IVELAW L. GRIFFITH
From Cold War
geopolitics
to post-Cold War
geonarcotics
The dramatic transformations in world politics occasioned
mainly by the collapse of world communism and the concomitant end of the Cold War oblige scholars to assess the factors
that precipitated the changes and to ponder the implications of
the 'new' world order emerging from them. While neither
scholars nor statesmen are clear about what the transformations
portend, most are nevertheless convinced that this new order
brings new challenges and opportunities, new threats and countermeasures, and structural and functional alterations at the
regional and international levels that require new conceptual
and theoretical explorations.
Geoffrey Kemp rightly suggests that geopolitics - a longstanding component of Cold War international political analysis
- while not dead, will have to share the spotlight with other
items on the international agenda.' And Edward Luttwak is convinced that the new agenda will be dominated by geo-economics: 'As the relevance of military threats and military alliances
wanes, geo-economic priorities and modalities are becoming
Department of Political Science, Florida International University, Miami; ediand author of The Quest for
tor of Strategy and Security in the Caribbean (199i)
Security in the Caribbean (1993).
This article is part of a larger study, Sovereignty under Seige, funded by the
MacArthur Foundation and the North-South Center, University of Miami.
The author is grateful for assistance provided by Donna Kirchheimer and by
Shauna Jamieson, his research assistant. Thanks also to Clifford E. Griffin
and Howard H. Lentner for helpful comments on an earlier version.
I Geoffrey Kemp, 'Regional security, arms control, and the end of the Cold
War,' Washington Quarterly 13(autumn 1990), 44.
InternationalJournalXLIX
WINTER 1993-4
2
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
dominant in state action."' Another 'geo' is, however, becoming
prominent in the post-Cold War political landscape. It is geonarcotics, defined here to mean relations of conflict and co-operation among national and international actors that are driven by
the narcotics phenomenon.
Narcotics problems are presenting dilemmas to an increasing number of nations and states around the world. They are
increasing in scope and intensity, and they have political, economic, military, health, environmental, and psychological consequences that offer actual and potential threats to the
sovereignty, political stability, economic equilibrium, and social
fabric of many societies. For these reasons, drugs are increasingly being discussed by scholars and policy-makers under the
rubric of national security.
However, for several reasons, including disagreement over
the definition of security and the multidimensionality of the
narcotics phenomenon, little attention is given to the conceptual-theoretical basis for the drugs-security linkage. This article
is a modest attempt to help fill this void. I will begin with a
discussion of the nature and scope of the key narcotics operations. An assessment of the concept of security and the realist
paradigm on which it has been anchored follows. Finally, I will
explain the nature of the challenges to which drug operations
give rise and provide a preliminary outline of a framework for
analysing the security aspects of drugs.
NATURE AND SCOPE OF NARCOTICS OPERATIONS
Societies around the world face problems arising from the existence of a variety of drugs. The list includes alcohol, amphetamines, tobacco, hashish, LSD, heroin, cocaine, morphine,
marijuana, mescaline, barbiturates, and pCp. 3 However, not all
2 Edward N. Luttwak, 'From geopolitics to geo-economics,' National Interest
20(summer 1990), 20.
3 For an appreciation of the wide variety of drugs abused, see United States,
Drug Enforcement Administration, Drugs of Abuse (Washington 1989), 1 1-52;
and United Nations, Report of the InternationalNarcotics Control Boardfor 1992
(E/INCB/1992/I) (New York 1992), 17-48 (hereafter UNNarcotics Report).
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
3
of these drugs create security concerns. The 'danger drugs' are
mainly cocaine, hashish, heroin, and marijuana, and their derivatives such as crack which comes from cocaine. The main problems relating to these drugs are production, consumption and
abuse, trafficking, and money laundering.
Drug operations are universal but not uniform among countries. Nor is their impact uniform on the societies around the
globe. Most of the world's cocaine is produced in Colombia,
Bolivia, and Peru, with Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela providing
lesser, but increasingly larger, quantities. Heroin comes from
three major regions: the Golden Triangle countries of Myanmar
(Burma), Laos, and Thailand; the Golden Crescent countries
of Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan; and Mexico and Guatemala
in Latin America. The most significant places for marijuana production are the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Jamaica, and
Belize, although large quantities are also produced elsewhere
in Latin America and in parts of Africa and Asia.4
In terms of consumption, the United States is the world's
single largest market for narcotics. As an analyst at the United
States Congressional Research Service indicated in 1988: 'America is consuming drugs at an annual rate of more than six metric
tons (mt) of heroin, 70-90 mt of cocaine, and 6,ooo-9,ooo mt
of marijuana - 8o% of which are imported. American demand
therefore is the linchpin for one of the fastest-growing and most
profitable industries in the world.'5 By 1993, however, State
Department estimates placed consumption of cocaine alone at
150-175 metric tons, valued at US$1 5 -1 7 . 5 billion." It must,
4 Scott B. MacDonald and Bruce Zagaris, 'Introduction: controlling the international drug problem,' and Raphael F. Perl, 'The United States,' in MacDonald and Zagaris, eds, InternationalHandbook on Drug Control (Westport CT:
Greenwood 1992), 7-8 and 68-9; United States, Department of State, Bureau
of International Narcotics Matters, InternationalNarcotics Control Strategy Report
(Washington, April 1993), 16 (hereafter INCSR).
5 William Roy Surrett, The InternationalNarcotics Trade: An Overview of its Dimensions, Production Sources, and Organizations, CRS report for Congress 88-643, 3
October 1988, 1.
6 INCSR, 3.
4
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however, be noted that high and growing narcotics consumption is not unique to the United States.
Because of the high demand and profitability of the United
States market, however, international trafficking is best appreciated when considered in relation to the United States as destination. South American cocaine traffickers, for instance, use
a network involving Mexico, Brazil, Jamaica, Guyana, Belize, and
the Bahamas, among other countries. Southwest Asian heroin
comes through Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey. Malaysia,
China, and Singapore are some of the main countries involved
in the southeast Asian trade.
The illegality and lucrativeness of drug production and trafficking necessitate another operation - money laundering. Drug
operators need to control their money, conceal its origin and
ownership, and convert and legitimize the fruits of their labour.
Estimates of the quantity of money laundered internationally
vary considerably, ranging between US$ 3 oo billion and US$ 5 oo
billion annually.7 All regions of the world are involved, although
some countries are implicated more than others. One source
lists twenty-nine countries other than the United States as the
world's major money launderers: Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Cayman Islands, Colombia, C6te d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Germany, Hong
Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mexico,
Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Singapore,
Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates,
the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and Venezuela. 8 Countries are
implicated for varying reasons, and often for a combination of
reasons. Factors include bank secrecy, corruption, limited and
poorly trained enforcement resources, offshore banking operations, and lax foreign exchange controls. Drug operators vary
the places used and the sums laundered. In one instance, joint
7 United States, Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Drug Money
Laundering, Banks, and Foreign Policy, Report by the Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism, and International Operations, 1Olst Cong, 2nd sess, February
o
199 , 1; and United Nations, InternationalDrug Control Program Information
Letter, May 1993, 4.
8 INCSR, 62.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
5
investigations by several countries revealed that the Cali and
Medellin cartels of South America have conducted financial
operations in some forty countries in Europe, Latin America,
the United States, Africa, and Southeast Asia.9
The international drug trade is a dynamic industry - strong,
rich, and able to adapt to changing circumstances. Within it are
some of the best financed, best armed, and most ruthless organizations in the world. Indeed, many analysts believe that international drug operations have grown beyond a mere industry.
Consider the following observation:
The international narcotics industry is, in fact, not an industry at all,
but an empire. Sovereign, proud, expansionist, this Underground
Empire, though frequently torn by internal struggle, never fails to present a solid front to the world at large. It has become [today] as ruthlessly acquisitive and exploitative as any nineteenth-century imperial
kingdom, as far-reaching as the British Empire, as determinedly cohesive as the American republic. Aggressive and violent by nature, the
Underground Empire maintains its own armies, diplomats, intelligence
services, banks, merchant fleets, and airlines. It seeks to extend its dominance by any means, from clandestine subversion to open warfare.'One study identified ten developments during the 198os
and early 199os that have influenced changes in this industry/
empire.- The dramatic increase in cocaine demand in the
United States during the 198os is the first. This led to efforts
by Colombian producers to eliminate major competitors,
expand refining capacity, adjust trafficking routes, and neutralize Colombian law enforcement measures. A second development followed in the wake of the 1979 Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. The ensuing conflict facilitated increased opium
production, provided a source of funding for the anti-Soviet war
9
lbid, 493. For a short, often funny, discussion of money laundering methods,
see Gerald Mobius, 'Money laundering,' InternationalCriminal Police Review
44oUanuary-February 1993), 2-8.
io James Mills, The UndergroundEmpire (Garden City Nv: Doubleday 1986), 3.
i i See MacDonald and Zagaris, 'Introduction,' 7-11.
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effort, and allowed traffickers to exploit the support to the
mujahedin by Iran and Pakistan, by using those countries as
transit routes.
The Islamic revolution in Iran is also said to have had a
dramatic impact: Iranian government assistance to fundamentalists in the Bekaa Valley undermined narcotics countermeasures in Lebanon and the region generally and allowed Iran to
become a major element in the heroin distribution network.
The introduction of tough countermeasures in Mexico and
Colombia in the mid-i98os led to shifts in production and trading operations. Production expanded in Brazil and Ecuador,
and Venezuela, Suriname, Haiti, and Paraguay became major
trans-shipment points.
The collapse of the Ne Win government in Myanmar
(Burma) in 1988 is cited as the fifth development. Myanmar
has long been a major opium producer, but the Ne Win government had periodically conducted raids against producers
and traffickers. However, with that government's collapse and
the ensuing political instability, narcotics countermeasures
became a minor concern. As a result, by 1990 Myanmar ranked
as the world's largest opium producer. Indeed, the 1993 InternationalNarcotics Report claims that 'if all its potential poppy cultivation were processed into heroin, Burma alone could satisfy
the world's known demand for the drug.' 2
The combination of intensified countermeasures in Colombia following the assassination of presidential candidate Luis
Carlos Galdn in August 1989 and the United States intervention
in Panama in December 1989 is described as the sixth development. These two events led to the end of Panama as a major
trafficking centre; reduced cocaine production in Colombia and
expanded production in Peru; vertical and horizontal integration
of operations in Bolivia; expansion of operations in Argentina,
Chile, and elsewhere in South America; and the relative decline
of the Medellin cartel and the rise of the Cali organization.
12 INCSR, 7.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
7
The seventh development derived from the apparent saturation of the market for cocaine in the United States in the
early 199os, forcing operators to diversify both product and
market. Latin American traders are now seeking to expand markets in Europe, Japan, and the Middle East. The evidence indicates that the Cali cartel has been recruiting Polish carriers to
smuggle cocaine across the Polish-German border. Czech and
Polish law enforcement agencies have also uncovered a network
involving Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands,
central to which was a Czech-Colombian agricultural import
company in Prague.'3 Continuous experimentation with the
development of psychotropic substances, such as Ice, is the
eighth factor. These drugs can be produced anywhere as long
as the relevant chemicals are available.
The internationalization of the drug trade is another factor.
While some nations do not have major production or consumption-abuse problems, they are deeply implicated in trafficking
operations because of their location. Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan
are key to the central Asian trade, Guyana and Trinidad and
Tobago have become major points in the movement of drugs
from Colombia to the United States, and Nigeria is now key to
the heroin trade from both southeast and southwest Asia.
Indeed, the International Narcotics Control Board reports that
'Nigerian customs authorities seized 555 kilograms of cocaine
in 1991, compared with 6o6 kilograms of cocaine reported
seized in the entire (West African) region that year.'4 The final
factor identified by MacDonald and Zagaris is the movement
towards internationally co-ordinated responses.
The drug dilemmas facing some regions are aggravated by
refugee problems. Surveys conducted in southwest Asia, for
example, indicate that heroin addiction among Afghan refugees
13 Rensselaer W. Lee III and Scott B. Macdonald, 'Drugs in the east,' Foreign Policy, no go(spring 1993), too.
14 UN Narcotics Report, 19. The report also indicates that Turkey remains the
principal transit country for southwest Asian heroin destined for Western
markets.
8
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in Pakistan (both men and women) has risen dramatically. One
gets a sense of the implications of this development when it is
remembered that following the Soviet invasion nearly seven million of Afghanistan's sixteen million people fled to Pakistan and
Iran. There is justifiable concern that the return of more refugees to Afghanistan will deepen the already terrible situation
there. Moreover, the widespread destruction of infrastructure
and agriculture caused by political instability will exacerbate the
social-economic situation of addicted refugees.'5
Beyond all these factors, the demise of the Soviet Union and
the creation of independent states in its former political space
have precipitated a host of post-Cold War drug-related problems. Adaptations of free market economics and access to the
global economy have spurred myriad initiatives, including ones
by drug operators, and political liberalization and the creation
of new social space have given rise to increased drug experimentation and spiralling abuse. Moreover, economic doldrums,
weak law enforcement, unprotected borders, poor financial systems, and limited institutional and material capabilities make
the societies of central Asia and eastern Europe very vulnerable
to drug operations.
There are other factors involved. The law enforcement
methods used during the communist era created a deep-seated
and pervasive popular mistrust of officialdom, especially of law
enforcement agencies. Criminal investigations are, consequently, hampered by the inability of the relevant authorities to
recruit informants and secure witnesses for court testimony.
International co-operation is also affected. In addition, law
enforcement is seen as suffering from a lack of broad-based
citizen support. (Not that it is much better in other parts of the
world.) The supersensitivity of the newly independent central
Asian states about their sovereignty also engenders a certain
15 Ibid, 28, and Great Decisions 1992 (New York: Foreign Policy Association
1992), 25.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
9
unwillingness to give intelligence to Russian authorities about
local drug operators or about drug operations within their
territories. 6
Thus, drug operations are dynamic and increasing in scope.
Their consequences and implications have led to a recognition
by the international community that they present security
threats. In February 199o the United Nations convened a special session of the General Assembly at which it was declared
that 'the magnitude of the rising trend in the illicit demand,
production, supply, trafficking, and distribution of narcotic
drugs and psychotropic substances [was] a grave and persistent
threat to the health and well-being of mankind, the stability of
nations, the political, economic, social, and cultural structures
of all societies, and the lives and dignity of millions of human
'
beings. "7
Concern was also voiced that 'the large financial prof-
its derived from illicit drug trafficking and related criminal activities enable transnational criminal organizations to penetrate,
contaminate and corrupt the structure of Governments, legitimate commercial activities and society at all levels, thereby vitiating economic and social developments, distorting the process
' 8
of law, and undermining the foundations of States."
In response to the gravity of the narcotics phenomenon, the
special session proclaimed the period 1991 to 2ooo as the
United Nations Decade against Drug Abuse - a time for 'intensifying and sustaining international, regional, and national
efforts in the fight against drug abuse.' The session also adopted
a wide-ranging Political Declaration and Global Program of
Action to 'protect mankind from the scourge of drug abuse and
illicit trafficking.' The Global Program of Action invites states
16 For a discussion of these issues, see Lee and MacDonald, 'Drugs in the east,'
89-107, and Stephen E. Flynn, The TransnationalDrug Challenge and the New
World Order (Washington: Center for Strategic and International Studies
1993).
17 United Nations, General Assembly, XVIIth Special Session, Political Declaration, A/RES/S-17/2, 15 March 1990, 2.
18 Ibid.
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to give high priority to demand reduction and to enhance the
role of the United Nations in anti-drug campaigns. It outlines
specific efforts relating to treatment and rehabilitation, supply
control, illegal traffic, money laundering, the strengthening of
legal and judicial systems, and arms trafficking.'9 Resolution 47/
99 of the General Assembly, passed at the regular 1991 session,
required that the implementation of the Program of Action be
evaluated at the 1993 regular session where four high-level plenary meetings were to be devoted to the drug question. At that
20
time the situation was determined to be as grave as ever.
This sketch of the increasing scope and gravity of drug operations suggests that drugs now command a more prominent
place on the international agenda than a decade or two ago.
However, it does not explain the security aspects of the phenomenon. An appreciation of this requires a preliminary assessment of the term 'security' in the context of structural and
operational changes in the contemporary world.
SECURITY
IN
A CHANGING WORLD
Security has long been a highly contested concept with a multiplicity of definitions and usages. 2' Most of these definitions
and usages, however, are built around a few core concepts: international anarchy, survival, territorial integrity, and military
power. Moreover, most of them share a common theoretical
foundation: traditional realism. Realism focuses on the state as
the unit of analysis, stresses the competitive character of relations among states, and emphasizes the military and, to a lesser
extent, the political aspects of security. It also is oriented to the
19 See United Nations, Resolutions and Decisions Adopted by the General Assembly
during its Seventeenth Special Session, supplement 2 (A/s-17/13), 1991.
20 United Nations, press release GA/18562, 26 October 1993.
21
For various definitions and usages of 'security,' see 'Concepts of security,' Disarmament 14 (1986), 4-21; Joseph S. Nye, Jr, and Sean Lynn-Jones, 'International security studies: a report of a conference on the state of the field,'
InternationalStudies Quarterly 12(spring 1988), 5-27; Stephen M. Walt, 'The
renaissance of security studies,' InternationalStudies Quarterly 35 (June 1991),
211-39; and Barry Buzan, People, States, and Fear (2nd ed; Boulder co: Lynne
Rienner 1991), 16-24.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
11
international arena, sees states as national actors rationally pursuing their interests in that arena, and considers military and
economic power capabilities to be the most critical ones. For
the realist, security is 'high politics.'22
The end of the Cold War has prompted an increasing challenge of the realist conceptualization of international politics in
general and of security in particular. However, serious criticism
of realism began long before - as early as the 196os with the
emergence of the behavioural movement. Although the publication of Kenneth Waltz's Theory of InternationalPolitics in 1979
precipitated the rise of structural realism, during the i98os
scholars, especially those concerned with small states and weak
states - not always the same set - increasingly widened the ambit
of the term 'security' and re-evaluated the utility of its realistcentred definition.
Edward Azar and Chung-in Moon, for instance, broadened
the definition of security to allow analysis of four threat areas:
military, political, ecological, and protracted ethnic or social
conflict.23 For his part, Robert Rothstein saw several problems
with the traditional approach and argued for a more differentiated analytic approach, preliminary to which would be a pretheory to categorize and differentiate countries and to generate
a conceptual framework able to facilitate explanatory hypotheses. Rothstein believed the security of most states had little to
do with universal structural constraints but was instead tied to
limited power capabilities, domestic order, and threat perception of small ruling 6lites. Security challenges were thereby
linked with problems of development.24
22 For a discussion of realism, see HansJ. Morgenthau, revised by Kenneth W.
Thompson, Politics among Nations (6th ed; New York: Knopf 1985), and Paul
R. Viotti and Mark V. Kauppi, InternationalPolitical Theory: Realism, Pluralism,
Globalism (2nd ed; New York: Macmillan 1993), 35-227.
23 See Edward Azar and Chung-in Moon, 'Third World national security: toward
a new conceptual framework,' InternationalInteractions i i (no 2, 1984), 103-
35.
24 See Robert Rothstein, 'The "security dilemma" and the "poverty trap" in the
Third World,' JerusalemJournalofInternationalRelations 8(December 1986), t-
38.
12
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With the end of the Cold War have come transformations
both in the structure of international politics and in the nature
and severity of threats and challenges to nations and states.
Charles Kegley believes these transformations are being influenced by 'the cumulative and collective effect' of several salient
developments which include: the dispersion of power among
the most powerful states and the potential re-emergence of a
multipolar system; the increasing political influence of non-state
actors such as multinational corporations; a resurgence of
hypernationalism, setting the stage for a new wave of national
disintegration; the continuing internationalization of national
economies; and the deterioration of the global ecosystem.2 5
Stanley Hoffmann discerns the development of different currencies of power affixed to different poles of international
power: military, economic and financial, demographic, and
military and economic. The poles will vary in their productivities. Demographic power, for example, will prove to be more of
a liability than an asset, while the utility of military power will
be reduced. Hoffmann contends that the fate of the new world
order will depend on the ability of the poles to co-operate to
prevent or moderate conflicts and to correct the imbalances in
the world economy that will induce some states to disrupt the
6
momentum of interdependence.2
Other scholars view the complexity of the post-Cold War
era in different terms. Joseph Nye, for example, points to multilevel interdependence: 'The distribution of power in world
politics has become like a layer cake.' He sees a structure with
the top, military, layer being largely unipolar, the economic,
middle, layer as tripolar, and the bottom layer of transnational
interdependence showing a diffusion of power.2 7 As mentioned
Charles W. Kegley, Jr, 'The neoidealist moment in international studies? Realist myths and the new international realities,' InternationalStudies Quarterly
37(June 1993), 140.
26 See Stanley Hoffmann, 'A new world order and its troubles,' Foreign Affairs
69(fall 1990), 115-22.
27 Joseph S. Nye, Jr, 'What new world order?' Foreign Affairs 71 (spring 1992),
25
88.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
13
earlier, Edward Luttwak envisages a new order whose central
feature will be geo-economics - the mixture of the logic of conflict with the methods of commerce. He expects that both the
causes and instruments of conflict will be economic. He is convinced that with the waning of military conflict, commercial
quarrels that generate political clashes will result in the use of
weapons of commerce: the more or less disguised restriction of
imports; the more or less concealed subsidization of exports;
the funding of competitive technology projects; and the provi8
sion of competitive infrastructures, among other things.2
Samuel Huntington challenges contentions that economics
(or indeed ideology) will be the fundamental source of future
world conflict. He sees culture as the key source of discord.
While he expects nation-states to be the most powerful actors
in world affairs, he foresees the main global political conflicts
occurring between nations and groups of different civilizations.
And he asserts confidently: 'The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be
the battle lines of the future. ''29 This clash of civilizations is
expected to occur at two levels. On the 'micro' level, neighbouring groups along 'fault lines' between civilizations will
struggle, often violently, over control of territory and each
other. At the 'macro' level, clashes will involve states from different civilizations competing for relative military and economic
power, struggling over the control of international institutions
and third parties, and competitively promoting their particular
political and religious values.
Huntington's conflict of civilizations thesis is multifaceted.
Conflict between civilizations will supplant ideological and other
forms of conflict as the dominant factor in global conflict. International relations, historically a game played out within Western
civilization, will progressively be de-Westernized and become a
game in which non-Western civilizations are actors and not
28 See Luttwak, 'From geopolitics to geo-economics.'
29 Samuel P. Huntington, 'The clash of civilizations?' Foreign Affairs 72(summer
1993), 22.
14
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merely objects. Successful political, security, and economic
international institutions are more likely to develop within civilizations than across them. Conflicts between groups in different civilizations will become more frequent, more sustained,
and more violent than battles between groups in the same civilization. Violent conflicts between groups in different civilizations are the most likely and the most dangerous source of
potential global wars. The paramount axis of world politics will
be relations between 'the West and the Rest.'3o
Irrespective of which interpretation of the global changes or
vision of the new world order one shares, it is no longer tenable
to view international power as centred primarily on military
issues. International power is becoming increasingly multidimensional, and international structures are becoming more
complex. Consequently, it is untenable for states to operate on
the traditional lines of military balance of power, the east Asian
arms race notwithstanding. Indeed, there is a certain diminution in the importance of some military issues - the Strategic
Defense Initiative of the United States, nuclear conflict, and the
global arms race, for example - which allows other survival concerns to be accommodated. Barry Buzan argues that 'as the
military security agenda has become static, those for economics
and the ecology have become more dynamic and more central
to day-to-day concerns.'3'
These interpretations of the changing international landscape call into question the adequacy of the traditional realist
conception of security and even of the relevance of realism
itself. As Kegley has observed: 'Realism, rooted in the experience of World War II and the Cold War, is undergoing a crisis
of confidence largely because the lessons adduced do not convincingly apply directly to these new realities. The broadened
30 Ibid, 48. Huntington's thought-provoking analysis has elicited some equally
probing responses by Fouad Ajami, Kishore Mahbubani, Robert Bartley, Liu
Binyan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and others in Foreign Affairs 72(September-October
1993), 2-26.
31 Buzan, People, States, and Fear, 133.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
15
global agenda goes beyond what realism can realistically be
expected to address.'32 It is, however, important to note that
most critics do not advocate a total rejection of realism. As
Richard Falk remarked: 'To challenge the centrality of realism
does not imply its total repudiation. States do remain important
actors, war does remain profoundly relevant to international relations, and many international settings can be better understood
as collisions of interests and antagonistic political forces.'33
As might be expected, there is no unanimity among scholars
about what constitutes the broadened security agenda. Among
issues that many include on that agenda are AIDS, the international drug trade, the destruction of the ozone layer, the
international debt burden, and global warming. In their various
ways, these matters threaten the physical safety, territorial integrity, and economic and political stability of various societies.
However, the nature and sources of these threats make it infeasible to use the state as the sole unit of analysis in examining
these issues. Nor is it plausible to focus exclusively on external
threats. It is now practically conventional wisdom that challenges that are not constitutively military, such as those mentioned above, can and do pose genuine threats to the survival
and quality of life of nations and states. It therefore seems reasonable to argue that the meaning of security should extend
beyond the confines of 'high politics.'
For me, security does go beyond 'high politics.' As I have
explained elsewhere, security involves the protection and preservation of a people's freedom from external military attack
and coercion, from internal subversion, and from the erosion
of cherished political, economic, and social values. Perception,
capability, geography, and ideology are crucial to this understanding of security.34 This conception of security is a multifac32 Kegley, 'The neoidealist moment,' 141.
33 See Richard Falk, 'Theory, realism, and world security,' in Michael T. Klare
and Daniel C. Thomas, eds, World Security: Trends and Challenges at Century's
End (New York: St Martin's Press 1991), 0o.
34 See Ivelaw L. Griffith, The Quest for Security in the Caribbean (New York: M.E.
Sharpe 1993), 11-13.
16
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eted one, enabling us to see security as operational along several
dimensions: military, political, economic, and environmental.
Military security is concerned with political violence and the
instruments used to prosecute it, whether for offence or
defence, whether by states or sub-national groups. Political security pertains to the stability of nations and the ideological and
organizational elements that facilitate their maintenance. Economic security concerns the availability of and access to economic capabilities, such as natural resources and finance, to the
economic equilibrium of states, and to the welfare of individuals
and groups within them. Environmental security deals with
maintenance of the local and planetary biosphere as the essential support systems for all human enterprise.35 This conceptualization does not see security as military hardware, although it
may include it. Security is not merely military force, although it
does involve it. It is not traditional military activity, although it
may encompass it. Security is linked with development; without
6
development there can be no real security.3
This framework obviously takes account of the state. But it
does not exclude from the universe of analysis sub-state groups,
such as organized drug producers, or non-state systemic ones,
such as international drug cartels and international non-governmental organizations (INGOS). It pays attention to both internal
and external security because the distinction between the two
is becoming increasingly blurred. And because security does not
revolve solely around a military fulcrum, attention must be paid
to non-military capabilities as well as non-military countermeasures.
Predictably, many analysts are reluctant to widen the conceptual boundaries of the term 'security,' especially in relation
to the environmental dimension. One of the most caustic
35 This formulation draws on Buzan, People, States. and Fear, 19-20.
36 For a similar proposition, see Robert S. McNamara, The Essence of Security:
Reflections in Office (New York: Harper & Row 1968), 149. Unlike McNamara,
I do not limit the relevance of the security-development nexus to the Third
World.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
17
remarks in this regard has been made by Daniel Deudney: 'The
fashionable recourse to national security paradigms to conceptualize the environment represents a profound and disturbing
failure of imagination and political awareness.' He suggests that
'when environmentalists dress their programs in the bloodsoaked garments of the war system, they betray their core values,
and create confusion about real tasks at hand. ' 37 Stephen Walt
is also among scholars who warn against 'expanding "security
studies" excessively' lest to do so might destroy the 'intellectual
coherence' of the field.3S This is a reasonable caution. But it is
clear to many analysts, this one included, that whether or not
scholars choose to redefine security, practical developments
around the world are doing so. Long-standing constructs should
not be abandoned summarily. Scholars should, however, guard
against sacrificing the conceptual adaptation necessary to
(re)interpret phenomena in the changing world on high altars
of theoretical conformity, even in regard to a theory like realism
that has held intellectual sway since the end of World War II.
Happily, I am not alone in these views. They are also held
by some reputable security scholars. Edward Kolodziej, for
example, has observed:
Neither scientific inquiry nor human self-knowledge is promoted by
blind commitment to a singular philosophical view, or to group-think
canons that substitute assertion for reflection and discerning judgment
37 See Daniel Deudney, 'Environment and security: muddled thinking,' Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists 47(April 1991), 22-8, at 28. For a debate on the inclusion of the environment (and ecology) in the security matrix, see Deudney,
'Environment and security'; Terry Terriff, 'The Earth Summit: are there security implications?' Arms Control 13 (September 1992), 163-9o; Jessica Tuchman
Mathews, 'The environment and international security,' in Klare and Thomas, eds, World Security, Lothar Brock, 'Security through defending the environment: an illusion?' in Elise Boulding, ed, New Agenda for Peace Research:
Conflict and Security Reexamined (Boulder co: Lynne Rienner 1992), 79-102;
and Peter H. Gleick, 'Environment, resources, and security,' in Patrick M.
Cronin, ed, From Globalism to Regionalism: New Perspectives on U.S. Foreign and
Defense Policies (Washington: National Defense University Press 1993), 165-79.
38 Walt, 'The renaissance,' 213.
18
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
in deciding what security is, what security problems are, and how they
should be studied or resolved ...
... Let the limits of the problem to be solved determine the scope
and parameters of empirical and normative theory rather than impose
a particular theory of politics and security that defines what has to be
described, explained, and rationalized ... Critical to the task of the security scholar and practitioner is the challenge of defining those dimensions as inclusively as possible.39
What, then, are some of the security dimensions of narcotics
operations?
THE DRUGS-SECURITY NEXUS
Karl von Clausewitz once declared that the first task of strategists is. to determine the nature of the conflict confronting
them, as this is the first of all strategic questions. The wisdom
of this declaration should be obvious even to non-strategists.
With this in mind it is important to note that while narcotics
operations have military implications and consequences, the
'war on drugs' is not constitutively a military matter.
The nexus between drugs and security lies in the several
consequences and implications of drug operations for the protection and development of individuals and state and non-state
entities in the international system. Drug operations present
security problems not merely because of their international
scope, in that very few of the nation-states in the United Nations
system escape some kind of threat, but also because of their
multidimensionality which means that they have an impact on
the military, political, economic, and environmental areas.
Military security concerns
Because the war on drugs is not purely a military matter, the
outright application of military countermeasures would be
39 Edward A. Kolodziej, 'Renaissance in security studies? Caveat lector!' International Studies Quarterly 3 6(December 1992), 435, 436. Kolodziej's article is a
harsh response to Walt.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
19
futile. The utility of some of the most modern weapons for
efforts to combat drug operations is zero or near zero. Attempts
by United States defence officials to commit resources of the
Colorado-based North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD)
Command to the drug war make this only too clear. First, the
NORAD surveillance system, which is designed to identify highflying Soviet bombers and nuclear-tipped missiles, is blind to
aircraft flying below io,ooo feet, the altitude range of most narcotics air trafficking missions. Moreover, not only does NORAD
have to ground its 16 radar-carrying balloons that scan for aircraft below io,ooo feet whenever there is stormy weather, but
its fighter jets fly too fast for pilots to see tail numbers on suspicious aircraft.4o This is not to suggest, however, that there is
no need or room for military capabilities and sophisticated military technology in the war on drugs.
In some countries efforts to deal with drug operations, especially production and trafficking, have taxed police forces
beyond capacity, forcing some governments to commit military
forces to anti-drug countermeasures and other governments to
contemplate doing so. This is true of countries in all parts of
the world. Such measures are fraught with problems, including
jurisdictional conflicts between military and police forces,
resource (re)allocation, potential corruption (and in some
cases increased corruption) of military personnel, training and
technology adaptations, and the potential for (re)militarization
of society in some places. Some of these issues threaten fragile
democracies under (re)construction in parts of Latin America
and central and southwest Asia.4'
40 Eric Schmitt, 'Colorado bunker built for Cold War shifts focus to drug battle,' New York Times, 18 July 1993, 18. Also, see United States, General
Accounting Office, Drug Smuggling: Capabilitiesfor InterdictingPrivateAircraft are
Limited and Costly, Report to Congressional Requesters, GAO/GG D-89-93,June
1989, and Computer Technology: Air Attack Warning Systems Cannot Process all
Radar/TrackData, Report to the Chairman, House Sub-committee on
Defense, Committee on Appropriation, GAO/MTEC-91-15, May 1991.
41 For a useful discussion of most of these issues, see Michael H. Abbott, 'The
army and the drug war: politics or national security?' Parameters 18(December
1988), 95-1 12; Rensselaer W. Lee III, The White Labyrinth (New Brunswick Nj:
20
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
In parts of the world where the military has never exercised
direct political power - like the Caribbean - many leaders worry
that successful or prolonged use of the military in anti-drug
campaigns risks catapulting them into the countries' political
power centres, with the potential for the development of a
guardian mentality. If the military comes to be seen - or, worse,
if they come to see themselves - as indispensable to this critical
aspect of national security, there is little to prevent them from
intruding into the political arena, whether subtly or forcefully.
For a region such as the Caribbean, such a development would
jeopardize political stability and likely lead to the sort of militarization that a few countries experienced in the 197os and
198os but this time in a much more significant way.
In some countries traffickers possess larger and more sophisticated military resources than the police or the military. In
some parts of Latin America, traffickers appear to rely on
sophisticated communications systems, including digital encryption devices, to maintain secure communications within their
organizations and to monitor law enforcement countermeasures. Indeed, one retired general has testified that traffickers
can track the movement of Colombian armed forces and aircraft and ships better than their respective commanders and
2
know more surely where they are and where they are going.4
The demands of the drug industry have also led to increased
arms trafficking. These operations are not only truly international, but sometimes they implicate countries that are vulnerable by virtue of small size, openness, relative poverty, and
corruptibility. Such is the case of Antigua-Barbuda and its
Transaction Publishers 1991), especially chaps 4 & 5; Bruce M. Bagley,
'Myths of militarization: enlisting armed forces in the war on drugs,' in Peter
H. Smith, ed, Drug Polity in the Americas (Boulder co: Westview 1992), 129-
5o; Robert P. Walzer, 'General [George A.] Joulwan stresses the role of the
Southern Command,' San Juan Star (Puerto Rico), 7 July 1993, 2, 6; Lee and
MacDonald, 'Drugs in the east'; Schmitt, 'Colorado bunker'; and Kate Doyle,
'Drug war: a quietly escalating failure,' NACLA Report on the Americas 26 (May
1993), 29-34, 43-442 Lee, White Labyrinth, 104.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
21
involvement in the Medellin arms trafficking episode in 19889. That case involved corruption of high-ranking members of
the government, including a government minister and the army
commander, and use of the Antigua-Barbuda Defence Force as
front purchaser of Israeli weapons. The initial order was for 500
weapons
and
200,000
rounds of ammunition,
valued
at
US$ 3 5 3 ,7oo. The final order total was US$ 3 2 4 ,20 5 , and the
financial aspect of the deal was handled through thirteen transactions, ranging in value from US$ 4 4 ,ooo to US$ioo,ooo.
Antiguans, Israelis, Colombians, and Panamanians were directly
involved. They used Danish and Panamanian ships, and American, Panamanian, and Israeli banks for the operation.43
Some countries have the misfortune to house not only one
or more major drug operations but also insurgencies or guerrilla operations of one kind or another. Peru, Colombia, Myanmar (Burma), Tajikistan, Suriname, Afghanistan, and the
Philippines are cases in point. Collaboration between drug
operators and guerrillas has given rise to narcoterrorism. There
is evidence that in parts of Latin America and southwest and
central Asia guerrillas finance their activities by taxing the drug
trade and by protecting traffickers' plantations, laboratories,
and airstrips against raids by government forces. Moreover, drug
traffickers in Latin America and southeast Asia are said to
finance guerrilla campaigns that serve their interests.
Some insurgents run their own drug outfits, as in Myanmar,
where, according to the 1993 InternationalNarcotics Report, the
Shan United Army remains a powerful drug trafficking and heroin refining organization. The drugs-arms-conflict connection
is also present in the Balkans. Rensselaer Lee and Scott MacDonald suggest that many traffickers in the former Yugoslavia
are motivated by more than just profit, providing financing and
equipment for the civil war in the region. There is also evidence
that some Albanians have purchased weapons in Berne and
43 See Griffith, The Quest, 260-2, for a summary of the affair. For full details, see
Louis Blom-Cooper, Guns for Antigua (London: Duckworth 199o).
22
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
Basel, using the proceeds from the sale of heroin in Switzerland.
Some of the weapons go to two insurgent groups: Kosovo's
Front of Resistance and National Liberation of Albania.44
Political security concerns
Irrespective of the strength of the bonds between drug traffickers and guerrillas, drug operations generate a significant
amount of crime and violence around the world: from racketeering, kidnapping, bribery, tax evasion, and theft to banking
law violations, import/export infractions, murder, burglary, illegal money transfer, extortion, and other crimes.
The crimes drug operators commit may be placed in two
general categories: 'enforcement' crimes and 'business' crimes.
The former involve crimes among traffickers and between traffickers and civilians and police, triggered by traffickers' efforts
to avoid arrest and prosecution. The latter encompass crimes
committed as part of business disputes and acquisitive crimes
such as robbery and extortion.45 Because of the nature and
dimensions of drug operations, these crimes are not all committed on an individual, random basis; they are mostly organized, well planned, and executed by national groups and
international networks. Some of these groups and networks are
bound together by national, ethnic, or racial ties, such as the
Medellin, Tijuana, and Cali cartels, the Asian gangs, La Cosa
46
Nostra, and the Jamaican posses.
The criminal activities and the drug operations that precipitate them have generated increased violence, both political and
non-political. The violence has been unprecedented in the
United States and in Latin America, especially in Colombia,
44 Lee and MacDonald, 'Drugs in the east,' ioo-i.
45 See Mark A.R. Kleiman, Marijuana:Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Westport
CT: Greenwood 1989), 109-17.
46 See Mills, UndergroundEmpire, Michael D. Larman, Gangland: Drug Trafficking
by Organized Criminals (Springfield IL: Charles Thomas 1989); E. Marotta,
'Drug abuse and illicit trafficking in Italy: trends and countermeasures, 1979i 99o,' Bulletin on Narcotics 40(no 1, 1992), 17-22; and Gary Brana-Shute,
'Jamaican posse gangs in the United States,' unpublished paper, 1993.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
23
Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico. Over the last decade thousands of
ordinary citizens, businessmen, journalists, and government
officials have been maimed or killed in drug-related violence.
Even priests and bishops have been victims. One of the most
recent such incidents was the murder on 24 May 1993 of Juan
Jesfis Cardinal Posadas Ocampo, archbishop of Guadalajara,
Mexico, and six other people in a daylight airport shootout. The
cardinal, who was shot fourteen times, and the others were victims of mistaken identity in the battles between the Sinaloa and
Tijuana drug cartels.47 On the government side in Colombia
alone, casualties have included an attorney general, prosecutors,
several judges, prison guards, a presidential candidate, and hundreds of police and soldiers.
Violence undermines and wrecks the institutional basis for
the maintenance of good government and public safety in many
places in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. It seems to
be systemic in some places, notably Italy, Jamaica, and Colombia. In the case of Colombia, it is believed that a major contributor to the growth of systemic violence has been La Violencia
- the virtual civil war between 1948 and 1966 in which extreme
cruelty and wanton destruction were the order of the day. Some
analysts claim the killings involved 2 to 3 per cent of the country's population, and the noted historian, Eric Hobsbawm, estimated that La Violencia involved the largest armed mobilization
of peasants - as guerrillas, bandits, or self-defence groups - in
the contemporary West, with the exception of the most turbu8
lent moments of the Mexican revolution.4
Many Latin American scholars are convinced that La Violencia has left legacies that facilitate, if they do not actually encourage, the cocaine operations. For one thing, the government lost
control of large sections of the country. Moreover - and a direct
47 'Reputed drug lord arrested in killing of Mexican cardinal,' Stabroek News
(Guyana), i June 1993, 5; and Tim Golden, 'The enemy within: Mexico's
drug habit is giving it shivers,' New York Times, 2o June 1993, E 1, E6.
48 Robin Kirt, Feeding the Tiger: Colombia's Internally Displaced People, a Report for
the American Council for Nationalities Service, July 1993, 5.
24
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
consequence of La Violencia - a low value tends to be placed
on human life. As one writer argues, one of its legacies is that
'Colombians are quick to resort to violence in dealing with conflict - a very useful attribute in a high-profit, high-risk, and conflict-prone business.'49 Certainly, the propensity of Colombian
drug dealers to wipe out their Bolivian and Peruvian competitors is notorious.
Crime and violence have forward and backward and vertical
and horizontal linkages with a major threat to political stability:
corruption. Drug operators bribe the police and soldiers not to
raid laboratories or make arrests and to drop investigations.
They pay state prosecutors not to prosecute, judges not to convict, and prison officials to release colleagues. They bribe government ministers, journalists, political parties, banking
officials, pilots and other airline workers, shippers, and others.
In some cases, judges are offered 'plomo o plata,' a choice
between death if they convict or a reward if they dismiss charges.
Understandably, under such circumstances few judges opt to
convict.
It is not difficult to appreciate how drug operators can corrupt top officials in industry, business, and government: they
have the money to do it. As a matter of fact, some cartels and
individual barons have more money than the national treasuries
of some small countries. In one case, Colombian traffickers
offered to liquidate Colombia's entire foreign debt in exchange
for the repudiation by the government of extradition as a
national policy.50 Few people doubted their ability to honour
such an offer. Latin American specialists know that corruption
is one of the greatest threats to current democratic
49 Francisco E. Thoumi, 'Why the illegal psychoactive drugs industry grew in
Colombia,' Journalof InteramericanStudies and World Affairs 3 4 (fall 1992), 50.
For a comprehensive analysis of violence in Colombia, see Charles Bergquist,
Ricardo Pefiaranda, and Gonzalo Sfdnchez, eds, Violence in Colombia (Wilmington DE: Scholarly Resources 1992).
50 Michael J. Dziedzic, 'The transnational drug trade and regional security,' Survival 31 (November-December 1989), 534.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
25
(re)construction in the region, shaking the pillars of the political system recently in Brazil, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Guatemala. According to Richard Millett, the drug trade has
compounded the problem by committing its vast resources 'with
a frightening ability and willingness to use deadly force.'5'
Societies in which corruption has long been part of the
social-political culture are even more vulnerable. Richard
Craig's observation about Mexico is applicable elsewhere in
Latin America and to places in Asia, Africa, and Europe: 'Mexicans are virtually inured to corruption. They would actually be
suspicious of any totally honest bureaucrat, politician, or judge.
But narcotrdfico has done what even the most corrupt politician
could not do: it has rendered dysfunctional the cement of Mexican politics and society. And in the process it has transformed
the subtle and necessary art of the mordida into an outrageous,
system-threatening corrupci6n desaceptable.'52
Corruption of law enforcement and military officials has distinct implications for military security: it compromises agents of
national security, with the consequences that their capability for
effective action is undermined or destroyed, and individuals and
groups in the society become inclined to resort to vigilante tactics because of the perception or reality of a diminished capacity. Moreover, drug corruption not only undermines the
credibility of governments, it also impairs the ability of politicians and bureaucrats to define and defend the national interest
adequately. In addition, it contributes to the development of
cynicism and increased tolerance for corruption, both of which
are dangerous. Consequently, drug corruption subverts political
security.53
51 Richard L. Millett, 'Is Latin American democracy sustainable?' North-South
Issues 2(no 3, 1993), 552 Richard B. Craig, 'Mexican narcotics traffic: binational security implications,'
in Donald J. Mabry, ed, The Latin American Narcotics Trade and U.S. National
Security (Westport CT: Greenwood 1989), 29-30.
53 Ivelaw L. Griffith, 'Drugs and security in the Commonwealth Caribbean,' Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 31 (July 1993), 84.
26
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
Economic security concerns
Drug abuse contributes to loss of productivity due to addiction,
rehabilitation, and incarceration. It increases the cost of health
care and in many countries drug operations lead to distorted
resource allocation by forcing governments to devote large proportions of scarce resources to dealing with drug operations and
the attendant crime and violence. In the Bahamas, for example,
85 per cent of the 199o defence budget had to be devoted to
drug counter-operations. The situation was equally dramatic in
Mexico. In 1985, 32.5 per cent of the attorney general's budget
was devoted to the Permanent Campaign, but by 1988 nearly
twice that amount was needed: 6o per cent.54 (The Permanent
Campaign is the umbrella under which narcotics counter-operations have been conducted since the 1970s.)
Countries with monocultural economies are especially vulnerable. For instance, the Caribbean economies that revolve significantly around tourism are being adversely affected because
of the negative impact of drugs and drug-related crime. In addition, private and state-owned transportation industries are
affected in many cases. Between 1989 and 1991, Air Jamaica, a
state-owned enterprise, was fined US$ 3 7 million by United
States customs for illegal drugs transported on its aircraft to
American cities. This might not be a huge loss for a conglomerate or a big country, but for a nation of 2.4 million people
with a US$ 4 -billion foreign debt it is a catastrophe.
Studies indicate that coca and cocaine not only cause inflation by introducing a huge monetary mass into the economy
but that they also raise the price of goods and services in the
coca-growing parts of the countries concerned. While drug
operations may not cause distortions in social-economic growth,
they certainly exacerbate them. Rensselaer Lee gives a Peruvian
example: Tocache, a coca boom town in the Upper Huallaga
Valley, has no paved streets and no drinking water or sewerage
54 The Bahamas figure comes from ibid, 92, and the Mexico figures are from
Miguel Ruiz-Cabafios I, 'Mexico's Permanent Campaign: costs, benefits, implications,' in Smith, ed, Drug Policy in the Americas, 157.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
27
system for its residents, but there are six banks, six Telex
machines, several stereo dealerships, and one of Peru's largest
Nissan outlets.55
Drug operations, especially production and trafficking, have
a strong impact on some economies, generating a high percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP). In Jamaica, for
example, marijuana operations are said to have contributed
between one and two million United States dollars to the
island's foreign exchange earnings in the late 198os - more
than all other exports combined, including bauxite, sugar, and
tourism. Bolivia is considered the Latin American country 'most
deeply in thrall to cocaine dollars.' The estimated value of its
1986 coca production - US$6oo million - was nearly double
the US$ 3 4 5 million produced by sales of natural gas and
amounted to 15 per cent of the country's GDp.5 6 Herein lies a
very difficult problem: 'Once a national economy is dependent
on such illicit activities, any effort to combat them will have
important recessionary impact or will be accompanied by costly
compensatory schemes.'57
Another element of the economic dilemma arises from the
positive economic aspects of drug operations. Lee shows that
the Latin American cocaine business has beneficial economic
multiplier effects in that local businessmen have expanded production to meet drug industry demands for farm equipment,
simple chemicals, filters, centrifuges, and other items. Many
banks and legal and accounting firms specialize in services for
the drug industry. Further, traffickers' demands for luxury housing boost the construction industry, generating work for contractors and domestic producers of materials such as cement,
bricks, and glass. A former Bolivian finance minister, Flavio
Machicado, estimated that coca dollars have allowed for the cre55 Lee, White Labyrinth, 43.
56 Ivelaw L. Griffith, 'Some security implications of Commonwealth Caribbean
narcotics operations,' Conflict Quarterly, 13(spring 1993), 28; andJo Ann
Kawell, 'The addict economies,' NACLA Report on the Americas 22(March
1989), 36.
57 UN Narcotics Report, 2.
28
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
ation of some 300,000 jobs that have no direct connection to
8
the drug trade.5
A look at the Eurasian mainland found a tenfold increase
in Uzbek poppy cultivation between 199o and 1993. To Uzbek
producers, one hectare of poppy meant, in mid- to late 1992,
an estimated annual gross income of US$ 5 ,ooo-6,ooo - about
twenty times the earnings from a hectare of cotton and some
thirty-five times those from a hectare of vegetables.59 In both
the cocaine and the heroin business, the farmers get the smallest percentage of the net earnings of the finished product. But
as one observer notes - and this is relevant to marijuana as well:
'Campesinos did not become millionaires growing coca, but
they made more money than they could doing anything else.
At $200 per hundredweight, no crop substitution program
could be as effective.'" Thus, in many places, drug operations
provide an economic safety valve by providing jobs and generating income and foreign exchange when the formal economy
falters.
Of course, not only do large numbers of people 'survive'
because of the international drug trade, a small number
become super-rich. And depending on how one views the situation, even government agencies in some countries can be seen
as beneficiaries of the enterprise. According to one source, the
Drug Enforcement Administration boasts that it is one of only
two government agencies in the United States - the other being
the Internal Revenue Service - that operates at a profit. Reports
are that in 1989 alone it seized US$i.i billion in cash while
6
being run on a budget of US$5oo million. '
Yet another aspect of this dilemma is that some drug barons
engage in what they see as social investment: they put some of
their profits into social welfare endeavours. Pablo Escobar of
Colombia, for example, not only built about 500 two-bedroom
58 Kawell, 'Addict economies,' 37.
59 Lee and MacDonald, 'Drugs in the east,' 96.
6o Guy Gugliotta, 'The Colombian cartels and how to stop them,' in Smith, ed,
Drug Policy in the Americas, t 18.
61 Ibid, 519. For DEA international seizures between August 1989 and February
1993, see INCSR, 71-6, 495-6.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
29
houses in a Medellin slum but also financed projects dealing
with sewerage repair, education, health clinics, and sports. In
Bolivia, Roberto Suarez is said to have paved streets, restored
churches, and donated sewing machines to poor women in
Santa Ana de Yucama, his home town. 6 2 As might well be
expected, the beneficiaries of this benevolence see these barons
as heroes.
Environmental security concerns
Most of the environmental concerns linked to the drug trade
relate to production and manufacturing operations. Cocaine
production, for example, gives rise not only to deforestation,
but also to pollution, species destruction, soil erosion, and dangers to human health.
A look at operations in Peru, the world's greatest coca producer, provides an appreciation of some of the problems.
Experts at Peru's National Agrarian University estimated that in
1986 the 16o,ooo hectares of coca cultivated produced 6,ooo
metric tons of basic paste whose manufacture required 57 million litres of kerosene, 32 million litres of sulphuric acid, 16
thousand metric tons of toilet paper, 6.4 million litres of acetone, and 6.4 million litres of toluene. The considerable waste
involved in manufacture is dumped and flushed into rivers and
streams, with adverse consequences. Whereas, kerosene, for
instance, has only a moderately toxic effect on humans, its longterm presence in water produces serious results for fish and
amphibians by reducing dissolved oxygen levels in the water,
and by chronic effects caused by ingestion and inhalation. Sulphuric acid is highly corrosive and toxic and dissolves easily in
water. The fish, amphibians, and flora in the rivers running
through drug-producing areas are unable to escape acute or
chronic sulphuric acid poisoning.6 3
When chemicals such as carbide or calcium carbide are dis62 Lee, White Labyrinth, 6.
63 United States, Congress, Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, Cocaine
Production, Eradication, and the Environment: Policy, Impact, and Options, o ist
Cong, 2nd sess, August 199o, 143-5.
30
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
solved in water, they are extremely toxic for organic tissue and
they increase the water's acidity to levels which the flora and
fauna cannot withstand. Toxins like acetone and toluene that
are highly soluble in water and extremely toxic are said to be
particularly harmful to fish and amphibians if ingested, inhaled,
or absorbed through the skin. Acidic toxins are very harmful to
living organisms, both because they accumulate in organic tissue
and because high concentrations of these contaminants lower
oxygen levels in water, thus affecting aquatic life since most of
it cannot survive in deoxygenated rivers and lakes. In addition,
the high concentrations of these chemicals reportedly reduce
the natural self-regulation of small and medium-sized rivers. Further, the tendency of toxins to damage the vital organs of plants
and animals is considered to have the potential for genetic
mutations. Moreover, a drastic reduction in the amount of oxygen in the water can decimate aerobic bacteria which are impor6
tant for the water's natural purification. 4
There are indications that many species of fish, amphibians,
aquatic reptiles, and crustaceans have already disappeared completely from rivers and streams in areas where maceration pits
are located. These include fish such as the caracha, the bagres,
and the carachama. It must be noted, though, that the pollution
has consequences not only for plants and animals, but also for
humans since the lack of adequate supplies of potable water in
some places forces residents to use the contaminated water,
thereby contracting various diseases. According to one source,
over 150 streams and small and medium-sized rivers have been
65
polluted in Peru alone.
Considerable deforestation results from cocaine production.
Marc Dourojeanni asserts that since the coca boom began in
the early 197os, coca production has directly caused the deforestation of 700,000 hectares of jungle in the Amazon region:
'One can go on to say that coca is the direct cause of io% of
64 Ibid, 145, 146.
65 Ibid.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
31
the total deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon Region this century.' 66 A look at southeast Asia has found that because of shifting opium poppy cultivation, forests in Thailand are being
destroyed at an estimated rate of 280,000-300,ooo hectares per
year. The total area affected amounts to some 2.8 million hec67
tares - 70 per cent of the country's northern forest areas.
The consequences of deforestation are numerous and
include: the loss of soils through violent and insidious erosion;
the extinction of genetic resources; the alteration of hydrological balances; the reduction of hydro-electric potential;
increased difficulties in river navigation; a reduction in potential
hydrobiological resources; a shortage of wood and lumber; and
a reduction in wildlife. Moreover, the obligatory burning off of
woods and land clearing lead to air pollution, loss of soil nutrients, and damage to top soil. 68 The United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization calculates that Latin America and the
Caribbean had the world's largest rain forest loss annually in
the years between 1981 and 1990 - 7.5 million hectares - compared with 4.2 million hectares in Africa and 4.0 million hectares in the Asia-Pacific region. Drug production is not, of
69
course, solely responsible for this loss.
Geonarcoticsframework
Having discussed the scope of the problems, my conceptualization of security, and some of the security problems precipitated by narcotics operations, it might now be useful to sketch
a framework to study the linkages between drugs and security.
66 Ibid, 85.
67 S. La-Ongsri, 'Drug abuse control and the environment in northern Thailand,' Bulletin on Narcotics 44(nO 2, 1992), 33.
68 Cocaine Production, Eradication,and the Environment: Policy, Impact, and Options,
85-8, 131; see also 'Destroying drug crops without harming the environment,' United Nations Focus, April 1991, 1. For a brief examination of the
impact of heroin and marijuana production operations, see L. Armstead,
'Illicit narcotics cultivation and processing: the ignored environmental
drama,' Bulletin on Narcotics 44(no 2, 1992), 14-18.
69 'World's rain forests shrink,' Stabroek News, 12 August 1993, 13.
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POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
33
This framework is built around the notion of geonarcotics:
relations of conflict and co-operation among national and international actors that are driven by the narcotics phenomenon.
Geonarcotics is built on the inter-relationship of four factors:
drugs, geography, power, and politics. Geography is a factor not
only because of the global spacial dispersion of drug operations
but also because the geographical features of some areas facilitate certain drug operations. Power in the geonarcotics milieu
is both state and non-state in origin, with non-state power brokers sometimes exercising more power than some state agents.
Politics, which involves resource allocation, is consequently not
solely a function of state action.
A central proposition of this framework is that there are
significant relations of conflict and co-operation that are driven
by narcotics production, trafficking, consumption-abuse, and
money laundering operations, by the myriad problems stemming from them, and by the efforts to deal with the operations
as well as the problems. Figure 1 captures the components of
the framework, showing the main problems, the security dimensions and some of the threat areas involved, some of the countermeasures used, and the actors involved.
The components of the framework are interdependent,
although there would be variation in the nature of the interrelationships. As mentioned earlier, there is no uniformity in
drug operations or in their impact on individuals and state and
non-state entities around the world. Some are affected by several
or all areas; others by just one or a few. Hence, there would be
variation in the correlations among level of analysis, problems,
and threats, and among problems, threats, and countermeasures. As for countermeasures, they would vary not only in relation to the security dimension(s) and threat(s) involved but also
according to the level at which the phenomenon is tackled.
This framework is intended to permit an appreciation of the
multiple and interconnected levels at which the narcotics phenomenon could be analysed: individual, group, state, and sys-
34
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
temic.7o Analysis is possible at several levels because of the
multiplicity of actors involved: individuals, narcos, states, INGOS,
international drug cartels, vigilante groups, domestic non-governmental organizations, domestic corporations, multinational
corporations. It is also possible because of the differing kinds,
patterns, and directions of relationships that the narcotics phenomenon involves.
Two basic kinds of relationships are driven by drug operations: conflict and co-operation. These exist and co-exist among
different actors and at different levels within the global environment. Relationships are bilateral and multilateral, and symmetrical as well as asymmetrical. Not all interactions involve
force or military capabilities. This is true of all levels of interaction. Some interactions involve asymmetric pressure using
non-military capabilities. One example of this at the systemic
level has been the application of economic sanctions by the
United States against countries which, in its estimation, do not
adopt effective counter-narcotics measures or show good faith
efforts in that regard. The range of sanctions has included loss
of tariff benefits, a 5o-per-cent withholding of bilateral aid, suspension of services, and the withholding of support for aid in
multilateral funding institutions.7'
Some interactions are verbal and symbolic; others are nonverbal, but with little symbolism. Still others are physical and
symbolic, while some are physical, but not intended to be symbolic. As conflict analysts have shown, verbal conflict interactions include protests, accusations, complaints, warnings,
threats, and demands. Conflict relations also include a range of
70 For a discussion of levels of analysis, see J. David Singer, 'The level-of-analysis
problem in international relations,' in James N. Rosenau, ed, InternationalPolitics and Foreign Policy (New York: The Free Press 1969), 20-9; and Ted Robert
Gurr, Politimetrics (Englewood Cliffs Nj: Prentice-Hall 1972), 25-42.
71 See United States, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, InternationalNarcotics Control and Foreign Affairs Certification: Requirements, Procedures, Timetables,
and Guidelines, report prepared by the Congressional Research Service, tooth
Cong, 2nd sess, March 1988.
POST-COLD WAR GEONARCOTICS
35
physical actions, such as seizures, blockades, physical assault,
and armed attacks.72 All of these verbal and physical conflict
types exist in the geonarcotics milieu. Some actors are engaged
in both conflict and co-operation simultaneously, and with several milieu partners.
International systemic co-operation is dictated by several
things: the scope and intensity of problems, or at least by the
perceptions of these by the relevant political, bureaucratic, and
commercial 61ites; by recognition of the transnational nature of
the phenomenon, and by the capability limitations of the various actors. It is important to remember that while states are key
actors in the international system, they are not the only ones.
And more importantly, they are not the only ones affected by
narcotics operations. States, international organizations, and
INGOS have been collaborating to create and maintain various
narcotics regimes.73
CONCLUSION
This article identifies the narcotics phenomenon as a multifaceted one that is growing in importance internationally because
of its increasing complexity, scope, and gravity. Its impact goes
beyond the domestic environment of states to all kinds of actors
in the international system. This is happening at a time of major
structural and operational changes in the international system
- changes that are causing re-evaluation of the conventional
72 See Charles A. McClelland and Gary D. Hoggard, 'Conflict patterns in the
interactions among nations,' in Rosenau, ed, InternationalPolitics and Foreign
Policy, 711-24.
73 See Jack Donnelly, 'The United Nations and the global drug control regime,'
in Smith, ed, Drug Policy in the Americas, 282-304; Robin Rolley, 'United
Nations' activities in international drug control,' in MacDonald and Zagaris,
eds, InternationalHandbook on Drug Contro4 415-31; INCSR; UN Narcotics Report,
William 0. Walker Ill, ed, Drug Control Polity (University Park PA: Pennsylvania State University Press 1992), especially the chapters by Jonathan Marshall and William McAllister; and United Nations, Social and Economic
Council, Report of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs on its Thirty-Sixth Session, E/
1993/29, E/CN-7/1993/12, 3 June 1993.
36
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
theoretical paradigms that have been adopted to examine international interactions and of conceptual constructs normally
used to assess different issue-areas. The security issue-area has
not been exempt from this scrutiny. In this context, the geonarcotics framework sketched above (and which will be developed
later) might permit a better appreciation of the various security
components and elements of the narcotics phenomenon, a
major challenge to the international community in the postCold War era.