Ghost Recon: Wildland's premise is that Bolivia is "controlled" by a drug cartel and its dreaded "hired private army." The player characters are battling the cartel to "restore balance to the country."
I am in favor of societies having balance-- where all people or factions have some power, but no one has much. So I pick no qualm with them there. And yet, I have a hard time believing that the developers would make the game's story about fighting against Bolivia's government, in order to "restore balance" in favor of the cartel.
The very fact that they refer to the group as a "cartel", and emphasize that the army is "hired" and "private" lends credence to my theory-- as if governments aren't also cartels, and as if their armies aren't also "hired" and "private." See, I don't think the game's writers care about "balance"-- they care about the State being in charge.
The only differentiation I've ever heard between a government-- whose income arrives via extorted protection money-- and a "cartel", or a mafia-- whose incomes arrive in the same way-- is the "social contract" theory, which can be trivially and completely torn apart. The terms "government" and "cartel" are distinctions without a difference.