The Real "Long War": The Illicit Drug Trade and the Role of the Military

7/27/2019 The Real "Long War": The Illicit Drug Trade and the Role of the Military

1/80

Visit our website for other free publicationdownloads

http://www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil/

To rate this publication click here.


2/80

The United States Army War College

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

CENTERfor

STRATEGIC

LEADERSHIPand

DEVELOPMENT

The United States Army War College educates and develops leaders for serviceat the strategic level while advancing knowledge in the global application

of Landpower.

The purpose of the United States Army War College is to produce graduateswho are skilled critical thinkers and complex problem solvers. Concurrently,it is our duty to the U.S. Army to also act as a think factory for commandersand civilian leaders at the strategic level worldwide and routinely engagein discourse and debate concerning the role of ground forces in achievingnational security objectives.

The Strategic Studies Institute publishes nationalsecurity and strategic research and analysis to inuencepolicy debate and bridge the gap between militaryand academia.

The Center for Strategic Leadership and Developmentcontributes to the education of world class seniorleaders, develops expert knowledge, and providessolutions to strategic Army issues affecting the national

security community.

The Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Instituteprovides subject matter expertise, technical review,and writing expertise to agencies that develop stabilityoperations concepts and doctrines.

The Senior Leader Development and Resiliency programsupports the United States Army War Colleges lines of

effort to educate strategic leaders and provide well-beingeducation and support by developing self-awarenessthrough leader feedback and leader resiliency.

The School of Strategic Landpower develops strategicleaders by providing a strong foundation of wisdomgrounded in mastery of the profession of arms, andby serving as a crucible for educating future leaders inthe analysis, evaluation, and renement of professionalexpertise in war, strategy, operations, national security,

resource management, and responsible command.

The U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center acquires,conserves, and exhibits historical materials for useto support the U.S. Army, educate an internationalaudience, and honor soldierspast and present.

U.S. Army War College

SLDRSenior Leader Development and Resiliency


3/80

i

TheLetort Papers

In the early 18th century, James Letort, an explorerand fur trader, was instrumental in opening up theCumberland Valley to settlement. By 1752, there was

a garrison on Letort Creek at what is today CarlisleBarracks, Pennsylvania. In those days, Carlisle Barrackslay at the western edge of the American colonies. It wasa bastion for the protection of settlers and a departurepoint for further exploration. Today, as was the caseover 2 centuries ago, Carlisle Barracks, as the homeof the U.S. Army War College, is a place of transitionand transformation.

In the same spirit of bold curiosity that compelledthe men and women who, like Letort, settled theAmerican west, the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI)and U.S. Army War College (USAWC) Press presentThe Letort Papers. This series allows SSI and USAWCPress to publish papers, retrospectives, speeches, oressays of interest to the defense academic communitywhich may not correspond with our mainstream

policy-oriented publications.If you think you may have a subject amenable to

publication in our Letort Paper series, or if you wishto comment on a particular paper, please contactDr. Steven K. Metz, Director of Research, StrategicStudies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press,U.S. Army War College, 47 Ashburn Drive, Carlisle,PA 17013-5010. His phone number is (717) 245-3822;email address is [email protected]. We lookforward to hearing from you.


4/80


5/80

Strategic Studies Instituteand

U.S. Army War College Press

THE REAL LONG WAR:THE ILLICIT DRUG TRADE

AND THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY

Geoffrey Till

September 2013

The views expressed in this report are those of the author anddo not necessarily reect the ofcial policy or position of theDepartment of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S.Government. Authors of Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) andU.S. Army War College (USAWC) Press publications enjoy fullacademic freedom, provided they do not disclose classiedinformation, jeopardize operations security, or misrepresentofcial U.S. policy. Such academic freedom empowers them tooffer new and sometimes controversial perspectives in the inter-est of furthering debate on key issues. This report is cleared forpublic release; distribution is unlimited.

*****

This publication is subject to Title 17, United States Code,Sections 101 and 105. It is in the public domain and may not becopyrighted.

iii


6/80

iv

*****

Comments pertaining to this report are invited and shouldbe forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute and the U.S.Army War College Press, U.S. Army War College, 47 AshburnDrive, Carlisle, PA 17013-5010.

*****

This manuscript was funded by the U.S. Army WarCollege External Research Associates Program. Information onthis program is available on our website, www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil , at the Opportunities tab.

*****

All Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) and U.S. Army WarCollege (USAWC) Press publications may be downloaded freeof charge from the SSI website. Hard copies of this report mayalso be obtained free of charge while supplies last by placingan order on the SSI website. SSI publications may be quotedor reprinted in part or in full with permission and appropriatecredit given to the U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute and U.S.Army War College Press, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA.Contact SSI by visiting our website at the following address:www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil.

*****

The Strategic Studies Institute and USAWC Presspublishes a monthly email newsletter to update the nationalsecurity community on the research of our analysts, recent andforthcoming publications, and upcoming conferences sponsoredby the Institute. Each newsletter also provides a strategic com-mentary by one of our research analysts. If you are interested inreceiving this newsletter, please subscribe on the SSI website atwww.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil/newsletter.

ISBN 1-58487-591-7


7/80

v

FOREWORD

Since the end of the Cold War, for the UnitedStates and everyone else, the concept of security haswidened enormously. It has moved far beyond theconnes of national defense against military threatsfrom other nation states, incorporating threats rangingfrom transnational criminality, through cyber attack,international terrorism, and aggression from rogueand other hostile states. This poses increasing chal-lenges to the worlds militaries, especially those alsograppling with the consequences of reduced nancialsupport. It raises the question of choice and priority.How should the United States allocate its prioritiesand resources, for example, between the worst kind ofthreat the nation faces and the most likely?

In this monograph, Dr. Geoffrey Till explores the

seriousness of the threat posed to U.S. security by theillicit trade in drugs. He shows that the threat needsto be seen in both direct and indirect terms and thatit ranges from the extent of human suffering at oneend of the spectrum to international destabilization atthe other. He explores the extent to which the militarycan make a cost-effective contribution to the controlof this illicit trade and concludes with a review of theadjustments that the U.S. Army and the other militaryservices may need to make in order to accomplish this.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

DirectorStrategic Studies Institute and

U.S. Army War College Press


8/80


9/80

vii

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Geoffrey Till is the Professor of Maritime Studies atthe Joint Services Command and Staff College anda member of the Defence Studies Department, partof the War Studies Group of Kings College, Lon-don, United Kingdom. In addition to many articlesand chapters on various aspects of defense, he is theauthor of a number of books including:Air Power andthe Royal Navy: 1914-1945: A Historical Survey (Lon-don, UK: Macdonald and Janes, 1979); Maritime Strategyand the Nuclear Age (2nd Ed., London, UK: Macmil-lan, 1984); Modern Sea Power(London, UK: Brasseys,1987); and, with Bryan Ranft, The Sea in Soviet Strat-egy (2nd Ed., London, UK: Macmillan, 1989). Morerecently, he has edited the following books: CoastalForces (London, UK: Brasseys, 1994); Sea Power:

Theory and Practice (London, UK: Frank Cass, 1994);Seapower at the Millennium (Stroud, Gloucestershire,UK: Suttons Publishing, 2001); TheChallenges of HighCommand: The British Experience with Gary Shefeld(Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); and withthe aid of a research grant from the British Academy,he has completed a major study, Seapower: A Guidefor the 21st Century (London, UK: Frank Cass, 2004);followed by, TheDevelopment of British Naval Thinking(London, UK: Routledge, 2006). Forthcoming are OnNaval Transformation (London, UK: Praeger, 2008) anda major study of the impact of globalization on navaldevelopment. Professor Tills works have been trans-lated into nine languages, and he regularly lectures atstaff colleges and conferences around the world.


10/80


11/80

ix

SUMMARY

In common with the military establishments inmost of the worlds other countries, the U.S. militaryfaces two challenges. The rst of these is to decidestrategic priorities in the aftermath of the Iraq andAfghanistan wars and the likely de-emphasis on prep-aration for large-scale counterinsurgency missions.The second connected challenge is the balance to bestruck between traditional military functions and thenewer nontraditional ones. Of course, the deter-rence and prevention of war will remain the top prior-ity for the U.S. military as for most others, and thusthe maintenance of the capacity to ght and win sofar as resources will allow, remains a non-negotiablerequirement. Nonetheless, within that setting, thereyet remains a whole set of second-order decisions

about investment in forces and capabilities that maybe good for traditional warghting tasks but not fornontraditional ones, or vice versa. Although the inher-ent exibility of military forces will often allow aneffortless switch from one mission priority to another,there are nonetheless real and substantial dilemmasand choices in creating sufciently balanced forces.

One way of helping to resolve these issues of choiceis to address the relative seriousness of the threats tothe United States that need to be dealt with. This isusually done by assessing, rst of all, the likelihoodof the threat, and then its relative seriousness to U.S.peace, security, and prosperity, should it materialize.Finally, judgments need to be made about the cost-effectiveness of the contribution that the military can

make to the countering of the threat.Against these criteria, the threat of the illicit trade

in drugs must rank high, and almost certainly higherthan is generally perceived, because it easily can be


12/80

x

shown that this is, rst of all, a clear and present dangerin that the threat is already here, rather than a threat

that might or might not materialize in the future. Itcurrently constitutes a threat at the individual level (interms of death, injury, and human misery to be mea-sured in terms of hundreds of thousands every year),at the national level because it undermines the fabricof state and society, and at the level of the interna-tional system because it destabilizes essential regions,especially when the illicit trade in drugs becomesaligned with other forms of threat such as inter-national terrorism (as in the case of al-Qaeda in theNorthern Maghreb).

Because of these political, economic, and sociallinkages, appropriate responses have to be holistic too,and this returns us to the question of the contributionthat the military can make to the campaign against

the illicit drug trade and its relative cost-effectivenesswhen compared to other nonmilitary responses to theproblem. While the military can do little about thedemand side of the issue (which many experts considerkey to effective control and management of the trade),it can usefully contribute to responses to the manufac-ture and transportation of illicit drugs ashore, in theair, and especially aoat, since the illicit drug tradeis distinctly transnational in character. Moreover, inmany cases, the warghting characteristics of the mili-tary (the availability of speedy interceptors, precisionres, surveillance systems, campaign planning skills,and so forth) can be employed in this function withoutdetriment to those higher functions.

If this is accepted as the case, then U.S. Army plan-

ners, like their naval and air service counterparts, needto seriously address the issue of how best to integratethe requirements of these tasks with their more famil-


13/80

xi

iar ones. This may be an intellectual as well as a mate-rial issue. First, dealing with the drug problem requires

acceptance of the need to integrate the military effortwith the nonmilitary. Second, if the counterdrug effortis the war that many claim, it is one that is likely tolast for very many years and to be resolved, or at leastmanaged, by attrition rather than decisive victories ofthe sort to which armies have usually aspired.


14/80


15/80

1

THE REAL LONG WAR:THE ILLICIT DRUG TRADE

AND THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY

INTRODUCTION

As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars wind down,the U.S. military, like most other Western militaries,is enveloped in campaigns of reappraisal about whatits role should be for the next few decades. The U.S.Navy and Air Force are developing the concepts of theAir-Sea Battle and Offshore Control, which are aimedessentially at countering the anti-access capabilitiesof nonstate, but especially state, adversaries. Sincethe unspoken focus of these concepts is on countriessuch as China or Iran, these are traditional militaryconcerns and, to the extent that they facilitate the con-

duct of expeditionary operations, they will necessar-ily involve the U.S. Army, too. But there can be littledoubt about the general Western distaste for anothermajor, land-centric conict for the next decade or 2;nor, given the characteristics of China and Iran, wouldthis make much strategic sense. Accordingly, the issueof what the U.S. Armys priorities should be for thenext decade arises.

Despite its probable institutional preference for areturn to the land warfare-ghting ethos that preced-ed the current stress on counterterrorism operations,the Army is having to consider further engagementin irregular warfare and/or stability operations in itsvarious guises. The so-called war on drugs will nec-essarily be a component of that much broader con-

cept of future military operations, and from the U.S.Armys perspective, deserves reconsideration.1 Yet,such a focus elicits opposition, rst from those who


16/80

2

argue that the Armys greater engagement in the waron drugs would necessarily be an exercise in futil-

ity2

and, second, from the argument that this missionis already catered for sufciently. Any further invest-ment in times of budgetary constraint, it is argued,would undermine the Armys core warghting capa-bilities. The issue evidently demands serious thought.

This Paper will argue, rst, that the scale of thethreat posed to Western security by the illicit trade indrugs is sufciently serious to warrant both the labelof a war (if with some reservations and caveats) andthe extensive involvement of the military. It will thenexplore the extent, and the limitations, of the militarycontribution to the war on drugs. The Paper will pres-ent some conclusions and a review of the implica-tions of the war on drugs for the U.S. military of the21st century.

SCALING THE THREAT

Introduction.

The misuse of drugs is not, of course, new. It hasbeen endemic and regarded as a serious social prob-lem in Southeast Asia and China, for example, fornearly 200 years. Nonetheless, the threat posed by theillicit trade in drugs is now on a scale never beforeexperienced.3

The threat represented by the illicit drug trade is,moreover, a wicked one in that there are so manysocial, political, economic, and military dimensionsto the problem that no quick and easy solutions seem

likely to appear. It is thus a problem that needs to bethought about holistically. The Kenneth Waltz modelof the three levels of security, that of the individual,


17/80

3

the state, and the international system, is useful forhelping do this.4 (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Kenneth Waltz Modelof the Three Levels of Security.

The result is a kind of matrix of aspects of the threatrepresented by the illicit trade in drugs to which the

military can make a signicant contribution (or not).In the nature of things, the military contribution willlargely focus on the supply side of the business, ratherthan the critical matter of demand, but is importantfor all that. Such a matrix offers a convenient way ofdemonstrating the sheer variety of the militarys con-tributions and of articulating the challenges it will facein doing so. The matrix also emphasizes the point thatthe military contribution is a necessary, but decidedlynot a sufcient one; this in itself will pose the U.S.military a signicant problem, an issue that will bediscussed later.

Assessing the scale of the threat is complicated bythe fact that the three levels of individual, state, andsystem are not discrete. In their nature and effect, they

shade into one another; for all that, Waltzs three-foldapproach remains a useful way of analyzing the issue.

DemandSupply

(Production)Supply

(Transportation)

The Individual

The State

The System


18/80

4

The Threat to the Individual.

For the individual, the trade in illicit drugs maywell be a matter of life and death. A particularly wor-rying development at this level of analysis is the risein the manufacturing, trafcking, and consumption ofmethamphetamines, ice, and other amphetaminetype stimulants (ATS), especially in Southeast Asia,because the physiological impact of these is generallyconsidered much more serious than that of heroin,cocaine, or cannabis.5 More generally, there are twomillion drug addicts in Russia, and 30,000 of themdie each year. As far as many Russians are concerned,therefore, security is not about the protection of Rus-sian interests in Europe or other distant parts of theworld, it is about what might happen to their familymembers in their street or apartment block, given the

extent of drug use in their country. Much the same canbe said for much of the rest of humanity.

The Threat to the State.

For the individual drug abusers, however, the needto nance their habit increases the level of crime, oftenproducing vacuums of disorder within states whereother forms of crime are likely to appear as well. In the1980s, much of Colombia fell prey to this diffusion ofsocial order. Over the past few years, signicant areasof northern Mexico such as Chihuahua and Sinaloahave also degenerated almost into no go areas forgovernment authorities.6 This has resulted in over45,000 deaths since 2006, mainly the result of feuds

between different drug cartels or battles betweenthem and the authorities.


19/80

5

Such no go areas can become mini-states withinstates, where the writ of the elected government does

not run. In 1980s Colombia, the Revolutionary ArmedForces of Colombia (FARC) taxed drugs, producers,and trafckers, and became a quasi-administrationthat built schools and provided welfare programs.Likewise, Christopher Dudus Coke in Jamaica tookover parts of the capital, stopped petty crime, and keptchildren off the streets after 8 p.m.7 More prosaically,even the perception of lawlessness in one part of acountry can damage the national economy by under-cutting investment, travel, and other legal business.8

Individuals pay taxes to the state in the expecta-tion that the state will look after them. When it failsto do so, its entire legitimacy is imperiled. A failureto deal with the drug threat, therefore, undercuts thesocial contract that binds the individual and the state

together, and so destabilizes government. This pro-cess is especially rapid where the drug trade leads tothe wholesale corruption of the politicians, adminis-trators, law enforcement agencies, and legal authori-ties of the state, for example, in South America andWest Africa.9 More insidiously, the penetration byillegitimate business into legitimate business contami-nates the second, while making the rst harder to dealwith. In Colombia, for example, the leaders of drugcartels took over much of the countrys cattle ranchingbusiness for this reason and with this effect. In WestAfrica, successful drug traders often choose to investtheir earnings into legitimate as well as illegitimatebusiness, sometimes for purely commercial reasons.

There are clear linkages between the trade in illicit

drugs and terrorism, both national and transnational.The close association between FARC in Colombia andthe countrys trafckers is well known.10 This toxic


20/80

6

combination resulted in between 100,000 and 200,000deaths and the emigration and displacement of over

ve million people.11

The Shining Path organizationin Peru (and parts of Bolivia) is similarly nanced, asis Afghanistans Taliban, in its case from the opiumbusiness. Reports that al-Qaeda is increasingly seek-ing refuge in the ungoverned spaces of Latin Americahave accordingly alarmed many.12 Al-Qaeda in theMaghreb [AQIM] appears to handle cocaine trafck-ing from West Africa and heroin from East Africanorthwards across the Sahara, although it should besaid that many suspect its ideological commitment;this may well be largely a legitimacy branding exer-cise by out-and-out criminals.

A problem in one country can easily spread in avariety of ways. One is when the trade within onecountry becomes associated with the citizens of anoth-

er. The American pursuit of Jamaicas Mr. Coke, forexample, derived in large measure from the estimated24,000 drug-related killings that Mr. Cokes allegedassociates had been responsible for over the yearswithin the United States itself. American foreign poli-cy toward Central America has, for many years, beenshaped by the perceived threat of the cocaine tradefrom that region. At the moment, the cost of the drugtrade for the United States is estimated to be approxi-mately 19,000 drug-induced deaths and $160 billion ayear.13 This and other consequences constitute a seri-ous threat to the national security of the United Statesrequiring a concerted effort by all appropriate Depart-ments and Agencies.14

International consequences can also result from

the large-scale movement of people escaping fromthe collapsed and lawless area of one country intoanother neighboring country. The social challenges


21/80

7

already faced by Ecuador have been greatly exacer-bated by the arrival of 300,000 refugees from Colom-

bia, for example. Again, Mexicos southern neighborsare vulnerable to Mexican drug trafcking organiza-tions (DTOs) spreading their activities southward.15All of these undermine the stability of particularstates as units in the system and thus may well consti-tute a threat to U.S. security, as well as to the systemas a whole.

The Threat to the System.

Many of the DTOs are vertically integrated, whichmeans they control all stages of the production andsupply of drugs, and operate widespread transporta-tion and nancial support systems. The productionand supply of illicit drugs is a transnational and truly

global business that takes between 5 and 6 percent ofoverall world trade, slightly more than the value ofthe trade in cars and agricultural products combined.16According to the United Nations (UN), the DTOs gen-erated $352 billion in 2008-09 and some $400 billion in2010.17 Drugs leaders such as Mexicos Ignacio Coro-nel Villareal have regularly been featured in the Forbeslist of the worlds richest and most powerful people.18

Because the drug trade is globalized, it becomesa systemic problem. In the 1980s, for example, theColombian Medellin cartel imported semi-processedcoca paste from Peru and Bolivia, processed it intopowdered cocaine, and then transported it to theUnited States. This transnational activity was prob-ably worth $4 billion per annum, more than Colom-

bia's coffee and oil exports combined. The U.S. priceof $18,000 a kilogram wholesale produced a fantasticreturn for investment, variously estimated at about


22/80

8

300 percent.19 Similarly, Mr. Coke is held to be respon-sible for widespread mayhem in the United States and

is believed to be connected to the United Kingdoms(UK) Yardie gangs. Such activities in fragile areassuch as Central America, the Caribbean, and parts ofSoutheast Asia, Oceania, and West Africa undermineprospects for a course towards stability and sus-tained economic growth that will build capital, attractforeign investment and overcome . . . current need(s)for external assistance.20

That West Africans and Iranians are now beginningto penetrate the Asia-Pacic Region and Oceania21demonstrates the increasing geographic spread of thedrug trade; and as it spreads, it corrupts, like cancer.The sad current state of parts of Mexico reects thefact that the country was once a transit area throughwhich cocaine from Central and South America was

supplied to the United States. Local criminals saw thebenets of participating in this trafc, especially whenthe cartels rst paid for their services with cocainerather than in cash. From the early 1990s, these Mex-ico-based organizations evolved into vertically inte-grated multinational criminal groups, with distribu-tion arms in over 200 U.S. cities.22

Much the same now appears to be happening inWest Africa, an area, like northern Mexico, alreadyunder economic and social challenge.23 A vicious circlemay appear in which internal conict and the rise ofall forms of organized crime, the drug trade included,feed off themselves, especially when either is asso-ciated with the large-scale importation of rearms.Sometimes, indeed, the state may even come under

the control of criminals as happened to Liberia underCharles Taylor (1997-2003) and very nearly to SierraLeone under the Revolutionary United Front.


23/80

9

The destabilization of West Africa, an area fromwhich the United States may need to draw up to

25 percent of its oil imports within the next decade,would have serious strategic consequences. Thisoil is sweet (with low amounts of sulphur), pro-duced mainly from offshore rigs, which are safer thanonshore equivalents and can be conveyed directly tothe United States without choke points en route. Thereis evidence that South American cartels have movedinto West Africa to expand their markets and improveaccess to Europe. There are also indications of speciclinks in West and North Africa between the drug tradeand terrorists. Terrorists seem able to access the trans-port services offered by drug and other smugglersalong the African coast and across the Mediterraneanon their way to Europe.24

Were the drug trade to create conditions in which

the security of this energy source becomes seriouslyimperiled, American (and other Western) interestswould be seriously affected, hence the major invest-ment in maritime security in the area in recent years.For the same reason, the European Union (EU) hasbecome extensively involved in this area as well.25 Thedrug trade creates systemic disorder most easily infragile states, but when it affects increasingly impor-tant constituents of the system, such as Brazil and,indeed, Mexico, the systemic consequences becomegreater still.

Nor should the environmental consequences ofthe trade be forgotten. Two grams of cocaine con-sumed in Glasgow, Scotland, will have cost abouteight square meters of Colombian rainforest. Over 20

years, Colombia has lost some 2.2 million hectares ofrain forest to the production of cocaine and other illicitdrugs. Environmentalists and human rights groupshave concluded that settlers working for drug trafck-


24/80

10

ers have been responsible for the destruction of nearlya fth of the Maya biosphere rainforest in Guatemala

since 1990, some 306,000 hectares being lost between2001-06.26 The unrecorded tribes of the area becomevictims, too.

In short, the effects and consequences of the drugtrade are transnational and threaten the system itself,as well as individuals and particular countries, sincethe legitimate trade on which the system depends canonly be conducted in conditions of reasonable socialand political order, and it requires free and unimped-ed access to the global commons. Transnational crimeis a systemic threat because it threatens those com-mons. At sea, these threats include illegal shing, peo-ple smuggling, arms smuggling in its various forms,piracy, terrorism, and the illicit drug trade. Althoughthis Paper will concentrate on the latter, it is worth

emphasizing the point that much of this may be inter-connected. The rise of piracy off Somalia is due mainlyto the breakdown in order in that unhappy country, tothe illegal dumping of poisonous wastes in the coun-trys waters, and to illegal shing. The combination ofthese crimes have added up to the loss of some $300million per year, which has ruined the Somali sh-ing community, thereby forcing the shermen to seekother forms of livelihood. Unsurprisingly, the hugeprots to be made from piracy have attracted manyof these dispossessed shermen, and their success hasdrawn in many others, further eroding good orderwithin the state and damaging the international tradeupon which the system depends. There are, moreover,often real links between the illicit trade in drugs and

other threats against the system, most obviously itsrole as a source of nance for terrorism.


25/80

11

The interconnections between drug trafckers andother criminals and their potentially serious strategic

effects is well illustrated by the 2010 hijacking of twoChinese vessels and the brutal murder of their crewsin the upper reaches of the Mekong River in the so-called drug Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia. Gangsfrom disaffected ethnic groups in the region, whosenormal modus operandiwas largely to extort moneyfrom all passing trafc, had evidently decided to seizethe vessels and their cargoes, mainly in order to trans-port a large amount of drugs downriver, in the expec-tation of much higher rewards. The ferocious reactionof the Chinese population to these murders caused amajor diplomatic row between China and Thailandand the suspension of all marine trafc on the river.It resulted in signicant Chinese involvement in thepolicing of the river, and the successful extradition of

the perpetrators from Laos (where the crimes wereactually committed) constituted a major strategic stepforward for the Chinese in their bid to strengthen theirposition in Southeast Asia.27

Assessing the Overall Threat.

When analysts consider the relative importance ofdifferent types of nontraditional threats, and indeedof many traditional threats in the shape of interstatewars, the assumption is often that international ter-rorism represents the gravest challenge to the inter-national system. If, and when, terrorists gain accessto weapons of mass destruction, that assumption mayturn out to be true. But at the moment, when measured

in terms of both nancial and human cost, the trade inillicit drugs would currently seem to be much worseand deserving of even more attention and resources.


26/80

12

Moreover, as argued later, there is considerable evi-dence that terrorist groups are resorting to drug traf-

cking as a means of raising income and, in somecases, of sapping the strength of their adversaries.Arab penetrations into Central/South America can beseen as revenue raisers for Hamas and Hezbollah, forexample. From this perspective, the drug campaigncan also be regarded as an indirect defense againstterrorism.28

Nonetheless, some dismiss the easy analogy of theanti-drug effort as a campaign, or even a war, as a mis-leading and unhelpful one, not least because it onlyseems to relate to the supply side of the drug prob-lem and risks fatally neglecting the demand side ofthe issue to be discussed shortly. The conclusion thatoften follows is that the illicit trade in drugs shouldbe treated less as a problem to solve and more as a

problem to manage; less as a war to win and more asa business model to disrupt.

Those sceptical of the war analogy tend to focus onissues of cost effectiveness that have particular attrac-tion at times of budgetary constraint. They argue, rst,for the decriminalization of drug possession and use;and, second, for a strategy of controlling the supplyof drugs rather than simply seeking to stop it. Somesuggest that state authorities themselves may needto assume responsibility for the regulated supply ofcarefully monitored drugs, much as do Scandinaviancountries with the supply of alcohol.

Such critics also argue that calling the struggleagainst the illicit trade in drugs a war may alsoencourage exaggerated expectations of victory. Cer-

tainly in this complex business, it is difcult to estab-lish the metrics by which we can tell who is winningand who is losing because answers depend in largemeasure on counterfactual assumptions about what


27/80

13

would happen if efforts to control the trade wereabandoned and partly because the performance indi-

cators are inherently so very complex. The street priceof drugs in U.S. and European cities is often used as aperformance indicator, since it tends to rise when suc-cessful interdiction results in a lowered supply; butthere again, so do the prots of the successful DTOshardly the objective of the exercise! In fact, there isevidence that drug producers sometimes deliberatelywithhold supplies themselves as a way of manipu-lating the street price and so assuring their futureincome streams.29

The U.S. Government target for interdictions is 40percent. A level of 25 percent was apparently reachedin 2009,30 but most estimates of interception ratesin the most contested areas, the Caribbean, the EastPacic, the Atlantic, and the Arabian Sea, are about

20-25 percent for coca-based products and 10-15 per-cent for opium-based ones.31 As is so often the casewhen measuring the effectiveness of governmentalaction against global crime, statistics are importantin driving policy but remain basically insecure.32 Suc-cessful interception rates, for example, are notoriouslydifcult to measure. They depend on some initial esti-mates of the amount imported each year. The BritishSerious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), forexample, estimates that about 25-30 tons of cocaineare smuggled into the UK every year; accordingly, theseizure of 1.2 tons of Venezuelan cocaine in the con-verted luxury cruiser Louise in August 2011 was saidto have accounted for 4 percent of the annual total.33But the validity of this metric depends on the accuracy

of the initial estimate. The problem is aggravated bythe fact that many enforcement agencies, especially inWest Africa, do not even try to keep reliable statisticsof their interception rates.34


28/80

14

Moreover, it should be remembered that the sei-zure of products in transit is only one indicator of

success, if the most obvious. More important in manyways might be the effects of the disruption to theDTOs transportation system and the extra businesscosts entailed that apparently failed operations maycausebut these are much harder to calculate.

But on their own, neither the difculty of deningsuccess nor the necessity for a hard-headed cost-effec-tive approach to the making and implementation of ananti-drug strategy seem persuasive arguments againstthinking of the effort as a long war, for there havebeen many conventional and unconventional militarycampaigns where both have been equally true. Warsalso often include a very clear economic dimension tothem, and so the war analogy can easily accommo-date the concerted focus on attacking the adversarys

business model advocated by many experts in thecounternarcotics eld.

To conclude, the analogy of the struggle againstthe trade in illicit drugs as a war does seem, despite itscritics, a reasonable one, not least because of its impor-tance, given the scale of threat it represents to theworlds peace and prosperity, through, rst, the drugtrades association with internal conict and regionalinstability;35 and, second, due to the very high prob-ability that the worlds militaries will be signicantlyinvolved in it for the foreseeable future.

One of the clear reasons for this is the conclusionof many experts and three-quarters of the Americanrespondents to a recent poll that the United States islosing its war on drugs. This conclusion has resonated

across the world. The scale and nature of the drugproblem may vary from place to place and from timeto time but remains substantial.


29/80

15

While estimates differ widely, the UN Ofce onDrugs and Crime (UNODC) 2010 Drug Report esti-

mated that there are up to 250 million people access-ing illegal narcotics, some 16-38 million of whom areproblem users. The report also estimates there areapproximately 21 million users of heroin, morphine,and opium; another 19 million users of cocaine; 52million consumers of ATS; and between 128 and 190million cannabis users.36

However, many of the trends are moving in thewrong direction. In 2011, opium production in Afghan-istan, after a relatively good year in 2010 (thanks largelyto providential plant disease), rose by over 60 percent.At the other end of the stability scale, even in tightlyregulated and efciently run Singapore, the CounterNarcotics Bureau had to report that increases in theseizure of heroin, cannabis, methamphetamines, and

nimetazepam ranged from 3 percent to a staggering856 percent. The estimated market value of seizures inthe rst half of 2010 was S$5.9 million, and increased toS$7.7 million in 2011. There was a 20 percent increasein the number of abusers arrested, which was particu-larly worrisome in that the biggest increase was in thehard-core methamphetamine abusers, characteristicof the region, but especially in Thailand and the Phil-ippines.37 In its 2012 report, UNODC predicted a 25percent rise in illicit drug users by 2050.38

The general picture, then, is not an encouragingone; if it is, indeed, a war, victory is not in sight.Illegal activity on such a scale can hardly fail not toendanger the worlds peace and prosperity for pro-ducer communities, emerging transit areas, and con-

sumer societies. Clearly, then, given its characteristicsand advantages, the military will have to engage seri-ously in the business of tackling the problem.


30/80

16

THE MILITARY CONTRIBUTION

TO THE WAR ON DRUGS

The contribution that the military can make to thewar on drugs as part of a wider and comprehensiveresponse varies between the three levels of securitythreat and between the demand and supply sides ofthe problem.

The Individual Level: Attacking Demand.

At this level of the problem, the required responseis largely a matter of reducing demand. Critics, espe-cially in producer and transit countries, of the hardline on drug production commonly taken in the Unit-ed States and Europe make the basic point that this

trade is actually fueled by demand in their own coun-tries and that this is where the focus of American andEuropean efforts should be. Of the EUs 500 millionpeople, no less than 30 million are drug users. Con-centrating instead simply on the supply side in themanufacture, transport, and supply of drugs is heldto be the equivalent of bombing Middle Eastern oilwells in order to ease up trafc congestion in Londonor New York. It is in partial acknowledgment of thispoint that the Barack Obama administration sought todrop the war on drugs label, and there is justice in this.Instead, there is to be greater emphasis on treatmentand prevention; nonetheless, the bulk of the money isstill spent on enforcement.39

In order to reduce demand, there will be a need to

focus on users and abusers, in order fully to under-stand why some people are uninterested in drugs, oth-ers seem capable of keeping their habit under control


31/80

17

by keeping it just for recreational use, but a signicantminority are capable of neither. Pushing the positive,

as well as attacking the negative, would seem to be animportant part of such a strategy.

The UNODC concludes that International drugcontrol efforts cannot be successful in the long termwithout continuous efforts to reduce illicit drugdemand. Accordingly, it is a keen advocate of pre-vention through persuasion and, where necessary,mass reeducation and rehabilitation through suchinitiatives as the Global Youth Network. It makes thepoint that these methods often prove cheaper andmore effective in prevention than prosecution andincarceration.40

A complementary strand to a strategy of preven-tion and demand reduction is directed less at reducingdemand and more at the prots of meeting it. Here,

the focus is on reducing the prots of the supplier.Instead of regarding the campaign against the tradein illicit drugs as a war, this approach derives fromthe analogy of attacking it as a business. Decriminal-izing drug use, if not drug supply, it is argued, wouldreduce the glamour of the drug habit and, less prob-ably, demand. More importantly, it would also reducethe prots made by the cartels, and this, in turn, mightreduce demand.41 Thus Portugals cautious ventureinto decriminalization of the possession of drugs forpersonal use, which has apparently reduced prob-lematic drug use, has attracted interest elsewhere inEurope.42 Indeed, the trend toward partial decrimi-nalization as a signicant contribution to winningthe war on drugs appears to be gaining momentum

elsewhere, too.43The notion that supplying and taking drugs are

inherently immoral and should be banned is, in fact,


32/80

18

comparatively recent. Drug use, in various forms,was not regarded as illegal until relatively recently,

even in Europe. References to the availability of opi-um were frequent in the advertisements of Europeannewspapers well into the 20th century, and opium-based products were freely available. In Singaporeand Malaysia, moreover, the government only bannedthe sale of opium in 1946.44 Historically, drug-takinghas not been regarded as a criminal act, and there aremany who advocate a return to this position.

Jeffery A. Miron, an economist from Harvard, addsthe hard-headed point that decriminalization wouldinject the equivalent of $76.8 billion into the U.S. econ-omy, through savings from the $44.1 billion currentlyspent on enforcement, plus an estimated $32.7 billionto be derived from a tax regime sufciently low to dis-courage unsustainable smuggling.45

Treating drugs as simply another commodity thatneeds to be regulated like cigarettes or alcohol rath-er than banned raises a number of moral and socialissues that are beyond the scope of this Paper. Sufceit to say here that, according to many studies, manyof the common drugs are not as harmful, when usedrecreationally, as either cigarettes or alcohol.46 Socialfactors raise other related and legitimate issues. EvoMorales of Bolivia, for example, has argued that coca-chewing is an intrinsic and traditional part of the cul-ture of many in Bolivia, and so justies growing thecrop. Allegedly for this reason, Bolivia has withdrawnfrom the UN Drug Convention since it does not allowthis exception.47 Peru, the main source of coca leaf, has61,000 hectares under cultivation, traditionally used in

food, tea, and indigenous native ceremonies. Plans toeradicate it, according to Geronimo Villogas, a lawyerfor the Association of Coca Growers, are just a witch


33/80

19

hunt against coca growers.48 Much the same couldbe said about the cultivation and use of kat in Yemen

and elsewhere.The conclusion that might well be drawn from this

is that perhaps selective decriminalization, togetherwith the kind of campaign of dissuasion that has soreduced levels of smoking in Europe, has an impor-tant part to play in the campaign against the tradein illicit drugs. Redening the nature of the product,would, its supporters claim, helpfully shift the cam-paign from the trade in illicit drugs to the illicit tradein drugs, a potentially quite signicant difference.Nor does this appear to be a hopeless quest. The useof illicit drugs across much of the UK, for example,has been steadily falling over the past decade as it fallsout of fashion.49

Three things emerge from this: First, nuanced poli-

cies of this sort are, indeed, quite hard to reconcilewith the analogy of a war on drugs. Second, sensitiveand effective regulatory policies are only possible instable, well-governed societies. Third, decriminaliz-ing the use, if not the supply, of drugs is very unlikelyto reduce the need for monitoring and regulation, andfor the continued prosecution of the illicit produc-tion and supply of harmful drugs. The use of alcoholand cigarettes remains legal in most countries, butfor all that, criminal organizations still seek to protfrom their illicit supply and so support their contin-ued regulation.50 Partial decriminalization, in short,is neither generally claimed to be a single answer tothe problem, nor to make the attack on the productionand transportation of illicit drugs unnecessary.

The mere fact that such opinions exist, whetherthey are right or wrong, means that attitudes towardthe consumption and, indeed, production of drugs


34/80

20

vary widely within individual countries and betweenthem. Some authorities have much more relaxed atti-

tudes than others. The result is a singular lack of uni-formity of view about the correct response to the prob-lem. Moreover, and with this we begin to move intosystemic considerations, nimble DTOs will exploit thedifferences in regulatory approach taken by countrieseven within the same region. It is held, for example,that the more relaxed anti-drug policies adopted inparts of Australia have resulted in some DTOs shift-ing their drug factories there away from the stricterconventions applied in much of Southeast Asia.51

Attacking Demand: The Military Contribution.

At rst glance, the military would seem to havelittle role to play in dealing with the drug trade at the

critical level of the individual. Indeed, its main focusin this area tends to be on drug prevention withinits own ranks. The corrosive effect of drug taking onmorale and military effectiveness was vividly high-lighted by the experience of the U.S. military servicesin the late 1960s and 1970s. This illustrates the fact thatin democratic societies at least, military organizationstend to reect the societies they seek to protect, wartsand all.

For all that, some have suggested that the mili-tary could have a minor role in prevention strate-gies, through indirectly helping to set social trendsby virtue of their own internal control procedures.Whether they can then act as a school for the nationin this way depends on their capacity to control the

problem within their own ranks. Certainly, given thehigh regard with which the military is held, at leastin most Western societies, failures here are particu-


35/80

21

larly damaging for society as a whole. Moreover, themilitary may have an important role to play in the

strategic communications aspect of the task, as will bediscussed later.

The State Level: Attacking Production.

There are two aspects to the requirement to attackthe illicit supply of drugs. The rst, largely at the levelof the state, is the production of the drugs, and thesecond, at the level of the system, their transportationand delivery to the consumer. The military has a sig-nicant role in dealing with both.

Far more countries have the capacity to produceillicit drugs than actually do, and, once again, someanalysts make the point that it is as important to under-stand the reason why some countries that could, do

not, as it is to see why those that do, do. This positive/negative approach contributes to a fuller understand-ing of the broader contextual aspect of the problem.

Different states attach different priorities to croperadication. Russia, with its large number of addictsand major victims of the trade, traditionally adopts aparticularly tough attitude toward eradication in areasof production. In Southeast Asia, crop eradicationschemes have likewise proved reasonably successfulin reducing heroin production. In other areas, croperadication has lower orders of priority or is under-mined by insufcient means of enforcement.

Apparently successful eradication schemes, how-ever, can have untoward social, political, and econom-ic effects on subsistence producers, often otherwise

impoverished peasantry who see opium or coca as nomore than an often traditional product, rather morelucrative than others. Crop eradication in Myanmar


36/80

22

is claimed to have resulted in a 10-20 percent mortal-ity level and large-scale physical displacement among

affected populations. Alienated by the consequencesof the destruction of their crops, such growers maywell turn against the government that authorized it.These socioeconomic effects can be avoided only ifcrop eradication is regarded as part of a wider policy ofinvestment in the rural infrastructure, which facilitatesthe growing of alternative crops like wheat and cottonin Afghanistan. Here, though, crop eradication some-times appears to have reduced the growing acreage,but at the price of driving the growers into the armsof the Taliban, at least in Kandahar.52 This approachexplains why crop eradication has been more effectivein Laos and Thailand than it was in Myanmar, wherethis approach initially was not taken, though now is.53It can, moreover, be prohibitively expensive; opium

growing in Afghanistan, for example, provides about40 percent of the countrys gross domestic product(GDP), so lling the gap caused by successful eradica-tion would be expensive indeed.

The socioeconomic problems of crop eradicationand the difculties and expense of enforcement haveled some to argue that the cheapest strategy in the bidto attack drug production would be for the govern-ment simply to buy the product at prices the DTOscannot match, which would keep the product out oftheir hands. The costs of this, it is argued, would belargely, or indeed some would claim wholly, defrayedby subsequent and consequent savings in enforce-ment. The difculty here is that many of these savingswould be enjoyed by the governments of consumer

countries, while the costs of eradication are borne bythose of producer countries. Making eradication work-able may therefore require the former to subsidize thecrop eradication efforts of the latter.


37/80

23

A new problem has appeared that has particularlybad effects on the individual (and therefore on society)

and that analytically muddies the difference betweenthe production and transportation sides of the sup-ply dimension of the illicit drug trade. This is the risein the use and manufacture of methamphetamines(meth), especially in the Asia-Pacic region, whereover 70 percent of meth abusers are found and morethan half of meth seizures occur. The manufacture ofmeth depends on the supply of precursor chemicalssuch as monomethylamine and ethyl phenyl acetatewhich, in themselves, may be legitimate forms of car-go since they are used in the production of insecticidesand cosmetics, respectively, and which are the sourceof signicant and perfectly legal prot to bulk manu-facturers, especially in China and India. The conjunc-tion of these two main centers of manufacture means

that most of the seizures in illicit precursor chemicalsfor meth production have taken place in and aroundEast and Southeast Asia.54

Law enforcement is, however, another importantpart of the bid to tackle the production and supply ofdrugs. Experience shows how necessary it is to arrestand successfully prosecute known producers. But thisis often difcult in countries where the police and thejudiciary are themselves vulnerable to bribery or phys-ical attack55 and where the DTOs have the resources tocommand the services of the best lawyers money canbuy. In 1980s Colombia, drugs producers had accessto a disproportionately high number of the total of100,000 domestic lawyers. The result was that theywere able to exploit excessive legality and operate

with judicial impunity.56 As a rst step, regimes needto enact more precise regulatory statutes to deal withsuch problems and appropriately empower enforce-


38/80

24

ment authorities. Sadly, this is often a painfully slow,heavily bureaucratized and politicized process, espe-

cially in the countries that need it most.A nal and equally intractable problem in dealing

with illicit drug production is to deal with the nan-cial infrastructure and money launderers who sup-port the trade and often are from outside countries.The drug trade rests on a nancial network that oper-ates regionally, if not globally. Dealing with it is noteasy for many reasons:

the intrinsic difculty in distinguishing betweenlegitimate and illegitimate transactions,

the varying nancial regimes adopted by coun-tries around the world seeking broader com-mercial reasons to preserve the freedom andcondentiality of banking procedures,

most of it is transacted on the Web,

successful prosecutions in this area require col-laboration at a transnational level.

Nonetheless, most analysts stress the criti-cal importance of attacking this element of theDTO system.

Attacking Production: The Military Contribution.

The preceding sections shows that attacking drugproduction may well require crop eradication, regu-lating the trafc in precursor chemicals, law enforce-ment, and nancial enforcement. The military mayneed to have a signicant role in the rst three ofthese requirements.


39/80

25

Crop Eradication.

Large-scale crop eradication is an area where themilitary has a major role in the physical destructionof the crops themselves and very often with the initialbattles between themselves and the militias and pro-tection teams the DTOs often deploy to guard theirdrug laboratories, growing areas, and transportationsystems. Large-scale efforts are particularly needed inthe many areas where drug production is associatedwith internal insurgencies and conict, for examplein Myanmar, the largest producer of opium afterAfghanistan.57

Well-funded DTOs have shown they are ableto provide themselves with weaponry as good andsometimes better than that of the government forcessent against them. The particularly vicious Zeta gang

in Mexico is an especially dangerous opponent, sinceit reportedly comprises former special forces person-nel, both skilled and utterly ruthless.58 DTOs havebeen known to deploy narco-tanks that are imper-vious to machine-gun re and to make copious use ofland-mines. Sophisticated assault ries and other suchweaponry are freely available in the United States andshipped south for the DTOs to use against local andultimately U.S. interests.59

Coping with the capacity of the DTOs to defendthemselves requires a military or at least a paramili-tary response. This has proved a particularly chal-lenging requirement in Colombia, the drugs badlandsof northern Mexico, and thefavellas of Rio de Janeiro,Brazil. Clearing and holding afavella, for example, will

typically require the deployment of several thousandtroops provided with helicopter support, armoredpersonnel carriers, and heavy weaponry, followed bythe longer-term deployment of specially trained Paci-


40/80

26

fying Police Units.60 Interestingly, the Brazilian Navy,rather than the Army, conducted the November 2011

operation against the Rocinha favella, providing com-mandos, helicopters, and armor.61 Such efforts resultin a commitment that demands sustained effort andghting skills beyond the delivery capacity of manyweaker states. It is particularly expensive in manpow-er, most obviously Army manpower, and all the evi-dence suggests that, without a sustained effort, croperadication often has limited and temporary effects.Moreover, a cutback in production in a year increasessubsequent costs for the consumer and so providesextra incentives to the grower in the following season.Nonetheless, and for all the costs and difculties, suchlarge-scale military campaigns can be successful, ifproperly supported and sustained.62

Setting up a sustainable agricultural alternative

infrastructure to the production of drugs, which clear-ly needs to be part of the package, becomes difcult,however, when insurgents or terrorists are strong inthe growing area and can attack governmental effortsto invest in alternate livelihoods for the growersasin Afghanistan. For this reason, the military may wellbe needed for long-term defense of the social andphysical infrastructure required for the developmentof rural economies that do not depend on the growingof drug-related crops.

Tracking Precursor Chemicals.

While the military may provide a useful means oftracking such commodities (or rather the containers

in which they are normally carried) as they cross theoceans from initial manufacture to illicit drug labo-ratories, the task of distinguishing between legal and


41/80

27

illegal cargoes is essentially a policing function outsidethe militarys normal sphere of competence.63 More-

over, the checking of containers is invariably done inport rather than on the high seas.

Law Enforcement.

There are two possible military answers to prob-lems in law enforcement. The rst is the imposition ofmartial law in which the Army64 assumes responsibil-ity for the arrest and prosecution of drug offenders.This, however, tends further to undermine the legiti-macy of civil government, often in countries whereit is already weak.65 Thus Colombia, according toJuan Gabriel Vasquez, one of its most illustrious andarticulate sons, is a country characterized by fractiouspolitics in the long comedy that is Colombian democ-

racy which made it a country of impunities . . .that world capital of irresponsibility.66

The second approach is security sector reform, aprocess that usually requires the solicited interven-tion of outside countries in order to be effective. TheAmericans and British have both invested in securi-ty sector reform in Jamaica as part of their efforts toguard against the domestic effects of drug abuse, butso far with mixed results. In 1986, the U.S. Departmentof Justice set up the International Criminal Investiga-tive Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) to furtherthis work. Its rst assignment was to Colombia, butits work has extended to more than 46 countries, mostrecently Bantam and East Kalimantan in Indonesia, acountry clearly acting as a hub of all forms of mari-

time crime in Southeast Asia.67What emerges from this is a clear role for the U.S.

military, and, in particular, the U.S. Army, in con-


42/80

28

tributing to the professionalization of the local armyand paramilitary force which, in fact, have to assume

responsibility for the attack on illicit drug productionwithin their own countries. Many armies in Africa andCentral and South America have been penetrated andcontaminated by the drug cartels and their anti-drugefforts correspondingly undermined. Mexico providesa particularly sad example and, in fact, shows howvery necessary is this aspect of security sector reform.The hidden bonus of such capacity building is that theprofessionalization of local armies will also providegreater security against local social and political insta-bility, assure optimum trading conditions, and pro-vide protection against other forms of internationalcrime, particularly terrorism. It therefore constitutesa signicant, if indirect, contribution to security pro-vided by the United States.

The System Level : Attacking theTransportation of Illicit Drugs.

Here attention shifts from production within thestate to the transportation of illicit drugs from onestate to another, as constituents of the broader inter-national system. Many of the challenges discussedalready also apply to the transportation systems thatmove the product from producer to customer.

Although the production of psychotropic substanc-es may well take place in drug laboratories within thesame country as the market, using precursor chemicalsthat can be purchased over the counter, and in whichresponsibility for dealing with its transportation is

essentially a matter for domestic civil enforcementauthorities, the drug trade as a whole relies heavilyon the transportation of the precursors and product


43/80

29

overlandand to an extent, of course, withinparticu-lar countries, as well as between them. It is here that

the military comes particularly to the forefront.The transportation of cocaine-based products from

Central and South America to their markets in theUnited States and Europe is intermodal. It goes byland, air, and sea through both the Caribbean Sea, theEastern Pacic, and Atlantic Oceans. About 20-30 tonsof cocaine are transported across the Caribbean everyday, for example. An alternate route comes acrossthe Atlantic either going straight for Spain, Ireland,and the UK or, more recently, across on the so-calledHighway 10 to West Africa, and either overland or upto the coast of North Africa and across the Mediter-ranean to southern Europe.

Similarly, in Southeast Asia, illegal trafcking inthe precursor chemicals for the manufacture of meth

and other ATS is both large scale and primarily movedby sea.68 Again, opium-based products from Afghani-stan and elsewhere usually travel overland throughIran to the Gulf, or to Pakistan, where they are deliv-ered often by small dhows to Yemen, the Horn ofAfrica, and the United Arab Emirates, from where it isdelivered to wider markets in the Gulf and Europe.69This transportation system is surprisingly sophisticat-ed, with myriads of transhipments and prearrangedpickup points designed to reduce the prospects forsuccessful interception by the authorities.

The sea-borne aspect of this truly global and inter-modal transportation system is where navies andcoastguards come into their own, but they face manydifculties in taking on this function. Nonetheless, the

length of its southern border constitutes a major prob-lem for the United States and provides a major incen-tive to seek the interception of illicit drugs before theyget close, and to do so at sea.


44/80

30

Challenges at Sea.

Navies and coastguards need to be able to detectboth the vessels carrying the drugs and the drug cargowithin the vessels they search. Neither is easy. First,there is a truly demanding requirement for successfulinterception. DTOs normally operate with the expec-tation of prots of about 300 percent. To deal withthis, it has been estimated that the rate of interceptionneeds to be about 75 percent. Interception rates, aswill be discussed later, are difcult to assess, but theyare certainly much lower than this.

Second, the world ocean, as the Russians call it, isa very big place, and the number of assets devoted tothe task is relatively small. This applies particularlyto the seas around Africa, where only seven countrieshave the necessary level of GDP (about $10 billion) to

operate effective coastguards/navies. The result is avast area of seven to eight million square kilometers ofsea policed by just ve frigates, seven medium-rangemaritime patrol aircraft (MPAs), 18 coastal craft, and60 limited inshore craft, many of which are barelyserviceable. Given the paucity of assets, the marineenvironment offers peculiar advantages for the smug-gler, not least in the capacity to hide. The Caribbeanhas some 7,000 islands, islets, and cays; the Indone-sian archipelago on its own has another 18,000 more.Hence, there is the need for sophisticated maritimesurveillance and a judicious mix of numerous inshorepatrol craft and longer range ocean going corvettes,frigates, and helicopters. Facing so many other callson their nite resources, even the U.S. Navy and

Coast Guard nd a real challenge in dealing withthese commitments.


45/80

31

Third, a signicant proportion of drugs are nottransported by sea at all, they go by air or by land. It

is very difcult, even for experts, to arrive at accurateand reliable indications of the relative share of thesethree modes of transportation, partly because theDTOs vary it all the time in response to the relativesuccesses and failures of interception by the authori-ties. Nonetheless, so large and so global has the trans-port of drugs and illegal precursor chemicals becomethat a large proportion of it must necessarily alwaysgo by sea.

Fourth, even when it does go by sea, the smallphysical size of the product makes detection difcultin many cases. The amount of heroin consumed in ayear in the United States, for example, would easily tinto one standard container, and 20 million containersenter the country annually.

Fifth, the DTOs devote considerable ingenuity tothe task of concealing the cargoes in ships so that theybecome extremely difcult to nd even when inter-cepted. Small drug-running dhows operating in theIndian Ocean, for example, often have to be nearlydismantled to locate their heroin or hashish. A par-ticularly nasty device is to conceal illicit cargoes inthe primitive, hot, below-deck facilities that serve astheir toilets, and which require investigating ofcersto operate in truly disgusting conditions. Dealingwith the ingenious and ever-changing concealmentof cargoes requires high levels of training and spe-cial resources. It also depends on the extent to whichsearch parties are provided with rules of engagement(ROEs) that allow destructive search.70

Sixth, law enforcement at sea faces a variety of spe-cial legal constraints, even though the UN Conventionof 1988 on the Illegal Trafcking in Narcotic Drugs


46/80

32

and Psychotropic Substances provides a universallegal framework for dealing with the illicit trade in

drugs.71

European navies are limited by the effects ofthe European Convention on Human Rights, whichsignicantly constrain their capacities and means thatsuspected drug trafckers cannot simply be handedover for prosecution to other less constrained coun-tries. The level of evidence required for a successfulprosecution is the same as it would be for a crimeon land, although the conditions for gathering suchevidence are often much harder. Such problems areparticularly difcult to resolve in sea areas, such asthe South and East China Seas, where jurisdictionbetween coastal countries remains both disputed andstrategically sensitive.

Navies operate, moreover, under varying ROEsthe U.S. Navy, for example, is limited by consider-

ations of posse comitatus, and so the lead is actuallytaken by the U.S. Coast Guard, which will also needto place ship-riding legal detachments on Navy war-ships in order to arrest suspected malefactors. Othernavies have to train their generalist personnel simplyto do the best job they can. These differences in opera-tion and rules of engagement complicate the prospectsfor multinational naval cooperation.

Last, law enforcers have to be agile to keep up withthe challenges posed by the trafckers. The introduc-tion of self-propelled semisubmersibles (SPSS), forexample, is not in itself illegal, although in some casesthese may be regarded as ships without national-ityand hence open to interception on the high seas.For that reason, the United States has enacted a law

making the operation of submersibles a felony and istrying to push this through the Organization of Amer-ican States (OAS) as wellbut so far, only Colombiahas followed suit.72


47/80

33

How Navies Can Help.73

For all the difculties facing them, navies do makea real contribution to the interception of the mari-time transportation of illicit drugs, because of theircommand and control systems, their platforms, theirweaponry and sensors, their capacity for operationalplanning, and their discipline, training, and generalincorruptibility. Some of the better coastguard forces,perhaps a more obvious candidate for the executionof what are, after all, essentially constabulary duties,have such capabilities, too, but usually to a lesserdegree. The success of maritime forces rests on thethree closely linked and mutually supporting pillarsof intelligence, assets, and organization.

Intelligence.

The interception of the passage of drugs at sea ispreeminently an intelligence-led operation. There aresurprisingly few cold hits in which drug shipmentsare unexpectedly chanced upon.74 Instead, what isrequired is predictive intelligence in actionableform supplied to those who need it, when they needit. This kind of intelligence usually frames interdictionoperations and is absolutely critical to success.

Warships and submarines provide an importantcovert means of listening in on telephone communi-cations. Sometimes operations that fail to locate drugshipments may, nonetheless, prove a success throughintelligence derived from tickling the response ofthe DTOs. Sometimes, too, the enforcement agencies

are less interested in securing the cargoes or even thefull prosecution of the trafckers than they are in gain-ing useful intelligence about future operations. Above


48/80

34

all, the aim is to gain intelligence about the controllersof these rolling, continuous transportation systems,

rather than the poorly paid and often low grade peo-ple actually conducting them. In all these ways, long-term strategic intelligence is much more importantthan short-term tactical intelligence about particularshipments, and it may be well worthwhile to sacricethe latter in order to gain the former.

Intelligence-gathering is closely associated withthe maritime domain awareness that can be generatedthrough the use of MPAs, unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs), and surface ships.75 Submarines, perhapsunexpectedly, are particularly valuable, as they pro-vide special advantages in covert intelligence. Forexample, in 2007, the USS Annapolis (SSN760) oper-ating out of Cape Verde provided invaluable intel-ligence on drugs and people smuggling activities in

the area.76

The number of overall patrol assets, theirrange, and endurance are critical to success. Theresulting data needs to be processed and made avail-able as operational intelligence to those that need it.Navies, with their special and developing experiencein the network-central approach, have a great deal tooffer, especially when working with others. This ispartly a matter of shared technical prociency, whichis ultimately xable, and also of protocols and stan-dard operating procedures,77 matters in which theAmerican tendency to over-classify everything doesnot help.78 Policy divergences with coalition partnersmay be rather more intractable, especially if the Unit-ed States (or, indeed, any other external power) is sus-pected of pursuing a unilateralist or national agenda.

The United States has, nonetheless, made impor-tant progress in creating the Ofce of Global Mari-time Situational Awareness (GMSA) to encourage


49/80

35

interagency information sharing domestically and,to some extent, internationally. The U.S. Department

of Transportation has also set up the Maritime Safetyand Security Information System (MSSIS) to obtainshipping intelligence, mainly through the AutomaticIdentication System (AIS). This also sensitizes gov-ernments around the world to the existence and scaleof the problem. The European Maritime Analysis andOperations Centre-Narcotics (MOAC-N) set up in Lis-bon, Portugal, in 2007 is another example of the samekind of thing. It emphasizes the need to share infor-mation, seeks to establish links with the authoritiesin West Africa, and provides a command and coor-dinating role for interdictions. The electronic track-ing and interception in 2007 of the sloop, Dances withWolves,with 1,875 kg of cocaine (worth some 675 mil-lion euros) in an operation coordinated by MAOC-N,

the UKs Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA),Irelands Joint Drugs Task Force, and the U.S. DrugEnforcement Administration (DEA) are good exam-ples of what can be achieved by this means.

Such coordination is not easy, however. Language,the tendency to over-classify data, differing nationalstandard operating procedures, and institutional rival-ries, especially over budgets, all impede the process.Making the need to share information, rather than theneed to know it, the default setting in combined anti-drug operations sometimes seems to threaten nationalprotocols and may, in some cases, compromise intel-ligence sources and so is far from easy. Nor, given thesad fact that some navies, coastguards, and marinepolice forces are themselves vulnerable to criminal

penetration, should information sharing be automatic.Nonetheless, most experts agree that it should be thedirection of travel.


50/80

36

Interception Assets.

While at rst glance, large numbers of relativelylow-tech platforms would seem the obvious meansof attacking the DTOs maritime transportation sys-tems, naval capabilities for high-intensity operationscan also be very useful in dealing with the techno-logical challenges posed by the drug trafckers. In theCaribbean, the smugglers use commercial vessels andyachts but often resort to so-called go-fast boats thatoperate at speeds with which few patrol craft or war-ships can compete. But large long-range helicopters ofthe sort that can only be carried on large ocean (ratherthan offshore) patrol vessels, corvettes, and frigatesare invaluable for this role. They may need to carryweaponry that can shoot out the engines of boats that

will not stop.Should the smugglers resort to submersibles or

even submarines, the more sophisticated radars andsurveillance systems are often the most effectivemeans of detecting them. Submersibles are sometimesreconditioned underwater viewing submarines usedin coastal tourism or may be constructed out of glassreinforced plastic (GRP) by the trafckers themselves.Something approaching a true submarine has been dis-covered in Ecuador, with an up and down periscope,an air-conditioning plant, and the like.79 Submersiblespose a particular challenge, since they are usually bestdetected by their wake, and stopped ones are muchharder to spot. Even with cheap local labor, investingin such transportation technologies is an expensive

business for the trafckers and provides a miser-able time for the low-grade people who crew them.But the rewards of success can be spectacular, since


51/80

37

each such submersible will normally carry at least vetons of cocaine.

It is important to note the deterrent and disruptiveeffect on the trafckers business model of interdictionoperations. Not infrequently, the mere appearance ofa UAV or a helicopter causes the crew of a go-fast boatto jettison their cargo and abandon their mission atconsiderable cost to the organizationa clear win forthe enforcement authorities, even if no cargoes or per-petrators were seized, and no expensive, difcult, andtime-consuming trials are possible.80 In such circum-stances, the number and the quality of at-sea assetsare key variables in the equation. Hence, the consider-able efforts made by the more advanced navies andcoastguards to build capacity among smaller statesstruggling with major gaps between their commit-ments and the resources with which they have to try

to meet them. For this reason, Australia and New Zea-land have provided patrol craft for the hard-pressedmicro-states of Oceania, and Japan and the UnitedStates provided patrol boats to Indonesia in 2007and 2008.81

Organization.

Irrespective of whether the control of the illicitdrug trade is seen as a problem to manage or a war towin, the authorities need to develop a clear and effec-tive strategy in order to achieve their ends with theresources available. The military, with its particularexpertise in campaign planning, has a great deal ofexperience to offer in this area. Even the U.S. Coast

Guard, the best equipped such force in the world,had apparently lost most of its contingency planningofcers in the run up to September 11, 2001 (9/11),


52/80

38

and its response to that disaster apparently reectedthat fact.82 Most other coastguards are much less well

placed. Navies, in short, are often required to act asthe main facilitator in developing and helping imple-ment such a strategy.

What has become known as strategic communi-cations are clearly an important, though often over-looked, part of such a strategy. Sophisticated naviesrst have the capacity through their electronic war-fare capabilities to take down the communication sys-tems of the DTOs, as the Mexican Navy has recentlydemonstrated by dismantling the system on whichthe Zeta cartel relied to coordinate its operations.83 Ingeneral, much of the drug trade relies increasingly onthe Internet, so there is a clear and important counter-narcotics strand to the battle for the cyber-commons.

All this requires an effective command and control

system and efcient data exchange between a varietyof civil and military agencies, armies, coastguards,and navies. This, in turn, requires frequently updatedand detailed protocols to ensure effective data trans-fer, which can be secured either by large-scale mul-tilateral agreement or by a complementary series ofbilateral arrangements. The latter are particularlynecessary, not just in order to authorize rights of hotpursuit and to reconcile judicial legal procedures, butalso because of the different operational priorities ofindividual countries. The United States, for example,is chiey concerned with the Eastern Pacic routes bywhich the great majority of the U.S.-bound cocaineis transported. In the Caribbean, the U.S. focus is onthe north/south vector of the shipping routes, while

its European partners are much more concernedabout the east/west vector. The allocation of nationalmaritime enforcement assets naturally reectsthese priorities.


53/80

39

Despite these differences, it has proved possibleto set up the Caribbean Regional Maritime Agree-

ment (CRMA) of 2001, which, in effect, is an overarch-ing framework for a series of bilateral relationshipsbetween the United States and other regional actors,drafted within the auspices of the UN Drugs Conven-tion of 1988. The operational success of such endeavorsleans heavily on and hopes to encourage cooperationbetween maritime enforcement agencies of one sortor another. This facilitates intelligence sharing in theregion through the Regional Security System (RSS), theCaribbean Information Sharing Network (CISN), theU.S. Coast Guards Caribbean Support Tender (CST),and Southern Commands annual Tradewinds exer-cise.84 The West Coast Initiative, launched in 2009,is an attempt to replicate this approach in Africa.85

Combined action with other navies and coast-

guards will also depend on the spread of exper-tise from the more experienced agencies to the less.Hence, the need for navies/coastguards to participatein capacity-building operations, in the provision ofequipment, or in the development of operating skillswhere standards need to be raised. This may be a deli-cate business, especially where local states are sensi-tive about their own sovereignty or where they areseduced by technology and decide they want sophis-ticated information fusion centers and Commandand Control hubs rather than the workaday boardingcapabilities they more immediately need. Geographymakes capacity building especially important in somecases. Cape Verde, at the end of Highway 10 acrossthe Atlantic, for example, is critical to Europes inter-

diction efforts and so attracts a good deal of help.86


54/80

40

Facilitative Defense Diplomacy.

As just remarked, soliciting the cooperation oflocal and neighboring states in the common ghtagainst the drug trade through the establishment ofbilateral and multilateral arrangements can be quitetricky politically. Local states may prove sensitive totheir sovereignty, and, in some cases, suspicious ofthe broader purposes of outside states, most particu-larly the United States. In Central America, the poorrelationship between the United States and left wingstates such as Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, makesthings difcult. Ecuadors President Rafael Correa, forexample, refused to renew a 10-year lease on a U.S.airbase used to conduct surveillance over cocaine-pro-ducing areas in the Andes, and the Wikileaks expo-sure resulted in the expulsion of several U.S. ambas-

sadors who had expressed private concerns aboutthe probity of the police and judicial authorities inthese countries.87

In some cases, theater engagement, cooperativenaval diplomacy, and the offer of training facilities andenforcement capabilities can be important in establish-ing the framework within which a coordinated cam-paign can be conducted.88 The U.S. Navy, for example,has been active in Southeast Asia by encouraging andcooperating with regional navies and coastguards inthe establishment of good order at sea regimes. TheU.S. Coast Guard has an extensive global engage-ment program with a particular focus on helping thestruggling island states of the Caribbean. The U.S.Coast Guard was a key player in the creation of the

CRMA; and in operations in Southeast Asia and theSouth Pacic.89

Once again, capacity-building in counternarcot-ics has to be seen as part of a much broader picture.


55/80

41

It, and the maritime security scene generally, is animportant part of the U.S. Navys focused engage-

ment in the Gulf, in the Caribbean, around Africa, andin Southeast Asia. But its success depends on politicalissues much wider than a common concern about thesecurity implications of the illicit trade in drugs.

Putting into effect its ideas of military collabora-tion in general, and the global maritime partnershipin particular, has become a major focus of the currentoperations of the U.S. Navy. This is intended to servetwo complementary post-modern purposes. First,it facilitates the kind of multilateral naval coopera-tion required to defend the system against the wholerange of nontraditional threats such as drug trafck-ing, terrorism, and piracy. Second, it offers a mediumby which the relationship between

Documents

The Real "Long War": The Illicit Drug Trade and the Role of the Military