihuahua could come under the control of Narco Criminal Gangs and informally secide from the rest of Mexico with its own breakaway Government right on the border with the US). I am getting into a pretty touchy area with this. Sometimes I'm glad only a hand full of people read this blog.
In Mexico, the Army and Navy are run by two different Cabinet level Secretaries. In the US, the Army and Navy both come under the Secretary of Defence. The reason for this difference in Mexico, was that long ago in even more unstable times, the thinking was, that the President could lose control of one branch of service, but he still had a chance of continuing to control the other. For instance, if Obama lost control of the Army, he would lose control of everything. An outright Revolution might be a little slower in happening in Mexico because it would take a lot of time to infiltrate both branches of the Military. Control of the Army would be necessary because nobody else has enough guns and ammunition. Its far more likely that certain parts of Mexico would have to be given up on to save the Central District.