Feb. 22 was not a routine operation. It was an X-ray into the nature of power in Mexico. That’s the day the Mexican army killed Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes — the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel — and six others.
The operation did not merely reveal the operational capacity of the state. It revealed its limits. It exposed the architecture of organized crime. And, above all, it exposed a vacuum of political leadership at the most delicate moment.
Mexico is not confronting a single cartel. It is confronting a criminal system. For more than three decades, multiple structures have coexisted, with their own internal dynamics, rivalries, and varying degrees of political penetration. Those include CJNG, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, Michoacan-based organizations, and, at one point, Los Zetas. These are not conspiracies between the state and crime, but rather tolerated instances, calculated ruptures, and accommodations that for years sustained a fragile stability.
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Under the old regime, crime did not disappear — it was managed. But with the fragmentation of political power, that equilibrium broke down. What emerged was not a clean war between the state and crime, but competition among structures that learned to operate with territorial autonomy.
Within that landscape, the Sinaloa Cartel represented the logic of accommodation for years. Jalisco represented rupture. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel did not inherit the equilibrium — it challenged it. It grew by confronting the state, not accommodating it.
And that distinction matters.
In 2020, a CJNG commando unit attempted to assassinate Secretary of Public Security Omar Garcia Harfuch in the nation’s capital. It was not a minor or symbolic attack. It was a militarized ambush carried out in broad daylight in one of Mexico City’s most affluent and heavily guarded areas. The attackers used .50 caliber Barrett rifles — weaponry designed to pierce armored vehicles — alongside assault rifles. Dozens of rounds were fired within minutes, striking the official’s vehicle repeatedly and leaving several people dead and wounded. It was not an improvised attempt; it was a planned operation aimed at executing a senior state official in the political and economic heart of the country.
The message was unmistakable: The cartel could challenge the state where it was presumed to be most secure.
Harfuch survived. And in security policy, such events are not archived — they become institutional memory. Today, he leads the security strategy of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government. He is not a distant observer of the conflict; he was a direct target of the organization he now confronts. This is not anecdotal. It is structural.
From a tactical standpoint, the Feb. 22 operation was flawless. It was a high-precision intelligence operation, planned under strict compartmentalization to avoid leaks in an environment where institutional infiltration is not hypothetical but structural. Coordination was selective, execution was surgical, and the objective was achieved.
That outcome is significant. It is the product of years of professionalization, discipline, and sacrifice by Mexico’s armed forces. In a country where civilian institutions have been eroded by decades of criminal penetration, it has often been the military that has assumed — frequently alone — the responsibility of confronting criminal structures that outmatch local police forces in weaponry, resources, and territorial control. Their work deserves recognition. And so do those who have fallen in such operations. Every high-impact operation carries a human cost. Every incursion against criminal structures entails real risk. The soldiers and marines who participate do so under the conviction that they serve the state and protect the population. That commitment must be acknowledged.
Reaching the objective was an operational success. But the challenge began immediately afterward.
The criminal response was neither spontaneous nor chaotic. It was structured. Within hours, road blockades appeared across multiple municipalities in different states. Vehicles were strategically set on fire along key highways. Major roadways were deliberately disrupted. Local cartel cells were activated simultaneously. This was not emotional retaliation — it was a demonstration of capacity.
The number of affected municipalities and the scale of the blockades revealed something deeper: The organization does not merely possess territorial presence — it has contingency protocols. It has mid-level chains of command that function under pressure. It has operational communications capable of coordinating parallel actions. This was not improvisation. It was a deployment.
The state executed a surgical strike at a specific point. Crime responded with broad territorial activation. That distinction is crucial. The first was precision. The second was the projection of power.
What we witnessed was not simply reactive violence; it was a strategic signal — a message directed both at the state and at the public: The structure remains intact, the capacity for disruption continues, and the organization can alter normalcy within hours.
This confirms what political discourse often avoids acknowledging: Organized crime in Mexico is not a fragmented gang dependent on a single visible leader. It is an architecture with nodes, regional hierarchies, disciplined mid-level command, and national coordination capacity.
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And that architecture, confronted with a targeted state operation, demonstrated resilience.
But the most troubling dimension was not the criminal response — it was the political response.
For years, official discourse in Mexico has revolved around sovereignty. Former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador insisted that Mexico would not permit foreign interference. Sovereignty was presented as an ideological shield. Direct U.S. cooperation within Mexican territory was treated as political heresy.
Sheinbaum herself defended a strategy of containment, arguing that frontal confrontation would only generate more violence.
And yet, on Feb. 22, the Mexican government acknowledged direct cooperation from the United States.
Not only that, the initial narrative came from Washington. The White House spoke first. The U.S. Embassy confirmed cooperation before Mexico had clearly articulated its own position.
Meanwhile, the president of Mexico was not in a command center coordinating the operation in real time. She was at a political rally in another state. When questioned, she responded that the Security Cabinet would provide information later. During the critical hours, there was no visible public leadership from the executive branch. The Cabinet spoke that night — the president reappeared the following day.
In other words, during one of the most significant blows against one of the country’s most powerful criminal structures, the political leadership was not visible.
And this is where the discussion becomes uncomfortable.
For years, sovereignty was invoked in relation to Washington. But sovereignty is not rhetorical defiance toward allies. Sovereignty is the exercise of authority over those who control territories, illicit economies, and communities through fear.
International cooperation is not the problem. The question is different: Where was the clear assertion of sovereignty against organized crime at the decisive moment?
Sovereignty is not defended merely by rejecting external pressure. It is exercised when the state takes control of the narrative, the command, and the strategic direction.
Feb. 22 left a troubling image: an effective operation, a structured criminal response, and a political leadership absent in real time.
If the strategic narrative began in Washington rather than in Mexico City, the question is not ideological — it is structural. Is Washington influencing Mexico’s security strategy?
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Or is it simply occupying a vacuum that Mexico’s political leadership chose not to fill?
That is the real rupture Feb. 22 revealed.
Alicia Galvan Lopez is a fellow for U.S.-Mexico Relations at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.