Drug Trafficking, Violence, and Instability
Drug Trafficking, Violence, and Instability

Author: Phil Williams

Publisher: Strategic Studies Institute U. S. Army War College

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 92

ISBN-13:

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Although challenges posed by various kinds of violent armed groups initially appear highly diverse and unrelated to one another, in fact they all reflect the increasing connections between security and governance and, in particular, the relationship between poor governance and violent armed groups. In many cases, these groups are overtly challenging the state; in others they are cooperating and colluding with state structures while subtly undermining them; in yet others, the state is a passive bystander while violent armed groups are fighting one another. The mix is different, the combinations vary, and the perpetrators of violence have different motives, methods, and targets. In spite of their divergent forms, violent nonstate actors (VNSAs) share certain qualities and characteristics. These violent armed groups represent a common challenge to national and international security, a challenge that is far greater than the sum of the individual groups, and that is likely to grow rather than diminish over the next several decades. This monograph focuses on the complex relationship between human security, crime, illicit economies, and law enforcement. It also seeks to disentangle the linkages between insurgency on the one hand and drug trafficking and organized crime on the other, suggesting that criminal activities help sustain an insurgency, but also carry certain risks for the insurgency.

Terrorism, Inc.
Terrorism, Inc.

Author: Colin P. Clarke

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2015-06-01

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13:

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This in-depth, historical analysis of terrorism investigates the major funding streams of terrorists, insurgents, guerrillas, warlords, militias, and criminal organizations throughout the world as well as the efforts of the international community to thwart their efforts. Terrorist financing is an ongoing game of creating, concealing, and surreptitiously utilizing funds. This intriguing book considers every facet of guerrilla funding—from how activities are financed, to what insurgents do with the revenue they generate, to the range of countermeasures in place for deterring their moneymaking activities. Case studies prompt an analysis of past government responses and inform recommendations for countering irregular warfare worldwide. Author Colin P. Clarke presents the business side of terrorism, taking a look at the cash-producing ventures he labels "gray activities" such as diaspora support, charities, fraudulent businesses, front companies, and money laundering as well as "dark activities" including kidnapping for ransom, robbery, smuggling, trafficking, and extortion. He considers the transnational efforts to stop terrorist activities—from wiretaps and electronic surveillance to financial sanctions and the freezing of funds and accounts—and points to the emergence of interagency task forces for detaining and destroying the operations of major criminal organizations across the globe.

Hidden Power
Hidden Power

Author: James Cockayne

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-10-01

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 0190694815

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What should we make of the outsized role organized crime plays in conflict and crisis, from drug wars in Mexico to human smuggling in North Africa, from the struggle in Crimea to scandals in Kabul? How can we deal with the convergence of politics and crime in so-called 'mafia states' such as Guinea-Bissau, North Korea or, as some argue, Russia? Drawing on unpublished government documents and mafia memoirs, James Cockayne discovers the strategic logic of organized crime, hidden in a century of forgotten political--criminal collaboration in New York, Sicily and the Caribbean. He reveals states and mafias competing - and collaborating -- in a competition for governmental power. He discovers mafias influencing elections, changing constitutions, organizing domestic insurgencies and transnational terrorism, negotiating peace deals, and forming governmental joint ventures with ruling groups. And he sees mafias working with the US government to spy on American citizens, catch Nazis, try to assassinate Fidel Castro, invade and govern Sicily, and playing unappreciated roles in the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Mexican Drug Violence
Mexican Drug Violence

Author: Teun Voeten

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2020-11-29

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 1664134166

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“Brutally honest... a deeply extraordinary and original work.” - SEBASTIAN JUNGER. With an estimated 250,000 people killed in 15 years, the Mexican drug war is the most violent conflict in the Western world. It shows no sign of abating. In this book, Dr Teun A. Voeten analyzes the dynamics of the violence. He argues it is a new type of war called hybrid warfare: multidimensional, elusive and unpredictable, fought at different levels, with different intensities with multiple goals. The war ISIS has declared against the West is another example of hybrid warfare. Voeten interprets drug cartels as ultra-capitalist predatory corporations thriving in a neoliberal, globalized economy. They use similar branding and marketing strategies as legitimate business. He also looks at the anthropological, individual level and explains how people can become killers. Voeten compares Mexican sicarios, West African child soldiers and Western jihadis and sees the same logic of cruelty that facilitates perpetrating ‘inhumane’ acts that are in fact very human.

The New Era in U.S. National Security
The New Era in U.S. National Security

Author: Jack A. Jarmon

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2014-03-21

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1442224126

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The New Era in U.S. National Security focuses on the emerging threats of the second decade of the twenty-first century, well after 9/11, and well into the age of globalization. It is a thorough, technically competent survey of the current arena of conflict and the competition for political and economic control by state and non-state actors. Starting with the current national security establishment, it discusses the incompatibility between the threats and the structure organized to meet them. It then looks at the supply chain, including containerization and maritime security as well as cybersecurity, terrorism, and transborder crime networks. The last section of the book focuses on existing industrial and defense policy and the role the private sector can play in national security. Pulling together different areas, such as the logistics of the supply chain, the crime-terrorist nexus, and cyberwarfare, the book describes the landscape of today’s new battlefields. It shows how the logistics of asymmetrical warfare, the rise of the information age, the decline of the importance and effectiveness of national borders, the overdependence on fragile infrastructures, and the global reach of virtual, paramilitary, criminal, and terrorist networks have created new frontlines and adversaries with diverse objectives. This core text for international security, strategy, war studies students is technical yet accessible to the non-specialist. It is a timely and comprehensive study of the realities of national security in the United States today.

Over 40 Publications Combined: Implications Of Narco-Terrorism And Human Trafficking In Mexico and Central America On United States National Security
Over 40 Publications Combined: Implications Of Narco-Terrorism And Human Trafficking In Mexico and Central America On United States National Security

Author:

Publisher: Jeffrey Frank Jones

Published: 2018-12-11

Total Pages: 3178

ISBN-13:

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Over 3,100 total pages ... CONTENTS: The Nexus of Extremism and Trafficking: Scourge of the World or So Much Hype? Crossing Our Red Lines About Partner Engagement in Mexico Two Faces of Attrition: Analysis of a Mismatched Strategy against Mexican and Central American Drug Traffickers Combating Drug Trafficking: Variation in the United States' Military Cooperation with Colombia and Mexico Ungoverned Spaces in Mexico: Autodefensas, Failed States, and the War on Drugs in Michoacan U.S. SOUTHWEST BORDER SECURITY: AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TWO WARS: OVERSEAS CONTINGENCY OPERATIONS AND THE WAR ON DRUGS WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM THE WAR ON DRUGS? AN ASSESSMENT OF MEXICO’S COUNTERNARCOTICS STRATEGY THE DIVERSIFICATION OF MEXICAN TRANSNATIONAL CRIMINAL ORGANIZATIONS AND ITS EFFECTS ON SPILLOVER VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations: Matching Strategy to Threat THE IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON CITIZEN SECURITY BEHAVIOR IN MEXICO Combating Transnational Organized Crime: Strategies and Metrics for the Threat Beyond Merida: A Cooperative Counternarcotics Strategy for the 21st Century MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS AND TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS, A NEW ALLIANCE? THE EFFECTIVE BUSINESS PRACTICES OF MEXICAN DRUG TRAFFICKING ORGANIZATIONS (DTOs) DRUG TRAFFICKING AND POLICE CORRUPTION: A COMPARISON OF COLOMBIA AND MEXICO CRISIS IN MEXICO: ASSESSING THE MÉRIDA INITIATIVE AND ITS IMPACT ON US-MEXICAN SECURITY BORDER SECURITY: IS IT ACHIEVABLE ON THE RIO GRANDE? Borders and Borderlands in the Americas PREVENTING BULK CASH AND WEAPONS SMUGGLING INTO MEXICO: ESTABLISHING AN OUTBOUND POLICY ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER FOR CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTON DRUG TRAFFICKING WITHIN MEXICO: A LAW ENFORCEMENT ISSUE OR INSURGENCY? USSOCOM’s Role in Addressing Human Trafficking Southwest Border Violence: Issues in Identifying and Measuring Spillover Violence National Security Threats at the U.S.-Mexico Border Merida Initiative: Proposed U.S. Anticrime and Counterdrug Assistance for Mexico and Central America COCAINE TRAFFICKING THROUGH WEST AFRICA: THE HYBRIDIZED ILLICIT NETWORK AS AN EMERGING TRANSNATIONAL THREAT ORGANIZED CRIME AND TERRORIST ACTIVITY IN MEXICO, 1999-2002 Is the Narco-violence in Mexico an Insurgency? THE USE OF TERRORISM BY DRUG TRAFFICKING ORGANIZATIONS’ PARAMILITARY GROUPS IN MEXICO An Approach to the 40-Year Drug War EXPLOITING WEAKNESSES: AN APPROACH TO COUNTER CARTEL STRATEGY MEXICO AND THE COCAINE EPIDEMIC: THE NEW COLOMBIA OR A NEW PROBLEM? EXPLAINING VARIATION IN THE APPREHENSION OF MEXICAN DRUG TRAFFICKING CARTEL LEADERS Drug Cartels and Gangs in Mexico and Central America: A View through the Lens of Counterinsurgency The COIN Approach to Mexican Drug Cartels: Square Peg in a Round Hole Counterinsurgency and the Mexican Drug War THE UNTOLD STORY OF MEXICO’S RISE AND EVENTUAL MONOPOLY OF THE METHAMPHETAMINE TRADE Competing with the Cartels: How Mexico's Government Can Reduce Organized Crime's Economic Grip on its People FIGHTING CORRUPTION IN MEXICO: LESSONS FROM COLOMBIA Defeating Mexico's Drug Trafficking Organizations: The Range of Military Operations in Mexico Drug Trafficking as a Lethal Regional Threat in Central America What Explains the Patterns of Diversification in Drug Trafficking Organizations Evaluating the Impact of Drug Trafficking Organizations on the Stability of the Mexican State

Dirty Entanglements
Dirty Entanglements

Author: Louise I. Shelley

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-07-28

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1139991965

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The entangled threat of crime, corruption, and terrorism now deserves high-level policy attention because of its growth trajectory. Using lively case studies, this book analyzes the transformation of crime and terrorism and the business logic of terrorism. Louise I. Shelley concludes that corruption, crime, and terrorism will remain important security challenges in the twenty-first century as a result of economic and demographic inequalities in the world, the rise of ethnic and sectarian violence, climate change, the growth of technology, and the failure of nineteenth- and twentieth-century institutions to respond to these challenges when they emerged.

Blood Money
Blood Money

Author: Margaret Sankey

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2022-10-15

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 1682477517

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It is convenient to think that bad guys are drumming up money for their activities far away and in shady back alleys, but the violent non-state actors (VNSAs) of the world are hiding in plain sight. They peddle knockoff sneakers, pass the hat at ethnic festivals, take a cut of untaxed booze sales, swindle senior citizens with bogus phone calls about needing bail in Mexico, and run money through mainstream banks to buy up rental properties (just to name a few). On a grand scale, their behavior erodes rule of law, creates moral injuries from corruption, and emboldens bad actors to steal and back violent tactics with impunity. Blood Money analyzes the ways in which VNSAs find money for their operations and sustainment, from controlling a valuable commodity to harnessing the grievances of a networked diaspora, and it looks at the channels through which they can flip the positives of globalization into flat, fast, and frictionless movement of people, funds, and materials needed to terrorize and coerce their opponents. Author Margaret Sankey highlights the mundane and everyday nature of these tactics, occurring under our noses online, in legitimate marketplaces, and with the aegis of intelligence services and national governments. While reforms attempt to curtail these options, their utility and efficacy as tools of finance have proved inadequate for sovereign states. VNSAs' defiance of rules and their capable adaptation and innovation make them extremely difficult to pin down or prosecute. Many security publications stress legislation and enforcement or frame illicit finance as a military or police problem. With Blood Money, Sankey points out the many ways VNSAs evade law enforcement, and she offers options for involving consumers and activists in exercising agency and choices in how they apply their money and where it goes. Blood Money also provides context for whole-of-government approaches to attacking underlying supports for illicit financing channels. How these groups finance themselves is key to understanding how they function and what actions might be taken to derail their plans or dismantle their structure.

Drugs in American Society
Drugs in American Society

Author: Nancy E. Marion

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2014-12-16

Total Pages: 1236

ISBN-13:

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Containing more than 450 entries, this easy-to-read encyclopedia provides concise information about the history of and recent trends in drug use and drug abuse in the United States—a societal problem with an estimated cost of $559 billion a year. Despite decades of effort and billions of dollars spent to combat the problem, illicit drug use in the United States is still rampant and shows no sign of abating. Covering illegal drugs ranging from marijuana and LSD to cocaine and crystal meth, this authoritative reference work examines patterns of drug use in American history, as well as drug control and interdiction efforts from the nineteenth century to the present. This encyclopedia provides a multidisciplinary perspective on the various aspects of the American drug problem, including the drugs themselves, the actions taken in attempts to curb or stop the drug trade, the efforts at intervention and treatment of those individuals affected by drug use, and the cultural and economic effects of drug use in the United States. More than 450 entries descriptively analyze and summarize key terms, trends, concepts, and people that are vital to the study of drugs and drug abuse, providing readers of all ages and backgrounds with invaluable information on domestic and international drug trafficking and use. The set provides special coverage of shifting societal and legislative perspectives on marijuana, as evidenced by Colorado and Washington legalizing marijuana with the 2012 elections.