Gangland killings: Violent nonstate actors and naive policies are destabilizing the globe

The flood of rising global volatility is illustrated by a constant flow of information headlines, from the emergence of gang- and gang violence in Mexico and South America to the battle in Gaza and persistent Houthi rebel attacks on international shipping. &nbsp,

Global volatility is undoubtedly increasing. Among the primary culprits are legal organizations and different aggressive nonstate actors. In much of the world, bands and violent organizations are resurrected, causing extremism and even decline, both in previously secure nations and in countries with long-standing security issues. &nbsp,

Transnational criminal organizations control illegal industries that total outnumber most German economies, with a tally of tens of thousands spread across the globe. The global illegal&nbsp, drug trade alone represents upward of$ 650 billion a year in illicit value, while human trafficking is estimated at over$ 150 billion. With this profit, numerous violent nonstate actors and legal organizations have been able to drastically increase, equipping themselves with weapons and systems that are both superior to most police forces and can rival a well-resourced military. &nbsp,  

Gangs and organized crime have a history of a risk. Yet factors like their funding by corrupt authorities and rogue totalitarian states are not fascinating developments. The visible wave of worldwide instability is therefore being driven by what? Of course, countries across the world all have their own unique perspective, and some experience significantly unique challenges when it comes to aggressive nonstate actors.

However, there are also some important, common causes that account for the new wave of violent nonstate actors. A mix of policy judgments, a changing and more interconnected world setting, and the beginning of uncontrolled migration crises are empowering aggressive nonstate actors and driving a new time of crisis. Policymakers in the United States and around the world must recommit to upholding the rule of law and responding to criminal threats in order to regain control.

Policy choices: From enforcement to enabling&nbsp,

A fundamental change in how many governments approach criminality is one of the main causes of the growth of organized crime. In the recent past, tough-on-crime policies that favored proactive enforcement against everything from street crime to cartel drug trafficking were the norm. However, governments around the world are increasingly giving up on these policies due to a combination of ideological, misguided, and even corrupt motives.

Progressive activists, academics, and politicians in the West and beyond have long pushed an effort to change policing and security policy radically, often attacking the legitimacy of police, counternarcotic initiatives, and the so-called war on drugs. Instead, they urge the government to address organized crime as a fundamental issue requiring the delivery of economic and humanitarian aid. In large part, many nations are now seeing the consequences of the success of these advocates as governments enact policies that de-emphasize law enforcement and imprisonment and dismantle the international counternarcotic consensus.

Most people are aware of this effort’s most recent manifestation in the United States, where progressive prosecutors and legislators have reduced police force funding, changed bail laws, and even sentencing violent criminals to lesser terms. &nbsp, However, similar approaches and policies have also become increasingly prominent abroad, including in countries that face far more dire criminal threats. &nbsp,

In Colombia, the world’s top producer of cocaine, far-left President Gustavo Petro has called for ending the so-called drug war and implemented an aid-centric approach to combating cocaine production and trafficking. Petro has also severely restricted Colombia’s military’s offensive against the country’s potent narco-terrorist guerrillas.

In Mexico, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, another critic of the “war on drugs”, has pursued a “hugs, not bullets” approach to the country’s drug cartels over the last six years. This largely pointless strategy relies on a country’s increasing social spending, limiting military engagements with the cartels, and actively destroying U.S. Mexico’s security cooperation.

Certainly, there are also nonideological motivations behind many governments’ shift away from enforcement and confronting criminal threats. Lopez Obrador has intensified its opposition to conventional counternarcotics efforts, but this transition began under Enrique Pea Nieto, who had already made a significant change to Mexico’s security strategy by de-emphasizing its opposition to drug cartels. Notably, Peña Nieto’s minister of defense was arrested by U. S. law enforcement in October 2020 for taking money from drug cartels in exchange for aiding their narcotics trafficking operations. &nbsp,  

This dynamic has also accelerated the outgrowth of violence and instability outside of Latin America. According to the Global Organized Crime Index, South Africa has seen some of the world’s most rapid increases in crime in recent years. There, rampant corruption by officials has enabled a collaborative relationship between the state and criminal gangs. Therefore, the government of South Africa does n’t even attempt to properly fund its security forces. Perhaps this is n’t a coincidence. &nbsp,

These dynamics and policies, in essence, are grounded in the opineal idea that organized crime cannot be stopped through law enforcement and the rule of law, and that it needs to be managed and, where possible, contained. &nbsp,

Of course, governments who adopt this viewpoint are constantly forced to enlarge the acceptable boundaries of containment as violent nonstate actors and criminal groups gain popularity thanks to their permissive policies. And eventually, this leads to chaos, as exhibited in the case of Haiti, where a deeply corrupt government has collapsed under the onslaught of drug trafficking gangs. In many ways, Israel is now dealing with the repercussions of its leaders ‘ flawed assumption that the threat of Hamas could be contained and managed, despite not being motivated by corruption or progressive ideology. &nbsp,

Regardless of the motivation, policy choices that ignore these threats are responsible for the crises that these and other nations are currently facing. The results have been predictably disastrous. Political initiatives like bail reform in the United States helped to stem the wave of violent street crimes in major cities and even helped to set up organized retail theft networks throughout the nation.

Drug cartels in Mexico are more powerful than ever and continue to push homicides and violence in Mexico to record high levels while driving over 100, 000 drug overdose deaths in the U. S. each year. Coca production is rising in Colombia, and narco-guerrillas have stepped up their territorial control, increasing the country’s level of violence. &nbsp,

The fact that these policies have consequences outside of the countries where they are implemented is one of their most perverse aspects. Instead, criminal groups and violent nonstate actors that once had to contend with security forces now are free to grow and expand to new territory. &nbsp,

Colombian guerrilla groups and Mexican cartels have rapidly expanded their presence in Ecuador, bringing a dramatic wave of narco-violence to what was recently one of the safest countries in the Americas. The expansion of organized crime in Myanmar has also spread to neighboring Asian nations, where police forces in previously low-crime countries are now struggling to reassert control. &nbsp,  

bucking the pattern

As gangs and criminal organizations gain strength in much of the world thanks to permissive government policies, the prospect of reversing course and confronting these illicit groups becomes even more daunting for leaders. However, there are some nations that have accomplished just that and made notable progress in battling the threat of organized crime, in large part due to their defiance of the international trend of undermining security forces. &nbsp,  

The most obvious illustration is probably the one in El Salvador, where Nayib Bukele’s government has made dramatic, once-unthinkable gains in opposition to the violent gangs that once terrorized the nation. In 2015, El Salvador had the unfortunate distinction of being the most violent nation in the world as gangs such as MS-13 operated with impunity. &nbsp,

In 2022, the Bukele government launched a major offensive against El Salvador’s gangs, embracing the so-called La Mano Dura or tough-on-crime policies that many progressives have sought to delegitimize globally. In addition to the empowerment and aggressive deployment of police and military forces, a significant initiative to double the size of the military, and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of gang members in a new maximum-security prison, Bucele’s strategy has included the empowering and aggressive deployment of military and police forces.

The impact has been dramatic. Two years after El Salvador began its crackdown on gangs, the nation has changed from the world’s leading city to the safest in the Western Hemisphere, after only Canada. In the whole of 2023, El Salvador saw fewer than 150 murders, a number that a decade earlier was surpassed in the space of less than a week.

Of course, now the activists and analysts who were arguing five years ago that such measures could n’t provide security and stability in El Salvador are frantically creating arguments for why such tough-on-crime measures can only be implemented in El Salvador and should n’t be implemented elsewhere. Unsurprisingly, these latest warnings have little credibility, and leaders from around the world are seeking to learn from El Salvador’s success. &nbsp,

The success of rule of law-centered security strategies and so-called tough-on-crime policies is not limited to El Salvador. Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro used an aggressive strategy to combat the country’s violent drug trafficking gangs while encouraging private gun ownership. Critics lambasted Bolsonaro’s strategy. However, its implementation saw Brazil’s homicide rate fall to a 15-year low as other nations experienced a post-pandemic spike in violence by 2022.

During the early 2000s in Colombia, then-President Alvaro Uribe succeeded against another very different threat with his “democratic security” strategy. Uribe broke with his predecessors and launched an aggressive military operation against Colombia’s narco-guerrillas, who had taken control of a third of Colombia’s municipalities. Uribe’s aggressive policies delivered dramatic gains against these violent groups and brought Colombia back from the brink of failed-state status. &nbsp,

US pulls back

It was n’t long ago that foreign countries turned to the United States for assistance and guidance on how to deal with security issues like transnational organized crime. Indeed, a key factor behind the success of Uribe’s security policy in Colombia was robust U. S. support, including the provision of military training, equipment, and intelligence. &nbsp,  

The U. S. has long played a critical role in supporting partner countries through security cooperation as well as pressing less proactive governments to confront shared security threats, such as violent drug trafficking gangs. This role is required because transnational efforts are necessary to combat a large amount of the transnational organized crime that threatens to destabilize the United States.

However, one reason that many foreign governments have pulled back on confronting criminal threats is that the U. S. has increasingly shied away from advocating and supporting such efforts. &nbsp,

Instead, the Biden administration’s foreign policy seems to have internalized an unfavorable view of U. S. security cooperation, particularly on counternarcotics. In consequence, the Biden administration has significantly decreased the importance of security, which was once a top priority in diplomatic relations. International security cooperation, training, and engagement by the State Department and U. S. military countries have been increasingly blunted and watered down by everything from climate change advocacy to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The Biden administration has also abandoned the crucial role that the United States plays as a conduit for international leaders ‘ pressure and accountability. Rather than pressing complacent and corrupt governments abroad to combat transnational drug traffickers and violent gangs, the Biden administration has actively avoided confrontation with such foreign leaders and refused to utilize the substantial economic and political leverage that the U. S. possesses abroad. &nbsp,  

Rather than push back on the Petro government’s efforts to blunt Colombia’s security forces and abandon the country’s historic commitments to combating drug trafficking, the Biden administration has given silent consent to Petro’s actions, prioritizing instead engagement on areas such as climate change. In fact, the Biden administration even stopped South American coca crops ‘ surveillance on U.S. satellites because of the explosive growth in cocaine production and trade.

Similarly, the Biden administration has acted as little more than a passive observer as Mexico has dismantled security cooperation with the U. S. even as cartels accelerate the flow of deadly fentanyl to the country.

The Biden administration tries to play catch-up when a security crisis gets to the point where it cannot be ignored. In the recent responses to surging instability in Haiti and Ecuador, the response of the U. S. has been marred by a lack of serious planning, causing embarrassing and costly missteps. &nbsp,

Technology and globalized criminal networks

Beyond the poor policy choices that govern how governments respond to the threat of gangs and other violent nonstate actors, there are also changing global realities that are influencing the growth and expansion of criminal organizations. &nbsp,

Criminal organizations and their illicit networks are becoming more globalized and interconnected than ever, despite the decline in effective security cooperation between governments. With encrypted messenger apps, cryptocurrencies, new financial technologies, and even drones and artificial intelligence, criminal groups around the world are rapid adopters of new technologies and leverage them to facilitate and expand their reach and illicit networks. &nbsp,

The acceleration of global connectivity through trade, technology, and communication has also brought about an increasingly globalized organized crime threat. Worldwide criminal organizations and violent nonstate actors have long formed illicit partnerships.

Chinese triads use encrypted messaging technology and cryptocurrencies to sell fentanyl precursor chemicals to Mexican drug cartels. Organizational retail theft rings spread throughout the United States collaborate with Mexican cartels and other South American gangs to relocate and profit from stolen goods. Brazilian drug trafficking gangs have gone beyond establishing trafficking partnerships with criminal groups in Europe and Africa to actually expanding and recruiting members at a large scale in countries such as Portugal. In South America’s tri-border region, Lebanese Hezbollah has a strong foothold in illegal drug trafficking and money laundering activities to generate important revenue. &nbsp,

With the development of technology and expanding internationally, transnational criminal organizations ‘ world is rapidly becoming smaller and easier to reach, while at the same time increasing their strength and resilience.

Migration crises

Mass, uncontrolled migration is also unquestionably expanding the scope of criminal activity, and it is increasingly outpacing globalization’s impact. &nbsp,

At the U.S. Mexico border, there were a staggering 2.5 million migrant encounters in fiscal 2023. In Europe, migrants and refugees continue to arrive at dramatic levels. Under 10 % of the global population of refugees lived in the European Union in its 27 states in 2021. By 2022, the EU’s share surged above 20 % with the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and continued arrivals from Africa and the Middle East. Nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled their home country as of the end of 2023, which is consistent with the migration of migrants to the United States and across the Western Hemisphere.

These migration crises and policy choices around migration have left many countries without the capacity to vet migrants or otherwise exercise control over their borders. This dynamic makes it simple for criminal organizations and illicit smuggling networks to spread to and infiltrate both Europe and Latin America as well as the United States. At the same time, these uncontrolled migration crises offer an opportunity for gangs to grow by tapping into new revenue through migrant smuggling. &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp,

The rapid growth of the Tren de Aragua gang exemplifies the close linkages between migratory crises and the spread of gangs and other violent groups to new nations. Venezuela’s corrupt and lawless prison system helped Ren de Aragua grow in popularity.

With the acceleration of the Venezuelan migrant crisis, this criminal gang has now spread into the U. S. and across much of Latin America, where their members commit violent crimes and establish new networks of human smuggling, drug trafficking, retail theft, and extortion. With the arrival of this group in other countries, low-crime countries like Chile and Uruguay, whose governments are struggling to deal with the new gang threat, have also experienced a new wave of instability and criminality. Europe has seen a similar dynamic over the past several years as uncontrolled migration has seen the establishment and growth of criminal gangs from Africa and the Middle East. &nbsp,

These new criminal footholds secured abroad empower these violent groups, making them more resilient to crackdowns in a single country and allowing them to expand into lucrative new international illicit activities. &nbsp,

In the U. S. and elsewhere, the effectively open borders driving mass migration also create a set of lucrative opportunities for criminal networks in human trafficking. Tren de Aragua and other bands are largely responsible for their skyrocketing numbers because of their ability to finance the migration crisis. The U. S. migration crisis has even brought terrorist-affiliated human smuggling networks to the Western Hemisphere from as far as Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

Forward a path

An increasingly unstable yet interconnected world will continue to accelerate the growth of organized crime and violent groups. Therefore, it is more important than ever for governments to adopt effective measures to combat organized crime and reinvigorate the rule of law. &nbsp,

Faceing these well-funded and heavily armed networks when it comes to transnational organized crime requires an aggressive, internationally coordinated effort spearheaded by security forces to secure borders and maritime routes and control uncontrolled areas. &nbsp,

Faceing the growing transnational criminal threat starts at home, according to the United States. The porous border is a major and increasingly principal driver of the growth of instability and criminality, not only in the U. S. but across the Western Hemisphere and beyond. Therefore, the United States must first implement appropriate border security policies and resources, many of which were in place under the Trump administration. The increased severity of the migratory and cartel threat also calls for more aggressive action, including ramping up of resources for border security as contemplated in H. R. 2 and the deployment of U. S. military resources and personnel to secure the border and combat these growing threats to national security.

The United States should also play a leading role in promoting border security abroad, especially close to home in the Americas, where some leaders recognize the necessity of such policies, given the growing global instability and the foreign regimes ‘ growing use of force to weaponize migration. &nbsp,

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More broadly, the U. S. should reassume its role of both pressing for and supporting such an international offensive against armed criminal groups, particularly those who threaten national and domestic security with deadly narcotics, weaponized migration, and violent crime. &nbsp,

Without a major reversal of course and concerted action along these lines, the recent images of global instability hitting the headlines will only multiply, along with their impact on the public. &nbsp,

Andrés Martínez-Fernández is the senior policy analyst for Latin America in the Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for National Security.

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