Notes from Assessing Irregular Warfare: A Framework for Intelligence Analysis

Assessing Irregular Warfare: A Framework for Intelligence Analysis

by Eric V. Larson, Derek Eaton, Brian Nichiporuk, Thomas S. Szayna

***

In December 2006, after considering a number of alternative definitions for irregular warfare and acknowledging the many conceptual and other challenges associated with trying to define this term with precision, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the following definition:

A violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population.

 

the outcomes of IW situations depend on both the level of one’s understanding of the population and the deftness with which non-military and indirect means are employed to influence and build legitimacy.

The central idea of the framework is that it is an analytic procedure by which an analyst, beginning with a generic and broad understanding of a conflict and its environment and then engaging in successively more-focused and more-detailed analyses of selective topics, can develop an understanding of the conflict and can uncover the key drivers behind such phenomena as orientation toward principal protagonists in the conflict, mobilization, and recruitment, and choice of political bargaining or violence.

the framework allows the analyst to efficiently decompose and understand the features of IW situations—whether they are of the population-centric or the counter- terrorism variety—by illuminating areas in which additional detailed analysis could matter and areas in which it probably will not matter.

 

 

Step 1 provides the necessary background and context for understanding the situation; step 2 identifies core issues or grievances that need to be mitigated or resolved if the sources of conflict are to be eliminated; step 3 identifies key stakeholders who will seek to influence the outcome of the situation; step 4 focuses on com- piling demographic, economic, attitude, and other quantitative data.

In the second activity, detailed stakeholder analyses, the analyst conducts a more intensive analysis of each stakeholder. Step 5 is an assessment of each stakeholder’s aims, characteristics, and capabilities, both military and non-military; step 6 is an analysis of leaders, factions, and/or networks within each stakeholder group, as well as connections to other stakeholder groups and their leaders; step 7 is an analysis of key leaders identified in step 6.

In the third activity, dynamic analyses, the aim is to make sense of the data and insights collected in the previous steps.

Dynamic analyses can include a wide variety of activities—for instance, trend analyses of significant activities data, content analysis of leadership statements and media, and analysis of attitude data from public opinion surveys, as well as the use of models and other diagnostic or predictive tools.

Background to the Study

National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), is the primary producer of ground forces intelligence in the Department of Defense (DoD)

NGIC asked RAND to provide assistance in developing an education and training curriculum for improving the capabilities available to NGIC analysts for IW-related intelligence analyses.

In consultation with the sponsor, we divided the problem into two phases. The first focused on identifying the intelligence and analytic requirements associated with IW and developing a framework for intelligence analysis of IW operating environments that subsequently could be translated into an education and training curriculum. The goal of the second phase was to translate this framework into a more detailed education and training curriculum for NGIC. This mono- graph documents the results of the first phase of the overall effort.

 

viewed the IW environment through different methodological “lenses,” including expected utility modeling, social network analysis, media content or communications analysis, public opinion analysis, and major theories related to IW, mobilization, and other relevant phenomena.

In developing a framework for IW intelligence analysis, the study team aimed to identify those features of the IW environment that best captured the inherently dynamic and changing character of IW situations, including mobilization, escalation, coalition formation, bargaining, and influence. Ultimately, this led to a logically related set of analytic tasks that, taken together, are highly likely to lead to complete and comprehensive analyses of any given IW environment.

Historical U.S. experience with internal conflicts around the world provides ample testimony to the challenges of conducting successful military operations in environments where military and political fac- tors are tightly interwoven—consider, for example, the Philippines and China at the turn of the 20th century, Russia after World War I, Central America and the Caribbean in the 1920s and 1930s, the Chinese civil war after World War II, Vietnam in the 1960s, Lebanon in the 1980s, Somalia in the 1990s, and Afghanistan and Iraq in the present decade.1 Intrastate conflicts are the most prevalent form of warfare in the world.

U.S. participation in future IW operations has been and is likely to remain—barring a fundamental redefinition of U.S. interests—a persistent feature of U.S. defense policy.

IW is a complex, “messy,” and ambiguous social phenomenon that does not lend itself to clean, neat, concise, or precise definition.

IW is a form of warfare. As such, it encompasses insurgency, counterinsurgency, terrorism, and counterterrorism, raising them above the perception that they are somehow a lesser form of conflict below the threshold of warfare.

Official Definition:

A violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations. IW favors indirect and asymmetric approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capacities, in order to erode an adversary’s power, influence, and will. It is inherently a protracted struggle that will test the resolve of our Nation and our strategic partners.11

11 DoD, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, JP 1, Washington, D.C., May 14, 2007, p. I-1; and IW JOC 9/07, p. 1.

 

First, the threats generally are asymmetric or irreg- ular rather than conventional. Second, success hinges in large measure not on defeating forces but on winning the support or allegiance—or defeating the will—of populations. On this second point, both definitions emphasize that such psychological concepts as credibility, legitimacy, and will are the central focus in IW. They also emphasize such political concepts as power and influence in the competition for sympathy from, support from, and mobilization of various segments of the population, as well as a reliance on indirect and non-military rather than military approaches. Finally, both imply that the use of violence must be carefully calibrated so as to ensure that it does more harm than good in the attempt to win support from the indigenous population.

The U.S. Army’s Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate (CADD) treats IW as consisting of four distinct missions: counterinsurgency; support to insurgency; foreign internal defense; counterterrorism.

IW includes operations that are essentially offensive in nature (e.g., counterterrorism and support to insurgency or unconventional warfare) and operations that have a mixed, or more defensive, quality to them (e.g., counterinsurgency and foreign internal defense).

 

IW operations generally can be thought of in terms of two main types:

  • what one might call population-centric IW, which is marked by insurgency and counter- insurgency operations that may also include other activities (e.g., foreign internal defense, SSTRO, and counterterrorism operations);
  • counterterrorism operations, whether conducted in the context of a larger counterinsurgency or other campaign or conducted independent of such operations as part of SOCOM’s campaign for the war on terrorism.

 

the doctrinal sources we reviewed suggest that there is substantial agreement about combat operations, training and employment of host nation security and military forces, governance, essential services, and economic development being critical lines of operation that span IW. Some documents also suggest that strategic communications and information operations and intelligence should be included as separate lines of operation; indeed, FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency, takes the view that strategic communications and information operations are the most important LLOs in counterinsurgency warfare.

Chapter Conclusions

  • Population-centric IW operations. These are characterized by counterinsurgency, foreign internal defense, and large-scale SSTRO campaigns of the kind being waged in Iraq; their success depends on some measure of security being established and a preponderance of the population being mobilized in support of U.S. aims.1
  • Counterterrorism operations. These run the gamut from tactically precise direct action or raids in a larger, geographically focused IW (e.g., counterinsurgency) campaign, to the type of campaign being waged against the Al Qaeda organization, a glob- ally dispersed network of ideologically committed jihadists cum terrorists.

CHAPTER THREE

A Framework for Assessing Irregular Warfare

In this chapter, we consider the intelligence analytic requirements of each of these two types of IW operations.

Population-Centric Irregular Warfare Operations

Whereas the success of conventional warfare depends primarily on military factors, success in IW depends primarily on a wide range of irregular features of the operating environment—features less important in or entirely absent from conventional warfare.

As IW JOC 1/07 states:

What makes IW different is the focus of its operations—a relevant population—and its strategic purpose—to gain or maintain control or influence over, and the support of that relevant population.

To achieve this understanding [of the IW operating environ- ment], the Intelligence Community will establish persistent long- duration intelligence networks that focus on the population, governments, traditional political authorities, and security forces at the national and sub-national levels in all priority countries. The joint force will leverage these networks by linking them to operational support networks of anthropologists and other social scientists with relevant expertise in the cultures and societies of the various clans, tribes, and countries involved.

In constructing this framework, the team aimed to provide a simple, top-down procedure for intelligence analyses of IW that would

  • highlight, through a number of complementary analytic passes, the key features that drive IW situations, rather than simply com- pile lists
  • synthesize disparate literatures (doctrine, academic) to identify alternative lenses, analytic techniques, and tools that can be employed in IW analysis
  • Address unique military features of IW but also focus on the political and other non-military features at the heart of IW, including the shifting sympathies and affiliations of different groups and their mobilization to political activity and the use of violence.

Put another way, the framework was designed to enable analysts to “peel the onion” and thereby uncover critical characteristics of any given IW operating environment.

The central idea of the framework is that it is an analytic procedure by which an analyst, beginning with a generic and broad understand- ing of a conflict and its environment and then engaging in successively more focused and detailed analyses of selective topics, can develop an understanding of the conflict and uncover the key drivers behind such phenomena as orientation toward the principal protagonists in the conflict, mobilization and recruitment, and choice of political bargaining or violence.

Initial Assessment and Data Gathering

this activity consists of four steps:

beginning with the analyst focusing on gaining an overview of the origins and history of the conflict; what various classified and unclassified secondary analyses have to say about the key political, socioeconomic, and other drivers of the conflict; and the key fault lines or other structural characteristics of the conflict

In the second step, the analyst explores in greater detail the core grievances underlying the conflict and the key proximate issues currently in contention. Among the sorts of questions of interest in this step are, What issues or grievances are being exploited to mobilize different groups? Which issues or grievances just beneath the surface of the conflict are really driving various parties to the conflict? Have these issues or grievances changed over time?

In the third step the analyst identifies, in a relatively comprehensive fashion, the key stakeholders that have grievances or otherwise are likely to seek to influence the outcome of the conflict through various means. This effort involves identifying major political, demographic, social, military, paramilitary, terrorist, and other groups or factions seeking or that may seek to influence the outcome. This entails look- ing at domestic groups, factions, movements, and other stakeholders, as well as at international and transnational institutions, groups, and actors, and states that are allies or adversaries.7

In the fourth step, which can be undertaken in parallel with and cued by the results of the other steps, the analyst compiles basic demo- graphic, economic, and other quantitative data that relate to the drivers and fault lines identified in the earlier steps.

This effort includes collecting basic data on military, paramilitary, police, and insurgent numbers, weapons, and other capabilities, as well as collecting political, economic, social, and other data on national and sub-national groups and characteristics that may help to account for key fault lines, spatial patterning of violence, and other phenomena.

this step aims to provide data that can assist the analyst in refining his understanding of major forces and fault lines that might explain factionalization, coalition formation, and other such phenomena. These data can speak to demographic, political, economic, social, ethnic, religious, sectarian, tribal, ideological, etc., fault lines; urban versus rural distinctions; and have and have-not distinctions. Data of interest include current national and sub-national snapshots, trend data, and forecasts related to civilian considerations.

The basic data that need to be collected for IW analysis are most often geospatially distribute, so maintaining and displaying these data in a geospatial form can greatly facilitate analysis of IW environments.

Organizing disparate sorts of data by location may, through visualization and spatial analysis, help to establish correlational patterns that otherwise might be masked, leading to fruitful insights about the dynamics of IW that might not otherwise occur to analysts.

Detailed Stakeholder Analyses

At the highest level, these characteristics include the stakeholder’s basic worldview, historical or cultural narrative, motivations, and views on key issues in contention; the importance or salience of the conflict or issue in dispute to the stakeholder; aims, objectives, preferred out- comes, and strategy; and morale, discipline, and internal cohesion or factionalization. They also include general and specific attitudes and beliefs related to the underlying conflict, as well as historical, cultural, religious, and linguistic characteristics, economic circumstances (e.g., income, unemployment rate), and other factors.

In this fifth step, the analyst also estimates each stakeholder’s capabilities, both non-military and military. Non-military capabilities include the size of the stakeholder group (in terms of both raw numbers of members and estimates of the numbers of people it can mobilize or send into the streets) and its political, economic, and other non- military resources and capabilities.

Another critical part of this step is making force assessments of each stakeholder’s military, paramilitary, and other capabilities for undertaking violence. For the government, in addition to detailing conventional military organizations and their capabilities, force assess- ments must include various paramilitary, police, border, and other security forces.

Detailed in this step are the estimated number of actual fighters associated with each stakeholder group or organization; basic organizational and order of battle (OOB) information; and estimates of readiness, discipline, effectiveness, penetration, corruption, and other factors that may affect performance.

Also included are assessments of operational concepts used, including doctrine; tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs); leadership and organization; command, control, and communications (C3); and weapons system facilities (e.g., garrisons, weapons caches) related to organizations capable of employing violence. Finally—and especially for non-governmental organizations—it is important to understand the arms markets and networks that are the sources of weapons and systems.

The sixth step, stakeholder network and relationship/link assess- ment, involves a detailed analysis of formal organizational characteristics within and among groups, as well as informal links and net- works, and the identification of leaders and influential individuals within the network. Formal organizational structures and relationships can be understood through the collection and analysis of organiza- tional charts and tables of organization, and legal, administrative, and other materials can illuminate formal/legal authorities, control over resources, and other phenomena. Informal networks and relationships can involve people, domestic groups and institutions (e.g., banks, busi- nesses), and external groups and institutions (e.g., states, transnational movements).

 

a second critical lens for unpacking the IW operating environment can be characterized in terms of overlapping or interlocking networks. This approach provides a view of a number of key features of the broader political society, including key leaders, their critical relationships, and their sources of authority, power, and influence. Networks can be used to characterize a host of formal organizations and hierarchies, whether they are political, military, bureaucratic, or administrative; economic or business-oriented; or tribal, religious, or sectarian. They also can be used to characterize informal networks, including personal and professional networks, networks characterizing patronage relationships or criminal enterprises, jihadist discourse, or influence. In addition, physical networks, such as telecommunications, command, control, communications, and computers (C4), and utilities, translate naturally into link and node data.

Stakeholder leadership assessment, the seventh step, involves detailed leadership analyses where indicated. Such analyses tend to focus on key leaders. Assessments involve compiling and reviewing basic biographical information, as well as psychological profiles, assessments, and psychohistories; analyzing past decision making for patterns; and carrying out other analyses that can illuminate individual-level motivations, aims, objectives, intentions, leadership preferences, pathologies, vulnerabilities, and decisionmaking styles, as well as connections to other individuals, groups, and places; favored communications channels; and other characteristics. Also important are the nature of bar- gains and social contracts between stakeholder leaders and followers (i.e., what leaders must provide to followers to retain their loyalty).

Dynamic Analyses

The final step in the IPB process is the integration of intelligence information to determine a threat’s likely course of action (COA) and to understand the possible trajectory of the situation. We refer to these sorts of activities as dynamic analyses.

IW environments can be quite dynamic, and it is critical to monitor a wide range of developments that can presage change and, where possible, to make forecasts regarding the possible future trajectory of these situations. That the different types of IW conflict and threats are often nested, linked, and simultaneous (e.g., insurgency coupled with terrorism) increases the challenges of dynamic analysis of IW.

Agent-based rational choice or expected utility models. A family of models—agent-based rational choice models—has been developed to provide computationally based forecasts of complex, multi-actor, real-world political issues such as IW situations. These models incorporate insights from spatial politics, social choice theory, game theory, and expected utility theory in a form that enables policy-relevant fore- casts based on fairly modest data inputs. Even more important, some forms of these models have an impressive record of predicting the out- come of a wide range of political phenomena—including conflict— with an order of 90 percent accuracy.

See, for example, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, “The Methodical Study of Politics,” paper, October 30, 2002; and James Lee Ray and Bruce Russett, “The Future as Arbiter of Theoreti- cal Controversies: Predictions, Explanations and the End of the Cold War,” British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 26, 1996, pp. 441–470. A detailed discussion of these models, and a more complete review of claims about their predictive accuracy, can be found in Larson et al., Understanding Commanders’ Information Needs for Influence Operations, forthcoming

 

 

Perhaps the most prominent feature of these models from the standpoint of assessing IW environments is that they enable dynamic forecasts based on a relatively small subset of the factors identified in our analytic framework:

  •  The existence of many different stake holder groups that may seek to influence the outcome of the contest between the government and its challengers
  •  the possibility that different stakeholder groups may have different grievances or objectives, or take different positions on various issues related to the contest between the government and its challengers
  •  Differing relative political, economic, military, organizational, and other capabilities of stakeholder groups
  •  differences in the perceived importance of and level of commitment to the dispute for each stakeholder group, with some potentially viewing the stakes as existential while others remain disengaged or indifferent.17

the ultimate question for the analyst conducting a dynamic assessment of an IW environment is the nature of the political equilibrium outcome that is forecast and whether that equilibrium outcome meets U.S. policy objectives. In some, perhaps most, cases, the predicted equilibrium may be well short of what the United States is hoping to accomplish.

 

Analytic tools for IW analysis identified in doctrine. Available Army doctrine identifies a number of analytic techniques and tools suitable for IW analysis, some of which we have already discussed in the context of our analytic framework.19 These include

  • Link analysis/social network analysis, which can be used to understand critical links between individuals, institutions, and other components
  • pattern analysis, which can illuminate temporal or spatial patterning of data and provide a basis for insights into underlying correlational or causal mechanisms that can be used to evaluate a threat and to assess threat COAs
  • cultural comparison matrixes, which can help to highlight similarities, differences, and potential points of congruity or friction between groups
  • Historical time lines, which list significant dates and relevant information and analysis that can be used to underwrite a larger historical narrative about the sources of grievances, onset of violence, and other phenomena, as well as provide insights into how key population segments may react to certain events or circumstances
  • perception assessment matrixes, which can be used to characterize the cultural lenses different groups use in viewing the same events
  • spatial analysis/map overlays, which can be used to assess spatial relationships or correlations between disparate geographically distributed characteristics
  •  psychological profiles, which can assist in understanding how key groups, leaders, and decisionmakers perceive their world.20

 

Additionally, trend analyses—a form of pattern analysis—may be a particularly fruitful approach for IW analysts. Whether focused on time series data describing significant activities (SIGACTs), changing media content or population attitudes, or exploring correlations between disparate variables, trend analyses can help further illustrate dynamic processes.

Other diagnostic models. In addition to various worthwhile scholarly efforts that have systematically addressed dynamic aspects of intra- state violence, there are several other policy-relevant diagnostic tools that either share some features of our analytic framework or accent somewhat different phenomena that may be useful to IW analysts.21

Anticipating intrastate conflict. Because early diplomatic, military, or other policy action can in some cases reduce the prospects of full- blown conflict emerging, intelligence analysts sometimes require tools for anticipating intrastate conflict.

  •  Identify structures of closure. In this step, the analyst identifies structural factors that close off political, economic, or social opportunities for stakeholder groups and may thereby lead to strife.
  •  Map closure onto identifiable affinities. In this step, the analyst identifies which stakeholder groups—whether based on kinship, race, language, religion, region, culture, or some other factor— are facing which types of closure.
  •  Identify catalysts of mobilization. In this step, the analyst identifies factors that may mobilize excluded stakeholder groups—e.g., a change in the balance of power, “tipping events,” the emergence of policy entrepreneurs who seek to exploit dissatisfaction, increased resources and improved organization, and external assistance.
  • Assess state capability. In this step, the analyst assesses the state’s political capacity to accommodate aggrieved stakeholder groups, its fiscal capacity to compensate them, and its coercive capacity to suppress them.
  • Forecast likelihood of violence. In this step, the analyst estimates, based on an analysis of the government and its opponents, the likelihood of political conflict using game theoretical reasoning.23

 

While not predictive of intrastate violence, this model can help assess whether the conditions for such violence are present or not, improve the analyst’s understanding of the drivers of conflict, and point out data needs and limitations.

Trigger and risk factors for religious groups choosing violence. Work done by RAND colleague Greg Treverton on the analysis of religious groups identified five potential triggers and risk factors for violence that had some interesting parallels to our conception of dynamic IW analysis:

  • Belief in victory. Belief that the use of force can achieve the desired political end encourages violence.
  • Fear of annihilation. Existential threats can cause and sustain violence.
  • Inability or unwillingness to participate in politics. Being blocked from or uninterested in “normal” politics leaves force as the other option for pursuing goals.
  • Young and inexperienced leadership. Youthful leadership is some- times risk taking and inexperienced, and in crisis situations may aggressively lead a group into violence.
  • Political and economic crisis. Economic collapse combined with political crisis enhances the ability of religious groups to wage war by increasing their ideological and material appeal.

Counterterrorism Operations

Our review of existing doctrine suggests that it tends to treat terrorism and insurgency as largely identical phenomena and does not differentiate between the intelligence requirements for counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations.

although the intelligence analytic requirements of a global jihadist insurgency are somewhat less distinct than those of typical insurgencies, counterterrorism operations do appear to share many of the analytic requirements of the population-centric IW environments discussed earlier. For example, terrorism— the terrorizing of a civilian population—is an extreme form of coercing and influencing a government or population, the success of which is susceptible to analysis using the framework for population-centric IW situations.

Put another way, like insurgents, terrorists compete for the support or compliance of the larger population

In addition, terrorists’ actions play to an audience of their own supporters, demonstrating the terrorists’ ability to effectively conduct operations. In this way, they enhance morale and support.

Terrorist networks also share many of the conceptual features of other adversary networks, including insurgent networks, that are already the subject of detailed intelligence analysis for targeting and other purposes:

All enemy networks rely on certain key functions, processes, and resources to be able to operate and survive. These three elements are an important basis for counter-network strategies and can be defined as follows:

— Function (Critical Capability): A specific occupation, role, or purpose.

— Process: A series of actions or operations (i.e., the interaction of resources) over time that bring about an end or results (i.e., a function).

Resource (Critical Requirement): A person, organization, place, or thing (physical and non-physical) and its attributes. In net- work vernacular, a resource may also be referred to as a “node” and the interaction or relationship between nodes described as “linkage.”

According to NMSP-WOT 2/06, terrorist and other adversary networks comprise nine basic components:

  • Leadership
  • safe havens
  • finance
  • communications
  • movement
  • intelligence
  • weapons
  • personnel
  • ideology

It also is worth mentioning in this connection David Kilcullen’s work, which treats counterinsurgency as a “complex system” and the larger war on terrorism as a “global counterinsurgency.”

there are no apparent inconsistencies between Kilcullen’s approach, which focuses on key nodes, links, boundaries, interactions, subsystems, inputs, and outputs, and our analytic framework. Although Kilcullen’s application of complex systems theory appears still to be embryonic, he has written a number of interesting papers dealing with counterinsurgency and the war on terrorism that may prove useful for IW analysts and may suggest research directions deserving of further exploration.

That said, there are some features of counterterrorism intelligence requirements that differ from population-centric IW and bear discus- sion. We next describe features associated with two different categories of counterterrorism operations—tactical counterterrorism operations, and operations against transnational terrorist networks—that might lead to some slight differences in intelligence analytic requirements.

 

Tactical Counterterrorism Operations

From a strict doctrinal perspective, counterterrorism is a SOF mission, typically involving direct action by SOF. Mission doctrine and intelli- gence requirements are the responsibility of the special operations com- munity. Most of this doctrine is not available to the public.

at the operational level, as with population- centric IW environments such as counterinsurgency, such factors as safe houses, enclaves of popular support, arms smuggling networks, networks for recruitment and training, weapons caches, and other phenomena are of great interest to the intelligence analyst.

Operations Against Transnational Terrorist Networks

largely for reasons of classification, the intelligence analytic requirements of the United States’ broader strategy for the greater war on terrorism are less well developed in the open literature.33 The unclassified NMSP-WOT does, however, list a number of annexes that suggest a number of discrete counterterrorism activities, each of which would be presumed to have associated with it a set of intelligence and analytic requirements.

Comparison to the Standard IPB Process

Doctrinally, the purpose of the IPB process is to systematically and continuously analyze the threat and environment in a specific geo- graphic area in order to support military decision-making, enabling the commander to selectively apply his combat power at critical points in time and space. This process consists of four steps:

  • Defining the operational environment: In this step, the analyst seeks to identify for further analysis and intelligence collection the characteristics that will be key in influencing friendly and threat operations.
  • Describing the operational environment: In this step, the analyst evaluates the effects of that environment on friendly and threat forces. It is in this step that limitations and advantages that the operational environment provides for the potential operations of friendly and threat forces are identified.
  • Evaluating the threat: In this step, the analyst assesses how the threat normally operates and organizes when unconstrained by the operational environment. This step is also used to identify high-value targets.
  • Determining threat COA: In this step, the analyst integrates information about what the threat would prefer to do with the effects of the operational environment in order to assess the threat’s likely future COA.

 

When one looks down the columns of the table, it should be clear that our analytic framework involves activities that are conducted under each step of the four-step IPB process. For example, three of the steps in our framework’s preliminary assessment and basic data collection phase are congruent with the first step of the standard doctrinal IPB process, and three are congruent with the IPB process’s second step. The reason for this congruence is that existing Army doctrine fully supports the gathering and analysis of extensive information on the civilian and societal characteristics of the area of operations.

 

our analytic framework might best be viewed not as an alternative or competitor to IPB, but as providing an efficient analytic protocol for IW IPB analysis, one that is suitable for operational- and strategic-level intelligence analysis and that complements the IPB process’s tactical-operational focus.

 

 

CHAPTER FOUR

Conclusions

 

The aim of this study was to develop an analytic framework for assessing IW situations that could subsequently be used as the basis of an educational and training curriculum for intelligence analysts charged with assessing IW situations.

The framework we developed takes the form of an analytic procedure, or protocol, consisting of three main activities—initial assessment and data gathering, detailed stakeholder analyses, and dynamic analyses—that involve eight discrete analytic steps.

our framework—and its constituent analytic activities and tools—is compatible with the military IPB process and its supporting analytic techniques. The framework also shares some characteristics of other policy-relevant models that have been developed as diagnostic tools for different purposes—e.g., anticipating ethnic conflict or assessing the prospects that religious groups will choose to resort to violence.

 

APPENDIX A

A Review of Defense Policy, Strategy, and Irregular Warfare

The growing importance of IW to the defense community, which is largely a result of the U.S. strategy to deal with global jihadists, and the range of specific challenges the United States has encountered in the Afghan and Iraqi insurgencies, have led to a high level of policy- and strategy-level attention to the requirements of IW.

The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America and National Military Strategy of the United States of America of March 2005 divided threats into four major categories: traditional, irregular, disruptive, and catastrophic.1 In the view of these documents, the principal irregular challenge was “defeating terrorist extremism,” but counterinsurgencies, such as those faced in Afghanistan and Iraq, were also included.

 

The National Defense Strategy also identified terrorism and insurgency as being among the irregular challenges the United States faces, the dangers of which had been intensified by two factors: the rise of extremist ideologies and the absence of effective governance. It described irregular threats as challenges coming “from those employing ‘unconventional’ methods to counter the traditional advantages of stronger opponents” [emphasis in original],2 and identified “improving proficiency for irregular warfare” as one of eight JCAs that would pro- vide a focus for defense transformation efforts.

 

The February 2006 QDR (Quadrennial Defense Review Report) also identified IW as an emerging challenge:

The enemies in this war are not traditional conventional military forces but rather dispersed, global terrorist networks that exploit Islam to advance radical political aims. These enemies have the avowed aim of acquiring and using nuclear and biological weapons to murder hundreds of thousands of Americans and others around the world. They use terror, propaganda and indiscriminate violence in an attempt to subjugate the Muslim world under a radical theocratic tyranny while seeking to perpetuate conflict with the United States and its allies and partners. This war requires the U.S. military to adopt unconventional and indirect approaches.5

In the post-September 11 world, irregular warfare has emerged as the dominant form of warfare confronting the United States, its allies and its partners; accordingly, guidance must account for distributed, long-duration operations, including unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and stabilization and reconstruction operations.6

Another document, NMSP-WOT 2/06, identified six objectives for the global war on terrorism: (1) deny terrorists the resources they need to operate and survive; (2) enable partner nations to counter terrorist threats; (3) deny WMD technology to U.S. enemies and increase capacity for consequence management; (4) defeat terrorist organizations and networks; (5) counter state and non-state support for terror- ism in coordination with other U.S. government agencies and partner nations; (6) counter ideological support for terrorism.

The IW JOC 9/07 argued that IW was likely to become an increasing challenge for the U.S. Government:

Our adversaries will pursue IW strategies, employing a hybrid of irregular, disruptive, traditional, and catastrophic capabilities to undermine and erode the influence and will of the United States and our strategic partners. Meeting these challenges and combating this approach will require the concerted efforts of all available instruments of U.S. national power. . . . This concept describes IW as a form of warfare and addresses the implications of IW becoming the dominant form of warfare, not only by our adversaries but also by the United States and its partners.

Unlike conventional warfare, which focuses on defeating an adversary’s military forces or seizing key physical terrain, the focus of Irregular Warfare is on eroding an enemy’s power, influence, and will to exercise political authority over an indigenous population.

the September 2006 draft of the IW JOC put it:

In either case [of offensive or defensive IW], the ultimate goal of any IW campaign is to promote friendly political authority and influence over, and the support of, the host population while eroding enemies’ control, influence, and support.24

The NMSP-WOT has a slightly different description of the national strategy for the greater war on terrorism and the military strategic framework than does the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, described earlier – the strategy’s “ends” are twofold—to defeat violent extremism as a threat to the American way of life as a free and open society and to create a global environment inhospitable to

APPENDIX B

Irregular Warfare Analysis Doctrinal References

 

The following are the doctrinal sources we identified as addressing vari- ous aspects of IW analysis:

Air Land Sea Application (ALSA) Center, Multi-Service Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Conducting Peace Operations, FM 3-07.31, October 2003.

Headquarters, Department of the Army, Army Special Operations Forces Intelligence, FM 3-05.102, July 2001. Not releasable to the general public.

————, Civil Affairs Operations, FM 41-10, February 2000.
————, Civil Affairs Operations, FM 3-05.40, September 2006. Not releasable

to the general public.

————, Civil Affairs Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, FM 3-05.401, September 2003.

————, Counterguerilla Operations, FM 90-8, August 1986. Not releasable to the general public.

————, Counterinsurgency, FM 3-24, December 2006.

————, Counterinsurgency (Final Draft), FM 3-24, June 2006.

————, Counterintelligence, FM 34-60, October 1995.

————, Foreign Internal Defense Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Special Forces, FM 31-20-3, September 1994. Not releasable to the general public.

————, Human Intelligence Collector Operations, FM 2-22.3, September 2006. ————, Intelligence Analysis, FM 34-3, March 1990.

————, Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Support to Low-Intensity Conflict Operations, FM 34-7, May 1993.

————, Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield, FM 34-130, July 1994.

————, Intelligence Support to Operations in the Urban Environment, FMI 2-91.4, June 2005. Not releasable to the general public.

————, Open Source Intelligence, FMI 2-22.9, December 2006. Not releasable to the general public.

————, Operations in a Low-Intensity Conflict, FM 7-98, October 1992. ————, Police Intelligence Operations, FM 3-19.50, July 2006.

————, Psychological Operations Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, FM 3-05- 30, December 2003. Not releasable to the general public.

————, Reconnaissance Squadron, FM 3-20.96, September 2006. Not releasable to the general public.

————, Special Forces Group Intelligence Operations, FM 3-05.232, February 2005. Not releasable to the general public.

————, Urban Operations, FM 3-06, October 2006.
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Foreign Internal

Defense (FID), JP 3-07.1, 30 April 2004.

U.S. Army Intelligence Center, Intelligence Support to Stability Operations and Support Operations, ST 2-91.1, August 2004. Not releasable to the general public.

 

References

Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, “The Methodical Study of Politics,” paper, October 30, 2002. As of October 29, 2007:
www.yale.edu/probmeth/Bueno_De_Mesquita.doc

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism, Washington, D.C., February 1, 2006.

DeNardo, James, Power in Numbers: The Political Strategy of Protest and Rebellion, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.

DoD—See U.S. Department of Defense

Federal News Service, Comments of Mario Mancuso, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism, Hearing of the Terrorism and Unconventional Threats Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, Subject: Irregular Warfare Roadmap, September 27, 2006, September 30, 2006.

Harbom, Lotta, Stina Hogbladh, and Peter Wallensteen, “Armed Conflict and Peace Agreements,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 43, No. 5, 2006.

Headquarters, Department of the Army, Counterinsurgency, FM 3-24, Washington, D.C., December 2006.

————, Full Spectrum Operations, initial draft, FM 3-0, Washington, D.C., June 21, 2006.

————, Intelligence, FM 2-0, Washington, D.C., May 2004.
————, Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield, FM 34-130, Washington,

D.C., July 1994.
————, The Operations Process, FMI 5-0.1, Washington, D.C., March 2006. ————, Urban Operations, FM 3-06, Washington, D.C., October 2006.

Hoffman, Frank G., “Small Wars Revisited: The United States and Nontraditional Wars,” The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 28, No. 6, December 2005,
pp. 913–940.

Szayna, Thomas S., ed., Identifying Potential Ethnic Conflict: Application of a Process Model, MR-1188-A, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2000. As of October 30, 2007:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1188/

Tarrow, Sidney, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Tilly, Charles, From Mobilization to Revolution, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978. ————, Politics of Collective Violence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, “Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations,” DODD 3000.05, November 28, 2005.

United States Air Force, Irregular Warfare, AFDD 2-3, Washington, D.C., August 1, 2007.

U.S. Army Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate, “The Continuum of Operations and Stability Operations,” briefing, Ft. Leavenworth, Kan.: U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, 2006.

U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, JP 1-02, Washington, D.C., April 12, 2001 (as amended through April 14, 2006).

————, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, Washington, D.C., JP 1, Revision, Final Coordination, October 27, 2006.

————, Irregular Warfare (IW) Joint Operating Concept (JOC), draft, Washington, D.C., September 2006.

————, Irregular Warfare (IW) Joint Operating Concept (JOC), Washington, D.C., January 2007.

————, Irregular Warfare (IW) Joint Operating Concept (JOC), Version 1.0, Washington, D.C., June 2007.

————, Irregular Warfare (IW) Joint Operating Concept (JOC), Version 1.0, Washington, D.C., September 2007.

————, “Memorandum for Correspondents,” Memorandum No. 046-M, March 2, 1995. As of January 2007:
http://www.defenselink.mil

————, National Defense Strategy, Washington, D.C., June 2008.

————, National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, Washington, D.C., March 2005.

————, National Military Strategy of the United States of America: A Strategy for Today; A Vision for Tomorrow, Washington, D.C., March 2005.

————, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, Washington, D.C., February 2006. U.S. Joint Forces Command Joint Warfighting Center, Irregular Warfare Special

Study, Washington, D.C., August 4, 2006.

U.S. Marine Corps, “Small Wars Center of Excellence,” Web page, 2007. As of October 17, 2007:
http://www.smallwars.quantico.usmc.mil/

U.S. Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Tentative Manual for Countering Irregular Threats: An Updated Approach to Counterinsurgency Operations, Quantico, Va., June 7, 2006.

U.S. Marine Corps Combat Development Command and U.S. Special Operations Command Center for Knowledge and Futures, Multi-Service Concept for Irregular Warfare, Version 2.0, August 2, 2006.

White House, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, Washington, D.C., September 2006.

White, Josh, “Gates Sees Terrorism Remaining Enemy No. 1; New Defense Strategy Shifts Focus from Conventional Warfare,” The Washington Post, July 31, 2008, p. A1.

Wynne, Michael W. [Secretary of the Air Force], “State of the Force,” remarks to Air Force Association’s Air and Space Conference and Technology Exposition 2006, Washington, D.C., September 25, 2006. As of January 2007: http://www.af.mil/library/speeches/speech.asp?id=275

Yates, Lawrence A., The U.S. Military’s Experience in Stability Operations, 1789– 2005, Global War on Terrorism Occasional Paper 15, Fort Leavenworth, Kan.: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2006. As of October 18, 2007:
h t t p : / / w w w . g o o g l e . c o m / s e a r c h ? q = L a w r e n c e + A . +Y a t e s +Th e + U . S . + M i l i tary%27s+Experience&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en- US:official&client=firefox-a

Notes from Policy in the Data Age: Data Enablement for the Common Good

Policy in the Data Age: Data Enablement for the Common Good


By Karim Tadjeddine and Martin Lundqvist

Digital McKinsey August 2016

By virtue of their sheer size, visibility, and economic clout, national, state or provincial, and local governments are central to any societal transformation effort, in particular a digital transformation. Governments at all levels, which account for 30 to 50 percent of most countries’ GDP, exert profound influence not only by executing their own digital transformations but also by catalyzing digital transformations in other societal sectors

The data revolution enables governments to radically improve quality of service

Government data initiatives are fueling a movement toward evidence-based policy making. Data enablement gives governments the tool they need to be more efficient, effective, and transparent while enabling a significant change in public-policy performance management across the entire spectrum of government activities.

Governments need to launch data initiatives focused on:

  • better understanding public attitudes toward specific policies and identifying needed changes
  • developing and using undisputed KPIs that reveal the drivers of policy performance and allow the assignment of targets to policies during the design phase
  • measuring what is happening in the field by enabling civil servants, citizens, and business operators to provide fact-based information and feedback
  • evaluating policy performance, reconciling quantitative and qualitative data, and allowing the implementation of a continuous-improvement approach to policy making and execution
  • opening data in raw, crunched, and reusable formats.

The continuing and thoroughgoing evolution taking place in public service is supported by a true data revolution, fueled by two powerful trends.

First, the already low cost of computing power continues to plummet, as does the cost
of data transportation, storage, and analysis. At the same time, software providers have rolled out analytics innovations such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, automated research, and visualization tools. These developments have made it possible for nearly every business and government to derive insights from large datasets.

Second, data volumes have increased exponentially. Every two years the volume of digitally generated data doubles, thanks to new sources of data and the adoption of digital tools.

To capture the full benefit of data, states need to deliver on four key imperatives:

  • Gain the confidence and buy-in of citizens and public leaders
  • Conduct a skills-and-competencies revolution
  • Fully redesign the way states operate
  • Deploy enabling technologies that ensure interoperability and the ability to handle massive data flows

Because data-specific skills are scarce, governments need to draw on their internal capabilities to advance this revolution. Civil servants are intimately familiar with their department’s or agency’s challenges and idiosyncrasies, and they are ideally positioned to drive improvements—provided they are equipped with the necessary digital and analytical skills. These can be developed through rotational, training, and coaching programs, with content targeted to different populations. The US is building the capabilities of its employees through its DigitalGov University, which every year trains 10,000 federal civil servants from across the government in digital and data skills.

More generally, governments should train and incentivize civil servants to embed data discovery and analytics processes in their workplaces. That means that all civil servants’ end-user computing platforms must feature data discovery and analytics tools.

governments must carry out a major cultural shift in order to break down silos and barriers. Such a transformed culture is characterized by a “test and learn” mind-set that believes “good enough is good to go.”

Cultures that facilitate governments’ data transformations are also characterized by
open, collaborative, and inclusive operating models for data generation and data usage. They facilitate the participation of public agencies, private-sector companies, start-ups, and society as a whole.

Data from Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six

Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six contains extensive information about the post-Katrina social movements that blossomed in the cracks, some indigenous and some that descended upon crisis-striken city as an opportunity to spread their ideology. Below is data from Jordan Flaherty’s accounting.

APPENDIX I

Organizations in the Struggle for Post-Katrina Justice

Below are some of the initiatives that inspired this book. More in- formation about most of these groups and their work is available elsewhere in these pages. This list is limited to organizations currently in existence at the time of publication, and is not meant to be definitive. Websites or addresses are listed when applicable.

NEW ORLEANS AND LOUISIANA SOCIAL JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS

Advocates for Environmental Human Rights

Works for the cause of environmental justice as a human right. www.ehumanrights.org

A Fighting Chance/NOLA Investigates

Investigations for the defense in capital cases. www.nolainvestigates.com

African American Leadership Project

Agenda building, policy analysis, strategic dialogue, and consensus building. www.aalp.org

Agenda for Children

Policy work for children’s rights. www.agendaforchildren.org

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Louisiana

Legal struggles for civil rights. www.laaclu.org

American Friends Service Committee of New Orleans

Organizing against the cradle-to-prison pipeline and other campaigns. www.afsc.org/office/new-orleans-la

Black Men United for Change, Justice and Equality

Grassroots organizing among Black men from New Orleans.

Children’s Defense Fund of Louisiana

National child advocacy organization—in New Orleans, conducts Freedom Schools, among other projects. www.childrensdefense.org

Common Ground Relief Collective

Short-term relief and long-term rebuilding support. www.commongroundrelief.org

267

268 FLOODLINES

Common Ground Health Clinic

Dedicated to providing free, quality health care for New Orleans. www.commongroundclinic.org

Critical Resistance New Orleans

Prison abolition organization. www.criticalresistance.org

Deep South Center for Environmental Justice

Environmental justice organization based at Dillard University. www.dscej.org.

European Dissent

White antiracist group in New Orleans, affiliated with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB).

Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC)

Organizes among family members of incarcerated youth. www.fflic.org

Finding our Folk

Raising the voices of displaced New Orleanians. www.findingourfolk.org

Fyre Youth Squad

Young people organizing for better schools. www.myspace.com/1fyreyouth

Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center

Legal struggles against housing injustice. www.gnofairhousing.org

Innocence Project New Orleans

Represents innocent prisoners serving life sentences in Louisiana and Mississippi. www.ip-no.org

Institute for Women and Ethnic Studies

Sexual and reproductive health justice among youth, women, and people of color. www.iwesnola.org

International Coalition to Free the Angola 3

A collective working to free Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, the two members of the Angola Three who remain in prison. www.angola3.org

Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana

Legal and organizing work to reform juvenile justice. www.jjpl.org

Louisiana Justice Institute

Legal advocacy for civil rights and facilitation of a wide range of social justice campaigns in New Orleans and across the state. www.louisianajusticeinstitute.org

Loyola Law Clinic

Legal clinic representing indigent clients. www.law.loyno.edu/clinic

Make It Right

Founded by Brad Pitt to rebuild housing in the Lower Ninth Ward. www.makeitrightnola.org

APPENDIX I: SOCIAL JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS 269

Mayday New Orleans

Organizing for public housing justice. www.maydaynolahousing.org

National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA)

New Orleans chapter of national alliance working for reparations. www.ncobra.org

Nation of Islam—New Orleans

Rebuilding and antiviolence work in the city. www.noineworleans.org

Neighborhoods Partnership Network (NPN)

Network of neighborhood organizations in New Orleans. www.npnnola.com

New Orleans Food & Farm Network

Food access organization. www.noffn.org

New Orleans, Louisiana Palestine Solidarity (NOLAPS)

Organizing and activism for awareness of Palestine, linking struggles in New Orleans with the Middle East. http://nolaps.blogspot.com

New Orleans Tenants Rights Union

Organizing tenants to create concrete improvements in their situation as renters. http://nolatru.org

New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice

Building worker power, advancing racial justice, and organizing to build a social movement in post-Katrina New Orleans. www.nowcrj.org

NO/AIDS Task Force

Services and advocacy for HIV-infected individuals. www.noaidstaskforce.org

Parents Organizing Network

Supports parents in taking a powerful role in the creation of excellent public schools. www.nolaparentsguide.org

People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB)

Antiracist community organizers and educators dedicated to building an effective movement for social transformation. www.pisab.org

Resurrection After Exoneration

Works to reconnect exonerees to their communities and provide access to those opportunities of which they were robbed. www.r-a-e.org

ReThink: Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools

Students reforming the school system post-Katrina. www.therethinkers.com

Safe Streets/Strong Communities

Campaigns for a new criminal justice system in New Orleans. www.safestreetsnola.org

School at Blair Grocery

Dedicated to the growth and development of young minds in the Lower Ninth Ward of New

270 FLOODLINES

Orleans. http://schoolatblairgrocery.blogspot.com

Stay Local! New Orleans

Supports local businesses. www.staylocal.org

Students at the Center

A writing and digital-media program for students in New Orleans public, non-charter high schools. www.sacnola.com

Survivors Village

Former public housing residents in New Orleans struggling for housing justice. www.communitiesrising.wordpress.com

Twomey Center for Peace Through Justice

Education for social justice consciousness. www.loyno.edu/twomey

UNITY of Greater New Orleans

A collaborative of sixty agencies working with homeless people in New Orleans. www.unitygno.org

Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans
( VAY L A )
Empowering Vietnamese American youth through services, cultural enrichment, and social change. www.vayla-no.org

VOTE: Voices of Formerly Incarcerated Persons

Building the political power of people most impacted by the criminal justice system. www.vote-nola.org

Women’s Health & Justice Initiative (WHJI)

A radical feminist of color, anti-violence, justice-based organization. The New Orleans affiliate of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. www.whji.org

Women With A Vision

Health care justice for women from at-risk and socially vulnerable communities. www.wwav-no.org

ARTS, CULTURE, AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS AND SPACES

2-Cent Entertainment

Grassroots youth filmmaking collective. www.2-cent.com

Artspot Productions

Theatre and arts organization. www.artspotproductions.org

Ashé Cultural Center

Black-owned cultural and community space. www.ashecac.org

APPENDIX I: SOCIAL JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS 271

Backstreet Cultural Museum

Cultural center preserving the history and culture of Black Mardi Gras. www.backstreetmuseum.org

Community Book Center

African and African American-centered bookstore and community space. www.communitybookcenter.com

Craige Cultural Center

Community space and cultural center in the Algiers neighborhood. 1800 Newton Street, New Orleans, LA 70114

Guardians of the Flame Cultural Arts Collective

Preserving New Orleans’s Black Mardi Gras cultural traditions.

House of Dance and Feathers

Lower Ninth Ward space dedicated to preserving New Orleans culture. www.houseofdanceandfeathers.com

Iron Rail Bookstore and Infoshop

Anarchist infoshop and lending library. www.ironrail.org

Islamic Shura Council of Greater New Orleans

Organization of New Orleans’s Muslim community.

Junebug Productions

African American Arts company, preserving the civil rights traditions of the Free Southern Theatre. http://junebugproductions.blogspot.com

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender
Community Center of New Orleans
Builds, strengthens, and unifies the Greater New Orleans area LGBTQ community. www.lgccno.net

McKenna Museum of African American Art

Dedicated to New Orleans African American art. www.themckennamuseum.com

Mondo Bizarro

Creates original, multidisciplinary art and fosters partnerships in local, national, and interna- tional communities. www.mondobizarro.org

Neighborhood Gallery

Exposure and support for artists. www.theneighborhoodgallery.com

Neighborhood Story Project

Works with writers in neighborhoods around New Orleans to write and publish books about their communities. www.neighborhoodstoryproject.org

272 FLOODLINES

New Orleans Kid Camera Project

Uses photography training and support to help young people express themselves. www.kidcameraproject.org

PATOIS: The New Orleans Human Rights Film and Arts Festival

Organizes events, amplifies local voices, and builds community at the intersection of arts and social justice. www.patoisfilmfest.org

Porch Cultural Organization and Center

Community-based organization using the arts to effect social change. www.theporch-7.com

Social Aid and Pleasure Club Task Force

An alliance of the city’s social aid and pleasure clubs.

Tambourine and Fan

Works with young people in the Treme community to pass on New Orleans art and culture. Treme Community Center, 1600 St. Philip Street, New Orleans, LA, 70116

Tekrema Center for Art and Culture

African American community space in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward. www.thetekremacenter.com

Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center

Film and arts space in Central City New Orleans. www.zeitgeistinc.net

OTHER SOUTHERN AND GULF COAST SOCIAL JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS

Friends of Justice

Supports struggles against injustice in criminal cases across Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. www.friendsofjustice.wordpress.com

Institute for Southern Studies

Nonprofit research center working to bring lasting social and economic change. www.southernstudies.org

Miami Workers Center

Building working-class community power in Miami. www.theworkerscenter.org

Mississippi Immigrants’ Rights Alliance (MIRA)

Advocacy organizing and education for immigrants’ rights. www.yourmira.org

Mississippi Workers Center

Grassroots worker advocacy. 213 Main Street, Greenville, MS, 38701

Organizing in the Trenches

Founded by Caseptla Bailey and Catrina Wallace, family members of one of the Jena Six, to continue struggles for social justice. PO Box 831, Jena, LA, 71342

APPENDIX I: SOCIAL JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS 273

Project South

Atlanta-based movement building organization. www.projectsouth.org

Southerners On New Ground (SONG)

Envisioning a world where the third-shift factory worker and the drag queen at the bar down the block see their lives as connected and are working together for liberation. www.southernersonnewground.org

Take Back the Land

Miami-based collective empowering the Black community to determine how to use land for the benefit of the community. www.takebacktheland.org

NATIONAL ALLIES

The Advancement Project

A civil rights law, policy, and communication “action tank.” www.advancementproject.org

Catalyst Project

White antiracist collective based in California. www.collectiveliberation.org

Center for Constitutional Rights

Uses law for social justice struggles. www.ccrjustice.org

ColorofChange

Online resource for racial justice organizing. www.ColorofChange.org

INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence

A national activist organization of radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and their communities. www.incite-national.org

Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

Defending human rights and promoting self-determination. www.mxgm.org

National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI)

Advocacy for a human rights vision in the United States. www.nesri.org

Rainbow Push Coalition

Religious and social development organization led by Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. www.rainbowpush.org

Right to the City Alliance

Movement-building alliance of community-based organizations. www.righttothecity.org

US Human Rights Network

Building links between organizations to promote U.S. accountability to universal human rights standards. www.ushrnetwork.org

V-Day

Founded by Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler to stop violence against women and girls. www.vday.org

 

 

 

LETTER FROM THE PEOPLE OF NEW ORLEANS TO OUR FRIENDS AND ALLIES

December 15, 2006

 

Cherice Harrison-Nelson, director and curator, Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame; Royce Os- born, writer/producer; Greta Gladney, fourth- generation Lower Ninth Ward resident; Corlita Mahr, media justice advocate; Judy Watts, Pres- ident/CEO, Agenda for Children; Robert “Kool Black” Horton, Critical Resistance; Jen- nifer Turner, Community Book Center; Mayaba

Liebenthal, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, Critical Resistance; Norris Hender- son, co-director, Safe Streets/Strong Communi- ties; Ursula Price, outreach and investigation coordinator, Safe Streets/Strong Communities; Evelyn Lynn, managing director, Safe Streets/Strong Communities; Shana griffin, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence;

 

Min. J. Kojo Livingston, founder, Liberation Zone/Destiny One Ministries; Shana Sassoon, New Orleans Network Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans; Althea Francois, Safe Streets/Strong Communities; Malcolm Suber, People’s Hurricane Relief Fund; Saket Soni, New Orleans Workers’ Justice Project; Nick Slie, I-10, Witness Project, co-artistic director, Mondo Bizarro; Catherine Jones, organizer and co-founder, Latino Health Outreach Project; Jennifer Whitney, coordinator, Latino Health Outreach Project; S. Mandisa Moore, INCITE! Women of Color New Orleans ; Aesha Rasheed, project manager, New Orleans Net- work; Dix deLaneuville, educator; Rebecca Snedeker, filmmaker; Catherine A. Galpin, RN, FACES, and Children’s Hospital; Grace Bauer, Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children; Xochitl Bervera, Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children; Bess Car- rick, producer/director; John Clark, professor of philosophy, Loyola University; Diana Dunn, People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, European Dissent; Courtney Egan, artist; Lou Furman, Turning Point Partners; Ariana Hall, Director, CubaNOLA Collective; Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, historian, writer, and lecturer, New Orleans and Mississippi Pine Belt; Susan Hamovitch, filmmaker/teacher, NYC/New Orleans; Russell Henderson, lecturer, Dillard University and organizer, Rebuilding Louisana Coalition; Ms. Deon Haywood, events coordi- nator, Women With A Vision Inc.; Rachel Herzing, Critical Resistance, Oakland; Rev. Doug Highfield, Universal Life Church, Cherokee, AL; Joyce Marie Jackson, PhD., Cultural Researcher, LSU Dept. of Geography & Anthropology, and co-founder of Cultural

Crossroads, Inc., Baton Rouge Elizabeth K. Jeffers, teacher; Dana Kaplan, Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana; Vi Landry, freelance jour- nalist, New Orleans/New York; Bridget Lehane, European Dissent and People’s Insti- tute for Survival and Beyond; Karen-kaia Liv- ers, Alliance for Community Theaters, Inc.; Rachel E. Luft, assistant professor of sociology, Department of Sociology, University of New Orleans; Damekia Morgan, Families and Friends of Louisiana ‘s Incarcerated Children; Ukali Mwendo, hazardous materials specialist, NOFD, president, Provisional Government— Republic of New Afrika/New Orleans, LA, former resident of the Lafitte Housing Devel- opment; Thea Patterson, Women’s Health & Justice Initiative; J. Nash Porter, documentary photographer and co-founder of Cultural Crossroads, Inc., Baton Rouge; Gloria Powers, arts project manager; Bill Quigley, Loyola Pro- fessor of Law; Linda Santi, Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans; Tony Sfer- lazza, director, Plenty International NOLA; Heidi Lee Sinclair, MD, MPH, Baton Rouge Children’s Health Project; Justin Stein, neigh- borhood relations coordinator and community mediator, Common Ground Health Clinic; Audrey Stewart, Loyola Law Clinic; Tracie L. Washington, Esq., co-director, Louisiana Justice Institute; Scott Weinstein, former co-director of the Common Ground Health Clinic; Melissa Wells, New Orleans resident; Jerald L. White, Bottletree Productions; Morgan Williams, Student Hurricane Network, co-founder; Gina Womack, Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children

Pledge in Support of a Just Rebuilding of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, and the U.S. Gulf Coast

Organizations Endorsing:

Action Coalition for Racial, Social, and Environmental Justice—University of New Orleans; Advancement Project; Advocates for Environmental Human Rights; C3/Hands Off Iberville; Caffin Avenue Church of God; Coastal Women for Change; Common Ground Health Clinic; Community Church Unitarian Universalist—New Orleans; Emerging ChangeMakers Network; Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children; Homeless Action Team of Tulane University (HATT); Jesuit Social Research Institute, Loyola University; Junebug Produc- tions; Katrina Rita Diaspora Solidarity; Loyola

University Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild; Louisiana Justice Institute; Lower Ninth Ward Center for Sustainable Engage- ment and Development; Lower 9th Ward Homeowners’ Association; Mayday New Orleans; Mennonite Central Committee— New Orleans; Mississippi Center for Justice; Mondo Bizarro; Moving Forward Gulf Coast, Inc.; National Economic and Social Rights Initia- tive (NESRI); New Orleans Palestine Solidar- ity; New Americans Social Club (New Orleans Holocaust Survivors Organization); PATOIS: The New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival; People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond; Poverty & Race Research Action Council; Pyramid Community Parent Resource Center; Southern Institute for Education and Research; Survivors Village; US Human Rights Network; Zion Travelers Cooperative Center

 

Notes from Insurgencies are Organizations Too: Organizational Structure and the Effectiveness of Insurgent Strategy

Notes from Insurgencies are Organizations Too: Organizational Structure and the Effectiveness of Insurgent Strategy

From Peace and Conflict Review · Volume 6 Issue 1 · Year 2011 · Page 22

Written by Ethan Frisch holds an Msc in Violence, Conflict and Development, University of London.

***

In April of 1965, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, hero of the Cuban revolution, traveled with a group of Cuban fighters to eastern Congo to support the rebellion against the American- and Belgian-backed government. He intended to share his experiences from the success of the Cuban revolution with Congolese fighters by deploying experienced Cuban fighters alongside inexperienced Congolese recruits. He hoped the Congolese would learn by example, through a process he called ‘Cubanization’, and take on the Cuban fighters’ technical skills and revolutionary mentality. The Preface to his account of his time there, however, begins, ‘This is the history of a failure.’ Guevara very quickly realized that the context of the Congolese revolution was dramatically different from the one he had known in Cuba. The lessons he had learned in the mountains of the Sierra Madre were not always relevant to the Congolese context, and instead of the ‘Cubanization’ of the Congolese soldiers he had hoped for, he observed a ‘Congolization’ of the Cubans, as they adapted to the new environment and began to emulate their Congolese colleagues (Guevara, 2001).

First, I argue that insurgent organizational structure and subsequent strategic decision-making evolve organically, as a natural result of the organization’s short- and long-term goals, economic and social resources, observations and responses to the enemy’s behaviour, and other contextual factors. Second, I argue that the relationship between structure and organizational effectiveness is a product of context, and that in a post-9/11 global context of weak borders, wide-reaching media, centralized counter-terror networks and easy transportation and communication, a decentralized, international network is the most effective structure for an insurgent organization.

five key dilemmas of insurgent organizing: (1) action versus secrecy; (2) growth versus control; (3) recruitment versus retention; (4) success versus longevity; and (5) resources versus constituencies. Dilemmas are a widely used tool in organizational economics and psychology to understand the complexities of decisions that organizations face. They emphasize that choices are not binary and highlight the organization’s agency in negotiating the various challenges they face.

Insurgent organizations exist along a spectrum, from hierarchical to network structures. I introduce a second spectrum along which networked insurgencies can be classified, from local to international structures.

Definitions

For the most part, the use of the term insurgency implies an organized, armed resistance movement, and so for the purposes of this paper will be defined as:

A non-governmental organization working to affect social and/or political change through violent means against existing power structures and in a way that deliberately challenges the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.

It is also important to differentiate insurgencies from organized criminal groups, whose orientation is primarily towards profit-making.

Dilemma One: Action versus Secrecy

Simply put, any insurgency has two complementary operational goals: to carry out attacks, and to avoid getting caught. The inherent paradox of implementing those goals, however, is that the more attacks an organization carries out, the less secret the organization will be and thus the higher the likelihood they will be defeated.

Heightened secrecy can also have a detrimental impact on an organization’s ability to carry out attacks, as higher levels of secrecy can weaken internal communication and make it harder to coordinate operations.

as organizations emphasize easier internal communication, they become less secure and open themselves up to infiltration and leaks

Dilemma Two: Growth versus Control

As an organization grows in membership, geographical area and diversity and number of activities, the leadership must decide when and how to relinquish the high degree of control they exercised when the organization was smaller. Insurgent organizations, like business corporations, need more people if they want to engage in more activities.

As organizations grow, their structures also become formalized and fixed.

when centralized or decentralized organizations are attacked, each organizational form tends to become more extreme. In a centralized organization, further centralization can make it more vulnerable as the decision-making capacity become concentrated in fewer individuals. In decentralized organizations, a greater degree of decentralization allows the organization to spread to avoid irreparable organizational damage, continue to operate as smaller sub-groups, and to regroup after the attack has ended (Brafman & Beckstrom, 2006).

Johnston argues that the key determinants of insurgent organizational structure are technology and geography. He describes a causal chain in which their interaction influences the type of organization that develops, which has an impact on the organization’s effectiveness.

The role of charismatic leadership is also important in understanding how insurgent organizations grow and change. Jordan, writing about leadership by analysing the assassination of insurgent leaders, finds that although charismatic leadership is key to the creation of a strong insurgent group, it does not determine the group’s ultimate survival and can actually be a hindrance as the group develops over time

two points relevant to the debate on insurgent organizational structure. First, they find that groups with charismatic leaders may resist bureaucratization and growth, and may even resist, at least implicitly, achieving organizational goals. If the leader feels that victory will force the organization to grow beyond his/her control or will remove the organization’s raison d’être, s/he may actually work to ensure that victory is not achieved. Second, they draw a distinction between groups that resemble armies and those that with semi-autonomous squads. They say that in the army-style groups, a loss of leadership always results in the group either being strengthened or collapsing, the group never stays the same or weakens

Groups are founded when charismatic leaders have a set of goals, and when the benefits of membership outweigh the costs for potential recruits. He also agrees that a major function of a terrorist organization is maintaining its own existence, and illustrates that an organization’s leadership needs to sustain the organization overall in order to sustain its privileged position.

Dilemma Three: Recruitment versus Retention

The recruitment-retention dilemma is a particularly pressing one for insurgent organizations

Recruitment is described as an extremely difficult endeavour, and retention is treated mostly as a form of what organizational economics calls ‘contract enforcement,’ focused on convincing members to fulfil their commitments. Actually, the challenge of recruitment is often more related to a lack of quality rather than quantity of recruits

Recruitment

There are three main, overlapping reasons that an individual chooses to join an insurgency: (a) because family members, friends, or other members of the recruit’s social network are involved; (b) because of personal trauma, including violence against the individual and/or his or her family members; and (c) because of deep religious and/or political conviction that inspires a willingness to fight and for a cause

Kuznar, in a wide-ranging psychological and sociological analysis of the reasons people engage in terrorist activities, highlights the significance of a sense of material inequality and lack of fairness as important motivators. He links those sentiments to deeper psychological feelings of resentment and humiliation, which both fuel the motivation to act violently, and create important social bonds with others who share those feelings.

Kuznar also emphasizes the importance of social networks as an important factor in an individual’s decision to participate in terrorism. He highlights the social isolation from mainstream society often felt by migrants… participation in terrorist activities may stem from a psychological impetus to be a part of a supportive group after migrating to an unfamiliar and alienating environment. His conclusions about the role of social networks in recruitment to commit violence is widely supported across the literature, and provide some insight into the non-economic reasons that people choose to participate in terrorist activities

Retention

The factors that contribute to recruitment, like strong social networks, grievance, and incentives also contribute to retention, and do not diminish with membership.

More importantly, access to recruits is a resource in itself, and one that is finite.

Another particularly difficult aspect of retaining group members is that the highest value recruits are also hardest to retain, both because of opportunities outside the insurgency…

The onus is also on the organization to build loyalty.

Dilemma Four: Success versus Longevity

insurgent organizations are primarily rational actors, and that the use of violence, including against civilians, is an effective political tool.

Abrahms disagrees with this conventional wisdom and criticizes the assumptions that underpin it, particularly that terrorist organizations engage in violence with the primarily political goals. He points out seven ways that terrorist organizations contradict the widely held assumption of strategic rationality. He argues that organizational survival and social connections, rather than the achievement of political goals, are the most important factors in the decision-making of terrorist organizations.

Resources versus Constituencies

Olson, writing about bandits in ancient China, presented one of the key choices facing all armed actors with an interest in resource extraction. He presents the ‘roving bandit’ as an armed group that attacks a village, steals as much as they can, and then leaves to do the same to the next village, and the ‘stationary bandit’, a group that establishes itself in a specific area and extracts a smaller, regular tithe from its residents. The stationary bandit will make less money in the short term, but ensures a steady flow of income over the long-term

Modern insurgent organizations often face a very similar dilemma. Weinstein outlines the link between resources, recruitment and organizational structure and behaviour. He argues that insurgencies are dependent on both social and economic endowments, the nature of which influence the organization’s recruitment, structure, goals, and leadership. The crux of his argument rests on the idea that an organization’s methods of resource extraction influence the individuals who choose to join and the way the organization behaves. An organization that depends on the local population for support will employ a ‘stationary bandit’ approach, and attract high-commitment recruits who believe in the organization’s ideology and will employ violence selectively. An organization with access to natural resources or external funding will attract low-commitment recruits who are primarily interested in profit and who have little regard for the lives or livelihoods of civilians, or in establishing a stable system of long-term tax collection. He also argues that the relationship between endowments and an organization’s leadership is mutually reinforcing: endowments shape the leadership’s behaviour, but the leadership can shape endowments as well (Weinstein, 2006).

Context and the Resolution of Dilemmas

It is clear from the dilemmas discussed above that insurgencies need to be dynamic and malleable organizations. They are influenced by a host of contextual factors, which determine the way they negotiate the five dilemmas discussed here.

The distinction between organic and explicit organizational structure and decision-making is important for two reasons. From a policy and particularly counter-insurgency perspective, the conclusion that context is key to the evolution of insurgencies would imply that lessons learned in one context should only be very carefully applied to another. The challenges represented by the dilemmas can be used to frame how an insurgency deals with its context. It also implies, therefore, that if the context in which an insurgency is forming can be changed, so too can the formation of the insurgency. It may be possible to track, or even predict, how those changes will take place if we know how the organization has resolved these dilemmas over time. As such, they can be a useful framework to guide counter-insurgency strategy towards an understanding of the importance of context and the ways it can influence organizational behaviour.

Section 2: A New Spectrum of Insurgent Network Organization

In a modern, post-September 11th context, the strict hierarchical structure has become a liability rather than an asset to an insurgent organization. A number of factors have contributed to this shift, stemming both from the policies and practices related to the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and broader trends of the globalization of travel and trade.

Finally, the wide reach of the media, both in sourcing stories and in reporting them, has created clear incentives for a strategy based on perpetrating a small number of high-profile incidents. Older, hierarchical models of insurgent organization tend to emphasize a long-term strategy based on guerrilla tactics and attrition, whereas modern, networked insurgencies can capitalize on the international media echo to project power and presence through fewer, very public attacks.

Consequently, to be able to accurately analyze the organizational structure of modern insurgencies, it is important to introduce another measure in addition to the hierarchy-network spectrum. As discussed above, hierarchies are becoming less viable as insurgent organizational structures, so the new measure will focus on those organizations closer to the network pole of the spectrum.

Methodology

As we compare the effectiveness of local and international networks by looking at two fairly ideal cases, it’s important to establish a definition of effectiveness as it pertains to the strategies and tactics of insurgent organizations

Based on the Global Terrorism Database’s parameters, effectiveness will be defined by: (1) the frequency of attacks, (2) the sophistication of weapons used, (3) the number of casualties, including injuries and fatalities, caused by individual attacks, (4) the percentage of successful attacks, which are those where law enforcement officials were unable to prevent the attack as it occurred or immediately prior, (5) the defensive capabilities of the target, as the choice and ability to attack military and police targets implies a higher level of organizational effectiveness than attacking civilian or commercial targets, (6) the average number of attackers per incident, because the ability to coordinate more people implies greater organizational effectiveness (7) achievement of their stated goals, and (8) ultimate survival of the organization today.

Conclusion

None of the dilemmas is binary, and each represents a range of choices an organization can make. However, in a modern context of weak borders and easy international transportation, wide-reaching and hyperactive international media outlets, centralized counter-insurgency operations, and inexpensive, reliable means of communication, it would appear that the most effective insurgencies will resolve the dilemmas by evolving an internationally-networked and decentralized organization built of semi-autonomous units with shared goals, ideologies and tactics.

My recommendations to counter-insurgency strategists in government in the United States and Europe are these: harness the energy of insurgency into non-violent political activism, and support and protect the people who choose that route. Development projects aimed at addressing grievances, and at creating economic and social opportunities for potential recruits, could fundamentally change the nature of an insurgent organization before it grows large enough to pose a threat.

In the framework of the five dilemmas, that would entail: encouraging non-violent action over violent secrecy; supporting the growth of movements working to bring about productive social change; recruiting new members and retaining veterans by strengthening social networks and encouraging the use of new means of communication; prioritizing constituencies over resources. In a non-violent and inclusive organization, success and longevity are not mutually exclusive – one success can be the foundation for the next, to construct an organization that is strong enough to resist defeat and flexible enough to recognize and exploit weaknesses in its enemy.

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Notes from Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications (and Appendixes): Revised (Including Index)

Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications 

Below are legal definitions and examples of Subversive Organizations and Publications along with some historical background.

DOES “YES” ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS?

“For the guidance of the American people in detecting Communist-front organizations, we present the following criteria:

“1. Does the organization have Communist Party—members or those trusted by the Communist Party, In its posts of real power on its executive board, as secretary, organizer, educational director, editor, office staff?
“2. Are meetings of the organization addressed by Communists or their trusted agents? Does its publication include articles by such persons?
“3. Does the organization follow the Communist Party line?
“4. Does the organization cooperate with campaigns, activities, publications, of the Communist Party or other front organizations?
“5. Is the address of the organization in the same building with other front organizations or within the cooperating vicinity?
“6. Does the organization cooperate with Communist-controlled unions?
“7. Does the organization’s official publication reflect the line of the Communist Party, publish articles by pro-Communists, advertise Communist activities, or those of other front organizations or of Communist vacation resorts?
“8. Are questions injected into meetings or in official publications, which have more to do with the current policy of the Communist Party, than with the pro- fessed purposes of the organization?
“9. Are funds kicked back directly or indirectly to the Communist Party or to other front organizations?
“10. I sprinting do neat a Communist printing house?
“11. Does the organization use entertainers associated with pro-Communist organizations or entertainments?
“12. Does the organization receive favorable publicity in the Communist press?
“13. Is the organization uniformly loyal to the Soviet Union?

CHANGES IN PARTY LINE
The line of the Communist Party on foreign policy is cited herewith. Its advocacy by an individual or organization, throughout all its variations, is a sound test of the loyalty and subservience of such an individual or organization to the Communist Party:

Communist cooperation is offered to socialists and capitalists, with a special pitch to the non-Communist governments and peoples of economically underdeveloped nations ; substituted for Hitler as the “main enemy” of the united front, however, are the “monopoly capitalists” allegedly ruling the United States and pursuing bellicose and imperialistic policies. The Communist “peace” propaganda slogan, “outlaw nuclear weapons,” is expanded to “total disarmament,” while the Soviet Union in practice steadfastly resists implementation of the slogans by rejecting all free-nation proposals for an effective system of armament inspection and control.

There has never been a change in one basic Communist purpose from 1918 to the present date, however—the eventual elimination of non-Communist governments and the establishment of world hegemony for the Soviet Union.

The first requisite for front organizations is an idealistic sounding title. Hundreds of such organizations have come into being and have gone out of existence when their true purposes have become known or exposed while others with high-sounding names are continually springing up.

*******
There are easy tests to establish the real character of such organizations :
1. Does the group espouse the cause of Americanism or the cause of Soviet Russia?
2. Does the organization feature as speakers at its meetings known Communists, sympathizers, or fellow travelers ?
3. Does the organization shift when the party line shifts?
4. Does the organization sponsor causes, campaigns, literature, petitions, or other activities sponsored by the party or other front organizations?
5. Is the organization used as a sounding board by or is it endorsed by Com- munist-controlled labor unions?
6. Does Its literature follow the Communist line or is it printed by the Com- munist press?
7. Does the organization receive consistent favorable mention in Communist publications?
8. Doestheorganizationpresentitselftobenonpartisanyetengageinpolitical activities and consistently advocate causes favored by the Communists?
9. Does the organization denounce American and British foreign policy while always lauding Soviet policy?
10. Does the organization utilize Communist “double talk” by referring to Soviet-dominated countries as democracies, complaining that the United States is imperialistic and constantly denouncing monopoly-capital?
11. Have outstanding leaders in public life openly renounced affiliation with the organization?
12. Does the organization, if espousing liberal progressive causes, attract well- known honest patriotic liberals or does it denounce well-known liberals?
13. Does the organization have a consistent record of supporting the American viewpoint over the years?
14. Does the organization consider matters not directly related to its avowed purposes and objectives?

The value to the Communist Party of the front organization and a front’s operating techniques are described by Mr. Hoover as follows in his book, Masters of Deceit:
Fronts probably represent the Party’s most successful tactic in capturing non- communist support. Like mass agitation and Infiltration, fronts espouse the deceptive Party line (hence the term “front”) while actually advancing the real Party line. In this way the Party is able to influence thousands of noncommunists, collect large sums of money, and reach the minds, pens, and tongues of many high-ranking and distinguished individuals. Moreover, fronts are excellent fields for Party recruitment.

What are Fronts and Transmission Belts

A front is an organization which the communists openly or secretly control. The communists realize that they are not welcome in American society. Party influence, therefore, is transmitted, time after time, by a belt of concealed members, sympathizers, and dupes. Fronts become transmission belts between the Party,and the non-communist world. Earl Browder, when head of the Party, gave this definition : “Transmission belts mean having Communists work among the masses in the various organizations.”

The danger of a Party front rests not on its physical appearance or size but on its ability to deceive.

LEGISLATION WITH RESPECT TO FRONT ORGANIZATIONS

In 1950, Congress enacted a comprehensive Communist control law

knownastheInternalSecurityAct. This legislation, which is based largely upon the findings of fact and legislative recommendations of the Committee on Un-American Activities, contains certain registration and disclosure requirements aimed at countering the deceptive front operations of the Communist Party.

The Congress, adopting virtually the exact language proposed in a bill reported out by this committee, declared in the Internal Security Act:

As a result of evidence adduced before various committees of the Senate and House of Representatives, the Congress finds that

(4) The direction and control of the world Communist movement is vested In and exercised by the Communist dictatorship of a foreign country.

(5) The Communist dictatorship of such foreign country, in exercising such direction and control and in furthering the purposes of the world Communist movement, establishes or causes the establishment of, and utilizes, in various countries, action organizations which are not free and independent organisations, but are sections of a world-wide Communist organization and are controlled, directed, and subject to the discipline of the Communist dictatorship of such foreign country.

(6) The Communist action organizations so established and utilized in various countries, acting under such control, direction, and discipline, endeavor to carry out the objectives of the world Communist movement by bringing about the overthrow of existing governments by any available means, including force if necessary, and setting up Communist totalitarian dictatorships which will be subservient to the most powerful existing Communist totalitarian dictatorship.

(7) In carrying on the activities referred to in paragraph (6) of this section such Communist organizations in various countries are organized on a secret, conspiratorial basis and operate to a substantial extent through organizations, commonly known as “Communist fronts”, which in most instances are created and maintained, or used, in such manner as to conceal the facts as to their true character and purposes and their membership. One result of this method of operation is that such affiliated organizations are able to obtain financial and other support from persons who would not extend such support if they knew the true purposes of, and the actual nature of the control and influence exerted upon, such “Communist fronts”.

The Internal Security Act created the Subversive Activities Control Board, a quasi-judicial agency empowered upon petition from the United States Attorney General to hold public hearings and subpoena witnesses and documentary material for the purpose of determining whether an organization is a Communist-action or Communist-front organization. Judicial safeguards such as the right to present oral and documentary evidence and cross-examination are afforded the organization subject to such proceedings before the SACB. Once an organization has been found by the SACB to fall within either the Communist-action or Communist-front category, the organization is required to register as such with the Attorney General and submit annual reports with such information as its name and address, its officers, an accounting of all monies received and disbursed together with the sources of the funds and the purposes of expenditures.

(f) Determination of Communist-front organization; matters considered.

In determining whether any organization is a “Communist-front organization”, the Board shall take into consideration—
(1) the extent to which persons who are active in its management, direction, or supervision, whether or not holding office therein, are active in the management, direction, or supervision of, or as representatives of, any Communist-action organization, Communist foreign government, or the world Communist movement referred to in section 7S1 of this title; and
(2) the extent to which its support, financial or otherwise, is derived from any Communist-action organization. Communist foreign government, or the world communist movement referred to in section 781 of this title ; and
(3) the extent to which its funds, resources, or personnel are used to further or promote the objectives of any Communist-action organization, Communist foreign government, or the world Communist movement referred to in section 781 of this title; and
(4) the extent to which the positions taken or advanced by it from time to time on matters of policy do not deviate from those of any Communist- action organization. Communist foreign government, or the world Communist movement referred to in section 781 of this title.

On June 5, 1961, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the basic registration and disclosure provisions of the Internal Security Act, and sustained the SACB order requiring the Communist Party to register as a Communist-action organization.

An amendment to the Internal Security Act in 1954 added a third category of organizations covered by the Act, namely Communist- infiltrated organizations. Such an organization is defined as being “substantially directed, dominated, or controlled by an individual or individuals who are, or who within three years have been actively engaged in, giving aid or support to a Communist-action organization, a Communist foreign government or the world Communist movement”, and “is serving, or within three years has served, as a means
for (i) the giving of aid or support to any such organization, government, or movement, or (ii) the impairment of the military strength of the United States or its industrial capacity to furnish logistical or other material support required by its Armed Forces.”

Communist-infiltrated organizations are not required to “register” under the Act, but they are required to label their publications and mail in interstate or foreign commerce and to identify themselves in radio or television broadcasts sponsored by them; they are also deprived of certain tax exemption benefits and benefits under the National Labor Relations Act.

The Guide lists a total of 663 organizations or projects and 122 publications cited as Communist or Communist front by Federal Agencies; and 155 organizations and 25 publications cited as Communist or Communist front by State or Territorial investigating committees.

This edition of the Guide contains the names of 200 organizations and projects and 44 publications which have been characterized as Communist or Communist front by Federal authorities, but which have not appeared in previous editions of the Guide.

The committee has ascertained that a Communist front is an organization or publication created or captured by the Communists to do the party’s work in areas where an openly Communist project would be unwelcome. Because subterfuge often makes it difficult to recognize its true nature, the Communist front has become an important weapon of communism in this country. A Communist front, for example, may camouflage its true purposes behind such moral and human appeals as “peace” and “civil rights” while serving the aims of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union.

Similar efforts to create what Communists called a “united front” with non-Communists occurred in the mid-1930’s as a direct result of the Soviet Union’s fear of the rising power of the Fascist dictatorships. A multitude of Communist fronts flourished in the United States in that period because thousands of dupes were lulled by the Communists’ siren song of friendship. Many of the organizations which operated at that time are listed in this compilation.

The current “united front” strategy was decreed by the post-Stalin “collective leadership” of the Soviet Union and continued by Nikita Khrushchev when he inherited Josef Stalin’s mantle as supreme Soviet dictator. The united front was one of a number of new strategies
adopted to meet the exigencies of the post-Stalin Soviet leadership.

In listing Communist and Communist-front organizations and publications, the committee has relied upon the characterization which was made by the Federal or State authority originally making the declaration.

ORGANIZATIONS

Abolish Peonage Committee
Abraham Lincoln Brigade or Battalion. (See international Brigades, Fifteenth.)
Abraham Lincoln School (Chicago)
Academic and Civil Rights Committee
Academic and Civil Rights Council of California
Action Committee To Free Spain Now
Actors’ Laboratory
Actors’ Laboratory Theatre
Adolph Larson-Ruby Hynes Defense Committee
Alabama People’s Educational Association. (See entry under Communist Political Association.)
Albanian-American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Alex Bittelman Defense Committee
A 11- America Anti-Imperialist League
All-California Conference for Defense of Civil Rights and Aid to Labor’s Prisoners
Allied Labor News (Service)
Almanac Singers
Ambijan Committee for Emergency Aid to the Soviet Union American Association for Reconstruction in Yugoslavia, Inc American Branch of the Federation of Greek Maritime Unions.
under Maritime Unions, Federation of Greek.)
American Christian Nationalist Party
American Committee for a Free Indonesia
American Committee for a Free Yugoslavia, The
American Committee for a Korean People’s Party
American Committee for Chinese War Orphans
American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom
American Committee for European Workers’ Relief (see also Socialist Workers’ Party)
American Committee for Friendship With the Soviet Union American Committee for Indonesian Independence American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
National Conference of Defense Committees, June 1955 (New York)
American Committee for Russian Famine Relief (Los Angeles and San Francisco)
American Committee for Spanish Freedom
American Committee for Struggle Against War (see also World Congress Against War)
Americans of South Slavic Descent
American Committee in Aid of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives
American Committee To Aid Korean Federation of Trade Unions (San Francisco)
American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in Birobidjan, Inc
American Committee for Yugoslav Relief, Inc
American Committee for Yugoslav Relief of the War Relief Fund
American Committee To Aid Soviet Russia
American Committee To Save Refugees
American Committee To Survey Labor Conditions in Europe
American Committee To Survey Trade Union Conditions in Europe
American Continental Congress for Peace (September5-10,1949, Mexico Page City, Mexico)
Committee for United States Participation in the American Continental Congress for Peace
American Council for a Democratic Greece American Council, Institute of Pacific Relations.
Relations.)
American Council on Soviet Relations
American Croatian Congress
American Federation for Political Unity
American Federation of Labor (AFL)
American Federation of Labor Trade Union Committee for Unemployment
Insurance and Relief
American Friends of Spanish Democracy American Friends of the Chinese People
American Friends of the Mexican People American Friends of the Spanish People
American Fund for Public Service (Garland Fund)
American Jewish Labor Council
American Labor Alliance (see also Communist Labor Party of America; Communist Party of America; Communist Party of the United States of America; Communist Political Association; United Communist Party of America; Workers (Communist) Party of America; Workers Party of America)
American Labor Party
American League Against War and Fascism
United States Congress Against War (First Congress of the American League Against War and Fascism, September 30 to October 1, 1933, New York City)
American League for Peace and Democracy (see also China Aid Council, National People’s Committee Against Hearst)
American National Labor Party
American National Socialist League
American National Socialist Party
American Nationalist Party
American Negro Labor Congress
American Patriots
American People’s Congress and Exposition for Peace, June 29-July 1,1951 (Chicago) 27 Colorado Peace Council
Delegates’ National Assembly for Peace, April 1, 1952 (Washington, D.C.)
American Lithuanian Workers Literary Association (also known as Amerikos Lietuviu Darbininku Literaturos Draugija)
American Peace Appeal
American Peace Crusade (organized in 1951)
American Peace Mobilization (see also Washington Peace Mobilization)
American People’s Meeting, April 5-6, 1941 (New York City)
American People’s Congress and Exposition for Peace, June 29-JuIy 1, 1951 (Chicago, 111.). (See entry under American Peace Crusade.)
American People’s Fund
American People’s Meeting. (See entry under American Peace Mobilization.)
American People’s Mobilization
American Poles for Peace
American-Polish Committee for Protection of Foreign Born (see also
Polish- American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born) American Polish Labor Council
American Polish League
American Relief Ship for Spain
American Rescue Ship Mission
American-Rumanian Film Corp
American-Russian Fraternal Society (IWO)
American Russian Institute (for Cultural Relations with the Soviet Union):
American Serbian Committee for Relief of War Orphans in Yugoslavia
American-Russian Trading Corp. (Amtorg)
American Slav Congress
American Society for Cultural Relations with Russia
American Society for Technical Aid to Spanish Democracy
American-Soviet Science Societjes
American Sponsoring Committee for Representation at the Second World
Peace Congress. (See entrv under World Peace Congress, Second, November 13, 1950, Sheffield, England.)
American Student Union
American Students Repudiate Aggression in Korea
American Technical Aid Society
American Unitarian Association
American Veterans for Peace (see also Veterans for Peace)
American Women for Peace
American Workers’ Party (December 1933-December 1934)..
American Writers Congresses. (<See entries under League of American Writers.)
American Youth Congress American Youth for a Free World American Youth for Democracy
American Youth Peace Crusade
American-Yugoslav Committee for Protection of Foreign Born (Pittsburgh, Pa.).
Americans of Croatian Descent, National Council. (See National Council of Americans of Croatian Descent.)
Amerikos Lietuviu Darbininku Lieraturos Draugija. (See American Lithuanian Workers Literary Association.)
Amtorg Trading Corp. (See American-Russian Trading Corp.)
AndrulisDefenseCommittee. (SeeVincentAndrulisDefenseCommittee.)
Angelo Herndon Defense Committee
Armenian Progressive League of America Artists and Writers Guild…
Artists’ Front To Win the War
Artists Union
Arts, Sciences, and Professions Council. (See National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions, Southern California Chapter.)
Asociacion Nacional Mexicana-Americana. (See National Association of Mexican- Americans.)
Associated Film Audiences

Association of Democratic Journalists. (See International Organization of Journalists.)
Association of German Nationals (Reichsdeutsche Vereinigung) Association of Interns and Medical Students
Association of Lithuanian Workers
Ausland-Organization der NSDAP (overseas branch of Nazi Party)

B

Baltimore County Committee for Peace Baltimore Forum
Baltimore Youth for Peace
Bay Area Committee To Save the Rosenbergs. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Bay Area Rosenberg-Sobell Committee. (See entry under National Rosenberg-Sobell Committee.)
Bay Cities Committee for Protection of Foreign Born Benjamin Davis Freedom Committee
Black Dragon Society
Book Union
Boston Committee To Secure Clemency for the Rosenbergs. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Boston Freedom of the Press Committee. (See entry under National Committee for Freedom of the Press.)
Comittee for Harry Bridges
Citizens’ Victory Committee for Harry Bridges,
Harry Bridges Defense Committee, Harry Bridges Victory Committee.
Briehl’s Farm (near Wallkill, N.Y.)
Bronx Victory Labor Committee
Brooklyn College, Karl Marx Society
Brookwood Labor College (Katonah, N.Y.)
Bulgarian-American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Bulgarian-American People’s League of the United States of America

C

CIO. (See Congress of Industrial Organizations.)
California Committee for Political Unity 209 California Conference for Democratic Action (also known as Conference
for Democratic Action)
California Emergency Defense Committee
[California] Federation for Political Unity
California Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities
California Labor School, Inc
Boston Labor Conference for Peace
Boston School for Marxist Studies (Boston, Mass.)
Boston School of Social Science
Bridges-Robertson-Schmidt Defense Committee
Southern California Labor School, Inc. (Los Angeles Division)
California Legislative Conference
California Senate Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities
California Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities.
[California] State-Wide Civil Rights Conference
[California] State-Wide Legislative Conferences
California Youth Legislature (see also Model Youth Legislature of Northern California)
Cambridge Youth Council
Camp Arcadia
Camp Beacon (New York State)
Camp Kinderland (Hopewell Junction, N.Y.)
Camp Lakeland (Hopewell Junction, N.Y.)
Camp Timberline (Jewett, N.Y.)
Camp Unity (Wingdale, N.Y.)
Camp Woodland (Phoenicia, N.Y.)
Carpatho-Russian Peoples Society (I WO)
Central Council of American Croatian Women (See Central Council of American Women of Croatian Descent.)
Central Council of American Women of Croatian Descent
Central Japanese Association (Beikoku Chuo Nipponjin Kai)
Central Japanese Association of Southern California
Central Organization of the German-American National Alliance
Cervantes Fraternal Society (IWO)
Charles Doyle Defense Committee
Charles Rowoldt Defense Committee
Chelsea Jewish Children’s School (Massachusetts)
Chicago Committee for Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic Pact.
Chicago Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Chicago Greek Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Chicago Jewish Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Chicago Labor Defense Committee
Chicago Sobell Committee. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice for Morton Sobell in the Rosenberg Case.)
China Aid Council
China Welfare Appeal, Inc.
Chinese Cultural Cabaret
Chinese Democratic Youth Chorus
Chinese Workers Mutual Aid Association
Chopin Cultural Center
Citizens Committee for Better Education
Citizens Committee for Constitutional Liberties (New York City)
Citizens’ Committee for Harry Bridges (see also Bridges- Robertson-Schmidt Defense Committee, Citizens’ Victory Committee for Harry Bridges,
Harrv Bridges Defense Committee, Harry Bridges Victory Committee).
Citizens’ Committee for the Defense of Mexican-American Youth
Citizens’ Committee for the Motion Picture Strikers
Citizens’ Committee for the Recall of Councilman McCianahan (13th Los Angeles District)
Citizens’ Committee of the Upper West Side (New York City)
Citizens’ Committee To Aid Locked-out Hearst Employees (Los Angeles)
Citizens’ Committee To Free Earl Browder
National Free Browder Congress
Citizens Committee To Preserve American Freedoms
Citizens’ Committee To Support Labor’s Rights
Citizens Emergency Defense Conference
Citizens Protective League
Citizens’ Victory Committee for Harry Bridges. (See also Bridges-Robertson-Schmidt Defense Committee, Citizens’ Committee for Harry Bridges, Harry Bridges Defense Committee, Harry Bridges Victory Committee)
City Action Committee Against the High Cost of Living
Civil Rights Congress. (See also Hawaii Civil Liberties Committee)
Veterans Against Discrimination of Civil Rights Congress of New York
Civil Rights Congress Bail Funds. (See entry under Civil Rights Congress)
City College of the City of New York Marxist Study Club
Civil Liberties Sponsoring Committee of Pittsburgh
Civil Rights Council of Northern California. (See entry under National Federation for Constitutional Liberties.)
Civil Rights Division of Mobilization for Democracy
Colorado Committee To Protect Civil Liberties
Colorado Peace Council. (See entry under American Peace Crusade.)
Columbians
Columbus Peace Association
Cominform. (See Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties.)
Comintern. (See International)
Comite Coordinador pro Republica Espanola
Comite Pro Derechos Civiles. (See Puerto Rican Comite Pro Libertades Civiles.)
Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy
National Conference on American Policy in China and the Far East
Civil Rights Federation (Michigan)
Clatsop County Committee for Protection of Foreign Born (Oregon) Claudia Jones Defense Committee
Cleveland Committee To Secure Clemency for the Rosenbergs. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg
Case.)
Committee for Citizenship Rights
Committee for Civil Rights for Communists
Committee for Concerted Peace Efforts (see also American League for Peace and Democracy)
Committee for Constitutional and Political Freedom
Committee for Defense of Four of Oregon’s Foreign Born. (See Committee for Protection of Oregon’s Foreign Born.)
Committee for Defense of Greek-Americans
Committee for Defense of Martin Karasek (Bittendorf, Iowa)
Committee for Defense of Morning Freiheit Writers
Committee for Defense of Public Education
Committee for International Student Cooperation (144 Bleecker Street, New York, N.Y.)
Committee for Justice
Committee for May Day. (See United May Day Committee.) Committee for Nationalist Action
Committee for Peace and Brotherhood Festival in Philadelphia Committee for Peace Through World Cooperation
Committee for Peace Week-End
Committee for Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic Pact (see also Conference for Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic Pact; Continuations Committee of the Conference for Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic Pact; Northern California Committee for Peaceful Alternatives )
Mid-Century Conference for Peace, May 29-30, 1950 (Chicago)
Committee for Protection of Oregon’s Foreign Born 50, 51
Committee for Repeal of the Walter-McCarran Law and the Defense of
Sam and Fanny Manewitz 51, 55, 147
Committee for the Defense of Eulalia Figueiredo (New Bedford, Mass.)
Committee for the Defense of Henry Podolski. (See Committee in Defense of Henry Podolski.)
Committee for the Defense of Mexican-American Youth. (See Citizens Committee for the Defense of Mexican-American Youth.)
Committee for the Defense of the Pittsburgh Six Committee for the First Amendment
Committee for the Freedom of Martin Young
Committee for the Freedom of Sam Milgrom
Committee for the Negro in the Arts
Committee for the Protection of the Bill of Rights
Committee for United States Participation in the American Continental
Congress for Peace. (See entry under American Continental Congress for Peace.)
Committee for World Youth Friendship and Cultural Exchange
Committee in Defense of Henry Podolski
Committee of One Thousand
Committee of Philadelphia Women for Peace
Committee of Professional Groups for Browder and Ford
Committee on Election Rights
Committee To Abolish Discrimination in Maryland (see also Congress ‘ Against Discrimination
Maryland Congress Against Discrimination, Provisional Committee To Abolish Discrimination in the State of Maryland)
Committee To End Sedition Laws
Committee To Protect Joseph Mankin’s Citizenship
Committee To Repeal the Walter-McCarran Law and Stop Deportation
of Sam and Fanny Manewitz
Committee To Repeal the Walter-McCarran Law and To Protect the Foreign Born
Committee To Aid the Fighting South
Committee To Defend America by Keeping Out of War
Committee To Defend Angelo Herndon
Committee To Defend Chungsoon and Choon Cha Kwak
Committee To Defend Hazel Wolf
Committee To Defend Lincoln Veterans
Committee To Defend Marie Richardson
Committee To Defend Mike Daniels
Committee To Defend Toma Babin
Committee To Defend the Rights and Freedom of Pittsburgh’s Political Prisoners
Committee To Save the Life of John Juhn
Committee To Uphold the Bill of Rights
Commonwealth College (Mena, Ark.)
Communist Information Bureau. (See Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties; Cominform.)
Communist International (COMINTERN). (See International III.)
Communist Labor Party of America (September 1919 to May 1920)
(see also:
American Labor Alliance;
Communist Party of America;
Communist Party of the United States of America;
Communist Political Association;
United Communist Party of America
Workers (Communist) Party of America
Workers Party of America) Communist League of America (Opposition)
Communist League of Struggle
Communist Party, U.S.A. (Majority Group)
Communist Party, U.S.A. (Opposition)
Communist Party of America (September 1919 to April 1923)
(see also
American Labor Alliance
Communist Labor Party of America;
Communist Party of the United States of America
Communist Political Association;
United Communist Party of America
Workers (Communist) Party of America;
Workers Party of America)
Communist Party of Panama (See Partido Del Pueblo of Panama.)
Communist Party of the United States of America

Communist Political Association (May 1944 to July 1945) (see also Ameri- can Labor Alliance; Communist Labor Party of America; Communist Party of America; Communist Party of the United States of America; United Communist Party of America; Workers (Communist) Party of
America; Workers Party of America)
Alabama People’s Educational Association
Florida Press and Educational League
Oklahoma League for Political Education
People’s Educational and Press Association of Texas Virginia League for People’s Education
Community Unitarian Fellowship
Conference for Democratic Action. {See California Conference for
Democratic Action.)
Conference for Legislation in the National Interest, April 7, 1956 (New York City)
Conference for Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic Pact {see also Com-
mittee for Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic Pact; Continuations
Committee of the Conference for Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic
Pact)
Conference for Progressive Labor Action
Conference for Social Legislation, January 16, 1938, and March 27, 1938
(Boston, Mass.)
Conference on Constitutional Liberties in America. (See entry under
National Federation for Constitutional Liberties.)
Conference on Pan-American Democracy {see also Council for Pan-
American Democracy)
Congress Against Discrimination (see also Committee to Abolish Discrimi-
nation in Maryland)
Congress (First) of the Mexican and Spanish-American Peoples of the
United States
Congress of American Revolutionary Writers. (See League of American Writers, First American Writers Congress.)
Congress of American Soviet Friendship. (See entry under National Council of American-Soviet Friendship.)
Congress of American Women
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) Political Action Committee
Territorial CIO Political Action Committee
Congress of the Unemployed
Connecticut Committee To Aid Victims of the Smith Act Connecticut State Youth Conference
Connecticut Volunteers for Civil Rights
Consumers’ National Federation
Contemporary Theatre (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Continuations Committee of the Conference on Peaceful Alternatives to
the Atlantic Pact (see also Conference for Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic Pact; Committee for Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic Pact; Northern California Committee for Peaceful Alternatives)
Coordinating Committee To Lift the (Spanish) Embargo
Coordination Committee of Jewish Landsmanschaften and Fraternal Organizations. (See United Committee of Jewish Societies and Landsmanschaft Federations.)
Council for Jobs, Relief and Housing
Council for Pan-American Democracy (see also Conference on Pan-American Democracy)
Council of Greek Americans
Council of United States Veterans
Council of Young Southerners
Council on African Affairs
Croatian-American National Council. (See National Council of Americans of Croatian Descent.)
Croatian Benevolent Fraternity (of America) (IWO)
Croatian Educational Club
Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace. (See entry under National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions.)
Czechoslovak Committee for Protection of Foreign Born

D

Dai Nippon Butoku Kai (Military Virtue Society of Japan or Military
Art Society of Japan)
Daily Worker Press Club
Daniels Defense Committee (North Carolina)
Dante Alighieri Society
Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR)
Defense Committee for Eugene Dennis. (See (Eugene) Dennis Defense Committee.)
Defense Committee for Gerhardt Eisler. (See (Gerhardt) Eisler Defense Committee.)
Defense Committee for Victims of the Ohio Un-American Activities Commission
Delegates National Assembly for Peace, April 1, 1952 (Washington, D.C.).
(See entry under American Peace Crusade.)
Dennis Defense Committee. (See(Eugene) Dennis Defense Committee.)
Denver Peace Council. (See entry under American Peace Crusade.)
Descendants of the American Revolution
Detroit Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Detroit Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Detroit Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.
(See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Detroit Youth Assembly
Deutsche-AmerikanischeBerufsgemeinschaft. (See German-American Vocational League.)
Dora Coleman Defense Committee
Down River Citizens Committee (Detroit, Mich.)
Downtown Club (Los Angeles)
Downtown Forum

E

East Bay Arts, Sciences, and Professions Council. (See entry under National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions.)
East Bay Civil Rights Congress
East Bay Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
East Bay Committee To Save the Rosenbergs. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
East Bay Community Forum
East Bay Peace Committee (Oakland, Calif.) East Bay Youth Cultural Center
East Harlem Women for Peace
East Los Angeles Defense Committee
East Meadow and Westbury Rosenberg Committee. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
East Side Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Eisler (Gerhardt) Defense Committee. {See (Gerhardt) Eisler Defense Committee.)
Elizalde Antidiscrimination Committee
Elsinore Progressive League
Emergency Civil Liberties Committee
Emergency Committee of the Arts and Professions To Secure Clemency for the Rosenbergs.
Emergency Conference To Aid the Spanish Republic 70 Emergency Conference To Halt the Blackout of Civil Liberties in California
Emergency Conference To Save Spanish Refugees
Emergency Peace Mobilization
Emergency Trade Union Conference To Aid Spanish Democracy
Emil Rabin Institute. {See Marxist Institute, Oakland, Calif.)
Emory Collier Defense Committee
Estonian Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Estonian Women’s Club (Massachusetts)
Estonian Workers’ Clubs
Ethel Linn Defense Committee for the Repeal of the McCarran-Walter Act
Ethiopian Defense Committee
(Eugene) Dennis Defense Committee
Everybody’s Committee To Outlaw War
Exiled Writers Committee of the League of American Writers

F

Faculty of Social Science
Falange. (»See Spanish Fascist Party.)
Families of the Baltimore Smith Act Victims
Families of the Smith Act Victims
Farm Research
Federated Press
Federation of Greek Maritime Unions.
of Greek, American Branch.)
Federation of Italian War Veterans in the U.S.A., Inc. (Associazione Nazionale Combattenti Italiani, Federazione degli Stati Uniti d’America)
Ferdinand Smith Defense Committee Festus Coleman Committee
Film and Photo League
Film Audiences for Democracy Films for Democracy
Finnish American Freedom Committee Finnish-American Mutual Aid Society (IWO)
Finnish Federation
Finnish Women’s Clubs (of Massachusetts)
Finnish Workers’ Clubs
First Congress of the Mexican and Spanish-American Peoples of the United States. {See Congress (First) of the Mexican and Spanish-American Peoples of the United States.)
First Unitarian Church (San Diego). {See Unitarian Church, First.) First World Congress of the Defenders of Peace. {See World Peace Congress.)
First World Congress of the Partisans of Peace. {See World Peace Congress.)
First World Peace Congress. {See World Peace Congress.)
First World Student Congress. {See World Student Congress.)
Florida Press and Educational League. {See entry under Communist Political Association.)
Francis Vivian Defense Committee
Frank Ibanez Defense Committee
Frank Spector Defense Committee
Frederick Douglass Educational Center (New York City)
Free Italy Society
Freedom From Fear Committee
Freedom of the Press Committee. (See National Committee for Freedom of the Press.)
Freedom of the Press Committee Against Deportation
Freedom Stage, Inc
Friends and Neighbors of David Hyun
Friends of Chinese Democracy
Friends of Diamond Kimm
Friends of Freedom
Friends of Soviet Russia (see also Friends of the Soviet Union)
Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Friends of the Campus
Friends of the New Germany (Freunde des Neuen Deutschlands)
Friends of the Soviet Union (see also American Technical Aid Society; and American Committee for Friendship With the Soviet Union)
Frontier Bookstore (Seattle, Wash.)
Frontier Films
Fund for Social Analysis, The
Fur and Leather Workers Union, International

G

German-American Republican League
German-American Vocational League (Deutsche-Amerikanische Berufsgemeinschaft)
Galena Defense Committee (Galena, N.C.)
Garibaldi American Fraternal Society (IWO)
GarlandFund. (See American Fund for Pubic Service.)
Gates Defense Committee. {See Mike Gates Defense Committee.)
George Washington Carver School
Georgia Peace Council. (See entry under American Peace Crusade.)
(Gerhardt) Eisler Defense Committee
German-American Bund (Amerikadeutscher Volksbund)
German-American National Alliance, Central Organization of (Deutsche-
Gosman Fabian Defense Committee
Great Neck Rosenberg Committee. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Greater New York Committee for Employment
Greater New York Emergency Conference on Inalienable Rights (see also New York Conference for Inalienable Rights)
Greek-American Committee for Defense of Peter Harisiades
Greek-American Committee for National Unity
Greek-American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born (Detroit)
Greek-American Council
Greek-American Defense Committee (Detroit, Mich.)
Greek Committee for Defense of Peter Harisiades
Guardian Club.
Gus Polites Defense Committee

H

H.O.G. (Armenian Group)
Harbor Committee for Protection of Foreign Born.
Harlem Trade Union Council
Harlem Youth Congress
Harry Bridges Defense Committee (see also Bridges-Robertson-Schmidt Defense Committee, Citizens’ Committee for Harry Bridges, Citizens’ Victory Committee for Harry Bridges, Harry Bridges Victory Committee)
Harry Bridges Victory Committee (see also Bridges-Robertsonbchmidt
Defense Committee, Citizens’ Committee for Harry Bridges, Citizens Victory for Harry Bridges, Harry Bridges Defense Committee).
Hawaii Civil Liberties Committee
Hawaii Civil Rights Congress. (See entry under Civil Rights Congress.)
Hawaii Commission on Subversive Activities

Hawaii Committee for Smith Act Defendants. 215
Heimuska Kai, also known as Nokubei Heieki Gimusha Kai, Zaibel Nihonjin, Heiyaku Gimusha Kai, and Zaibei Heimusha Kai (Japanese residing in America, Military Conscripts Association)
Hellenic-American Brotherhood (IWO)
Hempstead Rosenberg Committee. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Henry Holt & Co
Henry Steinberg Defense Committee
Herndon Defense Committee. (See Angelo Herndon Defense Committee.)
Hinode Kai (Japanese Imperialist Reservists)
Hinomaru Kai (Rising Sun Flag Society a group of Japanese War Veterans)
Hokubei Zaigo Shoke Dan (North American Reserve Officers Association)
Hold the Price Line Committee
Hollywood Actors’ Laboratory School. (See Actors’ Laboratory Theater)
Hollywood Anti-Nazi League
Hollywood Arts, Sciences and Professions Council. (See National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, Southern California Chapter.)
Hollywood Community Radio Group, Inc
Hollywood Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. (See National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, Southern California Chapter)
Hollywood Democratic Committee
Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts and Sciences
Professions. (See entry under Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions.)
Hollywood League Against Naziism. (See Hollywood Anti-Nazi League)
Hollywood League for Democratic Action
Hollywood Mooney Defense Committee
Hollywood Motion Picture Democratic Committee
Hollywood Peace Forum
Hollywood Theater Alliance
Hollywood Writers Mobilization for Defense
Holyoke Book Shop
Honolulu Chapter, Inter-Professional Association
Honolulu Forum
Honolulu Record Publishing Co
Housewives Price Protest Committee. (See Housewives Protest Committee (Pittsburgh, Pa.).)
Housewives Protest Committee (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Hungarian-American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Hungarian-American Council for Democracy
Hungarian-American Defense Committee
Hungarian Brotherhood (IWO)
Hungarian Defense Committee

I

Ida Gottesman Defense Committee
Idaho Pension Union
Illinois Assembly of the American Peace Crusade. (See American Peace Crusade, Illinois Chapter.)
Illinois Chapter of the American Peace Crusade. (See entry under American Peace Crusade.)
Illinois Council of the American Peace Crusade. (See American Peace – Crusade, Illinois Chapter.)
Illinois People’s Conference for Legislative Action 84 ILWU Book Club (San Francisco and Honolulu). (See entry under
Longshoremen’s Warehousemen’s Union, International.)
Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions
Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions
Independent Communist Labor League of America Independent Labor League of America
Independent Party (Seattle, Wash.) (see also Independent People’s Party)
Independent People’s Party (see also Independent Party)
Independent Progressive Party (California) . (See Progressive Party, California.)
Independent Socialist League (see also Workers Party, 1940-1948)
Independent Voters League (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
INDUSCO, Inc. (See American Committee in Aid of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives.)
Industrial Workers of the World
Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties (Communist Information Bureau) (Cominform)
Institute of Marxist Studies (See entry under Jefferson School of Social Science.)
Institute of Pacific Relations
Intercontinent News Service
Inter-Professional Association, Honolulu chapter
International, III (Communist) (also known as Comintern and International Workers’ Association)
Seventh World Congress, July 25 to August 20, 1935 (Moscow)
International Association of Democratic Lawyers
International Book Shop (Boston, Mass.)
International Book Store, Inc. (San Francisco, Calif.)
International Brigades (in the Spanish Civil War) (see also Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade). Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth (also known as Abraham Lincoln Brigade or Battalion, George Washington Battalion, MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion)
International Committee of Intellectuals for Peace. (See International Committee of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace.)
International Committee of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace ‘ (see also World Congress of Intellectuals) International Democratic Women’s Federation. (See Women’s International Democratic Federation.)
International Juridical Association .
International Labor Defense (see also Galena Defense Committee, Trade Union Advisory Committee)
International Liaison Committee of Intellectuals for Peace. (See International Committee of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace.)
International Music Bureau
International Organization of Democratic Journalists.
Organization of Journalists.
International Organization of Journalists
International Publishers Council
International Red Aid (MOPR) (also referred to as Red International of Labor Defense)
International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations. (See Institute of Pacific Relations.)
International Union of Students (lUS) (see also World Youth Festivals)
International Preparatorv Committee
First World Student Congress, August 1946 (Prague)
Second World Student Congress, August 14-28, 1950 (Prague)

M

M.O.P.R. (See International Red Aid)
Macedonian-American People’s League
Manhattan Citizens Committee
Manhattan Clemency Committee. (See National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case, Manhattan Committee To Serve Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Manhattan Committee To Serve Justice in the Rosenberg Case. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Marie Kratochvil Defense Committee
Marine Workers Industrial Union
Mario Morgantini Circle
Maritime Book Shop (San Francisco)
Maritime Labor Committee To Defend Al Lannon
Maritime Unions, Federation of Greek, American Branch
Marshall Foundation. (See Robert Marshall Foundations)
Martinsville Seven Committee
Marxist Forums (New York).
Marxist Institute. (See Jefferson School of Social Science, Institute of Marxist Studies.)
Marxist Institute (Oakland, Calif.)
Marxist Study Club of the City College of New York. (City College of the City of New York.)
Maryland Committee for Peace
Maryland Congress Against Discrimination {see also Committee to Abolish
Discrimination in Maryland)
Massachusetts Action Committee for Peace
Massachusetts Committee for the Bill of Rights
Massachusetts Committee to Curb Communism
Massachusetts Minute Women for Peace ‘
Massachusetts Peace Council
Massachusetts Special Commission on Communism, Subversive Activities
and Related Matters Within the Commonwealth
Massachusetts Special Commission To Investigate the Activities Within this Commonwealth of Communistic, Fascist, Nazi and Other Subversive Organizations
Massachusetts Youth Council
Maurice Braverman Defense Committee
May Day Committees (See United May Day Committee, United May Day Conference.)
May Day Parade (see also United May Day Committee, United May Day Conference)
Medical Bureau and North American Committee To Aid Spanish Democracy
Michael Salerno Defense Committee
Michigan Civil Rights Federation. (See Civil Rights Federation, Michigan.)
Michigan Committee for Protection of Foreign Born..
Medical Bureau To Aid Spanish Democracy Memorial Day Youth Parade (1938)
Merrick Rosenberg Committee
Methodist Federation for Social Action Metropolitan Music School, Inc
Mexican and Spanish-American Peoples Congress. (See Congress (First) of the Mexican and Spanish-American Peoples of the United States.)
Michigan Committee for Peace
Michigan Council for Peace
Michigan Labor Committee for Peace
Michigan School of Social Science
Mid-Century Conference for Peace. (See entry under Committee for Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic Pact.)
Midwest Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Mike Gates Defense Committee
Milwaukee Committee in the Rosenberg-Sobell Case. (See entry under National Rosenberg-Sobell Committee.)
Milwaukee Provisional Committee To Commute the Death Sentence of the Rosenbergs. (See National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case, Provisional Committee To Commute the Death Sentence of the Rosenbergs, Milwaukee.)
Mimi Kagan Dance Group
Minneapolis Chapter of the American Peace Crusade. (See American Peace Crusade, Minneapolis Council for Peace.)
Minneapolis Civil Rights Committee
Minneapolis Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Minneapolis Council for Peace. (See entry under American Peace Crusade.)
Minneapolis Joint Committee Against Deportation
Minnesota Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Minute Women for Peace
Mobilization for Democracy
Model Youth Legislature of Northern California (also referred to as Second Annual California Model Legislature) Modern Book Shop (California)
Modern Book Store (Chicago, 111.)
Modesto Defense Committee
Morning Freiheit Association
(Morris) Schappes Defense Committee
Moses Resnikoff Defense Committee
Motion Picture Artists’ Committee
Motion Picture Democratic Committee. (See Hollywood Motion Picture Democratic Committee.)
Murray Defense Committee
Musicians Committee To Secure Clemency for the Rosenbergs. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Musicians Congress Committee
Musicians’ Democratic Committee
Musicians’ Open Forum
Musicians, American Federation of, Local 47

N

Nanka Teikoku Gunyudan (Imperial Military Friends Group or Southern California War Veterans) National Assembly Against UMT
National Assembly for Democratic Rights, September 2 (New York City)
National Association of Mexican-Americans (also known as the Nacional Mexicana-Americana or ANMA)
National Committee To Abolish the Un-American Activities Committee
National Committee To Defeat the Mundt Bill
National Committee To Repeal the McCarran Act
National Blue Star Mothers of America
National Citizens Political Action Committee
National Civil Rights Federation
National Committee for Freedom of the Press Boston Freedom of the Press Committee
National Committee for People’s Rights
National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners
National Committee To Secure Justice for Morton Sobell in the Rosenberg Case
National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case
National Committee To Win Amnesty for Smith Act Victims
National Committee To Win the Peace National Conference of Defense Committees (See entry under American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born.)
National Conference on American Policy in China and the Far East. (See entry under Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy.)
National Congress for Unemployment and Social Insurance, January 5-7, 1935 (Washington, D.C.)
National Council of American-Soviet Friendship (see also American-Soviet Science Society)
Congress of American-Soviet Friendship, Nov. 7-8, 1942 (New York City)
National Council of Americans of Croatian Descent (also known as Croatian American National Council)
National Council of Croatian Women. (See Central Council of American Women of Croatian Descent.)
National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions

National Delegates Assembly for Peace. (See American Peace Crusade, Delegates’ National Assembly for Peace, April 1, 1952 (Washington,
D.C.) Page
National Emergency Committee To Stop Lynching
National Emergency Conference
National Emergency Conference for Democratic Rights
National Federation for Constitutional Liberties
Civil Rights Council of Northern California
Conference on Constitutional Liberties in America, June 7-9, 1940 (Washington, D.C.)
Oklahoma Federation for Constitutional Rights
Washington Committee for Democratic Action (District of Columbia) .
National Free Browder Congress. (See entry under Citizens’ Committee To Free Earl Browder.)
National Labor Committee for Clemency for the Rosenbergs. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
National Labor Conference for Peace
National Lawyers’ Guild
National Negro Congress
National Negro Labor Congress
National Negro Labor Council
National Women’s Appeal for the Rights of Foreign Born Americans
Los Angeles
National People’s Committee Against Hearst National Rosenberg-Sobell Committee
Bay Area Rosenberg-Sobell Committee
Milwaukee Committee in the Rosenberg-Sobell Case Northern California Rosenberg-Sobell Defense Committee Philadelphia Rosenberg-Sobell Committee
Provisional Western Regional Sobell Committee._
San Francisco Rosenberg-Sobell Committee
National Student League
Nationalist Action League
Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico
Nationality Committee of Western Pennsylvania
Nature Friends of America
Needle Trades Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Negro Labor Victory Committee
Negro People’s Committee To Aid Spanish Democracy
Neighbors Committee for Defense of Peter Harisiades and Anna Taffler
Neighbors Committee To Defend Benjamin Saltzman
New Bedford Committee To Fight Unemployment (Massachusetts)
New Bedford Peace Committee
New Bedford Surplus Committee. (See New Bedford Committee To Fight Unemployment.)
New Century Publishers
New Committee for Publications
New England Citizens Concerned for Peace
New England Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
New England Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners
New England Council for Protection of Foreign Born
New England Labor College
New England Labor Research Association
New Film Alliance
New Foundations Forums
New Jersey Committee for Clemency for the Rosenbergs. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
New Theatre Group (Boston)
New Theatre League
New York Committee for Clemency for the Rosenbergs. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg case.)
New York Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
New York Committee for the Southern Newsletter
New York Conference for Inalienable Rights(see also Greater New York Page Emergency Conference on Inalienable Rights)
New York State Conference on Legislation for Democracy, February 14, 1941
New York Conference on Civil Rights (see also Civil Rights Congress, New York)
New York Council of the American Peace Crusade. (See entry under American Peace Crusade.)
New York Joint Legislative Committee To Investigate Procedures and Methods of Allocating State Moneys for Public School Purposes and Subversive Activities, Subcommittee of (Rapp-Coudert Committee)
New York Labor Conference for Peace (see also National Labor Conference for Peace)
New York Peace Institute
New York Polish Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
New York State Conference on Legislation for Democracy. (See entry under New York Conference for Inalienable Rights.)
New York State Conference on National Unity
New York Tom Mooney Committee
New York Trade Union Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
New York Trade Union Committee To Free Earl Browder
New York Workers School. (See Workers School, New York.)
Newark Peace Action Committee
Nichibei Kogyo Kaisha (the Great Fujii Theater)
Nichibei Minshu Kyokai, Waipahu Chapter (Japanese American Association for Democracy (JAAD))
Non-Partisan Committee for Clemency for the Rosenbergs. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Non-Partisan Committee for the Re-Election of Congressman Vito Marcantonio
Non-Sectarian Committee for Political Refugees
Norman Tallentire Defense Committee
North American Committee To Aid Spanish Democracy
North American Spanish Aid Committee
North American Emergency Conference To Save Spanish Refugees
North Philadelphia Forum
North Side Peace Club
North Westchester Rosenberg Committee. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Northern California Civil Rights Council. (See National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, Civil Rights Council of Northern California.)
Northern California Committee for Peaceful Alternatives (see also Committee for Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic Pact; Conference on Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic Pact; Continuations Committee of the Conference on Peaceful Alternatives to the Atlantic Pact)
Northern California Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Northern California Peace Crusade. (See entry under American Peace Crusade.)
Northern California Rosenberg-Sobell Committee. (See entry under National Rosenberg-Sobell Committee.)
Northwest Committee for Protection of Foreign Born (also known as Washington (State) Committee for Protection of Foreign Bom) Northwest Japanese Association

O

Oahu Servicemen’s Committee for Speedier Demobilization
Ohio Bill of Rights Conference
Ohio Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Ohio Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case
Ohio Freedom of the Press Association
Ohio Labor Conference for Peace
Ohio Provisional Committee for Protection of Foreign Bora Ohio School of Social Sciences
Ohio Un-American Activities Commission
Oklahoma Committee To Defend PoHtieal Prisoners
Oklahoma Federation for Constitutional Rights. (See entry under National Federation for Constitutional Liberties.)
Oklahoma League for Political Education.
Open Letter for Closer Cooperation With the Soviet Union
Open Letter in Defense of Harry Bridges
Open Letter to American Liberals
Orange County Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Ormsby Village for Youth Foundation (Topanga Canyon, Calif.)
Otto Skog Defense Committee

P

POC. (See Provisional Organizing Committee for a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party.)
Pacific Northwest Labor School, Seattle, Wash, (also known as Seattle
Labor School)
Pacific Pubhshing Foundation, Inc
Palo Alto Peace Club
Partido del Pueblo of Panama (operating in the Canal Zone) (Communist Peace Committee of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties (California)
Paul Yuditch Defense Committee
Pax Productions
Peace Conference of the Asian and Pacific Regions (Peping, China, 1952)
Peace Information Center (799 Broadway, New York, N.Y.)
Peace Movement of Ethiopia
Peace Pilgrimage To Washington, D.C., March 15, 1951. (See entry under American Peace Crusade.)
Peggy Wellman Defense Committee
People’s Defense Committee
People’s Drama, Inc
People’s Educational and Press Association of Texas
People’s Educational Association. (See People’s Educational Center.)
People’s Educational Center (Los Angeles)
People’s Institute of Applied Religion
People’s Party (Connecticut). (See Progressive Party, Connecticut.)
People’s Peace
People’s Programs (Seattle, Wash.)
People’s Radio Foundation, Inc
People’s Rights Party
People’s School. (See People’s Educational Center.)
People’s University. (See People’s Educational Center.)
Permanent Committee of the World Peace Congress. (World Peace Congress.)
Pete Nelson Defense Committee
Peter Warhol Defense Committee
Petros Lezos Defense Committee
Philadelphia Committee for Defense of the Foreign Born
Philadelphia Committee for Repeal of the Walter-McCarran Act and To Defend Its Victims
Philadelphia Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Philadelphia Labor Committee for Negro Rights
Philadelphia Rosenberg-Sobell Committee. (See entry under National Rosenberg-Sobell Committee.)
Philadelphia School of Social Science and Art
Philadelphia Women for Peace.
Photo League Pittsburgh Arts Club
Polish-American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born (see also American-Polish Committee for Protection of Foreign Born)
Political Prisoners’ Welfare Committee
Polona Society (IWO)
Polska Partja Komunistyzna (foreign language Marxist group)
Prestes Defense Committee
Prisoners’ Relief Committee
Professionals for Clemency (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Profitern. (See Red International of Labor Unions.)
Progressive Bookshop (or Store):
Progressive Citizens of America (California branches)
Progressive Committee To Rebuild American Labor Party
Progressive German-Americans (also known as Progressive German-
Americans of Chicago) Progressive Labor School (Boston)
Progressive Party
California (Independent Progressive Party) Downtown Club
Connecticut (People’s Party)
Massachusetts
Progressive Students of America
Progressive Trade Union School (Worcester, Mass.) Progressive Women’s Council
Proletarian Party of America
Prompt Press, Inc
Protestant War Veterans of the United States, Inc
Provisional Committee for the 69th Anniversary of May Day. (See United May Day Committee.)
Provisional Committee of Citizens for Peace, Southwest Area
Provisional Committee on Latin American Affairs
Provisional Committee to Abolish Discrimination in the State of Maryland (see also Committee to Abolish Discrimination in Maryland)
Provisional International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers
Provisional Organizing Committee for a Marxist-Leninist Party Communist
Provisional Western Regional Sobell Committee. (See entry under National Rosenberg-Sobell Committee.)
Provisional Workers and People’s Committee for May Day. (See United May Day Committee.)
Public Use of Arts Committee.
Puerto Rican Comite Pro Libertades Civiles (CLC) (also known as Comite Pro Derechos Civiles)
Puerto Ricans United (also known as Puertorriquenos Unidos)
Puertorriquenos Unidos. (See Puerto Ricans United)

Q

Quad City Committee for Peace
Queens Rosenberg Committee.
Queensbridge Tenants League

R
Rapp-Coudert Committee. (See New York Joint Legislative Committee “To Investigate Procedures and Methods of Allocating State Moneys for Public School Purposes and Subversive Activities, Subcommittee of.)
Red International of Labor Defense. (See International Red Aid)
Red International of Labor Unions (RILU) (Profitern).
Refugee Scholarship and Peace Campaign
Reichsdeutsche Vereinigung (See Association of German Nationals.)
Reichstag Fire Trial Anniversary Committee
Repertory Playhouse
Revolutionary Workers League
Robert Marshall Foundation
Robotnik Polski (Polish Labor)
Romanian-American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Romanian-American Fraternal Society (IWO)
Rose Chernin Defense Committee
Rose Chernin Emergency Defense Committee
Rose Nelson Defense Committee
Rose Spector Defense Committee
Rosenberg Committee of the Bronx {See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Roslyn Rosenberg Committee. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Runag News Service (Moscow)
Russian-American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Russian-American Industrial Corp
Russian American Society, Inc
Russian Reconstruction Farms, Inc

S

SEATO. (See Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.)
St. Louis Committee To Secure Justice for Morton SobeU. {See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice for Morton Sobe
St. Louis Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case. {See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
St. Louis Emergency Defense Committee 147, 199 St. Nicholas Arena (New York City)
Sakura Kai (Patriotic Society, or Cherry Association composed of veterans of Russo-Japanese War)
Sam and Fanny Manewitz Defense Committee (St. Louis, Mo.) (see also Committee for Repeal of the Walter-McCarran Law and the Defense of Sam and Fanny Manewitz (St. Louis, Mo.); and Committee To Repeal the Walter-McCarran Law and Stop Deportation of Sam and—Fanny Manewitz)
Samuel Adams School (for Social Studies) (Boston, Mass.)
San Diego Emergency Defense Committee
San Diego Peace Forum. (See entry under American Peace Crusade.)
San Francisco Labor Conference for Peace (see also National Labor Conference for Peace)
San Francisco Rosenberg-Sobell Committee. (See entry under National Rosenberg-Sobell Committee.)
Santa Barbara Peace Forum
Save Our Sons Committee
Scandinavian-American Defense Committee
Schappes Defense Committee. (See (Morris) Schappes Defense Committee.)
School of Jewish Studies (New York)
Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace. (See National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace.)
Scottsboro Defense Committee
Seattle Labor School. (See Pacific Northwest Labor School.)
Second Annual California Model Legislature. (See Model Youth Legislature of Northern California.)
Second World Congress of the Defenders of Peace. (See World Peace Congress.)
Second World Congress of the Partisans for Peace. (See World Peace Congress.)
Second World Peace Congress. (See World Peace Congress.)
Second World Student Congress. (See International Union of Students,
Schneiderman-Darcy Defense Committee School for Democracy (New York City)
School of Jewish Studies (Los Angeles, California)
Second World Student Congress.)
Serbian-American Fraternal Society (IWO)
Serbian Vidovdan Council
Silver Shirt Legion of America
Simon J. Lubin Society
Slavic Council of Los Angeles
Slavic Council of Southern California
Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee
Slim Connelly Defense Committee
Slovak Workers Society (IWO)
Slovenian-American National Council
Socialist Party of the United States, Left Wing Section
Socialist Workers Party (see also American Committee for European Workers’ Relief)
Socialist Youth League (see also Workers Party, 1940-48)
Society for Cultural Relations With Soviet Russia. (See American Society for Cultural Relations With Russia.)
Sokoku Kai (Fatherland Society)
Sons and Daughters of the Foreign Born in the Fight Against Deportations Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Southern California Chapter of the National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions. (See entry under National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions.)
Southern California Emergency Committee for Clemency for the Rosenbergs. (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice for the Rosenbergs.)
Southern California Labor School, Inc. (See entry under California Labor School, Inc.)
Southern California Peace Crusade. (See entry under American Peace Crusade.)
Southern Conference for Human Welfare
Southern Negro Youth Congress
Soviet Association of Friendship and Cultural Cooperation with the Countries of Latin America Spanish Refugee Appeal. (See entry under Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee.)
Spanish Refugee Relief Campaign
South Slav Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
South Westchester Rosenberg Committee.
Springfield Citizens’ Protective League
Springfield Committee To Aid Spanish Democracy (Massachusetts)
Stanley Nowak Defense Committee (Detroit)
Spanish Speaking People’s Congress
State-Wide Civil Rights Conference. (See [California] State-Wide Civil Rights Conference.)
State-Wide Legislative Conference. (See [California] State-Wide Legislative Conferences.)
Stella Brown Defense Committee
Stockholm Peace Appeal (or Petition). (See World Peace Appeal.)
Straight Arrow Camp (Golden’s Bridge, N.Y.)
Student Congress Against War
Student Councils for Academic Freedom
Student Rights Association
Students for Wallace
Suiko Sha (Reserve Officers Association, Los Angeles)
Sweethearts of Servicemen
Syracuse Women for Peace

T

Tom Mooney Labor School (San Francisco, Calif.) (see also California Teachers Union, New York)
Teen Art Club
Territorial CIO Political Action Committee of Industrial Organizations, Political Action Committee (See entry under Congress Labor School)
Tom Paine School (Westchester, N.Y.)
Tom Paine School of Social Science (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Toumayian Club (Chelsea, Mass.)
Town Meeting of Youth
Trade Union Advisory Committee
Trade-Union Committee for Free Spain
Trade Union Committee for Peace (also known as Trade Unionists for Peace)
Trade Union Committee for Repeal of the Walter-McCarran Law
Trade Union Committee for the Repeal of the Smith Act
Trade-Union Committee on Industrial Espionage
Trade-Union Committee To Put America Back to Work
Trade-Union Educational League (TUEL)
Trade-Union Unity League (TUUL)
Trade-Union Women’s Committee for Peace
Trade Unionists for Peace. (*See Trade Union Committee for Peace)
Tri-State Negro Trade Union Council
Twentieth Century Book Shop (or Store) :

U

Ukrainian-American Committee for the Defense of Zazuliak and Kushnir..
Ukrainian-American Fraternal Union (IWO)
Ukrainian Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Ukrainian Defense Committee Against Deportation
United Committee of Jewish Societies and Landsmanschaft Federations
(also known as Coordination Committee of Jewish Landsmanschaften
Unemployed Councils (see also Workers Alliance)
Unemployed Workers’ Organization of Hawaii
Union of American Croatians (see also National Council of Americans of
Croatian Descent
Union of Concerted Peace Efforts
Union of New York Veterans
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
Union of Progressive Veterans
Unitarian Church, First (San Diego)
United American Artists
United American Spanish Aid Committee
United Committee of Jewish Societies and Landsmanschaft Federations (also known as Coordination Committee of Jewish Landsmanschaften and Fraternal Organizations)
United Committee of South Slavic Americans (New York)
United Communist Party (May 1920 to May 1921) (see also American Labor Alliance; Communist Labor Party of America; Communist Party of America; Communist Party of the United States of America; Communist Political Association; Workers (Communist) Party of America
United May Day Committee (also known as United Labor and People’s Committee for May Day) Workers Party of America
United Cultural Association
United Defense Council of Southern California
United Farmers League
United Harlem Tenants and Consumers Organization
United Labor and People’s Committee for May Day.
United May Day Conference
United Negro and Allied Veterans of America
United States Service & Shipping, Inc
United States Veterans Council. (See Council of United States Veterans.)
United States Youth Sponsoring Committee, World Peace Appeal. entry under World Peace Appeal.)
United Student Peace Committee
United Toilers
United Youth Committee Against Lynching

V

Vacaville Committee for Protection of Foreign Born (California)
Valley Committee for Protection of Foreign Born (California)
Valley Stream Rosenberg Committees (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Vart Galalian Committee
Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.)
Veterans Against Discrimination of Civil Rights Congress of New York
Veterans for Peace {see also American Veterans for Peace)
Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade {see also International Brigades)
Victory Book Store (San Diego)
Vincent Andrulis Defense Committee
Virginia League for People’s Education. {See entry under Communist Political Association.)
Voice of Freedom Committee

W

Walt Whitman Book Shop
Walt Whitman School of Social Science (Newark, N.J.)
Washington Bookshop Association. {See Washington Cooperative Bookshop.)
Washington CIO Committee To Reinstate Helen Miller (District of Columbia)
Washington Committee for Aid to China (District of Columbia)
Washington Committee for Democratic Action (District of Columbia). {See entry under National Federation for Constitutional Liberties.)
Washington Committee for Justice in the Rosenberg Case (Washington State). {See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Washington Committee for Protection of Foreign Born. (See Washington State Committee for Protection of Foreign Born)
Washington Committee To Defend the Bill of Rights
Washington Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case (District of Columbia) (See entry under National Committee To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Washington Commonwealth Federation (Washington State) (see also Washington Pension Union)
Washington Cooperative Bookshop (District of Columbia)
Washington Friends of Spanish Democracy (District of Columbia)
Washington Old Age Pension Union (Washington State)
Washington Peace Mobilization
Washington State Committee for Protection of Foreign Born. (See Northwest Committee for Protection of Foreign Born).
Washington State Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities
West Side Rosenberg Committee. (See entry under National Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case.)
Western Council for Progressive Labor in Agriculture
Western Pennsylvania Committee for Protection of Foreign Born
Western Writers’ Congress
William Allan Defense Committee
Workers Library Publishers, Inc
Workers Party (1940-48). (See also Independent Socialist League; Socialist Youth League.) Workers Party of America (December 1921 to August 1925) (see also American Labor Alliance; Communist Labor Party of America; Communist Party of America; Communist Party of the United States of America; Communist Political Association; United Communist Party of America; Workers (Communist) Party of America
Workers Party of the United States (December 1933 to 1944). (See American Wingdale Lodge, Inc. (Wingdale, N.Y.) (see also Camp Unity)
Wisconsin Conference on Social Legislation
Wisconsin Peace Crusade. (See entry under American Peace Crusade.)
Women’s Committee To Free Katherine Hyndman
Women’s International Democratic Federation
Workers Alliance. (See Workers AUiance of America.)
Workers Alliance of America (see also Unemployed Councils).
Workers Bookshop (New York City)
Workers (Communist) Party of America (August 1925 to March 1929) (see Workers Party.)
Workers Schools
Workmen’s Educational Association
World Congress Against War (August 27-29, 1932, Amsterdam) (see also American Committee for Struggle Against War) 19, 156, 176 World Congress for Peace. (See World Peace Congress.)
World Congress of Defenders of Peace. (See World Peace Congress.)
World Congress of Intellectuals, August 25-28, 1948, (Wroclaw, Poland) (see also International Committee of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace)
World Congress of Partisans of Peace. (See World Peace Congress.)
World Council of Peace. (See World Peace Council.)
World Federation of Democratic Women. (See Women’s International Democratic Federation.)
World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY)
World Federation of Scientific Workers
World Federation of Trade Unions ( WFTU)
World Peace Appeal (also known as Stockholm Peace Appeal or Petition)
United States Youth Sponsoring Committee
World Peace Circle of Hollywood, Calif
World Peace Congress (also known as the World Congress of Partisans of Page Peace and the World Congress of Defenders of Peace)
First Congress, April 20-24, 1949 (Paris, France)
Second Congress, November 13, 1950, Sheffield, England; November 16-22 (Warsaw, Poland)
American Sponsoring Committee for Representation at the Second World Peace Congress Permanent Committee
World Tourists, Inc
World Youth Congress, Second Congress, August 15-24, 1938, Vassar College
World Peace Council (also known as World Council of Peace)
World Student Congress, First and Second. (See entries under International Union of Students.)
World Youth Festivals:
Second Youth Festival, August 14-28, 1949 (Budapest)
Seventh Youth Festival, July 26-August 4, 1959 (Vienna, Austria)

Y

Yanks Are Not Coming Movement
Yiddisher Kultur Farband
Young Communist International
Young Communist League, USA
Young People’s General Assembly for Peace
Young Progressives of America:
Young Workers League of America
Youth Against the House Un-American Activities Committee
Youth To Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Youth Against the House Un-American Activities Committee.)
Youth To Abolish Un-American Committees. (See Youth Against the House Un-American Activities Committee.)
Yugoslav-American Cooperative Home, Inc
Yugoslav Seamen’s Club, Inc

 

 

Notes from “Counternetwork: Countering the Expansion of Transnational Criminal Networks”

Counternetwork: Countering the Expansion of Transnational Criminal Networks byby Angel Rabasa, Christopher M. Schnaubelt, Peter Chalk, Douglas Farah, Gregory Midgette, and Howard J. Shatz covers Africa, Border and Port Security, Central America, Colombia, Counterterrorism, Crime, FARC, Illegal Drug Trade, Mexico, Military Doctrine, and the United States Army

A fascinating read on the issues related to Networks and Transnational Criminal Organizations, I’ve posted below my “notes” from the text.

***Highlights from book***

The expansion of TCNs is a manifestation of what some authors label “deviant globalization.” This is that portion of the global economy that meets the demand for illegal goods and services in consumer countries by developing a supply chain from producer countries. These criminal organizations take root in supply areas and transportation nodes while usurping the host nations’ basic functioning capacities. Over time, the illicit economy grows and nonstate actors provide an increasing range of social goods and fill the security and political vacuum that emerges from the gradual erosion of state power, legitimacy, and capacity.

This leads to the emergence of security challenges that are some of the key themes of this study: the destabilization of states that are relevant to U.S. national security, the growth of areas outside of the control of central governments that become havens for criminal and terrorist groups, and the convergence of transnational organized crime and terrorism into more-dangerous hybrid threats.

Disrupting transnational criminal networks requires identifying the critical nodes in the organizations and determining where counter- TCN operations can achieve the greatest effect.

It is, therefore, important to understand the structure and operations of TCNs. These, how- ever, are not well understood. Accordingly, we have developed a TCN business model. These criminal networks are much like legitimate organizations in that they are driven by market forces and aim to make profits. To do so, they might consolidate markets when possible, diversify, and safeguard their supply chains.

TCNs mold their organizational structures in response to two related issues: supply chain links and transaction costs. The links are the connections between specific tasks. Networks can bridge those links on their own or by contracting out. Their choice will depend on the transaction cost.

Even where this convergence of terrorism or insurgency and crime has not occurred, there seems to be a feedback mechanism: In the areas where they establish a foothold, the activities of criminal groups displace state and government institutions, which are usually weak to begin with. This, is turn, creates greater social disorder that can be exploited by terrorists and insurgents.

Conclusions and Recommendations

For the U.S. Government and the U.S. Department of Defense

  • Challenge the conventional thinking. To effectively address the emergent threat of hybrid illicit actors that combine aspects of criminal organizations, terrorist groups, and insurgencies, a reconsideration of the way in which we classify and address non- traditional security threats may be in order. Instead of defining these threats in traditional categories such as “terrorists,” “insurgents,” or “criminal organizations,” they could be defined as net- works that pose crosscutting threats to U.S. security interests. This would make it possible to prioritize the level of threat that they pose and the tools and resources that should be deployed against them. This approach could enable us to break down some of the barriers among counterterrorism, conternarcotics, and counter- networks that currently impede more-effective U.S. action and thus make possible a more streamlined approach to nontradi- tional security threats.
  • Bring authorities and policy guidance in line with the strat- egy to combat transnational organized crime. It takes time for authorities and laws to “play catch up” with emerging trends.
  • Improve interagency coordination.

The 9/11 attacks generated a sense of urgency and incentives to coordinate efforts against the threat of interna- tional terrorism, but no similar consensus has developed on the importance of countering TCNs. The agencies with the most- relevant capabilities for attacking illicit networks have other mis- sions and are reluctant to focus their resources on taking down these networks.

  • Define DoD rolesinCTOC. TheOfficeoftheDeputyAssistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats is in the process of updating DoD’s Counternarcotics and Global Threats Strategy. The new strategy could have an impact on ener- gizing efforts within DoD to counter TCNs if accompanied by adequate allocations of resources.
  • Support counter–transnational network strategies and programs with adequate dedicated budgetary allocations.

The FY 2015 NDAA widened counternarcotics enforcement sup- port to include countering transnational criminal organizations, but no additional funds were appropriated for this mission.5 In a period of sequestration and budgetary austerity, it may be diffi- cult to secure a level of funding adequate to the task of seriously degrading TCNs.

 

  • Develop joint doctrine for CTOC. The existing guidance for joint task force commanders and staffs is a 2011 U.S. Joint Forces Command publication,6 but there is no approved joint doctrine for CTOC or counternetworking more broadly defined. Given the rising profile of CTOC as a U.S. government and military priority, this guidance should be updated and supplemented with a doctrinal document.
  • Address deep corruption and criminalized states. Criminal- ized states are hubs of transnational criminal activity. Deep, multilayered corruption vitiates efforts by the United States to engage partner nations constructively in efforts against TCNs, strengthen governance in weak states, and promote regional stability. The United States has tried to work around the problem of corruption in a partner country’s security agencies by working with vetted units within larger organizations. However, there are severe limitations to what can be achieved by working with these units, even if they could be kept corruption-free, if they operate in an environment of deeply entrenched corruption.

in countries where drug trafficking–related corruption is endemic, the most promising avenue to reduce corruption to a level that might permit the United States to work with these countries’ governments and militaries may be to sanction and isolate the high-level political and military elites involved in drug trafficking and target them with law enforcement tools. At a minimum, the United States should exercise caution to ensure that any political or military engagement with these countries does not help legitimize deeply corrupt regimes or prolong their grasp on power.

For the U.S. Army

There is a great deal that the Army is doing already in the domains of engagement with partner militaries, and support for counterterrorism and counternarcotics that contribute indirectly to the CTOC mission.

the Army has competencies and capabilities that can advance the U.S. government’s CTOC objectives without significantly drawing resources from its core missions. CTOC-specific activities would constitute a valuable expansion of the Army’s current efforts to build partner capacity, perform network analysis, and sup- port detection and monitoring, as well as provide training opportunities for Army personnel.

Consider developing an Army Doctrinal Reference Publica- tion for CTOC. As discussed, there is no approved joint doctrine on CTOC or even on countering networks more broadly. The Army could make a significant contribution by taking the lead in developing CTOC doctrine

CHAPTER ONE

In July 2011, President Barack Obama promulgated the Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime. In the letter presenting the strategy, President Obama stated that the expanding size, scope, and influence of transnational organized crime and its impact on U.S. and international security and governance represent one of the most signifi- cant challenges of the 21st century. The President noted that criminal networks are not only expanding their operations, they are also diversi- fying their activities, resulting in a convergence of transnational threats that have evolved to become more complex, volatile, and destabilizing.1 These networks also threaten U.S. interests by forging alliances with corrupt elements of national governments and using the power and influence of those governments to further their criminal activities.2

During remarks before the Atlantic Council in May 2014, Gen- eral Martin Dempsey, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pre- sented an overview of his “2-2-2-1” strategic concept—a mnemonic he used to outline the strategic threats to the United States. In sum:

  • two heavyweights: Russia and China
  • two middleweights: Iran and North Korea
  • two networks: al-Qaeda and transnational organized crime in the Western Hemisphere
  • one domain: Cyber

General Dempsey stated that the transnational organized criminal net- work that runs north and south in our hemisphere “doesn’t get as much prominence as I believe it deserves.” Expanding upon this assertion, he further said:

We tend to think of that as a drug trafficking network, but it’s equally capable and often found to be trafficking illegal immigrants [and] arms, laundering money. It’s extraordinarily capable. It’s extraordinarily wealthy. And it can move anything. It’ll go to the highest bidder. And so that network deserves more attention, not just because of the effect it has on the social fabric of our country but because of . . . the effect it could have—and is having, in my view—on the security of this nation.3

The same view was expressed by former Supreme Allied Commander Europe and U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) commander Admiral James G. Stavridis.

They have demonstrated an ability to adapt, diversify, and converge. They have achieved a degree of globalized outreach and collaboration via networks, as well as horizontal diversification. These criminal net- works have three principal enablers: first, the huge profits realized by transnational criminal operations; second, their ability to recruit talent and reorganize along lines historically limited to corporations and militaries; and third, their ability to operate in milieus normally considered the preserve of the state.

Central America and Mexico are important to the United States in terms of proximity, deep social and cultural ties, and growing eco- nomic integration. The effects of destabilization in the region, therefore, can be transmitted to the United States quickly, for instance, in shifts in migration trends.

in Mexico, the primary dynamic between the drug cartels and the state, and among the cartels themselves, has been armed confrontation. Drug trafficking–induced violence in Mexico has reached a level that some might say amounts to a criminal insurgency (although the term is controversial). In Central America, TCNs have more money than they can spend, launder, or invest, and now exercise unprecedented formal and informal power. Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador exhibit characteristics of failing states.

Countering TCNs requires identifying the critical nodes in the criminal organizations and determining where counter-TCN operations can achieve the greatest effect.

Effectively countering transnational criminal networks presents its own set of challenges. For one thing, there is a great deal of inertia and resistance to change in any large bureaucracy.9 Success in some agencies is measured by the amount of illegal drugs seized; there is no incentive for going after net- works. Some agencies are reluctant to share information and are sensi- tive about perceived encroachment by other agencies into their turf. There is broad agreement on the part of our U.S. government interviewees on the need to improve interagency coordination.

Many of our U.S. government interviewees, however, say they believe that the main problem is not lack of authorities, but lack of funding and resources and the relatively low priority that CCMDs have placed on CTOC—a nontraditional military mission that requires a whole-of-government approach.

Destabilizing Effects of Transnational Criminal Networks

The expansion of TCNs is a manifestation of what some authors label “deviant globalization.” This is an economic phenomenon that cannot be detached or separated from the broader process of globalization.17 It is that portion of the global economy that meets the demand for illegal goods and services in consumer countries by developing a supply chain from producer countries. These criminal organizations take root in supply areas and transportation nodes while usurping the host nations’ basic functioning capacity. Over time, the illicit economy grows and nonstate actors provide an increasing range of social goods and fill the security and political vacuum that emerges from the gradual erosion of state power, legitimacy, and capacity.18

A study by a Harvard University researcher argues that a significant proportion of Mexican migration to the United States, particularly from border towns, is in direct response to drug- related violence and organized crime activities.

Criminalized States and Criminal Insurgencies

The activities of criminal networks contribute to the emergence of criminalized states—states where the senior leadership is aware of transnational criminal enterprises and involved in them, either actively or through passive acquiescence; where these organizations are used as an instrument of statecraft; and where levers of state power are incorporated into the operational structure of one or more criminal organizations.

Two Mexican cartels, the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels, were said in 2009 to be capa- ble of fielding some 100,000 foot soldiers, nearly matching Mexico’s 130,000 armed forces.32 Some scholars have noted that the Mexican drug cartels have adopted strategies and tactics that correspond very closely to those employed by armed insurgent groups.

If insurgency is defined as the organized use of subversion and violence by a group or movement that seeks to over- throw or force change of a governing authority,34 then the violence of Mexican criminal organizations does not meet the definition, given that these groups do not pursue political aims, nor do they aim to replace the state with an alternative type of governance.

The U.S. Army’s Role in Combating Transnational Criminal Networks

According to the U.S. Army Operating Concept, transnational criminal organizations are one of the harbingers of future conflict.

Crimi-nal violence erodes state institutions and undermines governance. The threat from transnational organized crime highlights the need for Army special operations and regionally aligned forces to understand complex environments, operate with multiple part- ners, and conduct security force assistance.37

Similarly, the U.S. Army Vision states:

Over the next 10 years, it is likely the United States will face an unstable, unpredictable, increasingly complex global security environment that will be shaped by several key emergent trends: the rise of non-state actors; an increase in “hybrid threats;” state challenges to the international order; and expanding urbanization . . . Due in part to the breakdown in traditional state authority, hybrid threats—state or non-state actors that employ dynamic combinations of conventional, irregular, terrorist, and criminal capabilities—will proliferate, elevating the importance of the human dimension of warfare. State actors will increasingly utilize proxy forces, criminal organizations, orchestrated civil unrestand non-governmental networks of computer hackers in concert with their traditional war fighting capabilities to create instability, while complicating an opponent’s development and application of effective countermeasures.

CHAPTER TWO

A Model of the Transnational Criminal Network Value Chain

TCNs seek to maximize wealth through illicit activities carried out by actors with diverse capabilities and interests. Like multinational corpora- tions or syndicates of firms working together to bring goods and services to targeted markets, TCNs attempt to consolidate markets for profitable products, diversify across products and services to hedge against down- side risk in a single industry, and safeguard supply chains of products going to market. Unlike their licit analogs, TCNs must do so covertly to avoid interference from rival TCNs and from governments fighting illicit activity, or they must locate activities in or across regions where govern- ments are unwilling or unable to intercede.

Transnational Criminal Network Activities and Their Drivers

At their core, TCNs are driven by market forces and opportunity.

Although many analysts understand the core activity of the TCNs operating out of northern South America to be cocaine trafficking, an ancillary set of illicit activities includes weapons trading for defense of other trafficking operations, bribery, violence and kidnapping to exert influence on rivals or local governments, and money laundering required to return cash from street and wholesale transactions to TCN operators upstream.

In some instances, supply relationships or infrastructure built for drug trafficking may serve a second purpose. For example, drug mules may form the foundation for human trafficking and prostitution rings.

Organizational Form: Integration Across Tasks

Complete vertical integration—an arrangement of all activities required for production, distribution, sale, and oversight within a single organization—is difficult and rare in TCNs. Although there are trans- action costs to using people and organizations outside the primary net- work, as explained later, it may not be possible to bring outsiders in. The best talent might not be willing to join the organization, or there might not be enough work to integrate someone full time.

The Value Chain Approach to Transnational Criminal Network Structures

There can be no set formula to accurately describe the structures of all TCNs, but a description of the value chains for their products and ser- vices is useful for understanding why TCNs may choose to vertically integrate systems with direct oversight and a well-defined hierarchy or to rely on distributed network of affiliates. The ability to understand an organization’s structure may then lead to areas of vulnerability and possible intervention.

Latin American TCN operations mimic commercial supply chains in a few key ways. Indeed, several characteristics are common across multinational corporations and the criminal organizations discussed in the following chapters.4 Networks are secure, typically with significant defense capabilities and covert communications systems. In legal markets, these structures are to preserve trade secrets and intellectual property, while TCNs also defend against disruptions from state actors and rival networks.

TCNs are also redundant wherever feasible and resilient to disruption. Multiple suppliers and trafficking routes and methods are sought out, and transactions are made based on a calculus of trading off the potential payoff per shipment against the risk of a shipment being seized or destroyed. That is to say, where market-based insurance instruments exist to protect the value of shipments for legal firms, TCNs diversify risk by breaking up high-risk shipments over time and across multiple routes. Transactions occurring in criminalized states where the TCN faces little risk of disruption will be of much larger value and quantity than those where opposition exists.

Transaction Costs and the Economics of Organization

Transaction cost economics as a field of study seeks to explain how pro- duction is organized, from seed to sale, to provide goods and services based on the notion that each action along the supply chain has associated transaction costs. In this framework, the network of actors that make up a TCN supply chain can be viewed as structures that define the set of responsibilities of actors in the system to maximize profit and minimize conflict.5 Central to this pursuit, a version of the Coase Theorem can help explain the degree of integration of these systems in a TCN’s value chain:

Actors arrange as a firm when the transaction costs of coordinating production, trafficking, and sales are cheaper than doing so through market exchange.

Along each step of the process for a given good or service, a TCN may choose among a continuum of arrangements ranging from internalizing every step within a vertically integrated single firm to performing every step as a sequence of separate arm’s length transactions. Neither extreme on the continuum is likely to occur for international illicit activities, but the 1980s Colombian cocaine smuggling regime leaned more toward the former, and the current diffuse network of collaborators from Colombia, the Northern Triangle of Central American states (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador), Mexico, and others leans more toward the latter.Transaction cost economics may offer a way to understand why this shift occurred, as well as a lens through which to predict and intercede in future movements.

Transaction costs dictate when tasks are performed within a firm, and when they are performed through market exchange. Along the chain, numerous factors in transaction costs drive the specific develop- ment of TCNs. Williamson found that it is possible to infer a system’s arrangement, meaning whether a transaction is internalized or completed through market exchange, by considering the transaction along three dimensions: (1) asset specificity; (2) uncertainty; and (3) frequency.7

Specificity refers to the degree of need for specialized resources and covers the gamut of assets, including physical, human, site, dedicated, and temporal specificity assets. Highly specific assets require either internalization or strong incentives for external actors to remain aligned with the TCN. Uncertainty can be thought of as the need for and effectiveness of governance structures, where higher certainty requires less governance to ensure a task is performed. Finally, firms or TCNs are likely more willing to invest in specialized production techniques when the production supports high-frequency transactions than when the transactions are rare.8

Generally speaking, an organization should try to integrate a transaction when the expected payoff (gain in expected value) from increased certainty exceeds the cost of building capacity to carry out the transaction in-house.

In illicit markets, there is rarely (if ever) an external and impartial govern- ing body to enforce such a contract. One way that TCNs have tried to overcome the certainty problem and the lack of recourse to courts is through a popular method stemming from the premodern era: marriage alliances. As we will describe, several TCNs have used marriages to bond disparate groups into more-trusted allies.

Frequency refers to an organization’s ability to quickly recoup investments in the infrastructure, labor, and other necessities to inte- grate a transaction.9 Holding the value per transaction constant (as well as the degree of asset specificity), a TCN should choose to take on larger investments to perform a transaction in-house when the transac- tion will occur often.

A task absent competition may have no transaction cost, but conducting the same task in the face of competition could result in transaction costs. Therefore, understanding competition can also shed light on the way TCNs structure themselves.

Bridging Theory and Practice

TCNs are much like legitimate organizations in that they are driven by market forces and aim to make profits. To do so, they might consolidate markets when possible, diversify, and safeguard their supply chains. They face one challenge that legitimate organizations do not face, however, which is that they are operating illegally and conducting illegal activi- ties. As a result, they do not have legal protections for such things as con- tracts, for example, and they are at risk of being imprisoned or killed by police or military personnel in organized efforts to stop them.

The organizational realities of TCNs also point to their vulner- abilities. First, they are most vulnerable at links in their supply chains. Second, raising transaction costs can cause them to adopt suboptimal organization schemes, putting the organization at risk.

CHAPTER THREE

Source Countries and Supply Chains

Illegal Drug Infrastructure in Source Countries

Colombia accounts for the bulk of refined cocaine manufactured in South America and remains the principal supplier for both the United States and worldwide markets (90 and 80 percent, respectively).

In Colombia, the chief entity is the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia/Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which is estimated to earn any- where between $200 million and $300 million a year from the trade.

The chief beneficiary of any FARC withdrawal from the cocaine trade would be the groups referred to as bandas criminales (criminal bands), or BACRIM.9 The BACRIM are Colombia’s third-generation DTOs and are markedly different from their predecessors, the Medel- lín and Cali cartels, and the second-generation DTOs, the “baby car- tels” that tended to specialize in certain links in the drug trafficking chain. The BACRIM deliver cocaine destined for U.S. markets to the Mexican syndicates, usually in Central America.

BACRIM frequently work in coordination with other criminal groupings in Colombia, including pandillas (street gangs) and more- sophisticated groups euphemistically called oficinas de cobro (collection agencies). The latter entities have a dedicated money-laundering capa- bility and engage in a variety of supplemental services and activities that range from muggings, micro-extortion, and local drug dealing to contract killings and money laundering.

The success of Los Urabeños in overcoming rival groups can be attributed to three factors. First, because of their paramilitary roots, Los Urabeños aligned themselves with other groups that also had para- military capabilities and incorporated them into their structure. Los Rastrojos, by contrast, used a franchise model, exercising far less control than Los Urabeños, and allied themselves with urban groups that generally did not have the firepower needed in a turf war.

Second, Los Urabeños were better at utilizing their support network.

Third, Los Urabeños were a more cohesive organization. Los Rastrojos were a federation of different groups and more vulnerable to internal split than vertically integrated groups.

Faced with falling numbers and a failing guerrilla campaign, however, the group’s resistance to narco-sourced funds appears to be diminishing. By 2006, it was reported that the ELN was engaged in protecting cocaine laboratories and shipments, which brought in significant profits that were used to buy weapons and attract recruits. The group is said to have moved to make a strategic alliance with Los Rastrojos to run a production ring in Bolívar. The extent of this relation- ship became apparent in 2012 when Colombian police seized 857 kilo- grams (kg) of cocaine that had been manufactured in refining facilities protected by the ELN and was destined for export across the Venezu- elan border.22

According to a recent study, Shining Path is only a small piece of a larger dynamic. A large number of “family clans” make up the narcotics infrastructure in Peru. These family clans buy the coca leaf from local farmers, smuggle precursor chemicals to production sites, produce intermediate products and cocaine, arrange the trans- portation of those products, and manage details of the local operations and their security, with financing from external organizations that are the recipients of their products.

Venezuela: A Key Drug Transit Platform

A large part of the cocaine that transits the Central America supply chain on its way to the United States, as well as the vast majority of cocaine that is shipped to West Africa is exported from Venezuela. The country’s role in the Latin American drug trade has expanded con- siderably since late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s expulsion of the DEA in 2005.

According to a Venezuelan expert, there are 116 clandestine airstrips in Apure and strategically outlined roads to carry the cargo in vehicles and subsequently load them in light aircraft.

Is Venezuela a Criminalized State?

In 2013, Venezuelan authorities reported seizing 46 MT of illegal drugs. While Venezuela reports the seizures, it did not systematically share the data or evidence needed to verify the destruction of the drugs. The Venezuelan government also published statistics on arrests and convictions for drug possession and trafficking, but it did not provide information on the nature or severity of the drug arrests or convictions.

One message found in Reyes’s computer files was from Márquez, the FARC’s liaison with Chávez. It describes the FARC’s plan to buy surface-to-air missiles, sniper rifles, and radios in Venezuela. Márquez wrote that the effort was facilitated by General Rangel Silva and former Minister Rodríguez Chacín.37 In July 2009, the Colombian military raided a FARC camp and confiscated five Swedish Saab AB AT-4 85-mm antitank weapons that had been previously sold by Sweden to the Venezuelan army.

According to the Spanish indictment, ETA instructors were accompanied to a FARC training site by an individual who wore a jacket with the emblem of the Military Intelligence Directorate and were escorted by Venezuelan military personnel.

In December 2014, Venezuelan Navy Commander Leamsy Salazar, former chief of security for the late President Chávez and National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello, defected to the United States. According to U.S. press reports, Salazar is expected to provide witness testimony at an investigation by the DEA and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York into links between the Venezuelan government and narco-trafficking. Salazar reportedly identified Cabello, regarded as the second-most-powerful man in the Venezuelan government, as the leader of the Cartel de los Soles.

Officials under investigation are reported to include former Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami, now governor of Aragua state; retired General Carvajal (“The Chicken”), a former director of the National Office Against Organized Crime and Financing of Terrorism (which suggests that the Venezuelan regime does have a sense of humor) and Military Intelligence; Major Gen- eral Nestor Reverol, commander of the National Guard; Minister of Industries Jose David Cabello, Diosdado Cabello’s brother; and Luis Motta Dominguez, a National Guard general in charge of central Venezuela.

There is more than sufficient evidence that officials at the highest levels of the Venezuelan government have been cooperating with the FARC in DTOs. This would place Venezuela in the category of “criminalized state,” defined above as states where the senior leadership is aware of and involved in transnational criminal enterprises—either actively or through passive acquiescence—where these organizations are used as an instrument of statecraft, and where levers of state power are incorporated into the operational structure of one or more criminal organizations.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Mexican Supply Chain

The more favored method, however, is to conceal shipments in go- fast boats. Constructed out of wood that is then overlaid with fiberglass, these vessels can carry up to 2 MT of cocaine. They lie low in the water and are powered by four 200-horsepower Yamaha outboard engines that give them a top speed approaching 70 miles per hour. Go-fasts put to sea off northern Colombia and “hopscotch” up the Pacific coast of Central America, hugging the shoreline the entire way to avoid patrols by the U.S. Coast Guard and regional navies.

Once inside the United States, cocaine shipments are moved to major consumption cities such as San Diego, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and New York. Mexican syndicates work with local street gangs to coordinate this aspect of the supply chain, subcontracting these entities as local distributors, enforcers, and debt collectors. Several organizations exist in the country,11 although two have elicited particular concern. The first is the Mexican Mafia, which is also known as La Eme (the Spanish phonetic for the letter “M”). The group initially consisted of convicted Mexican-American youths who organized in the California Department of Corrections during the 1950s. It was originally based in the eastern barrios (Spanish-speaking neighborhoods) of urban Los Angeles, but has since expanded to many other states and remains very active in the federal prison system. The second organization of concern is the third-generation Salvadoran Mara Salvatrucha-13 (MS-13),12 which was established by Salvadorans fleeing their country’s civil war in the 1980s.

Main Players

At the heart of the Mexican supply chain are nine established DTOs (including the six cartels listed in Table 4.2) that, to varying degrees, control virtually all nodes along the cocaine supply chain to the United States.

Apart from DTOs that have made no pretense to being anything other than criminal, profit-driven entities, there are also groups that have attempted to weave “spiritual” connotations into their activi- ties. Notable in this regard is La Familia Michoacana, which came to prominence in 2006 as a self-defined Christian movement dedicated to “defending citizens, merchants, businesses, and farmers” from all forms of crime and filling the security void left by the central govern- ment.29 However, the group gradually sidelined the veneer of a local self-defense force and systematically came to be involved in drug traf- ficking, as well as extortion and money laundering.

La Familia also developed a highly notorious reputation for car- rying out so-called “social work,” essentially beheading those who did not conform to the group’s “law enforcement” code.30 Despite success- fully extending its influence from Michoacán to cities in surround- ing states, La Familia’s ability to consolidate territory has been severely hampered by bitter internal divisions and power plays

Explaining the Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas’ Dominance Over the Contemporary Mexican Criminal Landscape

At a basic level, the various DTOs described above can be delineated into national organizations (Sinaloa Federation, Los Zetas, Gulf, BLO, Juárez, and Tijuana) and entities that are more regionally focused, albeit with aspirations for at least some geographic growth (La Familia, Caballeros Templarios, and CJNG). Another way of looking at the groups is to split them into two competing blocs that pitch the Sinalo- ans, Gulf, and La Familia against a loose pattern of shifting alliances among the remaining six cartels.

A curious feature of the growth of (and ensuing competition between) the Sinaloans and Los Zetas is that their successes stem from consideration of very different sets of factors. In the case of the former, an important geographic advantage has been access to key transportation hubs. Apart from numerous airfields (recognized and otherwise), Sinaloa has a modern port (Mazatlán) and an excellent network of roads and highways, all of which afford easy access to the cartel’s single most important market, the United States.38

More than this, however, has been a posture that is not merely aimed at maximizing profit but designed to ensure “marginal imprisonment risk.” The cartel’s leader, Guzmán, deliberately adopted a low- profile, austere lifestyle in the mountains of the Sierra Madre, conspicuously avoiding the type of reckless behavior that would attract the attention of the authorities.

The Sinaloans also assumed an organizational profile that was designed to insulate them from the type of decisive decapitation strike that had crippled hierarchical DTOs such as the Tijuana and Juárez cartels. Top commanders maintained operational security by rarely making calls, avoiding email, and limiting the number of people with whom they communicated. Structurally, a high degree of autonomy was given to peripheral lieutenants who carried out trafficking opera- tions in a compartmentalized, cellular “hub and spoke” manner. In addition, many specialized tasks, such as accounting, software design, and money laundering, were delegated to independent specialists, establishing a cadre of critical adjunct members who worked for the cartel but outside it. This horizontal, contractual configuration has been important in minimizing the disruptive effect that might otherwise have resulted from the capture of Guzmán and other ranking lieutenants.

To guard against internal splintering, a major weakness afflicting many Mexican DTOs, the Sinaloans revived and instituted the custom of dynastic marriage. Indeed, the organization is often referred to as an alianza de sangre (“alliance of blood”) because so many of its members are related as wives, husbands, cousins, or in-laws. These familial ties have functioned as an effective hedge against distrust, cementing the cartel as an organic collective where the whole is considered greater than the sum of the individual parts.

On a business front, the Sinaloans have avoided expanding beyond their core interest, retaining a single-minded focus on the pro- duction and trafficking of methamphetamine, marijuana, and cocaine. This has had two positive interrelated effects. First, it has allowed the group to devote the totality of its resources to refining, adapting, and improving trafficking techniques—something that is reflected in the exceptionally high degree of innovation that has come to characterize the cartel’s operational methods.42 Second, it has branded the Sinaloans as being “the best in the game,” a reputation that has given it a significant competitive advantage over other cartels, especially in terms of concluding deals for breaking into new markets.

Finally, there has been some speculation that the administration of former Mexican President Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa made a strategic calculation against targeting the Sinaloans and, instead, placed a priority on pursuing its more unpredictable and violent rivals. According to this thesis, authorities concluded they could not eliminate all the cartels in the country and, instead, picked a “favorite” in the conflict—the Sinaloans—in the hope that a more pragmatic and business-oriented monopoly might emerge and usher in some type of pax narcotica.

Impact on National Stability

The importation and trafficking of cocaine has had an insidious and pervasive impact on Mexico’s national stability, contributing to what amounts to the wholesale breakdown of order across large swaths of the country’s territory—something that has been especially evident in the northern states bordering California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas (Table 4.3). According to government statistics, more than 135,000 drug- related killings have occurred since 2007, with a further 22,322 “disap- pearances” still to be accounted for.

The most severely affected institution is the police, where pay as low as $500 per month and punitive intimidation have combined to literally “privatize” law enforcement.55 This is especially true at the local level, where poorly paid officers are routinely offered cash pay- ments to cooperate with DTOs and threatened with physical harm if bribes are not accepted.56 Known as “plata o plomo” (“silver or lead”— that is, take the bribe or die), problems of this sort are endemic across the country.

Is the Violence in Mexico a Criminal Insurgency?

Mexican criminal organizations deploy an impressive array of weap- onry nearly rivaling that of the Mexican military. Aside from auto- matic and semiautomatic rifles and machine guns, criminal organiza- tions have also deployed shoulder-launched RPG-7s that were likely diverted from Mexican and Central American military stockpiles, and have developed armored vehicles with gun turrets and battering rams known as “monsters” or “narco tanks.” Some of these vehicles were not appreciably different from the Mexican Federal Police armed vehi- cles known as “rhinoceros.” The groups are also able to produce their own weapons; a factory owned by the CJNG assembled untraceable AR-15 rifles from components.

Organized crime figures in Mexico have been described as “post- modern social bandits”61—a category of antistate actors with a long tradition in Latin America. Like insurgents, they provide social goods, construct narratives of power and rebellion, and seek to gain legitimacy in the territories that they control. Their message is delivered through symbolic acts of violence—including beheadings and corpse messaging (attaching a message to a corpse)—and information operations, includ- ing influencing the media and forging a “narco-culture” in which the criminal organizations are portrayed as challengers to a corrupt state and police.

The Caballeros Templarios have used mass media to communicate their message on numerous occasions. The group’s former leader, Servando Gómez (“La Tuta”), regularly gave media interviews and appeared in YouTube videos. In one of these videos, Gómez says his group has a “congress” and obeys the will of “the people,” adding that, “We don’t do what I order, we do what we believe is in the interest of the majority of the people.”

Robert J. Bunker argues that at some point in the recent past, the Mexican cartels (and some gangs) crossed a “firebreak” between our perceptions of what is “organized crime” or even “transnational organized crime”—a criminal threat and law enforcement concern— and what is “insurgency”—a military threat and national security or military concern (although law enforcement plays a partnership role with the military in responding to such a threat).

Essentially, he wrote, we are seeing criminal organizations in Mexico evolve into new war- making organizations.68 Insurgency-like tactics employed by Mexican criminal organizations include:

  • operations ranging from guerrilla-style attacks with military- grade weapons to assassinations of members of the security forces
  • psychological operations designed to wear down the government forces and to gain the support or acquiescence of the population (The cartels’ use of beheadings and other terror tactics are designed to achieve specific goals, including control of territory, punishment for betrayal, mitigation of the effectiveness of law enforcement, and intimidation of everyone from government officials to the general public.)
  • systematic targeting of high-ranking counternarcotics officials, mayors, and judges.

While the concept of Mexico’s drug violence as a narco- insurgency raises intriguing questions, a contrary view holds that, to the extent that criminal organizations have a political agenda, attacks on police, military, and government officials are meant to pressure the state to move away from confrontation and to give the drug traffickers space in which to operate without interference. In this view, while the criminal organizations have assumed some governmental roles, they have done so not to establish alternative governance, as in the case of insurgencies, but to protect their operating spaces.

A reasonable conclusion is that the activities of the Mexican DTOs do not meet the classical definition of insurgency but that functionally, the cartels play the role of insurgents in that they seek to lever- age political control to gain freedom of action for their illegal activities.

the continued operation of autodefensaswithout government training and supervision could lead to the advent of a lawless society in some regions of Mexico.73

Weaknesses in Mexico’s Counternetwork Response

Mexico’s efforts to blunt the activities of criminal organizations have suffered from a range of shortfalls. One has been the overwhelming emphasis on using the military to combat the drug cartels.

Scant regard for the proportionate use of force led to a fivefold increase in the number of abuse complaints directed against Mexican security forces between 2006 (213) and 2013 (1,196).76 And the number of active cartels not only registered no meaningful decline, they actually proliferated, as groups moved to forge ties in an ever- changing environment of tactical alliances.

At its height Calderón Hinojosa’s Mérida Initiativeinvolved 96,000 combat troops—almost 40 percent of all active personnel—who were deployed to pursue a “kingpin” strategy aimed at dismantling criminal syndicates by killing or capturing their leaders.75

Although the policy was instrumental in eliminating several key drug lords and making some record cocaine seizures, it singularly failed to increase security.

Mexico’s counternarcotics drive has also been hampered by a severe lack of coordination among the various agencies and departments charged with confronting drug cartels. A plethora of forces exist in the country, all of which answer to separate mandates, command structures, and bureaucratic management systems. The gendarmerie will inject a new element of confusion to this Byzantine picture, especially given that it is meant to operate across all levels of governance— local, state, and national. Particular problems are liable to arise with the Federal Police, the organization charged with leading the fight against the drug cartels, particularly in terms of how they will share resources (including helicopters), delineate jurisdiction, and coordinate intelligence.

effective mitigation has been stymied by intelligence “black holes” born of stovepiping, interservice jealously, jurisdictional confusion, and, above all, a lack of trust due to the endemic cartel- related corruption that afflicts many state organs. As a result, generating accurate information that can be acted on quickly has not been a char- acteristic feature of Mexico’s overall counternarcotics response. Indeed, virtually all of the high-level arrests that have taken place over the past five years occurred because of U.S.–supplied data sourced from satel- lite imagery, communication intercepts, and DEA-run human assets.

CHAPTER FIVE

Central America: The Retreat of the State and the Expansion of Illicit Power Centers

The ability of TCNs to co-opt or influence local power structures at the local and national levels has significantly undermined governance and the rule of law and made Central America a key point of con- vergence where the activities of substate and extraregional actors present multiple, significant, and sustained threats to the security of the United States.

These criminal actors and their resources have overwhelmed these small states. Instead of having to focus on one larger state apparatus, as in Mexico or Colombia, Central American TCNs have six small and weak nations—which seldom act in concert or share information—to hollow out.1 One Honduran academic termed this phenomenon the “evaporating state,” where the state government essentially withdraws from carrying out most of its legitimate functions.

Although the presence of illicit actors in Central America is noth- ing new, the volume, sophistication, power, and impunity of the illicit activities and actors are fundamentally reshaping the region. This has led to the retreat of the state as a guarantor of an impartial and func- tioning judicial system, the rule of law, and control of national borders, and to a political process that increasingly represents little other than the investments of different TCNs in securing their interests. This leads to the cycle now under way in the northern tier of countries where, as Phil Williams notes, “States face two fundamental and interconnected challenges: They are often unable to meet the economic needs and expectations of their citizens, and they are unable to elicit the loyalty and allegiance of significant portions of these same citizens.”

As a 2012 United Nations study of TCNs in Central America noted, “The key driver of violence is not cocaine, but change: change in the negotiated power relations between and within groups, and with the state.”

Transportista Networks

Unlike the Mexican organizations, the transportistas are largely local and each of the Central American networks individually seldom controls more than a few towns or rural valleys.

they are local groups who have members on both sides of one specific border and control specific crossings.

While this limits their national reach, they are structures that are deeply rooted in the local community, creating control based on trust and on the ability of the network to inflict harm—not only on an offending individual, but likely on that individual’s extended family, as well. The alliances among transportista networks, particularly those in close proximity to each other, are often cemented through interfamily marriages.

Transportistas interviewed for this study say the greatest threat to their business transactions is seldom the police or military, which they are accustomed to dealing with. Rather, it is tumbadores, or other groups who steal the trafficked material, either in transit or from stash houses. Tumbes, as the thefts are called, are a favorite way for a group to announce its expansion into a new area. In the early days of their expansion into northern Guatemala, Los Zetas carried out a series of often-bloody tumbes, sometimes keeping the drugs, sometimes (in an effort to build alliances) allowing the transportista to buy the load back at a slight markup. The idea was not so much to make money as to establish Los Zetas as the dominant presence everyone else would have to deal with.

This culture of honor among the traditional transportista networks is violated by tumbes, especially if carried out by a rival group rather than a common thief. In the case of rival networks, tumbes are often wars to the death—not only for individuals, but for entire clans.

However, when the system works well, as it generally does, it makes the transportista networks impossible to track at ground level in real time. Investigations usually offer a snapshot of what has taken place rather than a moving picture of how they are evolving.

Political infiltration offers the opportunity to engen- der political and social support, while control of local projects offers the twin possibilities of generating and allocating formal jobs where they are scarce while simultaneously offering multiple avenues for launder- ing money.

While the Sinaloa cartel and other established Mexican groups continued to use the more traditional model of allying with local trans- portista networks in the region to acquire and move product, Los Zetas introduced a new methodology that has significantly altered TCN operations in the region—that of widespread territorial control.14

Rather than focusing on cocaine trafficking nodes and specific points of penetration to move their product (the transportista model), Los Zetas sought territorial dominion in which it could then tax all illicit activities that were carried out or moved through that terri- tory. This diversified the revenue stream of the organization by taxing prostitution, human smuggling, and all illicit activities in its areas of control.

In one innovation, the group has been stealing tanker trucks full of gasoline in Mexico from the state-run Pemex oil company to sell at discounted rates on the major highways along the Mexico-Guatemala border. One recent intelligence analysis in Guatemala estimated that 30 percent of the gasoline sold in Guatemala came from these Zeta thefts, yielding the group millions of dollars a month unrelated to the drug trade.

The shift also brought a significant “Mexicanization” of the criminal networks in the region, meaning an imitation of the habits and culture of the Mexican drug lords.

upon his return and arrest, Nicaragua’s Supreme Court president Alba Luz Ramos immediately came out to defend Fariñas publicly. Still, Fariñas was convicted of drug trafficking a few months later.

The investigation into Cabral’s murder has spanned at least four countries and involved investigators from six governments, including the United States, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.

Colombian police said the alleged mastermind of the killing is a Costa Rican named Alejandro Jimenez, who was reportedly trying to force Fariñas to sell one of the Elite franchises in Costa Rica.

According to police and judicial sources, as well as published reports, Ulloa Sibrián ran a network that moved cocaine, illegal immigrants, and millions of dollars in bulk cash while buying scores of properties in different countries and multiple legitimate businesses. Official estimates of the scope of his net- work demonstrate Ulloa Sibrián’s centrality to the local drug trade: Guatemalan and Salvadoran authorities calculated that he moved up to 16 tons of contraband through those two countries over the course of his career, the vast majority of it destined for the U.S. market.

In the immediate aftermath of the civil war, the nascent security forces, including the National Civil Police, were still in the process of reform and thus unable to deal with the crime wave in an effective manner. Some were even complicit in the violence. In addition to former soldiers and former insurgents with the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), members of the police were all involved in organized crime. Essentially, belligerents were demobilized but never actually reintegrated back into society, leaving many with limited options. Gangs became an easy way to make money and provided ex-combatants with a sense of security. Total membership in El Salvador’s two main gangs ranges from 10,500 to 38,000. Even taking the more conservative figure still puts gang members somewhere around 60 percent of the size of the police force and at nearly the same size as the army.

Transnational Gangs

Transnational gangs, such as MS-13 and the Calle 18 active in Guate- mala, Honduras, and El Salvador, are by far the biggest groups.

Impact on National Stability

The impact of these networks has been profoundly damaging to the rule of law, political stability, and democratic processes under way since the end of the region’s armed conflicts in the early 1990s.

Particularly in the Northern Triangle, the significant political power acquired by these entities, coupled with growing corruption and the decline of the states’ ability to carry out basic functions has pushed the most-affected nations to the point of collapse.

Criminalized or Captured State Structures

The cumulative effect of the major actors driving the dynamics of drug trafficking and transnational organized crime in Central America— drug cartels, transportistas, gangs, and co-opted or criminalized state actors—has been destructive. However, with the possible exception of some gangs that have openly challenged the security forces, the activities of these groups are clearly not forms of criminal insurgency.

With criminalized state actors, the dynamic is exactly the opposite: not to overthrow the state, but to maintain control of the instruments of state power for as long as possible.

Transportista groups also do not seek to overthrow or replace the national government. Rather, they seek to corrupt and control power at a local level, without broader aspirations. They share some character- istics of John P. Sullivan’s notion of a “criminal insurgency,” where the “overarching political motive is to gain autonomous economic control over territory . . . Not all insurgents seek to take over the government or have an ideological foundation.

The gangs are undergoing a profound metamorphosis from groups with little or no political vision to formidable political blocs that, while having no inherent ideology, are capable of delivering hun- dreds of thousands of votes to a political party in exchange for specific benefits. The gangs deliver on the promises of votes by getting entire neighborhoods, under penalty of death or expulsion, to vote for the favored party. Thus the gangs control not just the votes of gang mem- bers but of their families and entire communities.

It has been widely reported that the FMLN negotiated with the gangs in the first round of the 2014 presidential elections, confident of achieving the majority of 50 percent plus one vote necessary to avoid a second round.

The jailed leadership of the MS-13 and Calle 18 gangs acknowledged in a joint statement that they had negotiated with the FMLN in the first round, and attributed their withdrawal of support to the closeness of the second round, feeling that the FMLN had betrayed their trust.

Gangs occupy significant amounts of territory, challenge and often defeat government forces in pitched battles, systematically target high-ranking police and judicial authorities, negotiate as equals with the government for specific benefits, carry out terror tactics to achieve the goal of intimidating any potential enemies, and are able to force the government to make concessions. All of these are hallmarks of a classical insurgency.

They also have a very clear idea of what their desired end state is, and it does not include taking over the government. It is primarily a vision of a truly autonomous, transnational entity: a society in which the gang could behave according to its own internal code, without being in permanent confrontation with the state. Being tattooed would not be a stigma, seeking to kill rival gang members would be a full- time occupation, women could be treated as sex slaves without consequence, and their internal structure would set the governing rules.In short, it would look very much like the prisons they occupy, but with- out the bars, gross overcrowding, and lack of amenities.

The Growing Role of the Gangs

While the transportista networks have a long history in the region and are an important part of its criminal, political, and social fabric, the role of gangs in the drug business is relatively new and evolving rapidly. These groups, if they continue on their current trajec- tory, have the greatest potential to displace traditional networks and greatly increase their already formidable social, political, and eco- nomic power.

The ongoing mutation of the gangs into political actors with growing ties to the drug trade cannot be understood outside the historic and controversial truce reached among the two main gangs and the government of El Salvador in March 2012. While there were other attempts at truces, this one provided the gangs with instruments to steadily gain political power and expand their territorial control. The truces, in essence, allowed the gangs to continue and expand their criminal activities, primarily extortion, kidnapping, protection, murder, and street- level drug dealing, in exchange for dropping the body count, or at least the bodies that were visible on the streets.45 Eventually it became clear that the gangs had been simply burying the bodies in clandestine cem- eteries rather than publicly displaying them. While there is a general consensus that the homicide rate dropped, with ebbs and flows, it has become clear that the decline since the truce was not nearly as dramatic as initially portrayed.

Evolution of Gangs and Transnational Criminal Networks

In addition to his growing ability to move large amounts of cocaine, Bercián has set up a series of businesses to help launder the proceeds of the cocaine sales while carefully cultivating political protection and a reputation for brutality.

Counternetwork Efforts in Central America

Numerous, fragile experiments are under way to deal with some of these issues. The United States is funding several interagency task forces (IATFs) established by regional governments in hopes of provid- ing a platform for a “whole of government” approach to reestablishing state authority in some areas while simultaneously combating drug traffickers.

These challenges are playing out against a backdrop of the desire by the region’s leaders, across political ideologies, to find a new paradigm outside the U.S.-led “war on drugs,” particularly as U.S. resources in the region have been severely curtailed. The search for a new paradigm includes calls for decriminalization. At the same time, there is a growing perception among the population that the violence generated by TCN activity is their primary concern, and that some sort of accommodation with those groups to end the bloodshed is the best and perhaps only way out of the current crisis.

“The issue of drug trafficking and consumption is not on the North American political agenda. The issue of drugs in the U.S. is very marginalized, while for Guatemala and the rest of Central America it’s very central,” he added.62

There are other psychological factors that play into the changing perceptions in the region, such as the growing belief that the U.S.- led interdiction efforts are not only part of the problem, but that they cannot succeed. “There are two dynamics at work,” said one regional analyst who monitors polling data and political trends. “One is the feeling that the governments can or will do little or nothing to solve people’s basic needs. The second is the feeling that people want to be on the winning side in any conflict, and the perception now is that the narcos have won, so they will adapt to that. Crossing that threshold to acceptance of the narco-state is huge, but already under way.”

Weakness in Central America’s Counternetwork Response

With the exception of the efforts to develop institutional capacity to fight criminal networks we have described here, Central America as a whole, and the Northern Triangle in particular, have not been successful in mitigating the pernicious effects of illegal criminal activity on the rule of law, the legal economy, and state power.

 

Among the significant multiple weaknesses of the Northern Tri- angle countries are the following:

  • corruption and distrust among and within police forces that make joint actions across national boundaries virtually impossible—and even local actions difficult to carry out
  • lack of political will to combat DTOs, coupled with and fed by growing government complicity in drug trafficking and money laundering
  • highly politicized national intelligence structures that are often used to track the political opposition rather than strategic threats
  • significant intelligence stovepipes that exist because of fears that drug corruption or political interests will thwart any real action against criminal groups
  • porousborderswithalmostnoeffectivecontrolforstoppingcontraband, be it drugs, people, weapons, or bulk cash
  • a lack of revenue and tax base from which to raise the necessary income for the state to implement anything more than the dys- functional systems currently in place
  • the growing emphasis on the part of regional government on using the military to combat drug trafficking, although they do not have the training or institutional capacity to do so. (This is particularly true in Honduras, with the introduction in 2014 of the “military police,” a new branch of the military, responding to the military chain of command, but carrying out police func- tions. In El Salvador, tens of thousands of army troops have been deployed to support police operations but often take the lead or bypass the police completely.)66

 

CHAPTER SIX

The Trans-Atlantic Route: South America to West Africa

Over the past decade, drug cartels based in Latin America began to route cocaine shipments to Europe through West Africa. West African criminal networks are leading players in transporting and distributing the cocaine in Europe, often allied with associates of AQIM and other Sahel-based extremist groups. Lebanese Hezbollah is a major actor on both the Latin American and West African sides of the drug trade.

Figures about drug trafficking in Africa should be taken with a great deal of caution, however. The knowledge base of cocaine trafficking through West Africa remains thin and there is a clear need for a much better and finer-grained empirical understanding of how transnational drug trafficking in West Africa works. The data on drug movements through West Africa is based on documented shipments, largely seizures, but in the case of drug movements to the United States through Central America and the Caribbean, these data reflect only what we know. The United States has a robust intelligence capability in Latin America, but the relevant agencies have fewer sources and less direct awareness of the drug movements in Africa.

Until recently, Guinea-Bissau constituted the apex of smuggling activity. Under President Joâo Bernardo “Nino” Vieira (1994–1999 and 2005–2009), the country was considered to be the world’s first genuine narcostate, with the value of drugs passing through the polity rivaling that of its official gross domestic product. Complicity in the cocaine trade extended to the very highest levels of the military and governing civil bureaucracy.

In 2013, the head of Guinea-Bissau’s armed forces, General Antonio Indjai, was indicted in absentia by a New York court on cocaine and weapon trafficking charges that directly tied him to the criminal enterprises of the FARC.

Two weeks earlier, the former chief of the Navy, Rear Admiral José Américo Bubo Na Tchuto, was arrested in a DEA sting operation during which he told undercover federal agents that he could arrange for the storage and transfer of Colombian cocaine at a rate of $1 million for every 1,000 kg brought into the country.

Main Players

Nigerian criminal networks are at the forefront of cocaine trafficking from the Gulf of Guinea to Europe, as well as in secondary markets in sub-Saharan Africa. The involvement of individuals from the southeastern Igbo ethnic group—which has a particularly large and widespread diaspora—has been especially marked. These players have an established and prominent presence along all aspects of the supply chain from source countries (São Paulo constituting their main nerve center in Latin America), through transit hubs to main consumption countries (Britain, Spain, Italy, and Germany).

drug flows have impeded development by discouraging the types of foreign investment West African governments need to grow their economies. More specifically, the potentially huge short-term mon- etary gains that can be made from the cocaine trade have eclipsed the attractiveness of longer-term commitments to more-productive enterprises. Inevitably, this has resulted in a situation where a small number of people are becoming richer at the expense of a mass population base that is being rendered progressively poorer—driving already massive wealth inequalities and concomitant sources of social tension.

There is clear evidence that Gulf of Guinea transit hubs have steadily degenerated into consumption centers in their own right. Throughout the wider Gulf region, cocaine use has become increas- ingly endemic, fostering inner-city violence, fueling street crime, and straining already overburdened health and law enforcement systems. In this manner, the drug trade is detracting from human security, con- tributing to West Africa’s status as one of the most socially dislocated and dysfunctional parts of the world.

 

the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated Rear Admiral Tchuto, twice chief of staff of the navy, and General Ibraima Papa Camará, chief of staff of the air force, as drug king- pins

The two were linked to a notorious episode in July 2008 when a Gulfstream jet from Venezuela landed in Bissau loaded with 500 kg of cocaine. Police surrounded the plane and arrested the crew, who were reported to be members of El Chapo’s criminal organization, but the cocaine vanished. A later investigation determined that hundreds of boxes of cocaine had been unloaded from the plane by soldiers in uniform.

Counternetwork Efforts in West Africa

It focuses on building regional capacity to combat transnational crime, particularly narcotics trafficking. WACSI’s specific goals are to address corruption within the justice and security sectors and by government elites; support development of legal frameworks to combat transnational crime; strengthen law enforcement; promote the capacity to prosecute criminal activity; and engage African stakeholders in addressing the underlying socio- economic factors that facilitate crime.

In October 2011, the governments of Nigeria and Benin established a combined maritime patrol mechanism. Codenamed “Operation Prosperity,” the experimental bilateral cooperation was the first of its kind and has since been expanded to include the navies of Cameroon, Togo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and São Tomé.

“Operation Prosperity” was instituted in tandem with an ongoing project overseen by the International Maritime Organization and the Maritime Organization of West and Central Africa to functionally align the maritime patrol forces of West Africa. In 2010, a memorandum of understanding was signed to establish a Sub-Regional Integrated Coast Guard Network to address the following areas: piracy and armed robbery against ships; offshore energy supply security; illegal migration; the trafficking of people, drugs, and weapons; search and rescue; and protection of the marine environment. Since then, the International Maritime Organization has been conducting capacity-building activities across the region under a modest program that includes tabletop exercises and simulations, national seminars, and maritime security–related training.

As of the end of 2014, Transnational Crime Units were fully operational in Liberia and Sierra Leone and were in the start-up phase in Guinea-Bissau.44 The European Union, which has a particular inter- est in securing energy supplies from West Africa, is contributing to capacity-building efforts in the region, in addition to acting as a bridge between the Anglophone and Francophone component elements of ECOWAS and ECCAS.

Weaknesses in the West African Counternetwork Response

A number of shortfalls beset the West African counternetwork response. Fragile state institutions, weak judicial systems vulnerable to manipu- lation, and high-level corruption impede effective action against crimi- nal networks. The report of the West African Commission on Drugs, an independent group of West African civil-society leaders chaired by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, stated, “Transnational criminal networks largely control the [illegal drug] trade, facilitated by the fact that they are operating in a poor region affected by political instability, unemployment and corruption.” These networks, the report continues, often operate under the guise of legitimate businesses or with the protection or involvement, direct or indirect, of senior offi- cials, and tend to be highly resourceful and extremely difficult to monitor or infiltrate.

Most of the region’s security force personnel lack adequate training and are poorly equipped and underpaid. Land borders established in colonial times are artificial and porous. Cultural affinities unite ethnic groups in various countries in West Africa, transcending nationality, providing an impetus for legal and illegal cross-border trade.

both personnel and equipment to monitor their respective shorelines. Just as significantly, sensitivities over the demarcation of sovereign jurisdiction have hindered the institution of effective protocols for coordinating joint patrol, much less anything approaching a codified right of hot pursuit.48

Extremely weak intelligence capabilities have compounded matters.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Convergence of Organized Crime and Terrorism

The nexus or linkages between terrorist and insurgent groups and crime is a critical aspect of the whole problem of international terrorism because in many cases, terrorist groups cannot sustain them- selves and survive without the income and resources that they derive from criminal activity.

Crime and terrorism can be distinguished by motive. Criminals seek economic gain through illicit means, while terrorists and insurgents seek political power and use criminal means to achieve these ends. Nevertheless, the important fact is that these two sets of actors represent an intrusion on the state’s monopoly over the legitimate use of force.

In numerous cases, terrorists or insurgent groups develop opportunistic alliances with criminal networks. This convergence may be facilitated by similar logistical and operational requirements, synergies produced by sharing a common infrastructure (e.g., runways), logistical corridors, safe havens, financial and money laundering networks, and a common interest in weakening or evading government action. Even where this convergence of terrorism or insurgency and crime has not occurred, there seems to be a feedback mechanism, in that the activities of criminal groups displace state and government institutions, usually weak to begin with, in the areas where they establish a foot-hold. This, in turn, creates greater social disorder that can be exploited by terrorists and insurgents.

Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America, by Humire and Berman, lists 173 individuals connected to Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps that used Venezuelan passports to travel to other countries.

Lebanese financial institutions and exchange houses play a key role in facilitating money laundering. In January 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated two exchange houses in Lebanon and three in Benin for their role in Joumaa’s laun- dering of drug trafficking proceeds. Not long afterward, the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a finding (called a 311 Action) that the Lebanese Canadian Bank SAL of Beirut, then Lebanon’s eighth-largest bank with assets of more than $5 billion as of 2009, was a financial institution of primary money laundering concern.

There is some controversy as to the extent of AQIM’s complicity in narcotrafficking. AQIM’s emir, Abdel Droukdel, has explicitly disavowed any such activity as haram (forbidden in Islam) and contrary to al-Qaeda’s ideological and religious principles.8 However, U.S. officials cite a New York trial of three men from Mali in 2013 to back their claim that the group is heavily involved in the trade.

During this period, they admitted to being associated with al-Qaeda and were secretly videotaped agreeing to facilitate the move- ment of cocaine shipments from the Gulf of Guinea to the Maghreb and then onward to Spain. After initially quoting a transportation fee of US$2,000/kg, the trio apparently increased their price to US$10,000 for all consignments of more than 500 kg.9 The DEA has taken the case as providing “definitive evidence that a direct link exists between AQIM and its affiliate terrorist organizations and international drug trafficking.”

The DEA believes profits derived from Latin American drug shipments bankrolled the Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2014 as well as the subsequent abduction and murder of 54 western workers from an Algerian gas facility that same year (an action for which Belmokhtar claimed credit in al-Qaeda’s name).15 Further indications of the connection between Latin American drug networks and AQIM emerged in 2010 with reports of a “drug summit” held in Guinea- Bissau in late October at which AQIM was represented by the newly emerging figure Abdelkrim Targui (“The Tuareg”).

Hezbollah is a major actor in the West African drug trade. The organization relies on criminal specialists in West Africa with close ties to the drug trade for money laundering, document forgery, and other criminal activities. The group played a significant role in the blood diamond trade and collects substantial amounts in contributions from the Lebanese diaspora in West Africa.

According to numerous sources, cocaine traded through West Africa accounts for a large part of Hezbollah’s income. A witness at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing stated that there is documentary evidence that an average of US$180 million in cash per quarter was being transported from Togo to Ghana, where it was placed on commercial aircraft and flown directly to Beirut.

Interpol has confirmed that cocaine trafficking in West Africa has supported several Hezbollah operations in Lebanon since at least 2006. Profits from cocaine trafficking have allowed the Lebanese network to diversify its portfolio of illegal activities in West Africa. In Nigeria, for example, 80,000 barrels of oil a day are siphoned from illegally tapped pipelines.

Guinea-Bissau is a strategic hub for the Hezbollah- facilitated drug trafficking from South America to West Africa. The Lebanese network based in Guinea-Bissau does business directly with the FARC.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Combatant Command, Joint Task Force, and Army Service Component Command Counternetwork Activities

Using global footholds and myriad communication tools, TCO networks now span across all GCC AORs [geographic combatant command areas of responsibility].

TCO networks do not limit themselves to narcotics trafficking. They are global logistics enterprises with the ability to move any type of commodity into and out of the United States.

Summary of Army CTOC Activities in Support of NORTHCOM

While a few soldiers perform duty under the command of NORTHCOM, such as serving as members of Tactical Analysis Teams and planners within the headquarters, the bulk of Army support is pro- vided through JTF-N. Headquarters JTF-N has a small number of soldiers tasked to provide planning assistance to several federal law enforcement agencies aligned according to the major drug trafficking corridors. However, most of its counterdrug activities consist of units conducting training by performing counterdrug support missions within the JTF-N area of operations. Such units are assigned Exercise Tactical Control to JTF-N and only perform counterdrug activities that provide training directly related to the unit’s Mission Essential Task List

United States Southern Command

During interviews with RAND researchers, SOUTHCOM plan- ners stated that among the challenges they face in CTOC activities are changes in budgetary priorities.13 The environment is dynamic and the threat changes quickly, yet DoD budgets take much longer to adapt. Security cooperation activities are funded by the Department of State and managed by DoD. Planning for security cooperation is accomplished through the Security Cooperation Office and the country team. The use of Section 1004 funds requires a law enforcement request. This could be sent through the U.S. Embassy within the relevant country. Together, these processes slow down the ability of SOUTHCOM to respond to changes in the way that transnational criminal organizations conduct their business.

Three other limiting factors are: (1) the statutory mission of SOUTHCOM; (2) statutory priorities—for example, SOUTHCOM can use Section 1033 funding only in countries approved by Congress; and (3) restrictions due to political considerations—e.g., Honduras has a lethal shoot-down program; therefore, the United States does not provide Honduras access to JIATFS air flight data despite the fact that approximately 90 percent of the air drug traffic through Central America (15 percent of the overall drug traffic) flies over Honduras.

The Guatemalan IATF concept’s strongest supporter, President Molina, resigned and was subsequently arrested in September 2015 in the wake of a corruption scandal, which raises questions as to whether the successor government will have the political will to continue with IATF development.

Joint Interagency Task Force South

JIATFS has the lead for DoD’s detection and monitoring mission in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility and covers part of the NORTHCOM area of responsibility, as well.

In terms of transportation, storage, and sales timing, the TCN business model is not well understood.

While focused on its primary mission of detection and monitoring of illicit traffic, JIATFS established counternetwork and counter-threat finance analysis cells to assist law enforcement agencies in dismantling the transnational criminal organizations responsible for the production and shipment of narcotics and for undermining the stability and security of the region.

United States Army South

ARSOUTH focuses CTOC activities on building partner capac- ity in four partner nations: Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Belize. The goals are to improve the capability and capacity of partner nations. Activities include police counterdrug labs training, basic riv- erine operations mobile training teams, small boat operations mobile training teams, intelligence officer courses, command and control and assessment, tactical response training teams, rotary-wing maintenance, ground interdiction support, fixed- and rotary-wing pilot training courses, maritime interdiction, intelligence against drug trafficking, CTOC operations, and planning for counternarcotics operations.

United States Africa Command

Although countering TCNs was not listed as a priority, this mission is inherent in the promotion of stability as General Rodriguez made clear in his statement, saying, “We built capacity and enabled our allies and partners to disrupt transnational terrorist and criminal networks, strengthen border security, and contribute to multinational peacekeep- ing operations.” Moreover, “The nexus between crime and terror is growing on the continent as terrorists and criminals increasingly utilize the same illicit pathways to move people, money, weapons, and other resources.”

General Rodriguez also highlighted the problem of corruption:

Corruption is a universal challenge that encourages the com- plicity of public servants in criminal and terrorist activities and destroys public trust in decision-making systems. To help our African partners address corruption, we must carefully tailor the conditions for military assistance. Where corruption perme- ates military institutions, its consequences can be deadly. When resources are diverted from military pay and sustainment, forces are less capable and more vulnerable on the battlefield. They are less effective at protecting civilians and may resort to predatory behavior. Corruption is corrosive to the foundation of trust and mutual responsibility on which enduring partnerships must be built.

CHAPTER NINE

Conclusions and Recommendations

In the introduction to this report, we documented the increased recog- nition on the part of the Obama administration, Congress, and U.S. military leaders of the importance of addressing the growing secu- rity threat posed by the expansion of TCNs. Yet, this raises the ques- tion: What are the roles of DoD, the military commands, and the U.S. Army?

U.S. Governmentwide–Level Conclusions and Recommendations

Challenge the Conventional Thinking

At a conceptual level, a major challenge in formulating adequate policy responses to the challenge posed by the emergent threat of TCNs and hybrid illicit actors that combine aspects of criminal organizations, terrorist groups, and insurgencies is the way in which the U.S. government and most analysts classify threats to national security—and the way in which this classification is reflected in national security legislation, department and agency missions, and budgetary decisions.

But some criminal organizations—as shown in the case of Mexico—combine elements of insurgency, and certainly terrorism. Entities such as the FARC, AQIM, Hezbollah, and many others combine terrorism, insurgency, and criminal activities. Prioritizing the threats that they pose to U.S. interests requires taking all of these facets of the groups’ activities into consideration.

how does the threat of al-Shabaab or AQIM compare with that of the Sinaloa Cartel? One solution might be to regard all of these groups as networks. We could then assess the threat level that they pose, regardless of how the group is classified, and deploy the tools and resources available to the U.S. government against them based on that threat assessment.

Bring Authorities and Policy Guidance in Line with the Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime

It takes time for authorities and laws to “play catch up” with emerging trends. By and large, authorities to implement CTOC are nascent and the agencies charged with this mission draw on existing counternarcotics authorities.

Improve Interagency Coordination

A major structural obstacle to waging an effective counternetwork campaign is the lack of unified effort and command. Unlike in the counterterrorism area, where extensive interagency coordinating mechanisms were created after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, a mechanism for addressing the threat of TCNs is only now in the process of being developed.

The 9/11 attacks generated a sense of urgency and incentives to coordinate efforts against the threat of international terrorism, but no similar consensus has developed on the importance of countering TCNs. The agencies with the most-relevant capabilities for attacking illicit networks have other missions and are reluctant to focus their resources on taking down the networks.

Support Countering Transnational Network Strategies and Programs with Adequate Dedicated Budgetary Allocations

The FY 2015 NDAA widened counternarcotics enforcement support to include countering transnational criminal organizations, but no addi- tional funds were appropriated for this mission.

Address Deep Corruption and Criminalized States

Criminalized states are hubs of transnational criminal activity, and deep, multilayered corruption vitiates efforts by the United States to engage partner nations constructively in efforts against TCNs, strengthen governance in weak states, and promote regional stability. The United States has tried to work around the problem of corruption in a partner country’s security agencies by working with vetted units within larger organizations. However, there are severe limitations to what can be achieved by working with these units (even if they could be kept corruption-free), if they operate in an environment of deeply entrenched corruption.

in countries where drug trafficking– related corruption is endemic, the most promising avenue to reducing corruption to a level that might permit the United States to work with these countries’ governments and militaries may be to sanction and isolate the high-level political and military elites involved in drug traf- ficking and target them with law enforcement tools. At a minimum, the United States should exercise caution to ensure that any political or military engagement with these countries does not help to legitimize deeply corrupt regimes or prolong their grasp on power.

U.S. Army Roles in Countering Transnational Criminal Networks

the Army has competencies and capabili- ties that can advance the U.S. government’s CTOC objectives without significantly drawing resources from its core missions.

Should it choose to do so, the Army could:9

  1. Help develop interagency and multinational strategies to more effectively counter TCNs and assist with planning to implement those strategies.
  2. Consider increasing the efforts of senior Army leaders to encourage a greater number of units to take advantage of training opportunities with joint interagency task forces engaged in CTOC missions.
  3. Facilitate the use of RAFs in CTOC or CTOC-related missions.
  1. Consider developing an Army Doctrinal Reference Publication for CTOC.
  2. Add CTOC to the Chief of Staff Army Strategic Studies Group research agenda, make it a priority for solution development by the Asymmetric Warfare Group, and add it to the U.S. Army War College Key Strategic Issues List.
  3. Advocate for CTOC activities conducted by the ASCCs to be expanded from counterdrug operations to the full range of CTOC activities that address critical threats to U.S. national security.
  4. Increase support to network analysis efforts within each of the ASCCs.
  5. Increase Signals Intelligence and cyber support to each of the ASCCs.
  6. Assist partner countries with intelligence collection and coordination.
  7. Increase support to ASCCs to improve rapid mobility of partner country militaries.
  8. Provide an unclassified version of Blue Force Tracker to partner militaries, as appropriate.
  9. Work with partner nations and militaries to help them strengthen border control.
  10. Partner with gendarmerie organizations. 

Notes from: Transnational Networks of Insurgency and Crime: Explaining the Spread of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Beyond National Borders

 

 

 

 

 

Transnational Networks of Insurgency and Crime: Explaining the Spread of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia beyond National Borders is the PhD thesis of Oscar Palma.

From what I can tell work, written during his association with the London School of Economics, is the basis for his recent book – Commercial Insurgencies in the Networked Era : The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

It was a fascinating read. While my highlights from it are below, since you can freely download the whole work from the first link I’d recommend doing that if the topics interest you.

Notes

The rise of cyberspace as a theatre of social interaction and political debate, especially social networks as forums of coordinated action, is allowing insurgencies to act as dispersed horizontal entities with interconnected individuals, groups and cells placed in different countries and regions. They are challenging traditional hierarchical notions of organization. More than following Leninist/Castroist paradigms, as witnessed during the Cold War, they are arranged as networked actors.

the concept of complex insurgencies introduced by John Mackinlay describes agents that do not follow traditional hierarchical models of organization

it uses its description of insurgency processes to analyse FARC’s activities and structures, and to formulate possible new routes for the organization.

it is difficult to explain any war as purely national phenomena, and transnational networks have fueled conflict for decades, both in terms of the provision of materiel and the spread of ideas and discourses.

from an International Relations perspective, it contributes to the incorporation of Complexity to the discipline.

the approach requires observing the insurgency not as a single organization but as a system composed by individuals with diverse interests who perform different tasks. This requires observations in the lowest levels of analysis making it impossible to observe several case studies

it will be demonstrated that by 2010 networks and structures beyond borders constructed through the exploitation of environmental elements constituted a base for the insurgency to survive. This was the case even when the organization did not constitute a transnational insurgency per se, remaining only as a national insurgency with transnational operational networks.

According to the classification made by George and Bennett (2005), it is an Atheoretical/configurative idiographic case study providing descriptions that might be used in subsequent studies for theory building, but not configuring a theory by itself.

if FARC, as a commercial insurgency, is understood as one type of a hybrid entity, results can be compared with those of other type of organizations categorized as hybrid entities in order to raise more general conclusions. In other words, although the thesis is mainly interested in FARC, its conceptual developments and the elements of analysis introduced are instruments for the study of other cases, in the hope of raising wider generalizations.

 

it is possible to observe how I have managed to dodge a possible bias since the perspective from which I explain FARC actually opposes dominant narratives which are common through official circles.

observes organizations as composed by interacting individuals (nodes), emphasising their interrelatedness with the environment of operations.

Ideas of topology, network characteristics and failure are useful to think about the insurgency’s structural properties and processes.

develops the concept of commercial insurgencies with a particular proposition of its characteristics, structure and the interaction with its environment. The idea of the triadic character of commercial insurgencies is introduced along with the description of those dynamics through which the region contributes to its survival and re-emergence.

 

Insurgent and counterinsurgent are always in a kind of dialogue with actions, reactions and adaptations. They are mutually re-defining its practices.

FARC is a national insurgency with transnational operative functional networks which altogether constitute a base for the insurgency to survive. It uses elements introduced in the first and second chapters for such analysis, and it explores a networked-complex model of insurgencies to formulate a possible future scenario.

 

The emergence of complexity theory has opened the door to new visions in the explanation of physical, natural and social realities, exploring the interconnected character of agents and their construction of systems, the multidimensional nature of issues, the relevance of linkages among the smallest units, and the symbiotic relations between systems and their environments. In other words, this framework provides the ideal instruments to understand the characteristics of the type of insurgencies explored in this dissertation through FARC as a case study.

 

This linear paradigm emerged from the ideas of philosophers such as Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes

This claim is based on two assumptions: that the chain of causes and consequences is discoverable in every circumstance, and that the universe is deterministic in its nature. The perspective implies an understanding of natural and human realities as systems where processes with specific inputs produce proportional and measurable outputs.

 

In synthesis, the linear paradigm can be explained through four basic principles:

Order: Given causes lead into known effects any moment and in any place.

Reductionism: The system can be understood through the sum of its parts.

Predictability: When behaviour of the system is defined the future course of events can be predicted.

Determinism: Processes flow along orderly and predictable paths with clear beginnings and rational ends

The Complexity paradigm

Further intellectual enquiry into other areas raised doubts about the capacity of the linear paradigm to explain all universal phenomena. Complexity appeared to reject the mechanistic view of society and the universe as predictable, ordered and determined.

Complexity deals with the nature of emergence, innovation, learning and adaptation.

Complexity then believes societies cannot be understood as predictable and ordered systems. Instead it proposes that social, political and economic processes are unpredictable, non-deterministic, and irreducible. It focuses on how interactions between individuals (the parts) generate changes in society itself (the system). The essence, the form, the character and the direction of the latter depends exclusively on how individuals interact in the lowest level; on their conditions, the information they transmit, and the actions they engage in according to specific circumstances in a given moment.

non-linearityappears as one of complexity’s main characteristics.

Outcomes are not determined by a single but by multiple causes according to the changes they generate through the system. This is known as ‘multiple causation’ (Byrne, 1998).

According to this explanation, systemic processes depend on the interactions of its units, that is, the system displays bottom-up dynamics instead of top-down coordination. This condition is known as emergence.

systems produce feedback that alters their internal dynamics according to its relation with the environment. Such feedback is classified as ‘negative’ when it is absorbed by the system, generating reactions for it to adapt and to return to its initial state. By contrast, positive feedback comes as information that is not internalized by the system but amplified by it, leading into systemic instability. The generation of new characteristics are ‘emergent phenomena’.

This is closely related to the principle of self-organization. “Self-organization refers to the process by which the autonomous interaction of individual entities results in the bottom-up emergence of complex systems. In the absence of centralized authority, the spontaneous appearance of patterned order results from the interaction of the parts of the system as they react to the flow of resources through the system.”

This means that units in the lower level will not act according to commands given by a centralized authority but following their own initiative. In that sense, the system will become organized according to unit interactions instead of depending on a determined process or a single source of power who directs it.

By logic, in this type of systems small changes in the initial conditions of its elements do not necessarily produce proportional variations throughout the system. Instead, a small change could generate bigger systemic transformations, but major changes in units may not end generating any variations at all. This is technically known as sensitive dependence on initial conditions: “the outcome of the generation of the explanatory variables is sensitive to very small differences in the initial conditions under which the analysis has begun.”

The property of adaptation, together with relations between the system and the environment, has opened the door to the study of a type of system that has been named Complex Adaptive System (CAS). These systems, according to Jon Norber and Graeme Cumming (2008), are made up of interacting components whose interrelations may be complex (non-linear) and display the capacity to learn, generating reactive or proactive adaptive behaviour. They display adaptation, a capacity of the system to change in response to prevailing conditions by means of self-organization, learning and reasoning.

Complex adaptive systems can be characterised as follows:

†“They have active internal elements that furnish sufficient local variety to enable the system to survive as it adapts to unforeseen circumstances.

†The systems elements are lightly but not sparsely connected.

†The elements interact locally according to simple rules to provide the energy needed 
to maintain stable global patterns, as opposed to rigid order or chaos.

†Variations in prevailing conditions result in many minor changes and a few large mutations, but it is not possible to predict the outcome in advance.”

these systems are basically characterised by a “huge amount of interacting particles that, together with energy intake from the environment, produce an overall pattern called ‘emergent properties’.

 

Walter Buckley (1998) proposed that complexity is an ideal theoretical framework for sociological studies given its vision of a system as sensitive to both its environment and its internal dynamics, where even slight stimuli may trigger large reactions.

Sociology, in his view, must be interested in a system described as “a complex of element components directly or indirectly related in a network of interrelationships of various kinds such that it constitutes a dynamic whole with emergent properties.”

“networks constitute the new social morphology of our societies, and the diffusion of networking logic substantially modifies the operation and outcomes in processes of production, experience, power and culture.” (Castells, 1996)

Hyperconnectivitycreates the opportunity for criminals to increase their cooperation, their ties; their possibility to diversify their operations and their geographical scope; to reach new markets and hide their assets; to ease the difficulties and reduce the costs of their actions, to find escape valves when persecuted by a particular state.

the flexibility of the network allows it to shift its organizational structure, moving supply bases, altering transportation routes, and finding new places of residence for their bosses. Escaping police control through networking and globalization allows organized crime to keep its grip on national bases.

It is expressed, as it will be analysed through the dissertation, in the differentiated exploitation of particular elements such as sympathy from individuals, support from particular governments, alliances with armed organizations, connections with political and social movements, the exploitation of spaces with no strong institutional dominion of particular states, and the creation of conditions to place secretive nodes in other societies.

Christopher Coker (2012) summarizes this idea when he argues that “every era fights war differently, in every age war has its own distinctive characteristics.”

Our states and societies are changing from nationally-based to market-based. Power is increasingly determined by the flow of capitals with low barriers and through borderless spaces. Advances in finances and telecommunications create a disparity between the rapid movement of international capital and the territorially bounded actions of the nation-state. These market societies have their own way of fighting through varied sources of interconnection. However, it hasn’t been the state who has adapted more effectively to this reality; terrorist organizations have managed to adapt to network structures better.

 

The increase of all sorts of communication channels at societal levels including mobile technologies, online forums, blogs, online social networks such as Facebook, YouTube, and twitter, coupled with the increasing ease to travel and the global reach of powerful news stations, have in the practice created physical and virtual borderless spaces of social interaction.

the concept of network-centric warfare could be understood in a very wide sense as a form of war that brings together different units or agents which act in an interconnected manner towards the same objective

The information age, this era of hyperconnectivity in which communication technologies allow societies to be more interconnected and to learn and act in respect of events occurring all around the globe, has motivated the growth of networked political and social movements, including insurgencies, which are not strictly restrained to the territories of particular states. Rather, they are fed by the realities of different societies with shared political values and objectives.

netwar,which they define as:

“an emergent mode of conflict (and crime) at societal levels, short of traditional military warfare, in which the protagonist use network forms of organization and related doctrines, strategies, and technologies attuned to the information age. These protagonists are likely to consist of dispersed organizations, small groups and individuals who communicate, coordinate and conduct their campaigns in an internetted manner, often without a precise central command. Thus, netwar differs from modes of conflict and crime in which the protagonists prefer to develop formal stand-alone, hierarchical organizations, doctrines and strategies as in past efforts, for example, to build centralized movements along Leninist lines.” (Arquila & Ronfeldt, 2001, p.6)

In other words, far from the traditional hierarchical and centralized model of military structure, non-state actors (terrorists, insurgents and criminals) are increasingly becoming organized as a loose set of interconnected organizations, groups, cells and individuals which pursue the same end and coordinate their activities through a wide range of channels offered by modern communication technologies. If the model is taken to the extreme it would be possible to observe, for example, that an insurgency might not even be composed by a single organization but by a group of agents, both legal and in the margins of the law, which are bounded by the same visions, political principles, philosophical background or interests.

If the model is taken to the extreme it would be possible to observe, for example, that an insurgency might not even be composed by a single organization but by a group of agents, both legal and in the margins of the law, which are bounded by the same visions, political principles, philosophical background or interests. This explains the possibility of interoperability without centralized command and control.

“systems [that] are composed by many independent parts which are arranged in a non-linear fashion, making centralized control no longer desirable.”11 Metz (2000) describes it as “a web of strategic partnerships, and strategic flexibility based on project teams or group works rather than hierarchies or bureaucracies.”(p.viii). Bruce Berkowitz (2003) refers to it, in similar terms, as the fighting network, with the following characteristics:

–  A structure developed around a series of interconnected autonomous cells of varied sizes.

–  Each cell is armed with potential weapons that count on a high level of lethality.

–  The cells are linked together by a network of communications, logistics, command and control. (p.16-17)

An interesting feature of the definition of netwar is that the authors describe it as a form of both conflict and crime. This means that the concept, in scope, is applicable to agents who pursue social/political ends or economic self-interests.

Using modern technologies as well as physical spaces and traditional communication channels, agents become organized, make decisions and act in order to achieve their objectives, spread their ideas, and incorporate more actors in the campaign. Their acts might be violent or might be purely political. As a matter of fact the authors described two types of netwar: civil-society activism and violent terrorism or insurgency.

Insurgencies in the information era find elements through the environment that make them increasingly transnational. Communication channels and technologies have the possibility to spread their messages globally, creating a capacity to reach a borderless global community which might act for or against its claims in very diverse ways.

 

insurgencies, and particularly commercial insurgencies, (the system) exploit elements within their regions and the international system (the environment) to place nodes of their military, political and criminal networks beyond the borders of a single state. This ultimately creates the possibility for the insurgency to survive if the state offensive is intense. Survival will always open the door to the possibility for the insurgency to return when conditions are appropriate.

Several of these elements have been gathered by John Mackinlay in a concept that, together with the idea of netwar, becomes useful to understand insurgencies in the information era and in the context of hyperconnectivity. This former British Army Officer and war scholar at Kings College London defines complex insurgencies as:

“A campaign by globally dispersed activists and insurgents who seek to confront the culture and political ideals of a nation or group of nations that are seen to challenge their interests and way of life”(Mackinlay, 2006, p.vii).

 

this description also implies a blurring between the system and its environment. Since dispersed activists and insurgents are part of the campaign, they might act in diverse forms and in different scenarios, making it difficult to recognize who is and who isn’t a member of the insurgency. This boundary will be constantly changing and evolving as individuals, groups or organizations join or leave the campaign. Since events and ideas exist in a borderless global society, those individuals are not necessarily placed in a single territory; they might be, as the definition states, ‘globally dispersed’.

 

the disappearance of the concept of military front. He argues that “everything and everyone is becoming part of the battle as insurgencies become blended with their societies, as they successfully embed within civilian communities, or even more, when the entire society becomes a potential insurgency.”

 

Robert Bunker and Matt Bergett (2005) describe networks on the offensive as free floating cells and nodes linked via information channels, forming a web-like pattern. They benefit from ease of connectivity, allowing them to be established and terminated as required with little or no effort.

 

On the defensive, well-constructed networks tend to be redundant and diverse given the relative ease to replace their nodes, making them robust and resilient to adversity. They are difficult to crack and defeat as a whole. They may be able to defy counter-leadership targeting since the elimination of specific nodes does not immediately lead into the collapse of the network. Attackers may be able to find and confront portions of the network, but the possibility of other nodes to survive provides the opportunity for the organization’s structure to heal and reconstitute

 

Anonymous, although having a core composed by its creators and most important nodes, works more as an idea, a brand or an umbrella, than as an organization. Several hacktivists which find the idea attractive could decide to act by themselves. In that sense leadership is symbolical more than operational: if the main nodes are disabled (captured), the idea and the brand of Anonymous remains, inviting other hackers, cells or groups to continue acting in the same direction.

In similar terms to Anonymous, Al Qaeda could also be understood as a brand more than as an organization; as a dispersed group of activists, insurgents, cells and organizations which decide to act in their name and in the name of Al Qaeda through different territories. Such agents have mastered the use of communication technologies as channels of coordination, indoctrination, recruitment, and networking for the purpose of attack. Online forums, blogs, websites, mobile phone chats, e-mails, online social networks, cafes, libraries and mosques have been of common use. Militants have perfectly blended with their environments.

The insurgency nurtures itself from ideas, claims and grievances than are not only deeply rooted within societies where they operate, but that have been exacerbated by the discourse to the point where it has become a system by itself without depending on its leaders. As such, leaders turn out to be more motivational symbols than organizational administrators and commanders. I

In many cases, violent actions are not the only form of support for the organization. ‘Political’ actions in the order of spreading the discourses and reaching wider audiences might also constitute group support.

The virtual dimension of war is thus vital. The war of ideas is as important as the war of force. It is the existence of a common set of ideas and a spreading discourse which allows individuals to be identified with the groups; which gives cohesion to the network as a whole. Symbols, figures, concepts and brands are very relevant to this end. Without a common understanding of the problem, of the legitimate means to achieve the objective, and perception of the enemy, the network is in risk of falling apart. The centrality of ideas and the spread of information are typical symptoms of the information age.

The Study of Social Networks

Through complexity, a particular understanding of networks has been disseminated. The definition of a network proposed by Pierre Musso offers an insight into this change: “an unstable structure of connections composed of interacting elements, whose variability follows certain functional rules”

This means that networks, instead of being stable and static structures are the result of continuous internal readjustments given the interactions among its elements and with the environment.

complexity is evident because there are no formalized procedures for a node to resolve conflicts arising from interaction; no single actor with formal authority to impose its will on other participants. There are no command and control structures making the forms of the network dependant on a continuous inter-definition of their participants.

He believes that social networks today should be understood as an enduring form of social organization, composed of asymmetrical, interacting elements held together by a shared set of values, standards, or functional rules. They are coordinated through an on-going negotiation in which elements re-define not only the network’s identity but also their positions within it; and this process of self-definition creates a permanent condition of flexibility. The transformations of the networks are not entirely random deriving into total chaos; they follow the network’s own internal logic according to its identity or its functional rules.

Randomness means irregularity: nodes in a network will have a different amount of connections. Very few elements will have either an extremely high or low amount of linkages, while most of the nodes will demonstrate an average number of them. In statistical terms this is known as the Poisson distribution

nodes could follow a power law distribution, in which very few nodes have an excessive amount of linkages, while others display fewer connections.

Since the power law distribution abandons the idea of a characteristic node and a peak of average of connections, the idea of ‘scale’ is discarded. This type of network then became known as a scale-free network.

 

an archetypical netwar actor would consist of a dispersed set of interconnected nodes, where the nodes can be individuals, groups or formal or informal organizations.

 

A node in a network could itself be a hierarchy. More than being structured as a single type of network, they are combinations of all of these forms. A typical case would be an all channel network as the core of the structure connecting starsand chains whose nodes are to conduct tactical operations. This is very important for the analysis of FARC. As it will be demonstrated, whereas military structures remain as hierarchies, criminal and political structures appear to be arranged more as networks, confirming this idea of combination.

the strength of a network is guaranteed by the high amount of connections among its elements. Interconnectivity leads into robustness. Following Barabasi, if a particular node fails, it is very likely that a specific fragment of the network will be isolated, but the network itself can be maintained. Removing only a few nodes will not have a significant impact on the integrity of the network.

Generalized node failures can break the network into a set of non-communicated fragments, but if this happens as part of a random attack, it is statistically more likely that the nodes destroyed or removed will be smaller since they are more abundant. But destroying hubs may pose a serious challenge.

 

defined two network properties: connection, which explains who the nodes are and how they are connected (structure); and contagion, the flows which run through the network, the information that is passed from node to node through all the existing linkages (function).

Failure cannot only emerge from the structure, as it was proved by Barabasi, but from the diffusion of information in the form of a cascading event, or through a domino effect, from node to node.

hyperconnected. Following their ideas, a superior level of connectivity has motivated a radical evolution of social networks in four ways: enormity, an increase in the scale of networks and the amount of people who might be reached; communality, broadening the scale in which we can share information and contribute to collective efforts; specificity, an increase in the particularity of the ties that are formed (interest groups); and virtuality, the ability to assume virtual identities

Insurgencies are, by definition, organizations which pursue particular political goals. But the opportunity found in the maximization of profits in a globalized economy may divert organizations from their original route and into the road of criminality.

insurgencies can become hybrids of criminality and political insurrection, making it difficult to recognize if the rebels are still following an original political cause or if such a purpose is only a facade to the real objective of profit.

Nodes and structures in other territories provide the opportunity for the insurgency to survive and to re-emerge as it will be explained ahead.

Insurgency is warfare; it is a form of achieving a political end through the force of arms. It is different to conventional warfare in that it is not waged by regular state military forces which follow determined standardized norms and procedures, but by groups of civilians, communities, and nations which take up arms against the established ruler. They fight for a cause they see as legitimate: a change in the nature of the political system, the creation of a new state, the separation of a portion of the territory, or the independence from a dominating power.

Walter Laqueur, a historian at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Chicago and Georgetown, listed three elements to characterise this type of tactics: the exploitation of the environment in order to wear the enemy down; more than fighting it frontally, fighting it for a long period in order to wear it down instead of defeating it directly; and conducting actions through a sequence of attacks and retreats, using basic instruments instead of advanced technologies (Navias & Moreman, 1994). This tactics are known as guerrilla tactics.

 

the origin of insurgencies can be found in the national insurrections that flourished against established states only after a condition of regularity was achieved in terms of international law and politics, with the emergence of the state and European Public Law in the early modern era. (Schmitt, 2006) “The Ius Public Europaeum not only encompassed law, but the norms, philosophical texts, and power constellations that governed war and relations between states.”

insurgency as “a struggle between a non-ruling group and the ruling authorities in which the former consciously employs political resources (organizational skills, propaganda, and/or demonstrations) and instruments of violence to establish legitimacy for some aspect of the political system it considers illegitimate. Legitimacy and illegitimacy refer to whether or not existing aspects of politics are considered moral or immoral (or, to simplify, right or wrong) by the population or selected elements therein.”

The psychological dimension of war, then, becomes as important as the physical act of combat, and the reason why insurgencies are protracted, lasting not only years but maybe even decades.

In conceptual terms, insurgency (or politically motivated violence) and criminality can be clearly differentiated.

partisan warfare is rooted in the sphere of politics. It is his intense political commitment which sets the partisan apart from other combatants. It is politics which distinguishes him from the common thief and criminals whose motives are personal enrichment. The pirate is possessed of what jurisprudence knows as animal furandi (felonious intent). The partisan, by contrast, fights on a political front and it is precisely the political character of his actions that throws into stark relief the original sense of the word we apply to comprehend him” (Coker, 2008, p.46)

But whereas in conceptual terms the difference might be clear, in practice the dimensions tend to merge when specific cases are observed: “In theory, the distinction is crystal clear: to be classified as warfare, violence must be motivated by politics, not profit, as is the case with criminal behaviour. In practice, though, the political and the criminal tend to merge” (Gray, 2007, p.250) Criminal entities sometimes display political interests, for example, when they provide goods and services to a host community either because there are shared feelings of appreciation or as a means to make its job easier. Similarly, criminals might seek to control local political institutions in order to carry on with their activities more easily. As such, they could become a sort of parallel state performing political and social functions in a particular location. On the other hand criminals might challenge certain state acts, as the enactment of extradition laws, and might act to achieve their reversal.

Politically-guided organizations may also become permeated by criminal interests. Non-state organizations need to fund themselves in order to operate. Given their illegal nature, they are more likely to find funds in illicit economic activities. This fact creates the possibility of insurgents, or groups within the insurgency, to become more motivated by profit than by politics.

An economic circle emerges in which local populations find a source of income through commodities that are used by the armed organization to fund their war: “conflicts can create war economies, often in regions controlled by rebels or warlords and linked to international trading networks; members of armed gangs can benefit from looting; and regimes can use violence to deflect opposition, reward supporters or maintain their access to resources.”

 

more than understanding political or economic motivations for war separately, a political economy perspective linking agendas and explaining the interdependence of economic and political variables is more appropriate.

“Conceptualizing explanations of armed conflict in terms of greed and grievance has imposed an unnecessary limiting dichotomy on what is, in reality, a highly diverse, complex set of incentive and opportunity structures that vary across time and location.”

These authors proposed an examination of combatants’ behaviours without understanding rebel organizations as unitary groups. This is precisely the approach in this dissertation since FARC will not be explored as a monolithic entity but as a set of nodes (individuals) with different interests, objectives and functions.

 

narcotics and diamonds have a stronger influence on the duration of conflict than oil, gas, timber or minerals. Narcotics, particularly, tend to favour non-state actors disproportionately because of its illegality, allowing them to strengthen their operational capabilities and even to increase their legitimacy with communities connected to the business. Narco-trafficking is in fact the largest source of profit for both criminal groups and terrorism, accounting for 2% of the global economy according to the International Monetary Fund, and 7% of international trade following United Nations statistics

 

 

anda Felbab-Brown, a researcher at Brookings Institution, demonstrated that legitimacy is not only constructed from an ideological affinity between agents. In the case of narcotics, in those areas where the organization is the de facto authority and coca is grown, the insurgency provides the security and stability necessary for inhabitants to have an income. As such, it is the insurgent organization which actually provides some sense of organization, protection, authority and stability in locations where war economies develop. This circumstance guarantees freedom of action, popular support and legitimacy to the organization…the organization turns into a sort of parallel state becoming a political agent, transforming a criminally-based enterprise into a political phenomenon.

Terrorism and organized crime cannot be analysed separately in the contemporary international context, since evidence “suggests that they may be deeply intertwined in ways that go well beyond tactical alliances of convenience.” (Lal, 2005, p.293)

Given the continued need of these organizations to engage in activities that are not natural to their original purpose, they might build an alliance with an organization that would provide such services in order for the organization to focus on their key activities; a sort of outsourcing. Examples include FARC and Mexican Cartels, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Afghan Mafia, and Al Qaeda and Bosnian Criminals.

A subsequent stage referred to as ‘symbiosis’ implies a stronger interdependence between both organizations given their impossibility to conduct their operations without its ally.

A further stage in the interaction model speaks about the creation of a hybrid organization. This type of entity was also introduced by Williams (2008). In this case political motivations and criminal interests, and the execution of criminal and terrorist activities, have merged in a single organization, without the possibility to define it entirely in political or criminal terms. As examples of this type of entities Williams (2008) points towards FARC in Colombia

Shelley and Makarenko describe another element of this interaction that is relevant for the case of FARC. Shelley linked lawless physical spaces without the authority of state institutions to the processes of convergence between terror and crime. It is argued that “areas with little government control, weak enforcement, or opened borders” foster the collaboration between criminal and terrorist entities, making their activities easier

Makarenko introduced a similar idea through her concept of the black hole, which she described as a space where weak or failed states foster a convergence between transnational organized crime and terrorism; a sort of safe haven for convergent groups.

The concept of commercial insurgencies

Metz argued that although the United States lost strategic interest in insurgencies, the Post-Cold War era was about to observe the growth of evolved forms of insurgency. Among them he described ‘commercial insurgencies’ “driven less by the desire of justice than wealth” (Metz, 1993). In his words:

“Commercial insurgency will be a form of what is becoming known as “grey area phenomena”–powerful criminal organizations with a political veneer and the ability to threaten national security rather than just law and order. In fact, many commercial insurgencies may see an alliance of those for whom political objectives are preeminent and the criminal dimension simply a necessary evil, and those for whom the accumulation of wealth through crime is the primary objective and politics simply a rhetorical veneer to garner some support that they might not otherwise gain. It is this political component that distinguishes commercial insurgents from traditional organized crime. Most often, though, commercial insurgencies probably will not attempt to rule the state but will seek instead a compliant regime that allows them to pursue criminal activity unimpeded.” (Metz, 1995, p.31-37)

In this type of insurgencies, by similarity to Williams’s conception of hybrid organization, it would be impossible to determine if the commercial interest constitutes the purpose of the organization, or if the political motivation is still driving combatants’ desires.

Although the concept has been used as a base for empirical analysis through several cases, there haven’t been deeper developments on how a commercial insurgency is structured, how it operates, and especially how it interacts with its environment (the region). The present dissertation, then, takes forward this concept through the case of FARC to explain how this organization can be characterised, and how it exploits several elements of the environment which allow the spread of its structures and networks beyond borders. This vision challenges the idea of the state as the counterinsurgent given its impossibility to act in the territories where it is not sovereign.

 

If understood as a criminal entity, political elements are downplayed, and if pictured purely as an insurgency, profits are reduced as a problem of means and not as a motivation. The approach also allows constructing a vision of the organization not as a monolithic entity that can be understood through simplifying adjectives (narco-terrorist, criminal) but, as it was suggested by Ballentine and Sherman, as a system composed by different interacting individuals or sectors with diversified interests that range between the social and political to the selfish and criminal.

There is no scientific and analytical rigour in placing “a disparate group (of actors) with widely divergent motives and types of relationships with drugs” as part of the same category (Wardlaw, 1988, p.5).

The triadic character of commercial insurgencies

How then to think about such entities? Evidently a simplistic and generalizing view is insufficient to fully understand commercial insurgencies.

systems are composed by a series of units whose conditions at the lowest level determine the system as a whole. As such, and following the logic in Metz’s definition, it is necessary to ‘open the box’ and dig deeper within the insurgency to explore motivations and functions of individuals, groups, sectors or levels, instead of understanding them through the same lens. It is necessary to propose a comprehensive understanding of how these actors operate in the context of hyperconnectivity

Several factors ranging from prestige and unemployment to coercion explain such decision. But within the insurgency several processes are in place to create organizational cohesion, including political indoctrination. Through time, combatant’s motivation to remain in war could change. Some might continue to be interested only as means of income (criminal motivations) while others might be convinced by the political objective (political motivation).

In theory, the nature of an insurgency is political by definition. This means that all individuals, commanders and combatants are motivated by the achievement of a social/political goal. But this does not mean that everyone will be a combatant. As several classic theorists of insurgency such as Mao Tse Tung or Vo Nguyen Giap, have suggested, insurgencies develop political structures which remain independent to those units waging war, for they will spread the discourse to build popular support and to participate through political spaces.

In other words, all combatants -those who wage war- have a political motivation and are thus part of the political dimension in motivational terms, but in terms of functionality they only constitute the ‘military’ dimension since they do not develop specific political tasks. By contrast, those individuals that are only dedicated to the organization’s political tasks (i.e. members of the political party) can only be part of the political dimension both in motivational and functional terms.

Those who perform tasks related to the criminal activity are part of the criminal dimension in functional terms. For example, in the case of narcotics, the criminal dimension expresses interests in profiting from drug-dealing (motivational) and the performance of tasks related to the production and trade of drugs (functional).

It is then here proposed that this type of organization displays a triadic character composed of military, political and criminal dimensions, for which particular functional structures are developed, composed by individuals who conduct activities and tasks according to the nature of each of them. Such structures are not mutually exclusive; that is, the organization will not necessarily establish separate units (fronts, columns, companies, cells, blocs, platoons) for each of the dimensions. There is an overlapping; individuals can be part of several dimensions simultaneously.

 

functional structures extend beyond state borders, exploiting elements in its environment, and challenging the capacity of the state to respond to the threat.

The military dimension, as it can be observed, exists only in functional terms. Militants must have a motivation that can be classified either as political or criminal, but a military motivation by itself does not have a proper logic. There is no fighting for the sake of fighting. Combatants are not waging war because they want to wage war; they are fighting for a purpose.

A describes an individual who is politically motivated and develops political tasks without engaging in combat. For example, those militants of political parties or movements of the insurgency, without including urban militias. It is difficult to trace a defined border between this area and the rest of society.

–  B refers to those individuals who are politically motivated and participate in armed actions, whether in rural spaces as traditional frontline combatants or in urban areas as militias. In classic theory this is the bulk of the insurgency, and it corresponds to those within the military dimension in figure 2.2.

–  C describes those individuals who are motivated by the proceeds of criminal activities, and perform tasks related to them, but do not engage in combat. From a strict point of view they might be seen as associates of the organization, but they could be actual insurgency members specifically destined to such tasks. As with the political dimensions, it might also be difficult to trace a dividing line between society and this area.

–  D refers to insurgents motivated by criminal wealth and performing specific tasks related to criminal activities, but participating in combat.

–  E describes the point where all the dimensions come together. Combatants in this area are both politically and criminally motivated, and are understood to engage in political, criminal and political activities. It is possible to think about commanders as part of this category. But this space should not be thought as exclusive of commanders, we could probably find mid-ranking combatants also performing varied functions in all dimensions. As it was argued by William Reno, “economic benefit is not the motivation of all individuals in every internal war. Combatants might pursue diverse objectives simultaneously.” (Pizarro, 2004, p.16)

–  F describes an odd condition. Individuals who are criminally motivated but for some reason end up performing only political functions. They shouldn’t be a general case within the organization but under strict conditions of command, it could be a possibility. For example, an individual who is part of the organizations because he is interested in wealth, but his commander has placed him in a position where he must indoctrinate communities or coordinate cells of the clandestine political party. Point G would explain a similar condition but adding the role of combat.

–  H refers to the same situation in opposite terms. Individuals who are politically motivated but end up performing tasks related only to the criminal activity. I adds its participation in warfare.

 

But these dimensions are not static. As complexity explains, nodes can change and evolve over time, their motivations and the tasks they perform may vary. Nodes can ‘jump’ from dimension to dimension, expressing their interdependence. This has a relevant implication in terms of re-emergence, as it will be detailed ahead, since stimuli from the environment may trigger changes in nodes allowing them to engage with other dimensions. This ‘leap’ can be produced through a series of processes:

–  Node politicization: In motivational terms this means convincing those who pursue a criminal objective to follow the political struggle (indoctrination). In functional terms it means the beginning of the conduction of political activities and tasks.

–  Node militarization: It consists in transforming nodes that were developing exclusively political or criminal tasks into active combatants. This can be achieved through military training and the preparation of a reserve force with appropriate capabilities.

–  Node criminalization: In motivational terms, this implies a loss of interest regarding the original political reason to fight. A lack of motivation produced by low perspectives on winning the war or the appearance of a stronger interest in profits. In functional terms, this implies that militants will begin to develop tasks related to the organization’s criminal activities.

Now, in theory, several organizations might find its military and political dimensions significantly overlapping, even in functional terms. That is, every member of the insurgency is both a political actor performing political tasks and a participant in military actions. Such might be the case not of classic Marxist or Maoist insurgencies, but of a decentralized, networked and loose structure of individuals, very much as described in the last chapter: Individuals who decide to act by themselves without receiving a formal order, who look for support in cells or groups, or come together with others to form their own.

Which are the tasks that define the dimensions in functional terms? In the military dimension, the tasks resemble those of a proper military institution: recruiting and finding the adequate personnel for each of the tactical demands; developing training routines to guarantee success in operations and, if necessary, the required specialization; executing operations, either offensive or defensive according to the dynamics of conflict; building logistical chains to keep the organization running (e.g. food, weaponry and clothing); securing communication channels to allow the necessary coordination among its command and control structures; establishing routines and practices of internal control and discipline to keep internal cohesion with adequate punishment procedures when necessary; obtaining intelligence information; and organizing urban militias for the conduction of operations, intelligence and logistical support in the cities.

 

 

 

The activities related to the political dimension of an insurgency may be derived from the creation of a political party or movement as the cornerstone of its participation at the national and local levels. In the case of Marxist-Leninist and Maoist insurgencies during the Cold War, communist parties became the political wing of armed rebellions. But according to the political and strategic contexts, the case for a political body acting at the national level might not always be the ideal mechanism. Political structures might be developed in a clandestine manner, and the tasks performed informally within specific local contexts.

In general terms, such tasks are related to spreading the discourse, ideals, philosophy and arguments of the insurgency in search of the sympathy of individuals for their active or passive support. These include popular assemblies, smaller local meetings, indoctrination of specific individuals, dissemination of ideas by word of mouth, and the spread of propaganda through methods such as pamphlets or radio stations. Today, these tasks extend to the cyberspace and include online social networks. If the organization has somehow become the local authority in particular areas, either directly or through third parties, their acts of government are also duties of political nature.

The environment of operations

As complexity explains, systems are part of the environment and they constantly interact with it. Insurgency adapts to the circumstances it imposes, while elements of the environment might change as a result of the acts of insurgents.

it is difficult to make a difference between members of the insurgency and supporting elements in Latin America. Members of the FARC-created Movimiento Continental Bolivariano, a Latin American movement bringing together Bolivarian and Communist parties, groups and individuals, could well be considered active part of the insurgency.

the environment is constituted as a grand continuum connecting the local, national, regional and global theatres of operations where the insurgency finds elements that allow for its nodes to be embedded through different social and geographical spaces. It is through these elements or variables that the interaction between the system and the environment is possible; through these variables the insurgency is able to embed nodes in geographical and social spaces beyond borders. They include:

–  Sympathy of non-organized individuals (individuals not formally enrolled in any organization)

–  Connections with political and social movements

–  Alliances with armed actors

–  Support from national governments

–  Exploitation of empty spaces

–  Accommodation of secretive nodes

 

these elements are exploited by the insurgency to expand, to place nodes of all its dimensions through different social and geographical spaces.

Support from national government in the primary environment lacks sense since insurgencies by definition exist as opposed to the government. On the local level it could be understood as support from the local authority. But this is usually a result of the process of insurgency growth. As the movement grows and individuals, organizations and political figures are incorporated into the effort, local power is achieved to be administered directly or through third parties.

when support spreads considerably to incorporate an increased amount of individuals, support is likely to be channelled through different instruments, such as a social movement, or it can be understood as part of the progressive territorial expansion of the insurgency itself. As such, this support can be understood not through this particular variable but, for example, through social movements.

Empty spaces are here understood as those areas or zones of the territory of any country where there is virtually no authority or presence of the security forces, allowing its relative occupation by the insurgency.

It is possible to observe three different scenarios of insurgency involvement in regional/global processes.

Transnational networks of a national insurgency

Insurgency as part of a regional revolution

Transnational insurgency

In the first case, the organization counts with militants in several countries but they exist in function of an internal conflict. Even when certain operative functions extend beyond borders, the objective is still revolution in a particular state.

 

In the second situation, the insurgency is part of a wider regional or even global uprising in which several actors, movements, organizations and rebel groups pursue the same objective.

 

There is no single theatre of operations since they extend through regions.

 

In the third case, the insurgency constitutes a regional revolutionary army by itself. There are connections and alliances with other actors but they are either local, operating in national scenarios, or constitute different regional actors pursuing a particular regional agenda.

this understanding of insurgencies challenges the traditional model of competition between a national insurgency and a single counterinsurgent state. The survival of militants beyond borders creates the possibility for the insurgency to re-emerge in case of being reduced to a point of near destruction in the primary theatre.

 

An insurgency that is part of a regional revolution will find elements of support within the secondary environment more easily than a national insurgency.

 

Although the primary environment is vital to understand the configuration of the structures of the three dimensions, this dissertation prioritizes events in the secondary environment for survival and re-emergence.

survival might be expressed by scattered and diffused nodes, without any major organizational logic, and without the possibility to interact and to coordinate actions. But they might continue performing their functions in different scenarios, through other organizations or in smaller groups. As explained through network theory, structures can survive unless 5 to 15% of hubs are disabled simultaneously.

There are specific environmental (regional) processes that contribute not only to the embedment and survival of insurgency nodes beyond borders, but to the re-emergence of the organization via the possibility of nodes to re-engage with other dimensions. These processes are the preservation of the ideology and the discourse, and the mobility of elements of the criminal economy. They guarantee node redundancy, and the flexibility, adaptability, and resilience of the networks.

The globalization, or regionalization, of particular ideologies, doctrines and discourses that speak about societies in certain political/geographical contexts, contribute to the embeddedness of operatives beyond borders and provides instruments for nodes to re- engage with the political dimension. Trans-nationality generates local expressions of support channelled or materialized through specific political parties, social groups or other armed organizations. Examples are Political Islam or Islamism in the case of Al Qaeda and affiliated organizations, and Bolivarianism-Communism throughout the Andes and South America.19

 

Node politicization: remnants of the insurgency may become criminals in the strict sense of the concept. However, through the preservation of the ideology and discourse through the region, and probably through contacts with other regional actors, they might be pushed back into fighting for a political cause (indoctrination).

Node militarization: when there is an offensive against an insurgency, evidently the military dimensions is severely hit. Remaining nodes may either become tempted to turn entirely into criminals, or to escape to cities and towns to proselytise without actually waging war. The militarization of nodes means the return of such nodes into combat.

Node criminalization: If military and political nodes continue to exist beyond borders, but eradication policies in Colombia became successful in eliminating war economies, the existence of spaces for cultivation, production and traffic in other areas of the region will invite not only those remaining nodes to engage on activities related to drug production and trafficking, but also new nodes to participate.

given the right environmental conditions, the insurgency may be reconstituted from nodes dedicated to any of the dimensions.

 

The traditional model of insurgency, socially and geographically marginalized rural guerrillas dressed in combat fatigues progressively conquering human and territorial spaces, such as Castro’s Cuban Revolution, is declining in favour of interconnected horizontal and decentralized structures, as Arquila and Ronfeldt have explained. As worldwide political events during 2010-2011 demonstrate, there is considerable power on social mobilizations and popular movements, for which online social networks have become highly instrumental. The youth, the students, marginalized social sectors, the unemployed, and political activists are an ideal niche for insurgency growth.

variables the insurgency is able to embed nodes in geographical and social spaces beyond borders. They include:

–  Sympathy of non-organized individuals (individuals not formally enrolled in any organization)

–  Connections with political and social movements

–  Alliances with armed actors

–  Support from national governments

–  Exploitation of empty spaces

 

Chapter 3. The evolution of counterinsurgency warfare

The emergence of Maoism

Mao Tse Tung proposed a model for a conservative and parochial vast rural population, and a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society (Beckett, 2001). He developed a theory for a small weaker actor to override a more powerful enemy by the means of will, time, space and propaganda, in the absence of initial fire power capacity.

 

From local support of specific communities the insurgency will grow to become a mass movement challenging established powers. His theory of insurgency is generally known as Popular Protracted Warfare.

 

In a first stage known as strategic defensive the insurgency is still a small armed force which attacks and makes a gradual retreat before a strong retaliation of the enemy’s army. Insurgents do not recur to positional warfare; the objective is survival through time.

 

In a second stage known as stalemate, guerrilla tactics of quick strike and retreat are the mode of military operations. The sense of futility among army troops and its home front continues to grow while its morale decreases. The war reaches a state of equilibrium with insurgents controlling little land but maintaining positions of tactical initiative.

 

The third stage, known as strategic offensive begins when these regular armies grow in size, and positional warfare dominates the mode of conflict.

 

Maoism became the main paradigm of insurgency warfare throughout the developing world, and COIN would evolve to respond to such paradigm.

 

In Malaya, Harold Briggs, a British Officer with experience on the Burma revolts during the Second World War, was appointed as director of operations. He formulated a plan, known as the ‘Briggs Plan’, which aimed at protecting and isolating the populace from insurgents, while identifying the Malayan Communist Party’s (MCP) political body, not the fighters in the jungles, as the priority in confrontation.

An organizational structure was created with the Federal War Council on the national level, and district and village level committees. These collegiate bodies constituted assemblies where diverse institutions came together to discuss insurgency matters and to make decisions on the appropriate actions to be taken. Not only security institutions such as the Army and the Police were included, also civil agencies, and representatives of ethnic communities.

a‘comprehensive approach’to counterinsurgency: the idea that the responsibility to fight an insurgency is not exclusive of security institutions, but of a wider range of state and even societal organizations; and that actions must be conducted in issues beyond security. These principles would later constitute a central tenet of modern COIN, as it has been experienced not only in Colombia but also in Afghanistan and Iraq.

These cases have demonstrated that addressing the grievances of the communities that fuel the insurgency’s motivations or discourse is not necessarily a sign of state weakness, as extremist in national contexts may tend to describe it, but actually a vital part of an effective counterinsurgency strategy.

As summarised by Ian Beckett, the experience against Maoists demonstrated the importance of six factors:

  1. Political action designed to prevent insurgents from gaining popular support should have priority over pure military action.
  2. Civil-military cooperation is necessary.
  3. Intelligence should be coordinated
  4. Insurgents must be separated from the populations through winning their hearts and minds
  5. Pacification should be supported with the appropriate use of military force
  6. Lasting political reform should be implemented to prevent the recurrence ofinsurgency

 

Theorisation of counterinsurgency during the Maoist era

counterinsurgency must follow several principles:

– The objective of the struggle is political and not military. Since insurgency was finally understood as a political construction, military means are insufficient to confront the rebels. Given the precedence of the organization’s political objectives and

structures, the response must be understood as political and not only as military.

  • –  COIN is not only a responsibility of the military forces. As a consequence of the last point, the campaign against insurgents is a matter of all state institutions and not only of the security and defence sector. The leadership must be civilian/political, and

the military command must be subordinated to it.

  • –  There must be a plan of action. State policy should guide the conduct of the

campaign, including of course the role of the military and other security institutions, but also the participation of other organizations and sectors. This implies the existence of a degree of coordination between interacting agencies under a single direction and command.

  • –  Government’s actions must comply with the law: the heart of the campaign, as it has been argued, is winning the support of the population and achieving its rejection of the insurgent movement. As such, legitimacy expresses the centre of gravity. The government cannot recur to excesses or actions beyond the law which could be used by the insurgent to present it as an illegitimate actor. Its conducts must follow all norms and rules, guaranteeing the integrity, security and rights of the population.

The five principles announced by Robert Thomson, several of which were just discussed, summarize the essence of counterinsurgency thought from the perspective of the classic authors:

    1. “The government must have a clear political aim
    2. The government must function within the law
    3. The government must have an overall plan
    4. The government must give priority to defeating the political subversion, not the guerrillas.
    5. In the guerrilla phase of an insurgency it must secure its base first”

Convincing the population of why the state is a better option, or persuading insurgents to demobilize, becomes more important than killing rebels in mass.

For such a purpose the government must respect the feelings and aspirations of the nation, provide a firm and fair government, build up public confidence, and establish a campaign of civic action and propaganda to counter the discourse and propositions of the insurgency.

Counterinsurgency failure during the Cold War

As stated before, it is highly relevant for civilians and military to adapt to the efforts required by COIN campaigning; the lack of adaptation is likely to lead into failure.

actions by other US Agencies such as the US Information Agency, the CIA, and USAID were conducted independently without any coordination.

whereas the theorisation of COIN gained momentum during the Cold War, military cultures impeded its proper application in the field. The United States who was traditionally sceptical to such type of warfare, decided to act in Vietnam through conventional instruments. As a consequence, mistakes allowed for the growth of the insurgency and the spread of hatred towards the counterinsurgent.

Hearts and Minds and the Comprehensive Approach.

Human Terrain System (HTS) are composed of individuals with social science and operational backgrounds that are deployed with tactical and operational military units to assist in bringing knowledge about the local population into a coherent analytic framework and build relationships with the local power-brokers in order to provide advice and opportunities to Commanders and staffs in the field.

On the other hand, the ‘build’ component of the clear-hold-build approach makes this practice very similar to nation-building. Once the insurgency has been expelled and the presence of security institutions have been guaranteed, the campaign turns into development. Building capabilities for communities to achieve social and economic sustainability within the law, and building the permanent presence of all state institutions is the objective.

This is a step beyond civic action campaigns aimed at winning hearts and minds. Whereas medical, educational or other types of civic campaigns might be temporary, providing some benefits for the population in a specific moment, the aim of local development is sustainability through time, reducing dependence on particular state actions and empowering local communities. This is why this type of COIN approach can also be referred to as develop-centred counterinsurgency. It is this particular component of current COIN theorization that makes to the elimination of criminal war economies part of an overall strategy to defeat insurgents. As it will be seen in the case of Colombia, this approach was valuable for the fight against FARC during the administration of Alvaro Uribe.

Counterinsurgency beyond the state: looking to the future

History demonstrates that the practice of counterinsurgency has been almost defined in state-centric parameters. Insurgents have traditionally challenged the government, the regimes and institutional structures of particular states.

the state-centric paradigm in terms of insurgency is crumbling. Globalization and the spread of communication technologies have created opportunities for insurgencies to extend beyond the boundaries of a single state, as it was described in the last chapter.

 

Chapter 4. The configuration of FARC as a commercial insurgency and the evolution of state responses

In the beginning, FARC’s capacity to challenge the state militarily was marginal, and its political dimension was expressed through the motivations of its members. Rebels fought because of real concerns of the peasant communities, especially regarding land possession and income distribution. As they evolved into a guerrilla movement, they created clusters of support in specific regions taking advantage of the sympathy demonstrated by local peasants.

The lack of development in marginal areas of the country, the inexistence of state institutions, and the peasant colonization of areas motivated by the coca boom created a perfect combination for the growth of a commercial insurgency.

At first COIN strategy lacked any doctrinal and systematic order. The state basically reacted with all available means and with excessive force not only against insurgents but also against the communities which hosted them. A tactic of depopulation was implemented in areas of strong insurgency presence: Settlers were expelled, houses were burnt down and the areas were bombarded (Pardo, 2004). In many occasions, anti-guerrilla units fought dressed as civilians or pretending to be guerrilla members.

Following global tendencies, as explained by the classic COIN authors, during the 1960’s information gained a central position in COIN. Intelligence and psychological operations were becoming as relevant as military actions. Carlos Lleras Restrepo (1966-1970) created a national intelligence and regional intelligence boards to coordinate actions at the national and local levels.

From self-defence to guerrilla resistance

During the early 1960’s, communists organized enclaves of peasant colonization with support of the PCC, after spreading their influence through the population with civic-military actions and propaganda (Matta, 1999). These were agrarian zones which rejected national authority and opted for a socialist order, with their own organizational and self-defence institutions. These zones were known as republicas independientes (See Map 2).

 

In Marquetalia, Tirofijoorganized its guerrilla group with strong support from the families in the region (Rizo, 2002). He launched an ‘agrarian guerrilla programme’ demanding the redistribution of lands allowing peasants to own properties. Guerrillas ceased to exist as self- defence movements to become groups of armed resistance. Through the 1960’s a different type of insurgency had flourished. It was not based on partisan identities as it was the case during the 1950’s but motivated by the ideals of social vindication, subversion against injustice, class struggle, and anti-imperialism

By 1965, 48 men had reconvened in Southern Tolima to celebrate the First Guerrilla Conference, a collegiate meeting in which FARC is officially founded, although it was initially named ‘Southern Block’. Basic plans of political, military, organizational, and propaganda actions were sketched, mainly with the objective of guaranteeing survival of the group. Since then, the ideals and discourse have followed an orthodox Marxist-Leninist doctrine

The emergence of a commercial insurgency

It was in the Seventh Conference in  that FARC adopted a comprehensive strategy as a base to become a powerful commercial insurgency during the 80s and 90s. The organization is projected as a broader popular-based insurgency, promoting ideals such as mass struggle, open democracy with opposition, and popular participation in state decisions. Thus its new name FARC-EP (Ejercito del Pueblo or People’s Army) (Pizarro, 2004). The objective was to constitute a proper conventional-like revolutionary army with popular support.

A Strategic Plan was sketched during this conference to be further elaborated during the next 17 months. It was later approved by the Plenum of the Central General Staff (the second hierarchical assembly of the organization). It was a flexible eight year plan for taking power: if insurrection was not successful in the first eight-year cycle, strategic withdrawal would be followed by a second attempt. It blended a Maoist three step approach with the Vietnamese concept of Dau tranh (political warfare among enemy forces, enemy society and a group’s own civilian support base (The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2011). The plan required advancing towards major cities to isolate them. The most important was Bogota, the capital, for which the Eastern Bloc was strengthened, deploying troops through the Eastern mountain chain in order to surround it.

A plan of expansion was also established. It consisted in increasing recruitment and to ‘unfold’ existing fronts in order to create new ones, covering every single province. For this purpose FARC implemented systematic plans for recruitment, indoctrination and training of operatives; the indoctrination and control of civilian population; and the use of propaganda

Urban units would radicalize urban population intending to aggravate the contradictions of a capitalist society, and would gather intelligence and resources (The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2011). After the adaptations, FARC managed to advance from guerrilla warfare to the conduction of semi-conventional attacks.

But more interestingly, through the Seventh conference, the criminal dimension of FARC finally emerged, joining the political and military dimensions to complete the tripartite character of the commercial insurgency. The organization formalized its participation in the drug business with the establishment of a tax known as gramaje. It was initially a percentage of 10 to 15% from the quantity of the drug produced

by 1978 FARC opposed the Medellin Cartel and forbade peasants to cultivate coca. But such position eroded its support among peasants, given their increase dependence on coca leaf, so two years later cultivation was authorized only if they also cropped licit products. The tax was agreed in negotiations with the drug barons, and it generated a peaceful coexistence between the insurgency and the cartels, especially in the South.

The tax became ideal for FARC’s growth and expansion plans, and indeed provided the necessary resources for its strongest period during the 80s and 90s. The expansion derived from the Strategic Plan was only possible given such resources. The insurgency’s participation in the drug business became evident with the discovery of production complexes such as Tranquilandia in the jungles of the province of Caquetá, where the bulk of Medellin Cartel’s drugs were produced with protection from the insurgency. The joint operation which destroyed the camp in 1984 accounted for 16 labs, 7 airstrips, 7 airplanes and 7000 tanks with chemicals (Lizarazo, 2008, p.50).

From 1996 to 1998 they had gained total control of the local drug trade in Putumayo and Caquetá. They eliminated local drug dealers and introduced fixed prices for the coca paste. They forced farmers to sell only to the local Front of the organization, and began to store and trade large amounts of cocaine with envoys of multiple new micro-cartels (International Crisis Group, 2005). This is how interests in profiting from drug-dealing permeated the organization to create a commercial insurgency. Whereas some individuals continued to be motivated by the political goals of the organization, others became more interested in their own profits. Some could actually display both types of motivations simultaneously

The fight against narcotics and the insurgency had been understood as separate efforts. There was never a comprehensive strategy to eliminate insurgencies, disrupt criminal economies, and generate new sustainable legal economies with presence of state institutions. Programmes were not articulated with social, economic and political processes of the national level, being mere isolated and unsustainable efforts to eradicate coca leaf cultivation.

Years later, Carlos Lleras (1966-1970) implemented the Plan Andes incorporating university and school students as soldiers in groups with lawyers, doctors, dentists, engineers, vets, sociologists and economist to spread education in the regions, in a figure that resembled human terrain teams. 1000 soldiers and 328 professionals were incorporated in 10 Brigades for this purpose. Each soldier needed to teach 25 individuals (Torres del Rio, 2000, p.180). The plan was part of a military strategy to isolate insurgent groups, destroy the irreducible groups, and engage on consolidation operations.

Negotiations as a strategic base for growth

The period of rapid growth of the insurgency was possible not only because of the increase of its revenues via drug-dealing, but because of their strategic use of the spaces conceded by governments in times of negotiation. Such spaces have been useful to break the offensive of the Military Forces, to rest and re-group, to gain territorial control, to increase their political profile, and to reach international audiences.

Peace was seen by FARC as another strategic instrument for its objectives; an opportunity to grow and to gain political recognition at the national and international levels. Peace itself never seemed to be an ultimate objective, only an instrument for the real strategic objective of winning the war. “In short, despite their public discourse of reformist peacemaking, FARC leaders would remain uncompromisingly maximalist, stating that a truce ‘is a form of war and not a form of peace’”

With a stronger force, FARC proceeded with its strategic plan, occupying the Eastern mountain chain surrounding Bogota. Control wasn’t only expressed in terms of military presence, but also municipal control, the expulsion of state forces, the assassination of social leaders or opposing figures, and the dominion over public budgets (Pizarro, 2004). Overall, insurgencies grew 414% from 1981 to 1988

theTeofilo Forero counted on more combatants that any of the fronts in the South and with 250 of the most specialized combatants in irregular warfare, explosives, rural and urban intelligence. They were trained in the zona de distension (to be explained ahead), and sometimes even outside Colombia, by foreign experts, including members of the IRA and ETA

FARC emerged from support of the Communist Party, so the guerrillas were understood as its military wing (dimension). FARC depended on the doctrinal orientations of the PCC, while it determined their priorities of action according to the political context. In fact, as it was recognized by the Secretary of the Party, all militants of FARC were considered members of the PCC (Pizarro, 2011). The presence of Jacobo Arenas, a Party intellectual, as a leader of the insurgency evidenced the linkage.

At the Eight Guerrilla Conference in 1993, they opted for the creation of a clandestine political party, the Partido Colombiano Comunista Clandestino (PC3), to avoid the elimination of its members. The Party became a relevant structure for networked individuals to promote FARC’s political platform.

Both the PC3 and the Movimiento Bolivariano were political structures under command of the National Secretariat, a move that analysts have qualified as the organization’s abandonment of politics, or the subjugation of politics to the military.29Guerrilla leaders became both the military and the political commanders of the organization, and as such, they became part of both dimensions. As explained by Eduardo Pizarro, “FARC, after its break-up with the PCC and the creation of the MB, do not divide the political direction from the military direction, they are integrated in a single team: the National Secretariat”

In operational terms, FARC recurred to large columns in order to engage military units which had spread out, thinking they were facing small groups (Ospina, 2006). It would make about twenty simultaneous attacks, eroding the ability of the military to discern the dimension of each of them, and in the end only one would have the battalion-strength that ultimately overwhelmed the camp.30 It was a people’s war technique observed in Vietnam and El Salvador. This became known by FARC as the ‘new form of operations’ which included stages of siege, hit, occupy and retreat.

As former Minister of Defence, Rafael Pardo, explained “the combination produced by resources from coca crops, the training and the close relation with tens of thousands of coca cultivators, gave a territorial, financial, military and social base to this insurgency, which took its political capability to a level never witnessed before.” (Pardo, 2004, p.540) This is a clear expression of the triadic character of FARC, and an example of how the dimensions coexist to make the organization stronger.

Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982) enacted the Security Statute, which conceded wider powers to the military to investigate and judge civilians, and more autonomy for the Forces to operate. It was designed to confront insurgencies but also to control popular sectors of society and trade unions. This obeyed to the widening of the conception of enmity into that of an ‘undefined and non- localized’ enemy, meaning that not only fighters in mountains and jungles were to be considered as such, but also civilians in cities or in certain social or political organizations (Torres del Rio, 2000). In other words the counterinsurgent included a wide number of elements of the environment, not necessarily members of the insurgency, as part of the political or the military dimensions, which needed to be fought accordingly.

A total of 82000 individuals were arrested (Galindo, 1999, p.170-171). Abuses committed by the military without any rejection from the administration generated a sense of illegitimacy (Torres del Rio, 2000). The Statute was thus widely rejected because of its violations of Human Rights, and especially because of the control and judgement of civilians by the Military. As a result, Turbay revoked the Statute not only because of its criticisms but because results of its application were not positive

Pastrana’s approach consisted more on negotiations than confrontation. He granted an area in South-eastern Colombia, roughly the size of Switzerland, without military or state control for the insurgency to convene in safe conditions. The area became known as the zona de distension. (See map 4) The idea was strongly opposed by certain political figures and sectors. The Military supported establishing a zone for negotiations, but rejected the removal of all military and police forces in the area.

Negotiations, once again, failed. No ceasefire was contemplated during the process so terrorist attacks, kidnapping, and cocaine production were constant. Furthermore, FARC practically transformed the zona de distencion into a sort of parallel state: They enacted decrees imposing taxation, served as judicial authority for disputes between civilians, and built roads and airstrips for cocaine trade. In fact, coca cultivation areas increased

They changed military operations: “instead of running around chasing guerrillas, [the Army] and [the Military Forces] got inside FARC’s strategic decision-making loop.”31 They realized FARC had two centres of gravity, its finances and its units; the latter since they did not count with a mass base of support.

After the operation in Mitu, and from 1999 to 2001, a series of operations would prove that the Military Forces were gaining the advantage while FARC was losing its initiative. General Ospina has explained such a dynamic with a graph that became known as the ‘Ospina Curve’, in which he observed the number of casualties of the military forces through time to determine how strong FARC’s operations where (See figure 4.1). It is evident that from 1999 the insurgency’s capacity decreased progressively.

Democratic Security Policy and widening COIN

As it was argued before, Alvaro Uribe added a very valuable element to the fight against the insurgency: an understanding that such a fight is not an exclusive responsibility of the Military but of all state institutions, and that strong political authority was necessary to conduct a real comprehensive strategy to defeat the insurgency. The strategy was based on a very basic principle: that authority and state institutions should extend to all of the Colombian territory. It became known as the ‘Democratic Security Policy’ (DSP).

The DSP intended to eliminate the insurgency from all of territory by fighting it in their strongest areas, extending the coverage of the National Police to every municipality, destroying illicit war economies, building state institutions, and guaranteeing processes of sustainable development for the population in remote areas. In COIN terms, it meant the application of a clear-hold-build model in which Military Forces would act to clear areas of insurgents, and many other institutions would contribute with the second and third stages. The Policy set five objectives:

  1. 1-  Consolidate state control of the territory
  2. 2-  Protect the population
  3. 3-  Eliminate illicit drug trafficking
  4. 4-  Build and maintain a credible deterring capability
  5. 5-  Efficient and clear accountability

With a clear comprehensive strategy, political will, sources, and knowledgeable commanders, the state was ready to severely damage FARC.

The Department of Special Joint Operations (JOEC) was created as an instrument to share information between Military Forces, Police and DAS, specifically on high value targets: the members of FARC’s Secretariat. Each of the targets was assigned to one of the institutions which would gather all the intelligence provided. The JOEC did not produce intelligence; it worked as a coordination centre to process intelligence provided by the Forces, and to count on the logistical, human and technical resources necessary to act against such targets in due moment. On the other hand, former guerrilla members who demobilized and decided to cooperate with the government to obtain benefits provided specific detailed information about their units and commanders, generating valuable intelligence for the planning and execution of key operations.

Changes in the intelligence structure along with increased operational capabilities guaranteed military success against the insurgents. According to Santos, it was “the perfect union of joint intelligence, capacity of immediate action and political decision.”

From 2002 to 2009 there were 12,294 demobilizations of which 1128 were middle rank commanders with over 10 years of experience; an increase from 1 in 27 in 2002, to 1 in 3 in 2008.

The demoralization of FARC’s combatants became evident through the testimonies of those who defected. It was shocking for guerrilla fighters to see the abysmal differences between commanders, who live in relative luxury, and common troopers whose living conditions were appalling, opposing the ideals of a Marxist organization. Demotivation was also created by the inexistence of a viable project guiding the insurgency, by a sense of nostalgia for family and friends, and by the impossibility of having a family while enrolled.

Applying development-centred COIN

the Presidency created the Centro de Coordinación de Acción Integral (CCAI) to coordinate more than 20 governmental entities involved. Before the CCAI, state entities acted by themselves, with no coordination or without following any strategic central guidelines. But with the agency, once an area was stabilized and ready for consolidation, a task force with of institutions coordinated by CCAI would evaluate regional needs to design an inter-institutional plan for its development.

FARC’s conditions by the end of the Uribe era

FARC’s response to the strongest offensive in history, in military terms, consisted on a strategic withdrawal and re-concentration in areas of the South, more specifically in the provinces of Putumayo, Caquetá, South of Tolima, North of Cauca and Huila, and taking over the control of specific corridors.

Main activities were displaced to border regions, especially with Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama, to provinces such as Arauca, Norte de Santander and Chocó.

Vertical coordination between the Secretariat and the fronts, and horizontal between similar units (inter-blocs or inter-fronts) was significantly eroded given the interception of communication systems and the obstruction of strategic corridors. (Fundación de Ideas para la Paz, 2009). In Maoist terms, FARC was forced to return to the strategic defensive stage when it had almost advanced towards strategic stalemate, at least in several regions.

In 2008, Alfonso Cano, a former student of Anthropology at the National University in Bogota, launched a strategy known as the Plan Renacer Revolucionario de las Masas in order to adapt to the context imposed by the counterinsurgent. The new commander had always emphasised Gramscian ideas about conceding maximum importance to the political elements of the struggle, the work through masses, urban action and the international front (Mendoza, 2008, October 30). More than remaining as an isolated war-prone army-like guerrilla located in marginalized areas of the country, he believed the insurgency should be an expression emerging from communities and even from society as a whole, fighting for the grievances of specific social sectors. Correctly interpreting social realities such as the increasing urbanization and the construction of new spaces of political action, he intended to build a more politically-focused insurgency, diffused among Colombians and blending with society, in order to conquer new social and political spaces of participation.

It was evident that the conquest of political and social power could not be achieved in rural areas anymore, and it couldn’t be done exclusively through military means. Political and social action became necessary in order to build support of the masses and of specific social sectors; FARC needed to have individuals (nodes) in the cities, spreading its discourse, and acting in their favour. It became necessary to work through all types of social organizations, political movements, NGO’s, and local communal boards.

As it will be explained in the next chapter, several of FARC’s adaptations under Cano can be better explained through the paradigm of networked insurgency than from the traditional model of insurgency: flexibilization and urbanization of military structures, engaging on swarming more than in frontal combat; increasing the invisibility of forces; and strengthening political networks, especially in major cities.

In military terms, FARC was recurring to guerrilla tactics, harassing Police or Military units in isolated regions. It prioritized the use of landmines as a defensive tenet and as a mechanism to guarantee territorial control. Mined camps of hundreds of squared meters had appeared in the South, East and Southwest, more specifically in Meta, Cauca and the lower valley of the Cauca River in Antioquia (Avila, 2009, p.26). In the offensive, the insurgency decided to avoid frontal confrontations and resort to the use of snipers. Sniper attacks nearly doubled from 87 in 2007 to 177 in 2009

At the zona de despeje Cano launched an ambitious political project, a movement known as Movimiento Bolivariano por una Nueva Colombia (MB), which was to become a political platform for the expansion of Bolivarianism as a popular movement of mass support. Since the foundation of this organization, political networks became increasingly relevant for FARC as it will be detailed in the next chapter

FARC was also recurring to the ‘invisibility of its forces’. It opted for blending more strongly with civilian communities by having its combatants wearing civilian clothes and living in towns and municipalities. It was also transforming its strategic rear-guard from jungle areas to social spaces.

The level of support at the national level was practically non-existent. The organization was perceived as lacking direction and a political motivation, being moved only for economic benefits. Its discourse was observed as incoherent with its actions. While proselytising about being warriors fighting for people’s needs, they turned against the people, attacking civilians and communities.37 Indiscriminate violence, kidnapping, assaulting municipalities, and using landmines were common actions of which most victims are civilians. It had practically lost its international support, while its lack of legitimacy was considerable even among students, unions and NGO’s (Baron, 2006).

Chapter 5. Networks and structures through the primary environment

The objective of this chapter is to explain FARC’s political, military and criminal structures in what has been denominated the ‘primary environment’ (Colombian nation and territory), observing the relation of the system with its environment through several variables: exploitation of empty spaces, connections with social and political organizations, sympathy from of non-organized individuals, and the accommodation of secretive non-public nodes.

One of FARC’s features has been its historical observance of Marxist-Leninist principles of organization, command and control. The processes and flows of orders and information have followed strict hierarchical patterns. In other words, FARC had functioned as a traditional guerrilla, with its combatants wearing uniforms, organized as platoons and battalions in jungles, mountains or zones where state presence had been weak. This has been clear for the military dimension, but when structures of the political or criminal order are observed, networks more than hierarchies seem to explain their form and logic more appropriately. As it was explained in the first chapter, structures and networks are not static through time, they are evolving and nodes are in constant change. The offensive of the Uribe administration pushed rebels into a series of adaptations that could be explained from a networked model of insurgency.

Such adaptations include the flexibilization and decentralization of military structures, recurring to smaller, more flexible and mobile groups, applying ‘swarming’ tactics instead of concentrating big masses to fight ‘conventionally’; the increased diffusion of nodes through Colombian societies in order to conquer political and social spaces, mainly expressed through the urbanization and the invisibility of its forces; and the strengthening of political networks through interconnected nodes acting both openly and covertly in specific social and professional spaces in order to create favourable environments for the insurgency.

For these explanations, the present chapter addresses first the transformations of military structures, followed by the analysis of political networks including the Partido Comunista Colombiano Clandestino and the Movimiento Bolivariano.

In similar terms, they have occupied specific geo-strategic areas of great value, in many occasions related to drug traffic routes, such as the Perija region in the Northeast, not only relevant in terms of coca leaf plantations but also neighbouring Venezuela. With the strong offensive of the Uribe period, communications between members of the Secretariat, but especially between FARC Commanders and Blocs and Fronts, were disrupted. The possibility to move freely through the territory was truncated, generating a command and control crisis within the organization.

Commander Alfonso Cano implemented new measures following the principles announced in 2008 under his Plan Renacer. The Plan comprising 14 points proposes dispositions on operations, politics, and its international strategy. Those regarding operational adaptations include:

  • –  Using guerrilla warfare as a response to the Democratic Security Policy
  • –  Increasing mined camps as a means to stop the advance of the Military Forces
  • –  The use of snipers with high precision rifles type VD or Dragunov
  • –  The obligation of new insurgents to carry on terrorist attacks in urban and rural areas.

 

From these ideas, three specific military strategies were developed:

  1. Increasing the process of organizational decentralization, with the creation of new sub-structures, the creation of new commands and new operational forms.
  2. Prioritizing mobile guerrilla warfare instead of massive operations.
  3. Differentiation and specialization of military units either in combat or for supplies.

This included the professionalization of insurgents.

This is how structures such as Unidades Tacticas de Combate (Tactical Combat Units -UTC) and Comandos Conjuntos de Area (Area Joint Commands-CCA) also known as interfrentes orminibloques,were implemented (Pizarro, 2011). CCAs are smaller that blocs but bigger than fronts, and thus more efficient in tactical withdrawal to maintain communications and preserve the line of command with fronts

The implementation of the Plan changed the strategic scenario for FARC, its operations in smaller, more flexible, capable and professional units led to positive results. Their objective of conducting surprise attacks against stationed units or small military and police patrols had caused an increased number of deaths since 2008.

this transformation allowed the insurgency to overcome communication problems between bloc commanders, and to absorb the impact of the elimination of FARC’s leaders. Command, control and communications worked in these circumstances because instead of having closed and continued procedures, which are typical of military organizations, they were flexible, and discontinued, giving relative operational autonomy to units.

In a personal interview with the Deputy Minister of Defence for the Uribe government, Sergio Jaramillo, he noted that by 2010 the risk of FARC’s atomization was considerable. The lack of internal cohesion would push the organization into a process of node criminalization in which smaller autonomous groups would focus mainly on profiting from the drug trade. Several fronts would disappear, others would merge and those strongly focused on drug trafficking would survive purely as drug cartels.

according to reports by the Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris, FARC has implemented a strategy to prevent atomization. In essence, it consists on having its structures specialized so that they generate relations of co-dependency. For example, the Compañia Movil Alfredo Gonzalez in Tolima specializes in explosives and landmines. This unit, composed by about 50 insurgents, gets its food from the 21st Front and its weapons from the 50thFront. The 16thFront in Vichada patrols and protects coca plantations, while the 39th Front goes to combat and the 1stFront makes the contacts for weapons smuggling

Military structures: urbanization and militia networks

FARC had seen the urbanization of war as a strategic goal for several decades. The insurgency would see social spaces as a new kind of strategic rear-guard; as a space to be conquered. For this purpose FARC counted on two instruments of particular importance, urban militias, which are set at the crossroads of the military and political dimensions, and political structures which obviously express the political dimension. Under this logic, FARC needed to exploit two particular variables to embed nodes through the primary environment: connections with social and political organizations and raising its acceptance by non- organized individuals and communities in the cities.

 

Although FARC had been a rural-based organization since its inception, it was in the cities where social and economic structural contradictions would become evident. It was logical then for the insurgency to exploit marginalized sectors to mobilize them in their favour and against the capitalist society. This is a clear reference to the need to gain the support from individuals and communities from specific social sectors, and to incorporate social and political organizations in their struggle (NGO’s, unions, student organizations, communal boards, etc.) As it was clearly stated after a plenary meeting of the High Command in 1989:

“That’s why our strategy has to go in the correct direction, where the contradictions of society are being noted. And these contradictions are not given in the same way or with the same intensity everywhere, but in the big cities and urban centres with the highest population density. (…) There the contradictions are not only given in terms of work-capital but at the same time, all contradictions, and if this is so FARC has to give a fight in the area of stronger social- political conflict”

Militias are defined as a “mechanism of political and military work; they have their own structure and are directed by the Central High Command and the High Commands of the fronts and blocs. They are armed by FARC but constituted by civilians. [Militia members] have a political and a partisan life, they live from their jobs, in their houses and with their families, and they are not committed to remain in the organization as FARC members do.” (Ferro & Uribe, 2002, p.55) They have also been defined as an “armed body with civilian camouflage, who are ruled by the same guerrilla statutes, and as such, every militia member is a potential guerrilla member”44FARC officially defines them as “a military organization that welcomes all persons whose physical integrity and interests are threatened by the reactionary repression, the dirty war and its disastrous consequences.”

It must be understood that the structure, although similar to a proper military organization, does not imply operations through a conventional distribution of forces in the field. The levels of command and flow of information may be consistent with a typical military structure, but in tactical terms, they resemble more a set of interconnected nodes approaching targets in different manners. In that sense, swarming explains their tactical behaviour better than conventional operations through battalions and squadrons. Urban militia networks are usually developed in marginalized areas of the cities, and once they gain control, they impose order engaging in murder, extortion and terrorism.

The dual military/political character of the militias can be demonstrated through their types of meetings: one to study, discuss, and agree on activities and tasks related to the political, economic, cultural and social situation of their area; and another for proper military purposes

The importance of militias and urban networks became so evident that Admiral Cely placed them at the heart of FARC’s strategic action: “FARC’s new strategy is based on its militias, and there we find the popular and Bolivarian militias, the PC3, the MB, the Juventudes Bolivarianas, which is that invisible enemy that hurts the youth, and that is looking at schools and universities.”

Political networks

A more urban and networked model of insurgency would be insufficient if only militias were to conquer the cities. Military structures may perform relevant functions, but in order to gather support of the population much more was necessary. As it was said, FARC needed to increase its sympathy through communities and individuals, and to establish connections with existing social and political organizations in order to become a real mass movement according to its objectives; this, especially, taking into account specific social sectors observed as its potential base for growth… But not all political structures were determined to serve as the instrument to build a mass social movement of support for the insurgency. One of the organizations, the Movimiento Bolivariano por la Nueva Colombia (MB) was in charge of this mission, thus exploiting the variables that have been mentioned. But the Partido Comunista Colombiano Clandestino (PC3) was a clandestine closed organization of infiltrated nodes, spreading across the primary environment not through the support from other actors, but by accommodating secretive nodes in specific scenarios.

Files found on Raul Reyes’s computer demonstrate that the MB and the PC3 were not the only institutions through which FARC was trying to build support from the masses to become a nation-wide political movement. Particularly, with students, FARC organized the Federacion de Estudiantes Universitarios FEU, an association of university students, and Federacion de Estudiantes Secundarios FES, for school students.51 But the former two were the widest and the most relevant.

The Partido Comunista Colombiano Clandestino (PC3)

There is a significant difference between the PC3 and the MB. Whereas the former is a clandestine organization of networked individuals who infiltrate diverse institutions, the latter is a semi-clandestine wide mass movement that incorporates diverse sorts of individuals, groups, and organizations. For that reason they display a different form of organization and command procedures, and they exploit different elements in the primary environment. Their implementation was ratified in the Plenary of the Central High Command in 1997

Three principles –secrecy, compartmentality and verticality– rule PC3 networks. Secrecy guarantees the existence of its members, giving them “protection towards the outside, making its location unknown to the enemy, but allowing their ideas and claims to be known” (FARC-EP, n.d.d, p.18). Compartmentality is an internal measure that contributes to the secrecy of the organization. “It is the fractioned truth, known to individuals only according to their participation in the conduction of their tasks.” (FARC-EP, n.d.d, p.18) Verticality explains the direction of the organization, its hierarchy. Processes follow a top-down logic, not a bottom-up initiative. “Different organisms are directed from the top to the bottom. They work separately from others, and only those responsible establish contacts with staff under their command and with their superiors.” (FARC-EP, n.d.d., p.19) In that sense PC3 networks are directed and do not follow an emergence logic that is typical of complexity.

The PC3 is defined by the insurgents as the “most elevated expression of ideological, political and organizational unity of the working class and of all Colombian workers. It is the superior form of organization and its part of the vanguard of the revolutionary and insurrectional struggle for political power and the construction of socialism. (…) It is inspired by the revolutionary thought of El Libertador Simon Bolivar, [and his principles of] anti-imperialism, Latin American unity and people’s welfare.” (FARC-EP, n.d.e) It has also been defined as an “orthodox communist party, of clandestine and compartmented character. It is a pillar for FARC’s strategic plan and the urbanization of conflict.”52

The purpose of its members is to infiltrate diverse organizations in government, security institutions, private companies, media, universities, NGO’s, international organizations, unions, social organizations, and to comply with specific requirements in order to contribute with FARC’s objectives. They carry on with their normal lives, in their offices and their homes, without other individuals, not even their closest family members, noticing they role. This is why, by contrast to militias, members of the PC3 are “mostly professionals or qualified political leaders.”

The member of the PC3 who was interviewed explained that there are three Party types or branches in order to reach the intended audiences. These are the Agricultural PC3, which spreads through the countryside penetrating peasant organizations and unions to direct them in favour of FARC’s causes; the Industrial PC3, determined to ‘capture’ the labour unions in companies, corporations and enterprises in order to have them acting in favour of the organization; and the University PC3 to recruit students, promote FARC’s ideas through younger generations, create cells and penetrate student groups.

The structure of the organization allows for the principles of secrecy, compartmentality and verticality to be strictly followed. Members ignore who other nodes beyond their cells are, even if they are placed in the same organization. They might actually know each other and constantly interact among themselves without knowing they are part of the same clandestine organization. They ignore what other cells are doing.

Cells follow a General Plan for action in order to infiltrate different institutions according to the profiles and contexts of its members. Ideal targets of infiltration are state security institutions, the Military Forces, National Police and intelligence agencies; communication media; international cooperation NGO’s; and financial institutions. Ideal scenarios of political intervention are schools, universities, labour unions, social organizations and local communal boards.

Orders and directions from FARC commanders will flow down to the cells through the organisms, while proposals and concerns from the militants will flow up to commanders. Through the structure it is possible to coordinate the execution and assessment of plans and tasks

Explaining how the militias and the PC3 interact in their own spaces, the PC3 member compared the militias as being the Police, controlling spaces and providing security, and the PC3 being the social-political power, controlling the Communal Boards of Action, and its Committees for Education, Health, Public Works, Sports, and most importantly the Conciliation Committee, which deals with the resolution of conflicts and conciliations between members of the community. He admits sometimes there are tensions between the militia and PC3 members, especially with the Bolivarian Militias given its political character, but given its nature it is always the PC3 who has precedence.

If network theory is brought into analysis, it is possible to argue that this is a directed network given the flow of information (commands) from the top to the bottom of the chain, and the centralized control by the High Commands. Evidently nodes in the lowest level are not acting freely with other nodes, except for the members of their own cells. In that sense, it relatively follows the logic of Christakis and Fowler’s telephone tree model but without the tree spreading arithmetically by two nodes from every node. Rather the spread is limited according to the structural parameters which have been described. Command procedures explain the flow of information through the structure in the form of the tre

Although not very flexible, given the difficulty to join the network and the lack of linkages at the lowest levels, the network is very resilient in the sense that random attacks will not destroy the network itself, both because of its structure and the principle of compartmentality.

Movimiento Bolivariano por la Nueva Colombia (MB)

As already explained, by contrast to the PC3, the MB was created as a wide movement, opened to all individuals and groups of diverse tendencies and beliefs, which share the ideals of FARC. It is though as a movement for the masses to create viable political spaces. The idea of this type of movement is not new, and it can be traced back to the Seventh Guerrilla Conference in 1982:

“We will begin the construction of the BOLIVARIAN GATHERING OF THE PEOPLE, (caps in original text) a wide organization, without statutes or regulations, opened to the participation of those patriots who want to fight for a new Colombia, and in Bolivarian countries, those who share the objectives of liberty for which Bolivar fought.”

In the Zona de Despeje in San Vicente del Caguan, in April 29, 2000, it was officially launched. It is described as a “wide movement without statutes, regulations or discriminations, with the exception of the declared enemies of the people. It does not have offices and its headquarters are in any place of Colombia where the unsatisfied live”

Determining the structure of the MB is not as easy as with the PC3 given its character as an opened movement. According to FARC’s documents, the base of the MB should be constituted by “millions of Colombians members of clandestine groups, of multiple and varied forms such as circles, boards, workshops, malokas, families, unions, combos, brotherhoods, lanzas, groups, clubs, associations, councils, galladas, parches, barras, working groups, mingas, guilds, committees, and all the forms that their members want to adopt in order to guarantee their secrecy and compartmentality.”60 This groups, formally referred to as nucleos bolivarianos are the equivalent to the PC3’s cells, the basic structure of operation in the lowest levels.

These cells are supposed to spread through the nation, but especially through the social sectors listed above in the declaration. These sectors constitute the potential space for MB network growth. These individuals, members of diverse organizations and part of specific social sectors, are potential nodes of the organization. This is how the variables of sympathy from non-organized individuals and connections with social and political organizations can be observed as a mechanism for the placement of nodes of the insurgency through Colombian societies, or for the growth of insurgency itself. Through these mechanisms the border between the insurgency and the primary environment becomes blurry.

Each nucleus selects ten candidates and those with the highest results are asked if they want to assume their position (FARC-EP, n.d.g.).

In that sense the network, following Arquila and Ronfeldt’s idea, might look as a combination of different types of networks. A general structure could look as a power-law or scale-free network with hubs displaying a higher amount of connections and random linkages among its nodes. Nodes can be individuals, but also, groups, cells, and small organizations. Clusters might be formed around dense organizations and given the secrecy of particular groups or cells, cliques are likely to be common through the network.

The emerging bottom-up logic contrasts the directed flows of the PC3 networks. There is, of course, leadership, but the type of leadership is different.

Alfonso Cano used to send opened messages in the form of videos through opened channels such as YouTube or Google videos, and posting them in the Movement’s websites.61 However, the organization is not entirely ‘command-free’ and there seemed to be some planning and coordination. According to official documents “the MB is being constructed under the direct orientation of each Front in coordination with the Command through the planning and assessments of working plans with each of the clandestine structures”.

As explained by MB militant ‘Julian Rincon’ from the Nucleo Francisco Miranda “we made ourselves known through culture, art, academia, labour unions, gangs, parches, groups; in infinity of expressions aimed at the development of an objective, and that is the unity of popular sectors to fight for the points of our platform.”

As it can be evidenced from the videos uploaded to their websites, the militants of nucleos bolivarianos are always active and present in events of student mobilizations; they repetitively appear in public universities through the country, and they make special activities to commemorate special dates, such as the anniversaries of the foundation of the MB.

According to this data, and if calculations made in the regions of the Omega Force are extended to the country as a whole, then 8000 to 10,000 active combatants being 30% of the organization would speak about 26,666 to 33.333 members of the organization including Bolivarian and popular militias, members of the PC3 and the MB.

Criminal Networks

In the case of FARC’s criminal dimension, its nodes have a wide participation in the lower levels of the cocaine production-trade chain, and this is possible given the development of a war economy in particular marginalized regions of Colombia.

There are several types of nodes through the chain according to their functions, explaining the process itself and the participation of FARC in the business:

  • Coca growers and collectors. They include raspachines (scratchers) which are generally poor individuals from other regions that move to producing areas in search of some economic stability and who scratch the coca leaf in order to process it.
  • Extraction of crude coca paste from the coca leaf, performed by peasants with very basic instruments in makeshift laboratories, usually known as ‘paste laboratories.’
  • Purification of coca paste to coca base in a different type of laboratory, still very basic in technical terms, referred to as ‘base laboratories ́ or ‘kitchens’. It has been learned, however, that in certain cases the ‘paste’ and ‘base’ stages are done in leaf- to-base laboratories (Casale, 1993). FARC taxes peasants that produce coca base.
  • During the first years of FARC’s participation in the business, coca base was sold to intermediaries (commission agents) in the regions where the base was produced. FARC also taxed commission agents.
  • Such intermediaries sold the coca base to agents who would travel to remote areas to take it to ‘crystal’ laboratories owned by drug-dealers. However, by the end of the 1990s, FARC had eliminated intermediaries assuming sales themselves.
  • Coca base is transformed into cocaine hydrochloride, in a technically sophisticated laboratory that requires a certain level of chemical expertise and materials. Usually owned by drug-dealers, laboratories are usually known as cristalizaderosor ‘crystal’ laboratories.
  • Once the process is done, cocaine is taken via air, land or river, to consumption centres, where micro-traffic begins or to shipment points for its exportation.68 FARC taxes not only the coca base producers and agents, but also the traffickers which used land strips in their areas of control. When towns and small municipalities developed around the cocaine economy, FARC also used to tax companies of the services sector (Vargas, 2005).
  • Exporters send products to international transhipment points in Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean and West Africa, from Colombia or Venezuela. There, they are distributed to grand consumer markets.
  • Distribution groups or cells in overseas markets receive shipments and distribute the product to wholesalers.
  •  Wholesalers distribute to retailers
  • Brokers provide critical linkages between the nodes by introducing participants from different groups (Kenney, 2007).
  • Money launderers receive illicit proceeds from wholesale or retail transactions and clear them through the system (Kenney, 2007).

As it can be seen, FARC’s involvement had always been restricted to the lowest stages of the chain, but its level of participation differs from region to region

It has been argued that they operate as an armed monopoly imposing the price of coca base on peasants and growers; controlling routes of precursors, coca, cocaine, guns and ammo; and exchanging drugs for weapons.

 

“Narcs, terrorists and counterterrorists form distinctive social systems characterized by complexity, adaptability and hostility. Trafficking and terrorist systems are complex because they contain large numbers of actors who interact with each other (…) the Colombian trafficking system contains hundreds of smuggling enterprises and law enforcement agencies in the US, Colombia and other countries.” (Kenney, 2007, p.15)

There are several advantages that drug dealers find in this type of structures. Their workers are segmented, meaning that they don’t have to learn about the entire operations system but only about their specific tasks. If several of them are eliminated, then it is possible to recover the lost segments easily.

A very important feature is the decentralization of decision-making, providing a degree of resiliency from targeted attacks. If a particular head of an organization is captured or killed, activities will continue since there will be more heads who will be in capability of making decisions

FARC as a networked insurgency

It is not appropriate to argue that FARC constituted a networked or complex insurgency in a strict sense by the end of the Uribe administration. Evidence is not sufficient to support such a claim; by 2010 the organization was still marginal within Colombian society, and its hierarchical character still determined patterns of organization. However, under Cano, FARC did incorporate several elements more typical of a proper networked-complex insurgency than of a traditional rural isolated guerrilla, further exploiting connections with political and social organizations and elevating the sympathy towards the insurgency by communities and individuals, especially through specific social vulnerable or marginalized sectors as described in the MB’s manifest.

Through evidence collected it is not possible to confirm that Cano intended to turn the organization into a more decentralized and loose organization. But he evidently understood the importance of conquering spaces of social and political participation, exploiting all sorts of instruments to build mass support, in order for FARC to become a real popular movement. In that sense, although the organization is not a networked insurgency in strict terms, several of its components can be explained under such a model.

Militias and political structures were intended to clearly blend with society, making the borders between the system and its primary environment blurry. They allowed the embedment of FARC’s nodes through communities, in several cases without individuals noticing their affiliation. From within, they could spread FARC’s ideas and recruit more militants to be added to the networks. In the end, insurgents had the appearance of normal civilians, but acting against the state and in favour of the insurgency.

Peña described this evolution as “the creation of a new type of combatant, a civilian combatant with sufficient training and cohesion to develop military operations and to return to its daily activities, making recognition by the Military Forces much more complex.”(Peña, 2011, p.229) This description is very close to the idea of a combatant in a networked or complex insurgency, as it was explained in the first chapter.

This organization, given its wide, opened and inclusive character, gives the insurgency all the potential to become an interconnected insurgency, or at least to increase the number of FARC’s interconnected members and supporters –nodes–. Their members can be anywhere, in many organizations, in marginalized communities or they can be part of specific social sectors as described in FARC ́s open invitation to join its movement.

The Military Forces began facing a significant challenge because of their impossibility to make an objective difference between combatants and non-combatants. When they patrol a town or municipality, and they were attacked from civilian’s houses, they could not respond with fire without breaking principles of international humanitarian law and without being widely criticized.

in practical terms, it is difficult to define to which dimension nodes belong to. It was earlier explained that although Bolivarian Militias belong to both dimensions, PC3 and MB nodes are part of the political dimension. But through time, they may end up involved in military tasks, proving the interdependence between the dimensions. Since members of the MB also go through military training, it is possible to think about them as a sort of military reserve, which could become active according to the decline of regular combatants.

If we put together the military training received by members of the MB, their possibility to join war, and the wide and opened character of the organization, then we have to at least consider the possibility, or the potential, of individuals from marginalized social sectors to become combatants. In such case, an image of interconnected nodes acting in their spaces, in their cities, through small groups, resembles the model of complex or networked insurgency.

Marginal entities might still represent a considerable threat, generating instability, putting people and assets at risk, and causing real havoc in the countries where they operate. Given the right conditions and depending on their actions, they might even grow to incorporate more elements in its environment. It must not be forgotten that, in theory, insurgencies begin as marginal entities and they gain support and legitimacy through the process.

Chapter 6. Node embeddedness and structures through the secondary environment.

Nodes placed beyond Colombian borders become central to the analysis in the interest of determining to what extent they could offer the opportunity for FARC to survive or to re- emerge when national counterinsurgency operations are offering positive results.

Government support, although very favourable for node placement, is not a necessary variable, and through alliances with armed actors, connections with social and political organizations, exploitation of ‘empty spaces’, and the accommodation of secretive nodes, insurgents can be safely embedded. On the other hand, it explains that the combination of all the variables, especially through the exploitation of empty spaces, create the right conditions for the placement of hubs and clusters.

The International Commission and a first configuration of networks

Initial entry to a foreign country was explained through the accommodation of secretive nodes in specific social spaces. But as they began to act politically, interactions with other actors increased. Their permanence in those countries, then, began to be explained through other variables such as their connections with social and political organizations.

In this construction three variables interact: An individual, or several individuals, are embedded as secretive nodes in other societies. In their host country, they identify a number of individuals which display sympathy for the insurgency. Together they create a group, cell, or organization, probably affiliated to others with similar ideological views. They will promote FARC’s ideals and struggle to incorporate more militants to their organization.

It was only with the Eight Guerrilla Conference in 1993 that the idea of an International Commission took form as a “linkage between FARC and leftist political parties, social organizations, labour unions, human rights organizations and non-profit foundations”, mainly in South America and Europe

The International Commission (COMINTER) was an idea of Raul Reyes. Together with Rodrigo Granda and Liliana Lopez Palacio (alias Olga Lucia Marin), who joined Reyes at the top level

of the Command structure, he defined the mission and objectives of these networks:

  • Contacting government officials, parliamentarians and NGO leaders, to obtain their support and to achieve recognition by relevant political sectors.
  • Interacting, in FARC’s name, with national governments such as Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
  • Participating in conferences, forums, gatherings, meetings, political, social and student workshops, on hemispheric and global levels.
  • Establishing support groups in each of the countries where FARC is present according to the political context and the assigned tasks.
  • Creating and managing instruments for the diffusion of information in other countries such as websites, magazines and radio stations.
  • Establishing contacts with leftist movements, radical anarchist parties, insurgent groups, and networks of weapons trade.
  • Administration of FARC’s goods in other countries.
  • Contacting associations of political refugees and solidarity groups.
  • Engaging in university studies and postgraduate degrees in universities in Europe and the United States in order to achieve their infiltration.
  • Designing ideological campaigns of recruitment and disinformation about the Colombian conflict and the illegality of Colombian institutions

Reyes set as essential objectives to reach “the European Parliament, the US Congress, the Latin-American Parliament, the Central American Parliament, the Amazonian Parliament, the UN, the Sao Paulo Forum, the Bolivarian People’s Congress, the Bolivarian Continental Coordinator Committee, the World Social Forum, Universities, Churches, media, journalists, workers associations, agrarian and popular movements, cooperatives, Indians, black communities, women’s and youth organizations, and to participate directly and indirectly in gatherings, seminars, meetings and all type of activity where they could promote their project.”

It could initially be thought that given the description of Comintern’s role, the networks were developed in function of the political dimension. But that is not the only case. Insurgents were not only conducting political tasks, in practice they also performed military and even criminal duties. They wouldn’t participate directly in violent actions, but in general sense they “established contacts with weapons and explosives traffickers and forged links for narcotics trade, infiltrated social organizations or universities to gather support, through NGO’s they created linkages for intelligence cooperation, and in the end, they spread insurgency propaganda.”

This structure of ‘embassies’ was supported by a network of media and communications linkages which included online agencies to spread FARC’s news and communiqués. Examples are Anncol, the most important source of propaganda, based in Sweden; Kaosenlared; farc-ep.org; resistencia.org; the Bolivarian Press Agency; and even a radio station, Cafe stereo, also based in Sweden.

even without government approval of an office, FARC’s militants in Costa Rica where able to develop different types of contacts, making this country one of the first hubs for international action.

They managed to reach labour unions and human rights and student organizations such as CODEHUR, FEUCR, FEUNA, ANEP and CUT (Rojas, 2008). According to Berrocal, there were two key groups of FARC’s nodes, the Asociacion Centro de Integracion Cultural Colombia- Costa Rica, established in 1997, and the GAIF established between 1994 and 1998

it has also been argued that Costa Rica served as a space where Colombian, Mexican and Dominican mafias met, proving that the networks are also relevant for the criminal dimension

A second and more important theatre for international action was developed in Mexico. An office was created with government’s authorisation and it was led by Olga Lucia Marin and Marco Calarca. They established linkages with organizations such as the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), the Mexican Communist Party, the Ejército Popular Revolucionario (EPR), and several media companies. This country became a new hub for FARC’s international action. According to research conducted by Jorge Fernandez, the office was not only useful for political purposes, but also to forge ties with drug cartels. He explains that since 1997 there was communication with the Tijuana Cartel, with which a weapons- drugs exchange agreement was reached

Raul Reyes and other five guerrilla leaders had the opportunity to visit several countries in Europe for 33 days in 2000, including Spain, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy and the Vatican. They were able to establish contacts with leftist leaders and to gain sympathy from different political and social sectors through the continent (Perez, 2008).

After this period, FARC’s networks extended to Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Canada, France, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Portugal (Perez, 2008). Its operatives were actively establishing contacts with radical and leftist movements, political parties, and human rights organizations. They were participating in academic spaces, and in general terms they were promoting FARC’s vision of the Colombian conflict, gaining support through different social sectors. Media and communication channels became highly instrumental, with the special role of FARC’s journal, Resistencia, created in 1999, which included articles of leftist Latin American thinkers

Appendix 4 describes FARC networks developed by the Comintern, but it must be clear that representing it as a static structure might not be rigorous, since they had been in constant evolution through time. Nodes change from place to place, they disappear, they are replaced, and new ones are added to the structure. Delegates are changed from country to country depending on the political conditions, and in other cases they are captured and replaced by others.

The rigid hierarchical structure tightly controlled by Reyes, however, gave way to a more loose set interconnected cells and NGO’s spread through diverse countries and mainly composed by Europeans. They were more effective than Colombian expatriates given their knowledge of the environment (International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2011). Although Colombians continued establishing contacts for military and criminal purposes, NGO’s became the front for political actions. Through those NGO’s it was possible to reach several social and political spaces and to spread FARC’s views more easily. But this structural arrangement does not necessarily mean that the command was unaware of cells’ actions. When Reyes moved to the Colombian-Ecuadorian border, he was able to establish direct links with most of these supporters

In Spain, Leyla Yolima (alias Manuela) was in charge of the creation of a support group and the recruitment of young activists

nodes in each of the countries would develop specific tasks. In Spain, it was through Remedios Garcia Olmert (alias Irene) that cells become functional. She was relevant for logistics, obtaining visas for guerrilla members, moving funds, but also for political duties as establishing contacts and the diffusion of journal articles (Arrazola, 2008). She had a direct communication with Raul Reyes and other members of the Comintern such as Gualdron, Orlando Higuita (alias Orlando), Ovidio Salinas (alias Juan Antonio) and Rodrigo Granda (Arrazola, 2008).

Several arrest warrants have been issued for European citizens because of their connections with FARC: four Spaniards, two Italians, one Dane, and one Australian (Europa Press, 2008, August 3). It is believed that between 2000 and 2008, the Spaniards acted as coordinators for the Comintern in the Iberian Peninsula and Central Europe, and participated in events in Germany, Switzerland and Spain. The Dane citizen was identified as ‘Carlos Mono’ who was arguably one of the most effective agents of FARC’s networks in Europe, moving around Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm. Information indicates he established contacts with at least 10 labour unions in Denmark and others in the United Kingdom.

According to Europol, Colombian expats would be in charge of information, training and the creation of clandestine cells to trade weapons and drugs more easily. The Organization believed FARC could have been planning the creation of a delegation office in Brussels, Amsterdam or Paris.

Although most of the linkages for criminal and military purposes were established by Comintern delegates or Colombian expats, Europeans organized in cells, NGO’s, or organizations, contributed with the political activities. In the end, the pattern through which three variables allow for the construction of these networks becomes evident: members of the Comintern who were secretly placed in each of the countries identify individuals who are able to contribute in the host country, and through the creation of support groups and NGO’s political action is maximized.

Through the creation of the Movimiento Continental Bolivariano, the insurgency’s networks beyond borders were reinforced, especially, but not uniquely in terms of the political dimension.

Strengthening networks: the Movimiento Continental Bolivariano

From 2003 FARC’s transnational networks grew, not necessarily extending through more countries but increasing the number of nodes and connections in the Americas and Europe. It is clear that networks developed by Comintern delegates, and their support groups, were political, military, and even criminal in their functions. But the multiplication of connections experienced since 2003 would be mainly, but not uniquely, political.

It was through the emergence of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela in 1999, and the subsequent rise of other leftist governments, that FARC found a favourable environment for a regional projection. The creation of an international organization, the Movimiento Continental Bolivariano (MCB) became a platform to spread its discourse, gather support, and strengthen links with different types of actors through Latin America.

The dynamics created by MCB networks ratify the idea previously introduced: governments might play a key role in the placement of nodes within their territories but they are not vital. Other variables, which were listed before, can actually contribute more to the placement and preservation of nodes beyond borders.

The MCB emerged initially as a mechanism to coordinate efforts between Bolivarian and communist organizations, known as the Coordinadora Continental Bolivariana CCB. The advantage of this construction was that ‘Bolivarianism’ as such is not a carefully defined doctrine but a series of basic principles related to South American political reality, so wide that they can be observed by movements or organizations with diverse philosophical backgrounds. Bolivarianism had married Marxism-Leninism, creating a tent for leftist organizations and movements to meet in a similar, yet not identical, doctrinal ground.

In a personal interview with Commander Wilmer Castro Soteldo, Governor of the State of Portuguesa in Venezuela and one of the leaders of the 1992 military coup with Hugo Chavez, he defined Bolivarianism as a broad set of ideas extracted from the discourses and works of Simon Bolivar, from which particular principles can be deduced. These include:

  • Anti-imperialism, directed against Spain during Bolivar’s campaigns, but applied now to Western world powers and their capitalist system which exploit the Latin American nations and its resources.
  • Latin American Union, as it was Bolivar’s great dream to constitute a single nation out of all of the provinces that were liberated from the Spanish empire, and today even as counterweight to the United States.
  • Equality and welfare, which is interpreted as the justification of socialist ideas.74

Rather than being an objective and strictly defined political doctrine, Bolivarianism is more a common background for political action of diverse agents. Hence its famous motto ‘in Bolivar we all meet’. This explains why movements, organizations and individuals from varied doctrinal backgrounds on the Left of the political spectrum find a powerful symbol in Bolivar’s image.

“The CCB is work of FARC and the Movimiento Bolivariano, Bloques Jose Maria Cordova and Caribe. Comrade Alfonso, as head of the movement, has been informed of these steps, as had been the Secretariat. As I informed in a past email, the first plenary of the executive committee was made in one of our camps, which defined specific tasks that are being developed today. Among other tasks we have the creation of the Movimiento Bolivariano, organization of the CCB, in each country. This organization has already led protests in Ecuador and Panama.”

By December 2009 the CCB had evolved into the MCB, becoming a transnational Latin American political movement which brought together several organizations and individuals from the hemisphere which agreed with the ideals and propositions of Bolivarianism. With its headquarters in Caracas it already included “1200 delegates, counting with the representation of 30 countries and a diversity of political, social and cultural organizations.” (Agencia Bolivariana de Prensa, 2010)

It had a clear structure: The Executive Committee, later renamed General Secretariat, composed by fifteen Honorary Presidents listed in figure 6.2 who became notable speakers in favour of the insurgency through the hemisphere, most especially Narciso Isa Conde and Carlos Casanueva. A foreign legion named officially the ‘International Region’ in which individuals from the Basque Country, France, Spain, United States and Canada participated. A Continental Regional Direction composed by five members of the Regional Directions:

  • –  Brazil
  • –  Great Colombia: Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia
  • –  Caribbean: Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti
  • –  Mexico: Twenty social and political organizations and two FARC support cells.
  • –  South: Argentina, Uruguay and Chile.

According to the MCB’s website, each of these countries is a national chapter by itself.

In principle, the idea of NBAFs was to reach social and political movements to have them working in favour of FARC’s objectives; almost like a job of infiltration and manipulation. Member organizations of the MCB are not in principle FARC’s allies working in the insurgency’s favour. They might have joined the Movement in order to pursue their own particular interests. As such, the insurgency needs to have them acting according to their plans.

In order to articulate FARC cells in different countries with the MCB, Raul Reyes set a common model of organization in 2007 for all groups. It included specific defined positions for individuals to be in charge of specific areas:

  1. Political Secretary
  2. Education, Security and Documentation Centre
  3. Finances
  4. Organization and Bolivarian Press Agency
  5. Coordinadora Continental Bolivariana (Perez, 2009)

Marquez was involved on MCB’s activities since the beginning, given his permanent location in Venezuela. So after Reyes’s death, it could be said that he became the head of FARC’s international actions.

It is now necessary to turn into the analysis of the elements that have allowed for the establishment of nodes beyond borders. These variables are government support or permissiveness, linkages with social and political organizations, connections or alliances with armed actors and the exploitation of empty spaces. As it has already been analysed the accommodation of secretive nodes was relevant in an initial stage for the construction of support groups in each of the countries.

Government support or permissiveness

Government support is not only the first variable that comes into mind when we think about foreign elements that contribute to the safe placement of insurgents beyond borders. It is also the most valuable source in order for militants to be protected in the medium or long term. In the case of FARC, this was evident in Mexico. Through their public office they were able to establish contacts and spread their discourse more easily.

But this was obviously not the only government FARC intended to contact. Antecedents were positive with Nicaraguan President, Ariel Ortega, after he visited Manuel Marulanda at the Zona de Despeje to decorate him in name of the Sandinista party.

In an email signed by Granda, Bermudez and Rojas, they explained that the Cuban Ambassador believed “[President] Daniel Ortega is in full disposition to help [the insurgency] with whatever possible” (El Tiempo, 2008, August 27). Ortega was even considered as an intermediate with the Libyan government for the purchase of weapons (El Tiempo, 2008, August 27).

Nicaragua became one of the main spaces for the preservation of nodes. Even when it is not possible to empirically demonstrate FARC and the Sandinistas are allies, it is impossible to deny that this type of actions contributes to the flexibility of its networks.

 

But the most significant cases of government support, or permissiveness, by 2010, were Venezuela and Ecuador, with Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa. Their relations became evident when files of the computers of Raul Reyes, which were retrieved in the attack to his campsite, were made public. In the case of Chavez, contacts began in 1992 and increased after he was released from prison in 1994, time when he received 100 million Colombian pesos (US$ 150,000) from the insurgents (International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2011, p.47). By 1996, contacts were revived, and by 1998 Chavez reportedly participated in several meetings of FARC’s 10thFront, while several of his aides met with Marco Calarca in Caracas (International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2011).

Chavez appointed a high official, Ramon Rodriguez Cachin, later to be Minister of Interior and Justice, to be his personal representative to FARC, dealing personally, directly and in secret with the insurgents in all matters. In August 1999, Chacin negotiated a memorandum of understanding with the insurgents, approved by Chavez, which went beyond a clause of non-aggression. It appeared to give FARC and advisory role within the Venezuelan administration; it facilitated the security and development of Venezuelan Border regions; and it opened communication channels between the Secretariat and Venezuela’s government and Armed Forces (International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2011). FARC agreed to

“provide intelligence on other criminal groups, violently oppose this groups in Colombia, abstain from violent operations in Venezuela, seek authorisation for training of any armed groups. In return, the Venezuelan government would provide help with health care, safety for operatives on Venezuela soil, unspecified ‘special support’, and various arrangements to trade energy resources with FARC and to launder money through investments in agriculture, housing and finance.“ (International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2011, p.60).

 

But from 2002 to 2004, there was a period of tensions with Chavez given their ideological differences and marked by the lack of progress in their relations. Secretariat member Mono Jojoy called Chavez “a deceitful and divisive president who lacked the resolve to organize himself politically and militarily, he scorned the corruption of Chavez’s political associates and dismissed [Chacin] as the worst kind of bandit” (International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2011, p.83). During this period FARC was even attacked by the Venezuelan Military forces (International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2011, p.89). In 2004 FARC made two mistakes which cause a more permanent rupture: On one hand, an attack in the State of Apure killing five Venezuelan soldiers; on the other, when Colombian operatives abducted Rodrigo Granda in Caracas, FARC reacted badly arguing that elements of the government had contributed.

 

From 2006, however, relations seemed to have improved given Chavez insistence on the reconstitution of the historical linkages and the appointment of a new envoy, Julio Chirino. Comprehensive agreements seemed to have been reached with Generals Cliver Alcala and Hugo Carvajal, and although during that year Chavez was still ambivalent towards FARC (camps were still being attacked) by 2007 the relationship had been restored. According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), it was during this period that Chavez began to perceive the insurgency as a strategic ally in his geopolitical agenda, conceding immense territorial benefits, and agreeing to provide the insurgency with US $300millon (International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2011).

Meetings with Comintern members, including Marquez and Granda, began to happen in Caracas. A stronger commitment from Venezuela was demonstrated by several initiatives: Chavez’s attempt to reconcile FARC and the ELN, full support for FARC’s quest on the status of belligerence, and the creation of special rest areas in the border. All of these were supposed to be given in return for the training of Venezuelan Military Forces in asymmetric warfare, which became the paradigm of Venezuelan security doctrine (International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2011). By the time of the attack of Reyes’s camp in Ecuador, relations between the insurgency and Chavez seemed to be booming, but there is no information of the relation between both actors after the attack.

In the case of Ecuador, evidence demonstrates that officials from Correa’s government established contacts with insurgents. During Correa’s political campaign, FARC established communications with one of his aides, Jorge Brito, to whom they provided US$ 100,000. In return, Brito offered “and ideologically appealing programme of government, high level diplomatic relations, ‘means of reciprocal assistance’, Ecuadorian neutrality in the Colombian conflict, and a reduced armed-forces presence on the border” (International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2011, p.29). According to James Lockhard-Smith, a researcher at the IISS, Correa received the funds and most likely knew about their precedence. He cites a demobilized guerrilla member who was in Ecuador and held conversations with Correa who was apparently aware of negotiations (El Tiempo, September 21, 2011).

Although there were genuine signs of permissiveness towards FARC, which allowed the insurgency to place nodes in its country, “the relationship between FARC and Correa had not been consolidated and indeed could be seen as embryonic. Each party sought to manipulate the behaviour of the other to its own advantage, but without displaying the commitment or compromise typical of a real strategic alliance.”

The closure of the Mexico office in 2002, fifteen years after its creation, was a setback for their international strategy, but also a condition for the demonstration of how resilient, flexible and adaptable the networks were. Reyes ordered Comintern operative Marco Calarca to create two support groups in the region of Mexico City, in order to maintain their relations with parties, organizations, universities and movements. As a consequence, the Ricardo Florez Magon andLucio Cabañas cells were created, continuing the tasks of the Comintern

openly, they operated through student groups at the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) where there were at least 30 cells, mainly from the Simon Bolivar Lecture at the Department of Philosophy and Literature, one of which was led by Lucia Morett, a survivor of the attack on Raul Reyes’s camp (El Pais, 2008, May 10). These groups are said to be close to the Movimiento Francisco Villa linked to the Partido de la Revolucion Democratica (PRD).

Connections with Social and Political Organizations

As opposed to linkages with governments, which may vary according to the political context, more permanent relations were established with social and political movements. FARC had made contact with about 400 organizations, including NGO’s, revolutionary leftist movements and legally established political parties (Martinez, 2011). Comintern operatives began setting contacts, but through the MCB interactions increased considerably.

Organizations which nurtured the existence of militants in other countries were existing ones, but also those constructed by loose individuals who came together in order to work in favour of FARC’s agenda. In that sense it is possible to observe how sympathy from non- organized individuals is in fact useful to embed nodes beyond borders. As it has been explained, there are individuals in several social contexts which, for some reason, agree with FARC’s agenda. If they want to take action they can either join an existing organization or create a cell affiliated to the movement. That’s how their contribution is more solidly expressed.

In Chile, Manuel Olate (alias Roque), a former member of the Frente Politico Manuel Rodriguez FPMR and coordinator of the MCB in Chile, visited Raul Reyes at his camp in Ecuador several times. According to intelligence information, in July 2004 Reyes demanded from ‘Roque’ the creation of “two clandestine cells to allow the administration of resources for FARC’s activities.”(Infobae, 2011, March 17). He was captured by Chilean authorities and was requested by Colombian justice in extradition.

According to emails, the insurgency even trained several PCV operatives during 2006 and 2007 (International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2011). But these were not the only organizations which established links with the insurgency. There was also communication with Patria Para Todos, Movimiento Quinta Republica and the Movimiento Electoral del Pueblo(International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2011).

The favourable atmosphere created by Chavez and other political organizations was enough for FARC to set the MBC’s headquarters in Caracas. After Mexico and Costa Rica, Venezuela became the new hub for FARC clusters to develop. The office in Caracas was coordinated by Ivan Marquez, Rodrigo Granda and his daughter Monica, as members of the Cominter. But these were not the only elements that favoured the embeddedness of FARC nodes in this country as it will be explained ahead.

In a similar case, FARC nurtured strong connections with the Ejercito del Pueblo Paraguayo EPP for over a decade (El Tiempo, 2010, April 27). After an investigation by Paraguayan officials it was evident that FARC had trained EPP units and supported the organization in the kidnapping and assassination of Cecilia Cubas, daughter of former President Raul Cubas. One of her assassins, Osmar Martinez confessed to have links to Bolivarian organizations through the Congreso Bolivariano de los Pueblos. According to Villamarin, FARCs support also led into the creation of mobile guerrilla units in the municipality of Juan Caballero and mobile militias in the outskirts of the capital, Asuncion. He describes the organization of networks in the location of La Marquetalia, district named after the municipality were Tirofijo created his first communist enclave, and where Police is said to have no access. He describes 16 bases, each of which is led by a political and a security leader.

Empty Spaces

Empty spaces allow for the expansion of the networks of the three dimensions, political, military and criminal. Embedding political nodes is of course important for the insurgency, but the possibility to place combating military nodes in spaces where they are safe, is almost priceless. Empty spaces also have the potential to serve as the theatre for connections and alliances with other agents, governments, social and political organizations and armed actors on the long term, because given the lack of strong presence of state’s institutions, the insurgency engages in processes which gradually and increasingly make it an authority in the area. This attracts the attention of other agents or individuals in the region that will feel attracted to the insurgency (sympathy), legitimizing its actions. In these spaces they create the conditions for hubs to be embedded and to build insurgency clusters. B

More than being a safe haven, Venezuela had become FARCs new hub and a territory for the development of insurgent clusters. According to the information provided by the Government with full evidence, there were 1500 insurgents organized in 28 camps

Luis Fernando Hoyos, former Colombian Ambassador to the Organization of American States, stated that “Venezuela had become a place for the meetings of international criminals, from where they plan attacks, trade with drugs and weapons, and perform kidnappings.”(El Tiempo, 2010, July 22). The empty space was favourable for FARC to interact with armed groups, to provide training to the FBL and to strengthen links with organizations like ETA.

It was learned that FARC met members of ETA at Ivan Marquez’s camp in 2003. They taught Colombian insurgents on the use of explosives in return for training on combat techniques and shooting.

A Colombian intelligence report also indicates that Grannobles, Marquez and Timochenko had direct linkages with several individuals in powerful positions, businessmen and social and education organizations (El Espectador, 2010, July 15). The mayor of the Municipality of Libertador, one of the districts of Caracas, Freddy Bernal, was very close to FARC, and was even appointed by Chavez to serve as his representative

The Brazilian government recognized in 2003 that there were three FARC camps in the states of Parana, Matto Grosso do Sul and Boavista. (Villamarin, 2007) They served the purposes of training, trafficking and even projecting force through the Amazon (Villamarin, 2007). A report from Correio Braziliense points at the existence of a second level commander in Brazil identified by Colombian counterintelligence as Ocyuber Sanchez (alias Hugo Mal Ojo), with the mission of acquiring weapons, uniforms, and supplies. He was in contact with Brazilian drug dealer Fernandinho Beira Mar (Sequeira, July 25, 2006).

As it can be seen from the examples, empty spaces might happen because of the unwillingness of a state to fight armed actors in the region, or because of its incapacity to build a stronger institutional presence. It might be difficult to evaluate which is more significant for every case, but the consequences are clear. The insurgency finds opportunities for its military, political and criminal nodes to create connections with different sorts of agents. Given the relative lack of opposition, the scenario is ideal for the configuration of new insurgency clusters, and the embedment of hubs (insurgents with a higher amount of connections). The important question, once again, is what does this mean in terms of insurgency survival or reconfiguration?

Node embeddedness and network characteristics

The alleged support from Chavez to FARC is not the only reason why this country had become, by 2010, the main territory for the development of guerrilla clusters. It is the combination of all the variables, government approval or support, connections with political and social organizations, linkages with armed groups and the existence of empty spaces, which allow for the insurgency’s political, military and criminal nodes to be embedded in their territories on the long term, with a relative level of security.

Governments constitute the ultimate source of support for insurgencies. It is with their acknowledgment, channelled as protection, material support or lack of confrontation, that insurgents find it easier to survive. However, this support is not a necessary condition, and even when governments oppose guerrilla presence in its territory, networks can be developed. Now, when this is the case, when the central government is not an ally, political networks, more than military, are likely to be developed, through contacts with particular social and political organizations. This can be evidenced through actions of all MCB chapters in different countries, which speak favourably about FARC.

But networks are also flexible and adaptable in the sense that militants can move from place to place without altering their flows, especially in the case of hubs (senior members of the Comintern which have the higher amount of connections).

Flexibility can also be observed from the mobility of hub scenarios, from Costa Rica to Mexico and later to Venezuela. The internal flexibility that nodes enjoy in each of their countries can be exemplified with the re-accommodation of Mexico’s nodes after the closure of FARC’s office.

Chapter 7. FARC as a regional actor and the survival of its structures.

Conditions in the environment contributed not only to the preservation of such nodes, but to give the networks a degree of flexibility, resilience, redundancy and adaptability. These conditions include the preservation of the ideology and political discourse, and the mobility of elements of the criminal economy.

These processes create the possibility for militants to engage with any of the dimensions, through node politicisation, criminalization and militarization as defined in the second chapter. As such, in order to avoid the survival and re-emergence of the organization, the counterinsurgent needs to develop a strategy to address elements of the three dimensions simultaneously, while acting in regards to elements placed beyond borders.

Complexity tells us that systems are opened; that the system (the insurgency) is in constant interaction with its environment (Latin America), in a process of co-evolution: the insurgency is changed by the environment, while the former contributes to variations in the latter. In that sense, the extent to which environmental conditions allow the survival of the insurgency depend on how deeply intertwined the system and its environment are, and how blurry the boundary between the primary and secondary environments is.

There are three scenarios:

  • Transnational networks of a national insurgency
  • Insurgency as part of a regional revolution
  • Transnational insurgency

In the first case, FARC would count with militants in several countries but they would exist in function of the Colombian internal conflict. Even when certain operative functions extend to other countries, the objective would still be action in Colombia. There would be no regional common agenda, and alliances with other organizations would express solidarity but not a shared objective.

In the second situation, FARC would be part of a wider continental uprising in which several actors, movements, organizations and rebel groups pursue the same objective. FARC would not be alone in its struggle neither would Colombia be the only theatre of confrontation. Bolivarian governments, extremist parties, movements, and armed rebels would come together in a single borderless effort to implement political systems according to their ideals. This hypothesis has been considered within official and academic circles. It is popular through the Latin American right, and it was common in Colombia during the Uribe administration. The Sao Paulo Forum is seen as the space where such efforts are coordinated

In the third case, FARC would constitute a transnational or regional revolutionary army by itself. There would be connections and alliances with other actors but they would be either local agents, operating in a national scenario, or actors pursuing a different regional agenda. In a similar way to the second scenario, the objective of the organization would not be explained exclusively through the logic of the Colombian conflict, but through wider dynamics in the region. This means that FARC would also target other governments opposed to its revolutionary cause.

It is here demonstrated that by the end of the Uribe administration, FARC remained as a national insurgency with transnational structures. Although its objectives remained purely national in terms of fighting the Colombian state and not others in the region, their operations have expanded according to the spread of its military, criminal and political networks. This expansion has given FARC the opportunity to survive and re-emerge, even when its objectives remain primarily national.

the paths for survival and re-emergence of the insurgency would be evident since the environment would provide all of the necessary elements for this to happen. FARC would be waging the same war with other regional actors; and Colombia, the main US ally in the region, would be the common enemy and the strongest obstacle for the FSP regional agenda. The relation between the system (FARC) and its environment (the region) would be stronger, meaning that as an opened system the line that separates them would be very diffuse. Given the strong interaction and cooperation with all sorts of regional actors, it would be difficult to determine which elements actually belong to the insurgency.

If counterinsurgency operations in Colombia destroyed FARC, or reduced it to its minimum expression, it would be coherent to believe that such actors would provide all possible support for militants in their countries to re-engage with the struggle against the Colombian state.

 

The real scenario: node preservation

Evidence demonstrates that the ‘regional revolution’ scenario was not real, and in that sense the preservation of nodes depended on each of the variables introduced in the last chapter, for each of the types of nodes (political, military or criminal).

Secretive nodes, given their obvious lack of open interaction with the environment would be unaffected by the type of scenario. They would continue performing their functions, mainly criminal and logistical, in each of the countries where they were embedded. Finally, as it has already been stated, sympathy from individuals was an insufficient variable for the insurgency to place operatives through the secondary environment. As such, it was only valuable when it was expressed through other variables like the existence of empty spaces or the formation of social or political organizations.

Government support

Observing all leftist Latin American governments through the FSP lens is inaccurate. There are notorious differences, interest and priorities among them. To make just a basic distinction, which is not sufficient to explore differences in depth, there were at least two main tendencies: centre-left or social democracies and radicals and Bolivarianists.

 

Incompatibility between them was so evident that it was necessary for more radical governments to recur to smaller and more ideologically-sound coordination spaces. This is how the Alternativa Bolivariana para las Americas-ALBA emerged. It brought together the governments of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua. In similar terms, it could also be argued that FARC’s creation of the MCB served as an alternative to a very wide and inclusive FSP. Furthermore, spaces such as the South American Union of Nations (UNASUR) which emerged as an idea of leftist governments, proved to be more effective in advancing regional agendas than the FSP itself.

Radical governments, as it was observed in the last chapter, were more instrumental for the placement of militants. Other leaders as Lula, Bachelet or Vasquez lacked an authentic ideological connection with FARC.

As Commander Castro Soteldo explained “we all have different interpretations of what Bolivarianism is. We have different interpretations of Bolivar, different visions, and different ways to drive our struggle. Not everyone wages war.”86 This is evident from the ambivalence that both Chavez and Correa demonstrated in its relation with FARC. During some periods they seemed to be more collaborative with the insurgency, while in others they were more confrontational, depending on what they were gaining from the relation. In the end, personal interests more than a common political or ideological vision of the region defined their relations:

“Chavez’s commitment to FARC has proved fragile for two reasons. Firstly, despite the overall strategic convergence, there is no firm ideological bond between FARC and Chavez, whose idosincratic and pragmatic approach to political problems has been perceived as incoherent and even alien to FARC. Secondly, the balance of power between Chavez and FARC has always been markedly unequal, with Chavez the stronger party. As a result, the president has not hesitated over the years to go back on promises made to the group, to distance himself from it, or even to harm its interests in Venezuela in pursuit of economic or political expediency.” (International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2011, p.56).

There are situations in which an alliance with FARC could be seen as counterproductive to Venezuela’s interests.

What becomes relevant for the present analysis is that under Chavez’s government the insurgency found the appropriate conditions for the expansion of its networks, transforming Venezuela into a space for the development of insurgency clusters and for the protection of hubs.

Two security analysts interviewed in Caracas were very clear in their coinciding opinion: ‘Venezuela had become FARC’s country’.

Political and Social Movements

Connections with political and social movements also demonstrate how the idea of a regional revolution scenario is unreal, but also how they are more meaningful for the preservation of FARC’s operatives. Field research conducted in Chile and Peru demonstrates that such connections do not constitute general strategic alliances on the long term given the disparity in their objectives. However, this does not imply that they do not contribute to the preservation of nodes in their countries.

In a personal interview with Manuel Castillo, Secretary of the Partido Comunista Peruano, he explained that the struggle of Communists and Bolivarians in Latin America was more a series of unbound national or local struggles with coincidences through the nations, than a single fight through the entire continent. In his words, “it is not a process where we are constantly agreeing on our actions; it obeys to each of our realities (…) the vision of Socialism is not necessarily common.”92

They were focused on the next elections and on political negotiations to retain local and national-level seats. Objectives beyond this panorama, he believed, are simply too idealistic.

Dialogues could have been produced in several countries, in order to listen to insurgency representatives. But this does not imply the establishment of long-term alliances or even processes of cooperation between agents. On the other hand, sectors or individuals within the organization, as opposed to the organization as a whole, could actually feel a stronger sympathy for the insurgents and they could have engaged on a more permanent interaction.

In sum, FARC’s political nodes were present, active and performing their tasks through connections with specific members of diverse political and social movements, and through the MCB. Although mainstream communist parties were affiliated to this Movement, smaller and more radical social and political groups were more likely to be closer to FARC’s operatives. They provided spaces such as academic forums, public conferences, political meetings, or street demonstrations, where FARC’s discourse could be spread in order to gather support and increase its legitimacy. Through these actions FARC could have won the sympathy of other individuals who would, in return, join the MCB or organize more support groups.

Alliances with Armed Actors

The idea of a unified South American grand people’s army, a ‘Bolivarian Liberation Front’, is also remote. Tirofijo set as an objective of the international campaign to “create a grand revolutionary army in the Americas with mass support to overthrow the capitalist system and implement socialism.”106 But by the end of 2010 this objective was farfetched. Although there were connections with several rebel groups through the continent, such as the EPP in Paraguay, MRTA and SL in Peru, FBL in Venezuela or Mapuche groups in Chile, the idea of a single transnational insurgent movement was still unthinkable. Most of the connections are explained more as operational alliances for the transfer of know-how than as a symbiosis of objectives and aims.

Most importantly, such alliances did not imply a long term placement of FARC’s combatants in other territories, since schemes of cooperation consisted on the temporary location of either the other group’s insurgents in Colombia, or FARC rebels in their territories.

In general terms, Chilean actors know that recurring to violence is not a positive strategy. As explained by Ivan Witker, for sociological and cultural reasons, rejection of the use of force in Chile is very high, and actors who recur to it are deemed to find more opposition than support.112 In that sense, political and social organizations would find connections to radical groups, such as FARC, more counterproductive than useful. If there were connections between members of the CAM and FARC, they were temporary and with the specific purpose of training.

Communists themselves believe that “Sendero is not a revolutionary group. If they had a programme, it was abandoned few months afterwards (…) it was dismembered into several groups which appeared to represent Sendero but were more the armed branches of drug dealers.”114Business alliances of mutual benefit between FARC and Sendero could help both groups if there are sufficient sources for the parties to make a profit, otherwise competition more than cooperation, could be the rule, as it happens in the West of Venezuela.

In general terms, then, marginality expresses the condition of FARC’s nodes both in other societies and through the region. Communists and other radical movements are not precisely the most popular tendencies in each of the countries (except for Venezuela). But insurgency nodes exist in conditions of even more marginality since their supporters are members or sectors within these parties, and at best, smaller and more marginal social organizations. In that sense, the emergence of a mass movement through the Americas was farfetched. But marginality, as it has been said, is not equivalent to non-existence, and threats to security could come from a marginal organization. Insurgencies, by definition, begin as a marginal phenomenon. FARC within Colombia is a fringe organization in terms of national popular support, and yet it was the most pressing issue in the national security agenda.

Empty Spaces

What we observe in an empty space is a process of co-evolution between the system and its environment.

She explained how units of the Venezuelan Military Forces “used its entire operative arsenal, including the suspension of border operations, to help FARC avoid Army action through a command chain that went all the way up to Miraflores.”

It is important to note that FARC’s presence and actions in Venezuela were extending further beyond the border with Colombia to inner states like Barinas, Guanare and Carabobo, and even to main cities where they built political networks and engaged in businesses.123 “There were cells in Barquisimeto, the Centre-West, and Barinas”124. The Venezuelan journalist who was interviewed mentioned the case of a shelter of FARC in the mountains of Yaracui, in Central-North Venezuela. She mentioned the training of militias, mainly for extortion and kidnapping, in an area extending from Carabobo to Central Venezuela.

The militias were yet another actor through which FARC could extend its influence in the country. In the opinion of Indira de Peña, militias are the “people in arms”. She calculates about 80,000 to 120,000 militia members who would supposedly be under FARC command in the event of an attack.126 It was learned that a high military commander ordered a governor of the state of Amazonas to organize a group of peasants and militants to be trained by the Army, FARC and the ELN.

As described by Roberto Giusti, “many NGO’s, cooperative social organizations, and criminal structures, emerged associated to FARC.”

Strong connections with political parties, businessman, social organizations and political figures is why, it has been argued, that even in the absence of a single regional revolution, the Venezuelan space had become not only the most important element for the clustering of combatants beyond borders, but the base for the reconstitution of insurgency networks. As Indira de Peña explains, “If FARC needs to be re-organized here they can find all they need.”

The re-emergence of a commercial insurgency

As it was demonstrated, by the end of 2010 FARC continued to be a national insurgency in terms of its position within the region. It was still fighting against the Colombian state and not to implement a revolutionary system through South America. However, in terms of its operations (military, political and criminal), it was becoming more transnational. The expansion of its networks created a window of opportunity for the insurgency to survive creating a serious challenge to the Colombian counterinsurgent.

Network theory, introduced in the first chapter, explains that networks do not collapse when a considerable number of nodes are disabled, or even when several of its hubs are destroyed. It was mathematically proven that about 5% to 15% of its hubs would have to be de-activated simultaneously for its destruction, but this is precisely what protection of nodes and hubs beyond borders prevents.

re-emergence occurs when dispersed nodes come together with some sort of organizational logic to re-engage with the three dimensions and to return to the primary theatre of operations.

As network theory suggests, networks are not static structures but evolving entities in constant change according to the conditions of its nodes and the influx of elements from the environment. Complexity tells us that systems are in a co-evolution process with the environment, meaning that the latter creates conditions that affect the system, stimulating change. In the case of FARC, the environment does not only create opportunities for the organization to place insurgents in other countries, it also allows a series of conditions that permit the flexibility, redundancy and adaptability of its networks.

Whereas Colombia was the base for aerial transportation of cocaine for decades, Venezuela became the new space from where almost all cocaine was flown into other destinations. The air traces presented in Appendix 8 describe the evolution of trafficking routes. The state of Apure in Venezuela, more than any location in Colombia, became the point of origin for almost all air traffic.

 

In specific terms of re-emergence, there are many possible paths depending on how the organization is being attack in Colombia, and on which elements manage to survive. It would depend on economic, political, social and strategic circumstances in the country. It can occur in one single moment, or it may happen gradually by dimensions. As in complexity, the direction of the system is undetermined and unpredictable, and presents no single path for the re-appearance of the insurgency in Colombia.

But the possibilities of re-emergence are also related to the processes of node militarization, politicization and criminalization, explained in the second chapter, through which all the dimensions of the commercial insurgency can be reconstructed. Militants focused on political activities in Colombia and other countries could suddenly become combatants. As it was observed in the fifth chapter, members of the PC3 and the MB were receiving military training, and according to an interview with a member of the PC3, they were ready to take up arms if the conditions justified it. On the other hand, a number of foreigners within the ranks demonstrate the will of non-nationals to join the organization.

Pressure was also pushing combatants towards the borders and especially to Venezuela. So the counterinsurgent did not only face the challenge of addressing the three dimensions altogether, but to confront the nodes of the three dimensions beyond Colombian borders. The state could potentially reduce FARC to the point of near-destruction within its borders, but to guarantee that the insurgency will not re-emerge it needs to implement control measures to mitigate the effects of those elements remaining in other spaces.

A potential future

It is important to consider a potential transnational scenario based on changes motivated by the implementation of Cano’s model.

It was explained in the fifth chapter that this model intended to turn the insurgency into a more urban political organization, more connected with the communities, and embedded within its society, exploiting the real grievances of marginalized or specific social sectors. International networks could become the extension of this model through other societies, allowing the organization to become a more transnational networked-complex insurgency with legitimacy and support within specific social and political sectors through the region. Such sectors would include marginalized communities, students, peasants, indigenous peoples, labour unions, political radicals, progressive organizations, communists, Marxists and extremists, possibly unified under the umbrella of Bolivarianism.

From this perspective there would be a connection between the internal and external dimensions. The line that divides internal and external institutions would become blurred; external cells and networks would be understood as extensions of national ones. The insurgency would be a grand single movement with the same kind of cells in Colombia and beyond borders; a massive set of interconnected groups performing similar functions through different social and geographical spaces. Political internal structures, the PC3 and the MB, would be articulated with support groups created by the Comintern and NBAF’s within the MCB. Furthermore, they could be understood as a single institution but with different labels. They would all be embedded through the region exploiting elements that have been discussed, in the hope of building a real mass movement.

A graphic vision of this model would be, very much as in the case of Al Qaeda, an interconnected group of individuals in a specific country motivated by the ideals of Bolivarianism and sympathetic towards FARC. They would engage in all sorts of activities in favour of the insurgency: blogging; spreading the discourse; recruiting more militants; organizing demonstrations; and using virtual spaces, such as the internet and social networks. Once again, Cano’s model is closer to the idea of a netwar, in which the political and military dimensions would overlap significantly, as combatants would be members of cells embedded within the population instead of isolated guerrillas in the jungle.

 

f commanders would observe and understand the current global social and political contexts, they would appreciate the potential that an insurgency could find in this type of models as a source of power.

 

The rise of the internet, the interest in social networks, the Arab Spring, the proliferation of student protests, and in general terms, the emergence of a wide global people’s movement with local expressions, constitute an enormous opportunity for the insurgency to become a mass political movement.Cano seemed to have recognized such importance:

“[We need to talk] to Senator Piedad [Córdoba] about the need to create a Party of the people and to look for its alliance with the Movimiento Bolivariano”

ARC is not the same now as it was before.”132 It exploits communication technologies and social networks. Its discourse spreads through different websites; political structures like the MCB and the MB are active in Facebook and YouTube; and FARC and commanders such as Hermes have twitter accounts.

Conclusion

To appropriately understand commercial insurgencies this dissertation introduced a particular narrative explaining the organization not as a monolithic entity with a single body, direction and aim, but as a system composed by individuals (nodes, in terms of network theory), which display differentiated interests and functions according to three dimensions of the organization: political, military and criminal. For this reason it was argued that commercial insurgencies display a triadic character of complementing dimensions. It is necessary to go beyond simplistic and reductionist perspectives to ‘open the box’ and discover competing and contrasting interests and functions of groups or individuals within the organization. An understanding of these entities through simplifying concepts such as ‘narcoterrorism’, terrorism, or criminality is insufficient to include all the elements at play in this type of situations.

Complexity teaches us that the system (the insurgency) and the environment are in constant interaction.

For analytical purposes the environment was studied through a categorization in which a ‘primary environment’ included the local and national levels, whereas a ‘secondary environment’ expressed the regional and global levels.

It was explained that through these elements combatants or militants who perform political, military or criminal tasks, can be embedded in the environment, through societies and territories beyond the borders of a single state. Their embedment in other social and geographical spaces depends on the type of functions they perform. In other words, not all variables are equally useful for the conduction of the three types of tasks. Some of them allow militants who perform political duties to act, but are not useful for the development of military or criminal activities. By contrast, other elements allow insurgents to conduct political, military and/or criminal duties.

Doctrines like Bolivarianism and Communism served more as a platform for the formulation of common principles for action within each state, than as the ideology of a single movement with a transnational agenda and coordinated agents throughout the region.

Traditional observations of FARC’s international dimension either underestimated the role of external elements, in the belief that they were irrelevant for the future of the organization, or overestimated them on the understanding that every agent in the Left of the Latin American political spectrum was part of a conspiracy to undermine the Colombian government.

It is interesting to observe, by contrast, that FARC had developed a political organization with secretive militants through the primary environment. The PC3, more than being an opened organization, is a political party composed of individuals performing clandestine activities where they operate. The MB is a semi-clandestine organization, so although its activities are public the identity of most of its militants is unknown. This is one of the differences between the primary and secondary environments.

whereas political organizations in host countries do not necessarily contribute directly to the embeddedness of militants who perform criminal or military tasks, their constant support and direct participation with FARC in political events, contributes to the stability of the cell. Individuals in the cell could well be establishing contacts for drug-dealing and weapons acquisition, without the knowledge or approval of members of other organizations

in terms of structure FARC was not necessarily a network, but it increasingly incorporated networked elements. As explained by netwar theorists, insurgencies are likely to be composed of a combination of hierarchies and networks; with different types of networks coexisting within the same organization. A hierarchy is strictly preserved through its military structure with centralized command and control. But increased flexibility was evident as conventional-like structures gave way to smaller, more mobile and adaptable formations. Swarming, more than frontal confrontation became a routine.

the evolution of counterinsurgency theory introduced in the third chapter explains the emphasis that should be placed on state actions. It is clear that military action alone is not effective itself. A focus on the population, more than on the destruction of the rebels, is more successful.

In the end, the solution is to build state institutions in those areas where their historical absence has allowed a parallel authority to appear.

Political networks had been the most difficult to confront. Their actions fluctuated between the liberty of expressing ideas in free-speech democratic societies, and the illegality of cooperating with violent armed agents. In judicial terms it will always be difficult to prosecute individuals based on their political beliefs or their association with a political organization, if there is no proven connection with an armed actor.

As counterinsurgency history demonstrates, repression of political thoughts is not only inconsistent with the principles of a democratic state; it has also been counterproductive, generally providing more justifications for the insurgency. Intelligence, more than force, becomes strategic when it comes to discovering and dismantling clandestine networks. Infiltration, penetration, and information operations are more valuable in this sense.

Targeting the general population through psychological operations aimed to delegitimize the insurgency is practically unnecessary. The lack of support of FARC at the national level makes it difficult to believe that Colombians are willing to join the insurgency en masse. But on the local level, and through marginalized social sectors which the insurgency is expected to exploit, information operations could be used in order to avoid an increase in recruiting for the insurgent’s political networks. This should not be done through indoctrination, but by raising awareness about the risks of becoming part of organizations associated with the insurgency, and the importance of acting through institutions which act fully within the law.

But political structures have a particular value. In democracies, insurgencies are illegal because they recur to violence, not because they display certain type of ideals or pursue particular political goals. The counterinsurgent could then stimulate process to strengthen the insurgency’s political dimension if that derives into the weakening of its military dimension. In other words, it could motivate insurgents to leave their weapons and to conduct their struggle through political parties. Counterinsurgency, once again, is not necessarily about physically destroying the enemy, but about finding a balance between different sorts of measures that will produce the end of violence.

The idea that ‘it takes a network to defeat a network’ could be understood as the need to include a wider range of actors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Data from Black Flags and Social Movements: A Sociological Analysis of Movement Anarchism

Black Flags and Social Movements: A Sociological Analysis of Movement Anarchism by Dana M. Williams covers transnational Anarchist organizations.

A little less empirical than I was hoping, the book still does provide some worthy information.

ABBREVIATIONS

AFA Anti-Fascist Action
AFO anarchistic franchise organization
ALF Animal Liberation Front
APOC Anarchist People of Color
ARA Anti-Racist Action
ASN Anarchist Studies Network
ATTAC Association pour la Taxation des Transactions financières et pour l’Action Citoyenne
AYP Anarchist Yellow Pages
BAS “Big Anarchist Survey”
BBB Biotic Baking Brigade
CIRCA Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army
CM critical mass
CNT Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
CW Catholic Worker
DIY do it yourself
EF! Earth First!
ELF Earth Liberation Front
FAI Federación Anarquista Ibérica
FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation
FNB Food Not Bombs
G8 Group of 8
HDI Human Development Index
HNJ Homes Not Jails
IBL International Blacklist
IMC Independent Media Center
IMF International Monetary Fund
IWA International Workers’ Association
IWPA International Working People’s Association
IWW Industrial Workers of the World
NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NAASN North American Anarchist Studies Network
NEFAC Northeastern Federation of Anarchist Communists NGO non-governmental organization
NSM new social movement
NYT New York Times
PO political opportunity
POUM Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista
RABL Revolutionary Anarchist Bowling League
RMT resource mobilization theory
SM social movement
SMO social movement organization
WOMBLES White Overalls Movement Building Libertarian EffectiveStruggles
WS world-system
WUNC worthiness, unity, numbers, commitment WVS World Values Survey

 

 

Review of Occupying Wall Street: The Inside Story of an Action that Changed America

According to the book blurb “Occupying Wall Street draws on extensive interviews with those who took part in the action to bring an authentic, inside-the-square history to life. In these pages you will discover in rich detail how the protest was devised and planned, how its daily needs were met, and how it won overwhelming support across the nation.” – which I think is funny as OWS certainly did not win overwhelming support across the nation. Did it eventually attract media interest after a number of events designed to get attention – like the fake news about Radiohead performing? Yes certainly, but there was never any great support for a new revolutionary lead by communists, anarcho-crust-punks, disaffected professors who felt the world ought to listen to their unique contributions to understanding the world and narcissistic artists and poets.

The book isn’t terribly written, though the Biblical saying here about the need to remove the beam in one’s eye before casting out the splinter in one’s brother is appropriate.

The absurdity of the premise – a call for a leaderless politics of revolution without demands, which is an open invitation for subverstion – is never questioned in opposition to simply becoming more active in the existent political project. That was my response when I was first approached by a New School student several months before the Occupation of Zuccotti Park.  I’m pretty sure my response was, “If I wanted to go camping, it’d be in the woods and if I wanted to change politics, I’d get involved in elections and policy-making.”

There are multiple admissions that the anti-capitalist seed society that the occupation camps was meant to be were riddled with problems such as theft, assault, inability to organize hygene and food and the organization being completely dependent on donations and grants to function as no one there was employed in any sort of productive activity. The encampment attracted people with mental disorders that non-professional volunteers tried to assist, but couldn’t, etc..

I’ll not keep heaping contempt on these people so deserving of it but instead share the names I’ve been collecting from OWS literature to determine if they were involved with the World Social Forum or it’s offshoots.

Occupiers 

Amy Roberts
Marina Sitrin – Professor at City University of New York
Matt Presto
Justin Wedes
Brennan Cavanaugh
Mandy
Imani J Brown – Open Society Foundation
Christy Thorton – NYU graduate student
Anthony Whitehurst – Med Mob
Charlie Gonzalez – Consciousness Group
Michael Rodriguez
Brendan Butler
Fateh Singh
Lisa Montanarelli
Adreanna Limbach
John Paul Learn
Rebeka Beiber
Pauly Kostora
Breanna Lembitz
Ed Mortimer
Frank White
Lily Johnson
Miriam Rocek
Jesse Jackson
Maria Fehling
Mesiah Bruciaga-Hameed
Betsy Fagin
Maida Rosenstein
Benjamin Shepard
Amina Malika
Kat Mahaney
Alex Gomez-del-Moral
Daniel Levine
William Scott – Professor of English at the University of Pittsburg
Jason Ide
Ilektra Mandragou
Rivka Little
Jez
Reg Flowers – theatre artist
Imani
Boris Nemch
Alessandra De Meo
Nani Mathews
Leo Goldberg
Kara Segal
Dan La Botz
Tara Hart
Jesse LaGreca
Natasha Lennard
Caitlin Curran
Kirby Desmarais
Hermes – from Mobile, Alabama
Bill Scott
Josh Frens-String – NYU Historian
Julian Tysh
Betsy Fagin
Mandy Henk
Zachary Loeb
Daniel Levine
Heather Squire
Emily Curtis-Murphy
Erin Littlestar
Many Henk – from Greencastle, Indiana
William Scott
Angela Davis
Janos Marton
Mark Bray
Jason Ahmadi
DiceyTroop – from Foxboro, Massachusetts

Foreigners
Senia Barragan – Colombian
Patricia – A Chilean woman
Alexandre de Carbalho – A Brazilian from Rio de Janiero
Jaco – from Toronto

Groups
National Lawyers Guild
Occupy the Hood
Occupy 477
Movement for Justice in El Barrio
Audre Lorde Project
Poetry Guild

181st St Community Garden
beautificationproject.blogspot.com
212-543-9017
880 West 181st Street, #4B
New York, NY 10033

Ali Forney Center
www.aliforneycenter.org
212-222-3427
224 W. 35th St. Suite 1102
New York, NY 10001

ALIGN – the Alliance for a Greater New York
alignny.org
contact@alignny.org
212-631-0886
50 Broadway, 29th Floor, New York, NY 10004

ANSWER Coalition
answercoalition.org
nyc@internationalanswer.org
212-694-8720
2295 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd., New York, NY 10030

Asian American Arts Centre
http://www.artspiral.org/

CAAAV
caav.org

Campaign to End the Death Penalty
www.nodeathpenalty.org

Campaign to End the New Jim Crow
endnewjimcrow.com

Center for Immigrant Families
212-531-3011
20 W 104th St
New York, NY 10025

Coalition for the Homeless
coalitionforthehomeless.org
info@cfthomeless.org
212-776-2000
129 Fulton Street, New York, NY 10038

Code Pink
codepinkalert.org
info@codepinkalert.org
310-827-4320

Community Voices Heard
cvhaction.org

Families for Freedom
familiesforfreedom.org
info@familiesforfreedom.org
3 West 29th St, #1030, New York, NY 10001
646 290 5551

FIERCE
www.fiercenyc.org
147 West 24th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10011
646-336-6789

Fort Greene SNAP
fortgreenesnap.org

FUREE
furee.org
718-852-2960
81 Willoughby Street, 701, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Green Chimneys
www.greenchimneys.org
718-732-1501
79 Alexander Ave – 42A, Bronx, NY 10454

GOLES
info@goles.org
169 Avenue B, New York, NY 10009
212-358-1231”

Guide to New York City Women’s and Social Justice Organizations
bcrw.barnard.edu/guide

Immigrant Movement International
immigrant-movement.us
united@immigrant-movement.us
108-59 Roosevelt Avenue, Queens, NY 11368 USA

Industrial Workers of the World
iww.org/en
wobblycity.wordpress.com

International Socialist Organization
internationalsocialist.org
contact@internationalsocialist.org
773-583-5069
ISO National Office P.O. Box 16085 Chicago, IL 60616

Iraq Veterans Against the War
www.ivaw.org/new-york-city
646-723-0989
P.O. Box 3565 New York, NY 10008-3565

La Union
la-union.org
Labor community forum
laborcommunityforum@gmail.com

Make the Road
maketheroadny.org
Bushwick, Brooklyn: 301 Grove Street Brooklyn, New York 11237
718-418-7690
Jackson Heights, Queens: 92-10 Roosevelt Avenue,
Jackson Heights, New York 11372
718-565-8500
Port Richmond, Staten Island:479 Port Richmond Avenue,
Staten Island, New York 10302
718-727-1222

Malcom X Grassroots Movement
mxgm.org
718-254-8800
PO BOX 471711 Brooklyn, NY 11247”

Marriage Equality NY (MENY)
www.meny.us

Mirabal Sisters Community and Cultural Center
Mirabalcenter.org
info@mirabalcenter.org
212-234-3002

National Lawyers Guild
www.nlg.org
nlgnyc.org
212-679-5100
132 Nassau Street, Rm. 922, New York, NY 10038

New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCORE)
nycore.org

New York Students Rising
nystudentsrising.org

NMASS
nmass.org
nmass@nmass.org

No Gas Pipeline
nogaspipeline.org
nogaspipeline@gmail.com
235 3rd Street, Jersey City, NJ 07302

Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition
northwestbronx.org
718-584-0515
103 East 196th Street Bronx, NY 10468

NYU4OWS
nyu4ows.tumblr.com

Occupy the DOE
nycore.org/occupy-the-doe/

Occupy Equality NY
www.facebook.com/groups/OccupyEqualityNY/

Occupy Wall Street
www.occupywallst.org/
General Inquiries: general@occupywallst.org
+1 (516) 708-4777

Organizing for Occupation
www.o4onyc.org

Parent Occupy Wall St
parents@everythingindependent.com

Parents for Occupy Wall Street
parentsforoccupywallst.com

Picture the Homeless
picturethehomeless.org
info@picturethehomeless.org

Queer Rising
QueerRising.org
queerrising@gmail.com
917-520-8554

Queerocracy
www.queerocracy.org
contact@queerocracy.org

Shut Down Indian Point Now
shutdownindianpointnow.org

Speak Up HP
speakuphp.org
info@speakuphp.org

Strong Economy for All Coalition
strongforall.org/coalition

Students United for a Free CUNY
studentsunitedforafreecuny.wordpress.com

 

I haven’t yet started cross-referencing all of the people listed above, but as  Imani J. Brown has a uniqiue name I looked her up. There I found that she is not just an Occupier, but also a Open Society Foundations fellow and that the Arts Incubator called Antenna that she is the Director of – which looks super cool and has some interesting community events – also works with other Open Society Fellows, like Dread Scott. Below is a clip from his community-engaged performance art project titled Slave Rebellion Reenactment, reinterpreting Louisiana’s German Coast Uprising of 1811—the largest rebellion of enslaved people in U.S. history.

 

 

Quotes from “Their Morals and Ours” by Leon Trotsky

I first read Their Morals and Ours by Leon Trotsky after buying the Pathfinder Press edition at the Miami chapter of the Socialist Workers Party in 2005. I’d started to gain an interest in Trotskyist politics, and the Communist movement that year as I’d grown disillusioned with what I saw as the lifestylism of the modern anti-globalization movement. At my invitation, Alyson Kennedy, the 2016 Socialist Workers Party Presidential candidate, visited the school that I worked at in 2008, when she was then the Vice-Presidential candidate. After she left the students shared that they thought her calls for class struggle and revolution were weird and they, a group whose family originated in a number of different places in the Caribbean and Latin America, openly questioned her sanity and my judgement for having her come speak to them.

Given that the Socialist Workers Party has recently chosen Manuel Castells to be a functionary in the coalition government, that he’s recently attended Oxford University to give some lectures, and that the Director of the Oxford Internet Institute – Dr. Philip N. Howard – has wrote a book praising Castells I thought it sensible to highlight some quotes of Trotsky’s – who founded the Socialist Workers Party – related to his advocacy of deception and lying in pursuit of revolution.