Of Mice and Men: Gangs, Narco-Terrorism, and the USA

[j37]

Listen to Col Jones (Bob's World).

Get rid of the terrorist label and look at it from this front:

1. Insurgents- use violence to try to take over the gov't.

2. Gangs/Narco-Terrorist- use violence to corner a market and make money.

There has been a recent debate about applying COIN to LE in the US. The parallels between COIN and community policing are quite striking. One of the arguments is that gangs don't have a political agenda. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009...ks/#more-19759

And while I full heartedly believe that "Gangs/Narco-Terrorist- use violence to corner a market and make money," creating an ungovernable space where law enforcement and local/state/federal government can not exercise their full sovereignty is critical to their success in cornering a market and making money. Don't insurgents do the same thing?

[jmm99]

Please introduce yourself (Hint: go to Hail and Farewell) and give us some background. Welcome and thanks in advance.

There are three basic situations (some of the real situations we see will be consistent with the legalistic concept of the nation-state's "monopoly on violence"; some not):

1. Nation-state vs nation state.

2. Nation-state vs violent non-state actor.

3. Violent non-state actor vs violent non-state actor.

Much of the present construct is based on Westphalian nationhood, and is often too legalistic (e.g, where a "nation-state" exists de jure under I Law, but does not really exist de facto).

The extent of violence generally determines whether the situation is one of armed conflict or not armed conflict. A grey area does exist between armed conflict or not armed conflict, but usually we have a pretty good common sense of whether the situation is one or the other.

All situations involve a choice of violent and non-violent COAs to handle the situation. In armed conflicts, for example, we might see only a military effort, or a mix of military and political efforts.

Global Law, particularly with respect to violent non-state actors, is a mess; and anyone who attempts to solve present problems with present legalisms, is often standing on some very shifting sands.

When reality is not well-defined, law is often inadequate. Once a area becomes better defined, law usually manages to catch up - unless it becomes dogma-bound.

A good monograph, worth reading and then studying to induce independent thinking, is Mark O'Neill, Confronting the Hydra (2009).

Cheers

Mike

[davidbfpo]

Nathan Hodge's article in 'The Wired':http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009...ks/#more-19759 is an interesting commentary on the 'COIN can help LE' debate, mainly applied to Washinton DC. I would have thought there were many other placesin need in front of DC; taking a longer view the Mexican border states.

He cites:

Want to see what a place looks like when counterinsurgency starts to seep into policing? For a softer example, take a look at the United Kingdom...has a pretty expansive surveillance system that in part was developed in response to IRA terror. (It also has a more robust Official Secrets Act.)

Yes some of the surveillance the UK has can be traced back to Ulster and IRA attacks, such as automatic number plate readers (ANPR) and CCTV. A lot more weight should be added to the massive changes in IT, data management and technology is running far ahead of customer, public and political understanding.

The surveillance - which I am sure could, maybe is happening in the USA and elsewhere - has to be looked at in different ways:

1) pre-incident or preventive surveillance (mainly CCTV)
2) post incident use evidentially
3) matching suspects to crimes (from CCTV, DNA, official documents)
4) providing a starting point for intelligence gathering / investigation

The curious fact is that much of the CCTV surveillance system here has little deterrent value, the vast majority of the imagery is useless and countermeasures are simple.

There are also whole community sub-groups that are largely beyond it's "eyes", young black males and illegal immigrants to cite two.

[j37]

Thanks for the tip jmm99. I posted a little bit about myself. To save you the hassle though, my name is John and I study criminal justice and international relations at the University of North Texas. I will actually be graduating in the spring of 2010. This semester though, my focus has been on IR and in particular conflict in the Middle East.

I will be reading Confronting the hydra: big problems with small wars in the next few weeks. I've got to finish reading Peace Process by William B. Quandt (and a few assorted articles on varying topics) for finals in two weeks first.

Davidbfpo- you're exactly right. Technology has gotten far ahead of public and political understanding.

CCTV does seem to have very little deterrent value, especially in its current incarnation;however, that could change. I hate to use another danger room article ( I read many other things, I swer ): http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009...ce/#more-17293

The idea is to design software that, on its own, can detect a threat. That would make CCTV a very effective tool when it comes to preventing some sort of negative event.

[MikeF]

There has been a recent debate about applying COIN to LE in the US. The parallels between COIN and community policing are quite striking. One of the arguments is that gangs don't have a political agenda. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009...ks/#more-19759

And while I full heartedly believe that "Gangs/Narco-Terrorist- use violence to corner a market and make money," creating an ungovernable space where law enforcement and local/state/federal government can not exercise their full sovereignty is critical to their success in cornering a market and making money. Don't insurgents do the same thing?

John,

Thanks for the article. It's good commentary, but it also shows some misinterpretation over what we call COIN. For example, in the Salinas project, no one was suggesting to treat an American city like Baghdad and enforce strict population control measures- checkpoints, walling off neighborhoods, entry/ID cards, etc. Instead, the volunteers were mostly teaching basic military problem solving methods and good policing skills learned in small wars- ID your area of operations, determine where the enemy is at, figure out where you should be patrolling (mounted/dismounted), learning how to better communicate with your people, tightening your rules of engagement so you're not harming innocent civilians, etc.

To answer your question, gang use violence and political influence to make money. Insurgencies use violence, money, and drugs to achieve political goals.

Mike

[slapout9]

John,

Thanks for the article. It's good commentary, but it also shows some misinterpretation over what we call COIN. For example, in the Salinas project, no one was suggesting to treat an American city like Baghdad and enforce strict population control measures- checkpoints

Mike

They tried that in Montgomery not to long ago. It was successful from a decreasing crime standpoint but there were some howls from the citizenry. The whole concept (checkpoints) is where the word "Dragnet" comes from. It does work but you can not do it for a long period of time in the USA before voters will get pissed about living in a Police State.

[davidbfpo]

There is an EU-funded project that is looking at the issues involved in Detection Technologies, Counter-Terrorism, Ethics, and Human Rights called DETECTER, see their website:http://www.detecter.bham.ac.uk/ . This has some fascinating links. Some of the technology on offer, at R&D stage, was bizarre and needed some reality injected into discussions.

[jmm99]

My impression (about which, I'm asking your views, and those of anyone else who cares to comment) is that, besides sound crime scene workups and sound situational awareness, one of the primary LE tools (and I hope it continues) has been and is informants and infiltration - as to which specific, targeted surveillence technology certainly comes into play. I prefer that to setting up high-tech, "dragnet-type" McNamara Lines in every community.

Thoughts from you all ?

Mike

[slapout9]

My impression (about which, I'm asking your views, and those of anyone else who cares to comment) is that, besides sound crime scene workups and sound situational awareness, one of the primary LE tools (and I hope it continues) has been and is informants and infiltration - as to which specific, targeted surveillence technology certainly comes into play. I prefer that to setting up high-tech, "dragnet-type" McNamara Lines in every community.

Thoughts from you all ?

Mike

1-A good jobs/education program.

2-Better Neighborhood watch program.

3-Police cell phone communications system.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by slapout,

1-A good jobs/education program.

2-Better Neighborhood watch program.

3-Police cell phone communications system.

I agree with all of these, but do we really need good jobs and a good education system to prevent crime? The reason I ask is that both of these may not be politically feasible based on the available tax base, so if we can't get good jobs and a good education system (I'm thinking Hawaii), will that automatically lead to an increase in crime?

A better neighbhorhood watch program may be best described as mobilizing the populace to take action against crime (by alerting law enforcement) and developing trusting relationships between the residents and law enforcement. The residents know if they call, a police officer will respond relatively quickly. Over time the zeros (crooks) will get the word not to operate in this area.

Jmm99, in addition to infiltration (enemy centric) and good crime scene work ups (enemy centric) the police need to maintain a presence by active patrolling (foot, horse, bike, motorcycle, vehicle, and undercover) to deter and if deterence fails to quickly react. Amazing how quick crime rates drop when the police are actually out on the streets. That is getting tougher now due to the economic crisis. If they can use technical surveillance to augment their efforts without being overly intrusive I'm all for it. Not sure where that line between augment and too intrusive is though.