During the September 16-17, 1998, conference, when these papers were presented, it became evident that there was quite a bit of disagreement between my views and those of General Vladimir Petrovich Vorozhtsov on the issue of dealing with transnational threats, particularly on Russian organized crime and corruption. General Vorozhtov’s assertion that the dynamics of Russian organized crime and corruption are comparable to the United States and other developed Western countries is preposterous. General Vorozhstov bases his argument on crime statistics such as robberies, drug trafficking, rape, and murder. While I do not disagree with General Vorozhstov’s figures, or that crime is a major problem in America’s cities, I do disagree with how he framed the issue. There is a marked difference between everyday street crimes and organized crime and corruption—this is like comparing apples and bananas. There was also disagreement on how the United States perceives the threat of Russian organized crime. In his paper, General Vorozhstov states "As for the much-talked-of report of the special group of the Center for Strategic and International Studies called Russian Organized Crime which claimed that the ‘Russian mafia’ posed a serious threat to the national security of the United States, the practicing professionals are more reticent in their assessments." The CSIS report on Russian Organized Crime is not an official document or assessment of the threat, nor should it mistakenly be perceived as such. However, it is useful to note a recent statement by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s unclassified response for the record to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

The security environment in the next century will be shaped by a number of difficult and transforming threats and challenges. Topping the list is a litany of transnational threats such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; crime; narcotics trafficking; and information warfare.

Recognition of these transnational threats is becoming a central focus of U.S. foreign policy concern in the post-Cold War era. The rise of transnational organized crime is an unfortunate by-product of increasing globalization, through which technological advances and lower barriers to trade have empowered new classes of actors that operate "above" states. Like legitimate business, transnational criminal enterprises are embracing globalization by adopting new communications and transportation technologies that allow them to pursue global markets. The criminal organizations are not monolithic, but act as networks, pursuing the same types of joint ventures and strategic alliances as legitimate global businesses. The diffuse and dynamic nature of transnational operations makes criminal enterprises such as Russian organized crime groups or the Columbian and Mexican narcotics cartels difficult to identify and counter. Nonstate actors such as terrorist organizations also benefit from transnational operations and access to advanced technologies, providing them with greater destructive power, greater ease of movement and concealment, and the means to spread their message globally. President Clinton highlighted the dangers of transnational organized criminal activity in his September 1995 address to the United Nations, recognizing "the growing nexus between terrorists, narcotics traffickers and other international criminals that has been fostered by developments in international communications, travel and information-sharing, and the end of the Cold War." Responding to transnational threats blurs the lines defining traditional diplomatic, military, law enforcement and intelligence roles and missions within the U.S. government. Nothing less than the seamless integration of all agencies and entities with responsibilities for transnational threats must be achieved. The U.S. national security community must continue to adapt our intelligence focus and force structure to meet these new requirements. Although the United States must assume a leadership role in countering transnational threats, we must also foster and maintain greater international cooperation and support, which reinforces bilateral and multilateral initiatives. After all, the threats are transnational, so ideally the response should be as well.

Although all transnational threats share common characteristics and attributes and in some cases have formed symbiotic relationships, most notably in Columbia between the cartels and terrorist organizations, they are also unique and require markedly different policy and operational prescriptions.

The changing face of terrorism. Terrorism, of course, is nothing new. It has always been the weapon of the weak used to target the strong. Terrorism is both a high-leverage and low-cost tactic and strategy that enables small nations, subnational organizations, and other nonstate actors (and their increasing coalitions) to circumvent conventional diplomatic, military and economic projections of power. Contrary to many recent media accounts demonstrating a seemingly short recollection of history, the United States has struggled for decades with terrorism, especially during the 1980s as the Soviet Union and other Eastern bloc countries aggressively supported terrorist groups aimed at the United States. Other states such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Cuba and North Korea have also sponsored or supported terrorism against the United States. Subsequently, the United States initiated a number of policies and actions to manage the challenge, especially with respect to state-sponsored terrorism.

There are a number of factors and constraints (many self imposed) as to why terrorist groups may not turn to weapons of mass destruction:

While heretofore certain factors may have precluded state sponsors and politically motivated terrorist groups from engaging in wide-scale indiscriminate and lethal violence, this aversion is not shared by the new breed of terrorists seeking out and using weapons of greater lethality. For conspirators hoping, or at least willing, to inflict mass casualties, nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons are the tools of choice in their arsenal.

U.S. air strikes during summer 1998 against terrorist facilities in Afghanistan and the Sudan linked to Osama bin Laden underscored, however, that much of our thinking and many of the tools available today are aimed at responding to state-sponsored terrorism, not nonstate, transnational actors like bin Laden. They also punctuated that, while the United States must be willing and able to take the lead and sustain efforts to combat terrorism (including the right to respond unilaterally), the United States must also foster greater international cooperation and support. International cooperation must be a major facet of U.S. antiterrorism and counterterrorism policy.

Acknowledgment of the terrorist threat has been a cornerstone of both the Clinton administration’s and Congress’ national security agendas in recent years. This has triggered a number of initiatives including: the issuance of Presidential Decision Directive 39, updating our national policy in countering terrorism signed by President Clinton in 1995; the promulgation of Public Laws 104-201, the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act and 104-132, the Anti-Terrorism Act in 1996; the "Gore Commission" on Airline and Airport Security; and the recent promulgation of Presidential Decision Directives 62 and 63 on weapons of mass destruction terrorism and critical infrastructure protection and cyberterrorism. Terrorism (including WMD terrorism) has also figured prominently in every major recent Department of Defense study (e.g. the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Defense Science Board Summer Study on Transnational Threats, and the National Defense Panel Report).

What has always plagued antiterrorism efforts is continued leadership as a policy priority and sustained funding through the out-years. Unlike many of our allies, the United States has not faced many terrorist campaigns but rather a number of largely isolated (yet dramatic) events. As a whole, the country tends to overreact immediately after a terrorist event, which generates nonstop headlines, new legislation, and center stage inside the Beltway. Then, three months later our policymakers, no longer concentrating on terrorism, are responding to the new crisis du jour.

Monetary constraints aside, even if it were possible to harden all U.S. targets abroad, the terrorist wins, because our way of life would be lost. Furthermore, terrorism extends the battlefield to incorporate all of society. By hardening a specific target, one merely displaces risk and forces the terrorist to alter his modus operandi or select from the endless number of other "softer" targets. That the terrorists often take the path of least resistance was evident in the attacks in the fall of 1997 on U.S. businessmen in Pakistan and tourists (largely Swiss) in Luxor, Egypt, after embassies ratcheted up security in the region.

Response. Responding to a terrorist event requires flexibility and determining the best tools to deploy on a case by case basis commensurate with the specific threat. President Clinton, for example, was unequivocally justified in launching air strikes against terrorist facilities in Afghanistan and the Sudan. By not responding, given the compelling evidence on Osama bin Laden’s involvement in a number of terrorist acts against the United States, we would have sent an even stronger message. But our commander-in-chief was constrained to make use of the tools currently available to him. The Tomahawk strikes in themselves are unlikely to be that effective. As part of a broader strategy and used in concert with other diplomatic, military, economic, law enforcement and intelligence tools, however, they are likely to be more effective. The U.S. response to bin Laden must be treated as a campaign, and U.S. efforts must be sustained. Just as terrorists frequently resort to ambiguity, so, too, must the United States perpetuate ambiguity by signaling the retribution is guaranteed, yet can be achieved through a variety and combination of responses, intended to keep the terrorist on edge, not knowing when, where and how the United States will strike.

More importantly however, the recent events provide an opportunity to advance strategies and tactics aimed at better responding to non-state threats in the future. After all, in most circumstances, it is difficult to bomb an actor without an address—or blockade a port when there is no port to blockade.

With respect to international cooperation, U.S. antiterrorism policy will be more effective if the following diplomatic initiatives are implemented:

With respect to WMD terrorism, the following steps should be taken: extend and expand NBC sensor development and deployment dramatically; and leverage the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical communities to develop and produce antidotes and vaccines (for chemical and biological toxins).

With respect to joint initiatives with Russia, the Defense Preparedness Program can be expanded to include joint training and exercising on managing the consequences of a nuclear, biological or chemical terrorist attack. Additionally, the two countries can increase cooperative efforts on emergency preparedness and crisis and consequence management with respect to WMD terrorism.

Transnational crime involves a variety of activities, generally grouped around the control of various types of illegal transnational markets: narcotics, weapons, illegal aliens, prostitutes, stolen automobiles, and counterfeit goods—and various types of illegal business schemes: financial instrument fraud, counterfeiting, extortion, and money laundering. The actors in the transnational crime sphere resemble their terrorist counterparts in that they form transnational alliances and joint ventures, exploiting each other’s comparative advantages in a manner that resembles legitimate international business.

Many of the transnational criminal networks arise out of emerging market nations, which lack, to varying degrees, adequate mechanisms for enforcing the rule of law throughout the private sector, civil society, and the government itself. As such, whether dictatorships like Nigeria or Burma, or struggling democracies like Russia, Colombia, or Mexico, they are virtual safe havens for transnational organized crime groups. Uneven economic development only fuels organized crime and corruption. From these semilawless environments arise sophisticated transnational criminal operations that, in resourcefulness and ingenuity, rival the transnational business operations of the world’s largest multinational corporations.

Perhaps the most astonishing attribute of transnational crime today has been the ability to form alliances among criminal counterparts throughout the world. Russian mobsters were arrested meeting with senior Italian organized crime figures at a ski resort in Italy in April 1997, allegedly to plan more efficient means of laundering the illicit proceeds of their narcotics sales in Western Europe. In 1996, investigators for the U.S. Customs Service found Burmese suppliers shipping heroin to Chinese middlemen, who included some counterfeit software and shipped it to the United States, where it was distributed by Vietnamese street gangs. In April of 1998, Colombian drug smugglers were arrested in Russia as part of a complex scheme to smuggle cocaine by ship through Sweden and Finland and by air from Italy.

Because of its potential to generate huge numbers of casualties, terrorism tends to receive more attention among policy makers and the public. Transnational organized crime, however, also poses great risks for the United States by undermining our financial system, making our streets less safe, disrupting our borders, victimizing our immigrant communities, and straining relationships with our allies. Traditional organized crime schemes such as extortion, fraud, and vice crimes such as narcotics trafficking and prostitution are becoming technology driven. Criminals now view technology as a tool and a target. Widely available and inexpensive technologies and software have reduced barriers to criminal operations, allowing criminals to communicate or to move money discreetly over great distances. Criminals view these same technologies as a target, whether the crime involves hijacking valuable shipments of microchips, stealing or extorting funds electronically from bank accounts, or perpetrating fraud in cyberspace.

Law enforcement is currently developing strategies to mitigate and counter the effects of these technology-driven crimes. The danger posed by the increasing technological sophistication of organized criminal groups, however, becomes even more difficult for U.S. law enforcement when the crimes take on a transnational character. Organized crime groups from Russia, China, Nigeria, Mexico, Turkey, Colombia, Italy, former Yugoslavia, the Caribbean, and elsewhere are developing illicit "business" relationships in the interest of exploiting new markets for drugs, weapons, counterfeit goods, and other contraband. The effectiveness of the networks formed by these transnational groups has yet to be matched by the fledgling law enforcement networks in the concerned states.

The United States is an obvious target for global organized crime. Transnational crime groups view the United Sates, its citizens, and companies as major targets for their goods and services. U.S. cities are the main market for drugs, weapons, and illegal aliens. U.S. citizens and companies are targeted when they operate overseas—American companies in Moscow are extorted by Russian organized crime groups; American businessmen are kidnaped in Colombia; shipments of U.S. high-tech goods are stolen by pirates in the waters of Southeast Asia. Increasingly, however, such attacks are no longer confined to overseas: shipments of high-tech goods are hijacked in California, Asian-American immigrant communities are targeted for extortion by Asian organized criminal gangs, and U.S. investors are defrauded by Russian "penny stock" manipulators. The open borders of the United States have made the task of transnational criminals an easy one. The technological sophistication of these networks allows kingpins in Colombia or Nigeria to plan operations in the United States without ever leaving their home countries. Communications over encrypted E-mail or "cloned" cellular phones ensures confidentiality. The profits from these illicit ventures must be wired in small sums or physically smuggled out of the country, but the availability of professional money laundering services makes this a far from impossible task.

The stranglehold of Russian organized crime on Russian society is immense. Crime is truly usurping the state’s authority to resolve legal disputes. Unable to depend on overburdened or corrupt courts, Russian businesses and individuals are forced to turn to kryshas (protection rackets), many with criminal ties for adjudication. The criminals, on the other hand, do brutally enforce their own criminal code, settling everything from parking tickets to major business disputes. Once ingrained into the Russian ethos, this phenomenon cannot be eradicated overnight. This is precisely why the United States needs to support processes, as opposed to individuals. An independent judiciary, insulated from corruption and politics, is crucial. This is not an issue of simply placing more laws on the books, it is an issue of political will and making the bureaucracy more professional.

Crime and corruption have also been the greatest impediments to attracting foreign direct investment, which cannot be treated in isolation of infrastructure modernization, shareholder rights, contract enforcement, Russian customs, and taxation and licensing issues. Russia finds itself in the unpalatable position of depending on foreign investment, given massive capital flight and the wholesale plundering of its natural resources by its oligarchs and organized crime groups.

The current fiscal crisis in Russia is, of course, undermining urgently needed maintenance of nuclear command systems and is weakening security and safeguards of nuclear weapons. A former army general and Duma member, the late General Rokhlin, stated that the Russian strategic nuclear forces were nearing extinction for want of funds for maintenance. Both officers and ranks are unpaid, not fed, and unhappy. In this atmosphere the prospect for a criminal diversion of nuclear materials or an unauthorized and perhaps even accidental launch is at an all-time high. This threat may not be as apocalyptic as nuclear war, but nevertheless the likelihood of a nuclear event is greater today than it was during the Cold War.

In concrete terms, it is obvious that Russian MPC&A should be a national priority for the United States. Assistance to Russian MPC&A programs should not be viewed as charity but rather as measures designed to enhance our own safety. It is in the world’s interest to ensure that Russian nuclear facilities and weapons are secure at the source itself. Assistance in the vehicle of the current Nunn-Lugar-Domenici legislation is a crucial component of U.S. policy in the area of preventing and deterring "leakage" from Russian nuclear storage sites, as well as preventing WMD proliferation.

Both types of narcotics enterprises are true multinationals and operate within and across borders, taking advantage of the larger trends toward globalization, such as the lowering of political and economic barriers and advances in technologies (largely communications and transportation), which enable them extend their international reach. As with any business, they are constantly seeking new markets and are protective of territory and market share. They control far-flung organizations that operate in specialized areas of the trade, such as production, transportation, marketing and distribution. Their financial networks are sophisticated and efficient.

Narcotics traffickers continue to become more innovative in the ways that they manage, manufacture, supply, and operate their industry. Given the immense financial gains, the cartel leaders have pumped extraordinary amounts of money into efforts to ensure the least amount of risk in continuing their profitable bases of operations. Although the trade-craft differs from group to group, recent findings indicate increased sophistication in the production and distribution capabilities of the narcotics industry. Narcotics enterprises owe their success to the sophistication of their operations. These operations include, but are not limited to:

• Bribery and corruption of senior and junior government officials in their respective law enforcement and border patrols, security services, and defense agencies, as well as community and federal policy leaders

• Assassination, coercion and extortion

• Purchasing top-of-the-line weaponry and the training of militias and security personnel, in addition to other forms of physical security and operations security (OPSEC) measures and countermeasures

• Procuring and managing state-of-the-art, often export-restricted, technologies, as well as the recruitment of specialized personnel to launder money, operate sophisticated databases/profiles, run countersurveillance, and perform other intelligence collection duties

• Utilizing information security applications and cryptography to secure command, control, communications, and logistics data. This has greatly frustrated even the most advanced agencies with communications intelligence (COMINT) missions and capabilities

• Establishing logistical and human operatives, as well as infrastructures in the source country, the transit zones, and the United States

• Demonstrating an ability to act and react to U.S. law enforcement measures and countermeasures.

The narcotics industries enjoy the same advantages as the wealthiest and most powerful businesses: they have abundant capital and can afford to buy the people and materials they need to succeed. But these cartels differ radically from legitimate businesses in that they use intimidation, murder, terrorism, and subversion as normal business techniques (and don’t pay taxes, of course). These violent methods are possible because the cartels utilize human resources that are expendable—except of course, those at the highest levels. Their enormous wealth and willingness to use any means necessary to succeed make them among the most threatening challenges in the post-Cold War era to any nation that wants to stop their illegal business.

Certain terrorist groups have a symbiotic relationship with the narcotics industry. Groups such as the Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) exemplify the involvement of ideologically driven terrorist organizations in narcotics trafficking. As the aid it received from Cuba has likely dried out, FARC uses narcotics trafficking (as well as kidnapings for profit and bank robberies) to raise money for its ventures, or sells security services to the cartels. Other Latin American terrorist groups such as the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) has always been engaged in the production and trafficking of cocaine as a primary source of funding as they have never received much external financial support.

Despite these problems, drug-related aid to the Andean region fell from $470.3 million in 1992 to $131.8 million in 1995. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the advent of increasingly tight budget restrictions, however, Congress and the national security community focused on the "peace dividend," and funding for counterdrug budgets subsequently suffered. In Latin America, the rise of democratic governments led to the belief that it was not necessary to "pour money into these countries." Rather, because they were no longer seen as targets for subversion by the Soviets, it was believed they could handle the problem themselves.

This withdrawal of support has contributed to the emergence of the narco-democracy problem, where narcotics traffickers operate with impunity and/or state support. As well, a nontraditional threat such as narcotics trafficking has not seemed critical to policy makers in the national security community, which often views it as merely a health or law enforcement issue.

Perhaps no problem has affected our society as deeply as drugs. Illegal drugs have become an engine of commerce that diverts resources from legitimate productive activities, fosters violence, and corrupts our institutions. The scourge of drugs, and the surrounding illegal activities, has penetrated all facets of our society and pose a serious threat to our national well being. Over 14,000 people die per year in the United States because of drugs, one-third of all AIDs cases is drug related, and the costs to U.S. taxpayers is over $70 billion a year. Drug use is a direct contributor to increased public health costs, weakened family stability, crime and violence, lost workplace productivity, a declining public education system and corruption. Furthermore, nearly 70 percent of all violent crimes and one-third of all crimes perpetrated in the United States are narcotics related.

Domestically, there are signs that we have become "hardened" culturally, accepting drug use and the violent crimes associated as inevitable. The current debate on legalization, an issue which has lain dormant for fifteen years, is an indication that people are becoming resigned to the inevitability of drug use and the horror attendant to it. The same holds true abroad, where ordinary people in the narco-democracies increasingly expect officials to be corrupt and consider the production and transfer of narcotics their sole viable economic activity. Action must be taken before "hardening" sets in both at home and abroad.

At present, there is a visible need for a multitiered solution, incorporating both demand-side (domestic) and supply-side (international) policies and actions. Too often the debate on the narcotics problem is cast in demand-side versus supply-side terms—with legalization increasingly polarized against the "war on drugs" approach. The solutions require initiatives from a variety of sources: public health, schools, the military, local, state and national law enforcement, and the intelligence community. The United States must seek to identify an integrated counternarcotics policy that can be incorporated into our national strategic planning and reinforce our international strategies.

Modern societies are dependent upon critical infrastructures such as telecommunications, electric power, transportation, and finance and banking that underpin our economy. These are increasingly interdependent on one another, and any damage to them could significantly affect national security, the functioning of the economy and the quality of life. Vulnerabilities even extend to emergency communications such as our E-911 system, portions of which were recently disabled by a teenager sitting behind his PC thousands of miles away in Sweden.

The ability to identify and reconnoiter such targets is today possible because of the Internet and powerful search engines on the World Wide Web and other open source channels. Obviously our exponential dependence, coupled with the availability of advanced technologies, leaves us vulnerable and susceptible to espionage (political, military, economic, industrial, and personal privacy), theft, fraud, sabotag,e and disinformation.

Information warfare (IW) includes actions taken to achieve information superiority by affecting adversary information and information systems while leveraging and protecting one’s own information and information systems. Offensive IW may be carried out through physical attacks, the use of special technologies, computer intrusion, computer warfare, electronic warfare, psychological operations and the use of strategic and military deception supported by intelligence and analysis. To date, eight nations have adopted similar doctrinal concepts, including the United States, Russia, the People’s Republic of China, and France. A unique attribute of IW is that it can be pursued throughout the spectrum of conflict scenarios. Terrorist groups also have the ability to conduct limited-scale IW warfare attacks. Although there has been no concrete evidence to date that such groups intend to conduct such activities, these groups could launch effective attacks with access to targeting data. There has been no shortage of recent headlines in the newspapers underscoring some of the challenges. Some of the most troubling include:

"Virtual" corporations, noncash transactions and economies without inventories—based on the principle of "just-in-time" delivery—will make attacks on data just as destructive as attacks on physical inventories. As highlighted by "Solar Sunrise," one of the toughest issues is the anonymity of cyberspace. Who is at the other end of the keyboard, breaking into your system? It could be a youngster, a foreign intelligence agent, or a peer-competitor. It could even be somebody masquerading as someone else, cloaking the perpetrator’s true identity. "Smoking keyboards" are hard to find, as a cyber assailant loops and weaves from country to country in a matter of nano-seconds. All while law enforcement is forced to stop at meaningless borders that aren’t even lines on a map in cyberspace. In essence, we’ve created a global village without a police department.

With respect to cybercrime, the FBI investigated 480 computer intrusion cases last year, more than double the caseload in 1996—and this was only the tip of the iceberg. A 1998 study by the Computer Security Institute revealed that 64 percent of the companies that responded had experienced an information security breach in 1997. Currently, an Internet connected computer is broken into every 20 seconds.

Cyberspace is also a haven for sophisticated fraud. A number of criminals are creating "ghost sites" on the Internet by fraudulently using a company’s identification logo and offering enticing—but, false—investment opportunities. The reputations of companies are increasingly at risk.

There is no "silver bullet" to these challenges, and it is easy to be overwhelmed by the breadth and pervasiveness of the problem. Yet any solution requires a partnership between governments and the private sector. Both entities share the same infrastructure. In fact, most people are not aware that over 95 percent of DOD communications run across the public-switched network. They must rely on the same transportation infrastructure to deploy forces. So both share the same vulnerabilities and threats.

Yet as the owners and operators of a large percentage of the information infrastructure, the private sector must take a more proactive role in the policy debates and in assuring that the infrastructures are as robust as possible. Any policy deliberations must not stifle innovation and the many benefits, such as e-commerce, that it offers. Yet prudent steps must be taken to mitigate and manage national risk. Because in the event of a major cyberevent, an "electronic Waterloo" if you will, the governors may feel compelled to take draconian measures—and the cure could then prove worse than the disease.

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