convergence

How Illicit Networks Impact Sovereignty
address the direct assaults on state functions. More analysis is needed to define the appropriate
structures to negotiate this transition.
This is a battle for information and real power among global networks, social media
groups, and nongovernmental organizations to secure political power. Illicit networks are
controlling turf and capturing state functions, including the legitimate protective security roles
of the state, assuming the power to enforce their will and punish those who do not comply. This
is a battle that favors the agile and those with the will to use brute strength and force (cyber
or otherwise). The criminal netwarriors increasingly employ barbarization and high-order
violence combined with information operations to seize the initiative and embrace the mantle
of social bandit to confer legitimacy on themselves and their enterprises. States must adapt
and react to these changes and challenges to sovereignty in order to maintain collective security
and retain effective control of their territory, borders, and populace.
Notes
1 This chapter draws from my ongoing research into the impact of transnational organized crime on sovereignty.
Specifically, it recaps three prior papers: John P. Sullivan, “Social Networks and Counternetwar Response,”
presented to the Panel on Security, Resilience, and Global Networks at the 51st Annual International Studies
Association Convention in New Orleans, February 20, 2010; “Intelligence, Sovereignty, Criminal Insurgency, and
Drug Cartels,” presented to the Panel on Intelligence Indicators for State Change and Shifting Sovereignty at the
52nd Annual International Studies Association Convention, Montreal, March 18, 2011; and “From Drug Wars to
Criminal Insurgency: Mexican Cartels, Criminal Enclaves, and Criminal Insurgency in Mexico and Central America:
Implications for Global Security,” presented to the Seminar on Netwars and Peacenets, Institute of Global Studies,
Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris, June 27–28, 2011.
2 See Nils Gilman, Jesse Goldhammer, and Steven Weber, eds., Deviant Globalization: Black Market Economy
in the 21st Century (New York: Continuum, 2011). My contribution, chapter 16, “Future Conflict: Criminal Insurgencies,
Gangs and Intelligence,” complements the analysis found in this chapter.
3 See Luis Jorge Garay-Salamanca, Eduardo Salcedo-Albarán, and Isaac De León-Beltrán, Illicit Networks Reconfiguring
States: Social Network Analysis of Colombian and Mexican Cases (Bogota: METODO, 2010).
4 Luis Jorge Garay and Eduardo Salcedo-Albarán, “State Capture and Co-opted State Reconfiguration,” in
“Drug Trafficking, Corruption and State,” prepublication draft, 2011, 29–31.
5 Ibid., 31.
6 Ibid.
7 See David Ronfeldt, Visions from Two Theories, available at , for a comprehensive
view of his network social theory.
8 John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, eds., Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy
(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001).
9 See Manuel Castells, The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture: The Rise of the Network Society, Vol.
I (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010); The Power of Identity, Vol. II (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004); and The
End of Millennium, Vol. III (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008).
10 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime
Threat Assessment,” June 2010.
11 Juan Carlos Garzón, Mafia & Co.: The Criminal Networks in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia (Washington, DC:
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Latin American Program, 2008).
12 See John P. Sullivan, “Public-Private Intelligence Models for Responding to the Privatization of Violence,”
paper presented to Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association (ISA), 2007 ISA Annual
Convention, Chicago, February 28–March 3, 2007, as a complement to this chapter. Also see Robert J. Bunker, ed.,
Non-State Threats and Future Wars (London: Frank Cass, 2003), and Robert J. Bunker, ed., Networks, Terrorism and
Global Insurgency (London: Routledge, 2005), for a detailed discussion of the global threat environment.
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