Criminals, Militias, and Insurgents: Organized Crime in Iraq

[Jedburgh]

SSI, 13 Jul 09: Criminals, Militias, and Insurgents: Organized Crime in Iraq (http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB930.pdf)

.....Organized crime in Iraq, as elsewhere, can be understood in two distinct forms: (1) as entities or criminal enterprises which treat crime in Clausewitzian terms as a continuation of business by other means; and (2) as a set of illicit activities appropriated and utilized by various entities for specific purposes. Terrorist organizations, insurgents, ethnic factions, sectarian groups, and militias all use organized crime activities as a funding mechanism. Not surprisingly, therefore, organized crime in Iraq challenges existing concepts and categorizations, casts doubt on strategies that focused narrowly on the military dimension of a complex problem, and demands new measures of effectiveness. If the conflict in Iraq is a hybrid or mosaic form of warfare, organized crime in Iraq has an analogous form, adding another dimension to the anticoalition violence.....

[pjmunson]

It looks like the link to the full pub is not available until the end of July. The summary can be reached here: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/summary.cfm?q=930.

Seems like the detailed research on crime in Iraq will be useful, but the bit about complexity and attempting to categorize the crime as analagous to hybrid warfare unnecessarily complicates things. I cannot see how crime in Iraq is terribly different from crime elsewhere. "[The conclusion] suggests that organized crime in Iraq is a complex system exhibiting emergent behavior, characterized by high levels of adaptability and resilience, and driven by a mix of need, greed, and creed." I would think that criminals everywhere have to be highly adaptible and reslient, or they would quickly be out of business. Nonetheless, if the work has detailed research and information about crime in Iraq, it will add to what people already know, which is that there are a lot of different types of crime going on in Iraq and that crime often funds insurgent, militia, and political groups there and undermines stability.