Guillermo Valdés Castellanos
How many companies can survive without knowing how to deal with local and global competition, technological innovations, changes in consumer patterns, macroeconomic instability, the accelerating pace of all these changes, and the many other factors on which their viability depends? That is what strategic planning is for: to identify, prevent, and manage these risks and threats, and to capitalize on opportunities. But there can be no strategic planning without intelligence—in this case, business, market, and economic intelligence. There are many stories of companies that, by failing to do so, at best survive in a state of stagnation, but at worst, disappear.
If risk analyses based on the various forms of intelligence available are indispensable for the viability and survival of companies and economies, what can be said about governments that do away with national security policy—which is precisely aimed at identifying, preventing, and managing risks and threats to the viability of state institutions, the functionality of governments, the well-being of society, and the country’s sovereignty?
Countries cannot go bankrupt like companies, but the weakness of state institutions—think of the police, public schools and hospitals, the administration of justice; corruption due to the absence of mechanisms for monitoring and overseeing public spending—and the dysfunctionality and incompetence of governments—recall the quality of public services in your city—can degrade and deteriorate to such an extent that they impede and destroy the well-being of the population.
But national security policy must also address global threats and risks, such as positioning itself amid geopolitical changes, preventing pandemics and cyberattacks on the country’s facilities and strategic information, the impacts of global warming, and defending against U.S. presidents who view Mexico as a threat to their country.
Failing to have a national security policy that addresses all of the above guarantees a gradual yet inexorable and unstoppable deterioration of the State and all the public services and goods it should provide for the well-being of society, while exposing it to external threats without adequate defenses. It means jeopardizing the country’s viability and canceling any desirable future.
Yet the two governments of the 4T era eliminated it and also dismantled the institution responsible for developing it, the CISEN, now the CNI. Today, the CNI conducts intelligence operations to combat organized crime, mistakenly believing that national security is equivalent to public security.
Because it lacks a national security policy, the government is floundering in foreign policy and does not know how to confront the White House’s aggressive anti-Mexican policy; this is also why it believes that economic growth is compatible with the destruction of the judiciary and the rule of law; that democracy can be destroyed while maintaining an effective and efficient government; and that criminal organizations can be reliable partners in governance.
That is why five former directors of CISEN have just published a book[1] that offers ideas and reflections based on our experience, aimed at designing a national security policy and restoring the original duties and powers to the CNI. Hopefully, for the good of the country, someone in the government will listen and take action.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMP2152TfG4.
This piece was published in Spanish by laaurorademexico.com
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