It is clear that Congress has decided the military will play a significant role in the war on drugs. US national security relies on a strong cooperative relationship with its allies. Since the Monroe Doctrine, national policy has placed special emphasis and value on stable relationships with all countries in the Western Hemisphere. Most illegal drugs used in this country come from foreign sources. Latin American countries are most prominent since they are the primary source of cocaine, the most threatening and dangerous to this nation. However, this nation's appetite for illegal drugs, cocaine especially, threatens to jeopardize the region's stability and thus US relations with other countries.
With the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 and the Fiscal Year (FY) 1989 National Defense Authorization Act the Department of Defense (DOD) and armed services were tasked to support the President's War on Drugs. This study examines the employment of military power to support the Command, Control, Communication, and Intelligence (C3I) in a multi-organizational effort. The study finds what civil-military organization appears best able to support unity of effort in the war on drugs and integrate assets dedicated to drug interdiction into an effective communications network. The study concludes that national leaders and Congress must declare a national emergency and employ the Federal Emergency Management Agency to support the National Drug Policy Director and DOD in executing the war on drugs C3I tasking successfully. Keywords: Drug trafficking; Drug war.
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice
One of the most surprising developments in Mexico's transition to democracy is the outbreak of criminal wars and large-scale criminal violence. Why did Mexican drug cartels go to war as the country transitioned away from one-party rule? And why have criminal wars proliferated as democracy has consolidated and elections have become more competitive subnationally? In Votes, Drugs, and Violence, Guillermo Trejo and Sandra Ley develop a political theory of criminal violence in weak democracies that elucidates how democratic politics and the fragmentation of power fundamentally shape cartels' incentives for war and peace. Drawing on in-depth case studies and statistical analysis spanning more than two decades and multiple levels of government, Trejo and Ley show that electoral competition and partisan conflict were key drivers of the outbreak of Mexico's crime wars, the intensification of violence, and the expansion of war and violence to the spheres of local politics and civil society.
The issue of fighting drug abuse has come to the forefront of our list of national security priorities. A major part of this war is an attempt to stop the flow of drugs into the United States from the source countries. As the Federal government focused more attention to and national assets on this effort the need for better coordination among the numerous agencies involved became immediately apparent. A unified Command, Communications, Control and Intelligence (C3I) network was paramount to effectively employing the myriad personnel and equipment dedicated to Drug Surveillance and Interdiction, and hopefully conducting a successful campaign. The goal is to interdict and confiscate inbound shipments of drugs, or prevent their successful transhipment through deterrence. In response to this need for unified C3I, the FY 1989 National Defense Authorization Act designated the Department of Defense as the lead agency for the detection and monitoring program targeted against the aerial and maritime traffic attempting to bring drugs into the United States. Commander Joint Task Force FOUR (CJTF-4) in Key West, FL, Commander, Joint Task Force FIVE in Alameda, CA and Commander, Joint Task Force SIX in El Paso, TX were established to direct the anti-drug surveillance efforts in the Atlantic/Caribbean, Pacific, and Mexico border areas respectively. The Joint Task Forces have been operating with assigned and supporting assets since October, 1989. After almost nine months of operations, two questions need to be answered: How well are they working? And, how effective have the Joint Task Forces been?
Every year since 1986, the United States Congress has increased the MIlitary's role in the war on drugs. With the passage of the Department of Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1989, the military assumed the federal lead in command, control, communications and intelligence in this effort. If the past is any indication of future trends, the military role is almost certain to increase as policy makers become increasingly frustrated with the nation's seeming inability to curb the supply of illicit drugs crossing our borders. This study seeks to establish that the military has significant capabilities for dealing with the supply side of the drug war, but this role goes beyond that of traditional interdiction assistance. The study shows the linkages between narco- terrorism, drug trafficking and low intensity conflict (LIC), thus proposing that the military's primary contribution in limiting the supply of illicit drugs will embrace the imperatives of LIC. The criteria for the military's success in the war on drugs is exacting. Rules of engagement, doctrine and readiness issues must be anticipated. Unless we are to repeat the mistakes of the past 25 years, policy makers must consider invoking the public's support if the military involvement is to continue in the war on drugs. This study presents several important considerations and recommendations in the use of the news media to accomplish this end.
Perhaps the best single way to summarize it is to view the book as a bureaucratic or organizational history. What the author does is to take three distinct historical themes-organization, technology, and ideology and examine how each contributed to the development of WWMCCS and its ability (and frequent inability) to satisfy the demands of national leadership. Whereas earlier works were primarily descriptive, cataloguing the command and control assets then in place or under development, The book offers more analysis by focusing on the issue of how and why WWMCCS developed the way it did. While at first glance less provocative, this approach is potentially more useful for defense decision makers dealing with complex human and technological systems in the post-cold-war era. It also makes for a better story and, I trust, a more interesting read. By necessity, this work is selective. The elements of WWMCCS are so numerous, and the parameters of the system potentially so expansive, that a full treatment is impossible within the compass of a single volume. Indeed, a full treatment of even a single WWMCCS asset or subsystem-the Defense Satellite Communications System, Extremely Low Frequency Communications, the National Military Command System, to name but a few-could itself constitute a substantial work. In its broadest conceptualization, WWMCCS is the world, and my approach has been to deal with the head of the octopus rather than its myriad tentacles.
Although today, the United States Army is a primary player in the Department of Defense's support the President's National Drug Control Strategy, for years the Army was plagued by a significant and tragic drug problem of its own. This paper is about that problem and the Army's quest to solve it. It examines the role of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command (USACIDC) in the Army's counter-drug effort. It chronicles USACIDC's contributions to drug suppression throughout the Army worldwide. Although engaged in investigating illegal drugs for many years, this paper focuses on USACIDC's effort since becoming a major Army command (MACOM) in 1971 to the present. The review of twenty-two years of criminal investigations and drug suppression operations reveals an interesting and previously untold story of a small group of dedicated soldiers and their extraordinary contribution to the Army's 'war on drugs.' As the Army faces a decade of many challenges and great change, this study concludes with some thoughts concerning USACIDC's counter- drug role for the future.
