Organized crime, illicit economies, civil violence & international order: More complex than you think

Abstract

This essay analyzes the multiple threats that organized crime and illicit economies pose to states and the international order, with a particular focus on the security dimensions of the crime-conflict nexus. In analyzing the range of responses by states and the international community to the nexus of criminal economies and civil wars, insurgencies, and terrorism, this essay also highlights how premature and ill-conceived government efforts to combat illicit economies have counterproductive effects, hampering efforts to suppress militancy and, in some cases, generating dangerous international spillovers of criminality. The second part of the essay examines various pathways out of the conflict-crime nexus, including defeating militants without suppressing illicit economies, suppressing crime and illicit economies without ending conflict, and state co-optation of illicit economies. The essay concludes with policy recommendations.