This book explores global drug trafficking networks’ impact on international security and provides an in-depth analysis of drug trafficking networks globally by integrating international relations and security studies theories. The book acts as a primer, simplifying the complicated world of narcotics and insecurity, while also providing policy recommendations for policy-makers hoping to reduce the power of organized criminal and terrorist networks globally. It will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduates taking courses in International Relations, Global Politics, Defense Studies, Security Studies, and International Political Economy, as well as Criminal Justice, Sociology, and other social science disciplines that cover issues related to drug trafficking, organized crime, and violence.

Global drug trafficking intersects with a vast array of international security issues ranging from war and terrorism to migration and state stability. More than just another item on the international security agenda, drug trafficking in fact exacerbates threats to national and international security. In this light, the book argues that global drug trafficking should not be treated as one international security issue among many. Rather, due to the unique nature of the trade, illegal drugs have made key threats to national and international security more complex, durable, and acute. Drug trafficking therefore makes traditional understandings of international security inadequate. Each chapter examines how drug trafficking affects a particular security issue, such as rogue nations, weak and failing states, protracted intrastate conflicts, terrorism, transnational crime, public health, and cyber security. While some texts see drug trafficking as an international threat in itself, others place it under the topic of transnational organized crime, arguing that the threats emanate from criminal groups. This book, on the other hand, provides a thorough understanding of how a vast array of threats to international security are exacerbated by drug trafficking.

This book explains the existence of illicit markets throughout human history and provides recommendations to governments. Organized criminal networks increased in strength after the enforcement of prohibition, eventually challenging the authority of the state and its institutions through corruption and violence. Criminal networks now organize under cyber-infrastructure, what we call the Deep or Dark Web. The authors analyze how illicit markets come together, issues of destabilization and international security, the effect of legitimate enterprises crowded out of developing countries, and ultimately, illicit markets' cost to human life.

This two-volume work offers a comprehensive examination of the distressing topics of transnational crime and the implications for global security. National security is a key concern for individual nations, regions, and the global community, yet globalism has led to the perfusion of transnational crime such that it now poses a serious threat to the national security of governments around the world. Whether attention is concentrated on a particular type of transnational crime or on broader concerns of transnational crime generally, the security issues related to preventing and combatting transnational crime remain of top-priority concern for many governments. Transnational Crime and Global Security has been carefully curated to provide students, scholars, professionals, and consultants of criminal justice and security studies with comprehensive information about and in-depth analysis of contemporary issues in transnational crime and global security. The first volume covers such core topics as cybercrime, human trafficking, and money laundering and also contains infrequently covered but nevertheless important topics including environmental crime, the weaponization of infectious diseases, and outlaw motorcycle gangs. The second volume is unique in its coverage of security issues related to such topics as the return of foreign terrorist fighters, using big data to reinforce security, and how to focus efforts that encourage security cooperation.

Though the provision of illicit goods and services is far from being a new phenomenon, today's global economic environment has allowed transnational organized crime an unprecedented capacity to challenge states. The authors of this book examine the trends underlying the explosion of transnational organized crime and consider possible responses. Emphasizing the difficulties encountered by individual states in their efforts to deal with this security dilemma, they highlight the growing importance of multilateral initiatives.

This collection of essays demonstrates how the security of Americans is potentially threatened by individuals and governments who are engaged in the illicit trade in arms, drugs, and human beings in distant parts of the globe. More than just a threat to Americans, the essays underscore that these activities are often detrimental to the United States interests around the world due to the destabilizing impact that each activity can have on a nation or region. More revealing is how terrorists benefit from this illegal trade, generating critical sources of funding used for everything from recruiting to procurement of weapons and explosives of all types to extend and expand the scope of their struggle. The scope of this work is truly global. Fourteen essays touch on prevailing problems from the Balkans to Southeast Asia and the Pacific; from Africa to the Caribbean, and more. In each essay, the authors explore a problem that not only has direct regional repercussions, but larger international ones as well. The essays present problems that result from these illegal activities as a global epidemic, not simply regionalized problems.

The 21st century has seen the growth of a number of nontraditional threats to international stability on which, trade, and thus U.S. peace and security, depends, and for the moment at least a reduced likelihood of continental scale warfighting operations, and something of a de-emphasis on major involvement in counterinsurgency operations. These nontraditional threats are, however, very real and should command a higher priority than they have done in the past, even in a period of budgetary constraint. The military have cost-effective contributions to make in countering the manufacture and distribution of illicit drugs, and in many cases can do so without serious detriment to their main warfighting role. Successfully completing this mission, however, will require the military to rethink their integration with the nonmilitary aspects of a whole-of-government approach, and almost certainly, their institutional preference for speedy victories in short wars.