Drug Trafficking, Violence, and Instability - Softcover

Williams PH D, Phil; Felbab-Brown, Fellow Vanda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1288228317 ISBN 13: 9781288228317

Publisher: BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2012

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

PHIL WILLIAMS is the Wesley W. Posvar Professor and Director of the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. His previous assignments included Visiting Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College; and Visiting Scientist at CERT Carnegie Mellon University, where he worked on cyber-crime and infrastructure protection. Dr. Williams has worked extensively on transnational criminal networks, terrorist networks, terrorist finances, and has focused most recently on the rise of drug trafficking violence in Mexico. He has published extensively in the field of international security. He has written many books on the field of international security including: Crisis Management (1976); The Senate and U.S. Troops in Europe (1986); and, (with Mike Bowker) Superpower Detente: A Reappraisal (1987); along with a number of edited volumes on Russian organized crime, trafficking in women, and combating transnational crime. Dr. Williams is also the author of From the New Middle Ages to a New Dark Age: The Decline of the State and U.S. Strategy (Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2008) and Criminals, Militias and Insurgents: Organized Crime in Iraq (Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2009). He also co-authored (with James Cockayne) The Invisible Tide: Towards an International Strategy to Deal with Drug Trafficking Through West Africa (International Peace Institute, 2009). VANDA FELBAB-BROWN is a Fellow in the Latin America Initiative and in the 21st Century Defense Initiative in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. She is an expert on international and internal conflict issues and their management, particularly on the interaction between illicit economies and military conflict. She focuses on South Asia, Burma, the Andean region, Mexico, and Somalia. Dr. Felbab-Brown is the author of Shooting Up: Counterinsurgency and the War on Drugs (Brookings Institution Press, December 2009), as well as numerous policy reports, academic articles, and opinion editorials. A frequent commentator in U.S. and international media, Dr. Felbab-Brown also regularly testifies on these issues before the U.S. Congress.

Edition details

• Publisher: BiblioBazaar, LLC
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1288228317
• ISBN 13: 9781288228317
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 92