Mexican Drug War
Protracted conflict between state forces and organized criminal groups, with shifting territorial violence across Mexico.
Historical overview
Ongoing conflict overview and stored locally on May 11, 2026.
The Mexican drug war is an ongoing asymmetric armed conflict between the Mexican government and various drug trafficking syndicates. When the Mexican military intervened in 2006, the government's main objective was to reduce drug-related violence. The Mexican government has asserted that its primary focus is on dismantling the cartels and preventing drug trafficking. The conflict has been described as the Mexican theater of the global war on drugs, as led by the United States federal government. Analysts estimate wholesale earnings from illicit drug sales range from $13.6 to $49.4 billion annually.
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Border context
Post-9/11 intervention era
Counterterror wars, state-building campaigns and unresolved post-Soviet disputes dominate the early twenty-first-century map.
Afghanistan and Iraq become the central intervention theaters. Congo, Darfur and the Caucasus remain active conflict zones.Arab uprisings and insurgency expansion
Uprisings, regime collapse and insurgencies spread across the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahel.
Syria and Libya enter civil war. Mali and Lake Chad become major insurgency theaters.ISIS wars and renewed interstate pressure
The ISIS territorial project, Yemen's war and Russia's first phase of war against Ukraine reshape conflict geography.
ISIS loses territorial control by 2019. Crimea, Donbas, Yemen and the Sahel remain decisive zones.Pandemic-era wars and invasion shock
Wars in Ethiopia, Myanmar and Ukraine show state collapse, mass mobilization and renewed interstate war.
Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion reorients European security. Myanmar's coup turns into nationwide civil war.Current conflict pre-live archive
Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine, Myanmar and the Middle East escalation define the archive immediately before the live endpoint.
The next tick after 2025 is the live worker-backed map. Static history stops before the live endpoint.