Center for a New American Security

The close relationship between crime and terrorist activities is well-documented. Criminal ventures have long financed organized violence against nation states. As globalization facilitates the increased flow of people, capital, and information, we see a concomitant increase in these activities in the Western Hemisphere. Although the region is often downplayed in the American foreign policy discourse, its importance to the U.S. economy and national security interests has grown in recent years.

This CNAS project examines the intersection of crime and extremism in the western hemisphere. The problem has many forms. Mounting death tolls from the drug wars threaten the stability of entire regions of Mexico and the U.S.-Mexican border. Gangs of increasing sophistication have linked up with larger drug trafficking organizations and have established a significant presence within U.S. borders. Farther south, criminal paramilitarism is rampant, in some occasions with state sponsorship. For one, organized crime has flourished in Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez’s active opposition to U.S. policy and close relationship with Iran underscore the potential for state support of narco-extremist groups. All of these trends are linked by actors’ reliance on the same criminal channels, opportunistic relationships, and violent means of coercion. Although the narcotics trade undergirds these relationships, the problem extends beyond it.

Few studies have considered these trends holistically and strategically. This project’s goal is to: substantiate the linkages between them; determine when they ‘cross over’ into threats to U.S. national security; outline possible future scenarios; and articulate a U.S. policy response. Given the complexity of the threats, a comprehensive strategy with both domestic and foreign policy components is needed. To that end, this project will consist of investigations, reports and conferences held throughout 2010.