> It blow my mind that there are multiple organizations that are so large and well armed that even the Mexican government won't touch them. Keep in mind that the Mexican military has the 17th most active duty personnel in the world and spent $7 billion last year, and still isn't willing to take on drug cartels stomping on their own sovereign territory.

But if the real problem is your army is corrupt, no quantity of guns and personnel will fix that.

As far as I know, the cartels are closer to an asymmetric military adversary, and have subverted the Mexican state rather than defeating it directly.