convergence

Foreword
find themselves in. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, for instance, started out
by guarding airfields for the cartels and quickly realized that they could take over the trade
themselves. Over the space of a few years, they vertically integrated, morphing from terrorists
to narcoterrorists. Other organizations such as al Qaeda have discovered franchising, enabling
them to reach into areas that they previously could not organize in. For example, Hizballah has
created connections with drug-trafficking organization in the Tri-Border Area of Argentina,
Brazil, and Paraguay. This ability to change approach to both recruiting and organizing helps
make these organizations extremely dangerous. And as these organizations spread out horizontally
and meet fellow criminals, they form into modern networks, mimicking normal societies.
Although the fields of diplomacy, information, military, and economic power have generally
belonged to states since the 1700s, modern illicit transnational networks have expanded
their operations into these areas. Modern illicit criminal networks communicate regularly
with states, using information to communicate diplomatic messages to those that may want
to face them down. They also use information to recruit vulnerable persons, transforming
them into sex slaves or suicide bombers. As mentioned above, some of these networks have
developed a military capability, which allows them to go toe-to-toe with national security
forces in places like Mexico and Afghanistan—and their economic strength allows them to
operate with impunity.
The problems created by these networks are legion. Two of the most dangerous threats
are corruption and cyber security. Corruption acts as an enabler for transnational criminals,
spreading deep within societies, preventing the rule of law from ensuring the safety and well
being of the citizens of countries where it is endemic. Although challenging in developed
countries such as the United States and Germany, it is an existential threat in less developed
countries that are struggling to defeat this menace. Where the government writ does not go,
criminal networks fill the vacuum and provide alternative governance. Where the police and
judiciary are affected, criminals prey on the population and do not pay for their misdeeds.
Because no one will invest in these areas, the people will not have access to the jobs and educational
opportunities that would empower them to improve their situations. Corruption is like
an autoimmune disease, shutting down the immune system so the body can be overwhelmed
by any challenge.
Cyber is a nascent threat, but one with tremendous future capability. There have been two
proven cyber attacks, one against Estonia in 2007 and the other against Georgia in 2008. In
both cases, distributed denial-of-service attacks ranged from single individuals using various
low-tech methods such as ping floods 1 to expensive rentals of botnets 2 used for spam distribution
that swamped Estonian and Georgian organizations including parliaments, banks, ministries,
newspapers, and broadcasters—rendering many of the Web sites inoperable. Although
the effects were localized to those countries, they do show what a cyber attack can produce. In
the long run, cyber attacks will be able to shut down entire parts of the infrastructure of a state,
which will directly threaten populations and significantly delegitimize states under attack. This
danger will only grow as criminal networks hire their own hackers and eventually train them.
These illicit criminal networks threaten the United States both directly and indirectly.
Directly, these criminals have attacked U.S. facilities and citizens throughout the globe. They
also weaken the fabric of American society, which they touch through violence and corruption.
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