convergence

Fighting Networks with Networks
vation in the vibrant sectors of tomorrow—such as computer and high engineering industries
and biomedical, green energy, and other emergent technologies—and harnessing the ideas,
talents, and human potential of communities, can help governments and entrepreneurs alike
create the right governance conditions across sectors for new markets and investment frontiers
to thrive globally.
Public-private partnerships such as those advanced by the OECD and WEF will help
articulate the harms and risks posed by transnational illicit networks and provide the mutual
expertise that is critical to understanding the interaction among illicit and legitimate flows
of goods, people, capital, and information. By identifying and assessing key risks and harms,
both public and private sectors can better focus on what market vulnerabilities they need to
mitigate with the goal of driving criminal entrepreneurs and illicit networks out of business
and incentivizing willing compliance with laws and regulations to promote and grow legitimate
global trading networks.
Conclusion
Secretary Clinton has often spoken of the need to build what she calls a “global
architecture of cooperation” to solve the problems that no one country can solve alone.
Certainly, this is true of the challenge before us. Transnational organized crime is
a threat that endangers communities across the world including our own. The State
Department remains determined, working closely with all of our interagency partners,
to translate common interest into common action that makes us all safer.
—Under Secretary of State William J. Burns, July 20, 2011
Through multilateral fora and bilateral partnership, the United States is joining forces with
global partners to take the fight directly to today’s transnational threats, dismantle their networks,
unravel the illicit financial nodes that sustain a web of criminality and corruption, develop
strong law enforcement and multidisciplinary threat mitigation capabilities, and enhance
cooperation with businesses through public-private partnerships.
The State Department remains committed to working with other governments and other
committed international partners to meet the cross-border security challenges from transnational
criminal and terrorist organizations facing all nations. As President Obama underscored
in the July 2011 Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime, the United States is keen
to forge new partnerships based on shared responsibility. The threats and challenges facing the
world today are real and complex. As illicit networks converge, the solution for governments
is to converge along with them, synchronize efforts across borders, and develop networks to
fight and defeat a common threat, protect our borders and homeland, and anchor sustainable
partnerships vital for shared prosperity and security across economies and markets.
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