It is a curious spectacle: Mexico, that perennial dormitory of the American Southwest, now struts onto the world stage with Black Hawks and robodogs, preparing for the 2026 World Cup. The news that UK security firms were consulted adds a layer of farce to the tragedy. One imagines the meetings in London: earnest men with clipboards explaining the subtleties of crowd control to Mexican generals who have, let us recall, been fighting drug cartels for decades.
But the real story is not the hardware. The real story is the message. Mexico is telling the world that it cannot host a football match without a military occupation.
This is the Fall of Rome, but with better drones. The Roman Empire, in its decadence, relied increasingly on barbarian mercenaries to keep order. The United States, which once could police its own hemisphere, now subcontracts security to a country that can barely control its own border.
And we in Britain, masters of the imperial past, sell them the know-how. The robodog is the new Roman legionary: mindless, mechanical, and utterly incapable of understanding the culture it polices. One must ask: when the crowd roars, will the machine hear a threat or a celebration?
The World Cup is a festival, not a war zone. But Mexico’s preparations suggest they do not know the difference. The real question is whether anyone in Whitehall has the courage to point this out.
Probably not. They are too busy counting the money from the consultancy fees.
