Plan Colombia: A Case for Political Warfare to Defeat Transnational Criminal Organizations in the Gray Zone - The Empty Space Between Peace and War, Avoiding Overtly Militarized Strategy

This report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. Transnational criminal organizations pose a threat to U.S. national security as well as the security of the global commons. Their activities lead to the corruption of government actors, erosion of human security, and the disruption of globalization. Transnational criminal organizations are able to operate with impunity because their actions reside in what is deemed the gray zone; the empty space between peace and war. Unfortunately, state institutions have historically attempted to combat transnational criminal organizations with an overtly militarized strategy which has typically exacerbated the situation, thereby allowing these organizations to prosper. Plan Colombia, and its subsequent initiatives, demonstrates that a measured military response guided by the tenets of Political Warfare can defeat transnational criminal organizations in the gray zone. U.S. support to Plan Colombia, and its subsequent initiatives, highlights that a coherent Political Warfare strategy allows all the instruments of national power to compete with, and eventually defeat, transnational criminal organizations in the continuum of conflict, resident within the gray zone.

Through a web of organizations, TCOs circumvent law enforcement agencies while participating in an array of illegal activities focused on securing substantial profits. Leveraging coercion and corruption practices, TCOs have flourished in environments prone to human security issues. For decades, the United States Government's (USG) primary concern regarding TCOs has focused on narco-trafficking in the hopes that targeting the traffickers and producers would, in turn, curb drug use in the U.S. Recently, however, the USG has observed that TCOs not only operate in the illegal drug trade but have also diversified their activities to maximize profits while capitalizing on their ability to create instability in regions where they operate with impunity. There exists a nexus among illicit trafficking, corruption, and organized crime which feeds on the proliferation of fragile states, insurgency, and terrorism. The nexus creates an environment ripe for increasingly disenfranchised populations to subvert governments and delegitimize vulnerable states.

1. Introduction 2. Literature Review 3. Plan Colombia 4. Political Warfare as a Successful Approach 5. Recommendations 6. Conclusion