Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization

Abstract

Abstract : Global trends and developments--including dramatically increased trade volumes and velocity, the growth of cyberspace, and population growth, among others--have facilitated the growth of violent nonstate actors, the strengthening of organized crime, and the emergence of a new set of transcontinental supply chains as well as the expansion of existing illicit markets. The resourcefulness, adaptability, innovativeness, and ability of illicit networks to circumvent countermeasures make them formidable foes for national governments and international organizations alike. Their increasing convergence gives them ever-improved ability to evade official countermeasures and overcome logistical challenges as well as ever better tools for exploiting weaknesses and opportunities within the state system, and attacking that system. Since illicit actors have expanded their activities throughout the global commons, in the land, sea, air, and cyber domains, nations must devise comprehensive and multidimensional strategies and policies to combat the complex transnational threats posed by these illicit networks. This book is an attempt to map the terrain of this emerging battlespace; it describes the scope of the security threat confronting the United States and the international community from transnational criminal organizations and what is being done to combat that threat--from the strategic level with the release, in July 2011, of the U.S. Government's Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime: Addressing Converging Threats to National Security and, in April 2011, of the Department of Defense (DOD) Counternarcotics and Global Threats Strategy--to the operational level with increased regional partnerships and dialogues.

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