Even after its decisive Cold War victory and resounding anti-terrorism military campaigns, why is the United States unable to tackle soft security border threats? Five authors who examine illegal US immigration (Schiavon), Mexico's similar predicament (Gonzalez-Murphy), the conjunction of both (Hussain), a failed 43-year anti-drug war (Dominguez and Velazquez), and the threat expanding to Canada (Hussain), fault policy unilateralism and explore collective action. Utilizing multilateral security governance theory (Kirchner/Sperling, 2007), they propose a post-Westphalian outlet to better help (a) policy-makers control problems, (b) the academic community to solve puzzles, and (c) the public to feel secure.

The authors use multilateral security governance theory to propose mutual persuasion, institution-building, incorporation of non-state actors into multilateral strategies, collective action, and multilateral governance as a strategy for modern Mexico.