Transnational organized crime, terrorism, and criminalized states in Latin America : an emerging tier-one national security priority / Douglas Farah.

Format:

Book

Government document

Author/Creator:

Farah, Douglas

Contributor:

Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute

Series:

SSI monograph

Strategic Studies Institute monograph

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Transnational crime--Latin America.

Transnational crime.

Organized crime--Latin America.

Organized crime.

Terrorism--Latin America.

Terrorism.

State crimes--Latin America.

State crimes.

State-sponsored terrorism--Latin America.

State-sponsored terrorism.

National security--United States.

National security.

Latin America.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 83 pages) : illustrations (digital, PDF file).

Place of Publication:

Carlisle, PA : Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2012.

Summary:

The emergence of new hybrid (state and nonstate) transnational criminal/terrorist franchises in Latin America operating under broad state protection now pose a tier-one security threat for the United States. Similar hybrid franchise models are developing in other parts of the world, making understanding the new dynamics an important factor in a broader national security context. This threat goes well beyond the traditional nonstate theory of constraints activity such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking into the potential for trafficking related to weapons of mass destruction by designated terrorist organizations and their sponsors. These activities are carried out with the support of regional and extra regional states actors whose leadership is deeply enmeshed in criminal activity, which yields billions of dollars in illicit revenues every year. These same leaders have a publicly articulated, common doctrine of asymmetrical warfare against the United States and its allies that explicitly endorses as legitimate the use of weapons of mass destruction. The central binding element in this alliance is a hatred for the West, particularly the United States, and deep anti-Semitism, based on a shared view that the 1979 Iranian Revolution was a transformative historical event. For Islamists, it is evidence of divine favor; and for Bolivarians, a model of a successful asymmetrical strategy to defeat the "Empire." The primary architect of this theology/ideology that merges radical Islam and radical, anti-Western populism and revolutionary zeal is the convicted terrorist Ilich Sánchez Ramirez, better known as "Carlos the Jackal," whom Chávez has called a true visionary.

Contents:

Introduction and general framework

The current U.S. government responses to TOC

The nature of the threat in the Americas

Criminalizing states as new regional actors

The Bolivarian and Iranian revolutions : the ties that bind

Conclusions.

Notes:

"August 2012."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 67-83).

Online resource; title from PDF title page (SSI, viewed August 16, 2012).

Other Format:

Print version: Farah, Douglas. Transnational organized crime, terrorism, and criminalized states in Latin America

OCLC:

806317687