Introduction
What was already seen in the aftermath of Soviet
collapse and European Union’s demolition of check controls within its members’
borders as a possible threat to European security by its leaders has become
reality. The free movement of people and goods reinforced by unique
capabilities provided by IT revolution has allured organized crime to link
together from all states and continents and form powerful TOCGs worldwide. NATO
as a prominent international security organization has been affected especially
in its Southern Flank. The low performance of states in this area in democracy,
individual liberty and order of law is the outcome of high corruption and TOCGs
lucrative operations. This puts in danger NATO’s coherence and credibility. The
absence of relative scholarship for TOC and the underestimation of the threat
posed from TOCGs have triggered the development of this dissertation.
appearance of powerful non-West civilisations and the new World order derived from globalisation and digitization. How these two phenomena have changed the attitude for both strong states such as Russia and China and non-states actors. Ukraine 2014 events as a case study will depict how criminal networks were exploited by Russia successfully. Unforeseen capabilities that technology provides to all and raise the level of threat to states and NATO will be presented. Then how hybrid warfare and TOC are conceived and materialised nowadays will be described. This modern warfare as a main way of making operations against the sovereignty and social coherence of a state will be examined. Afterwards, NATO’s Southern flank will be presented with its critical significance and history. Special political and social characteristics prevailing in this region will be mentioned. How TOCGs are exploiting them to expand their business in the expense of regions’ states function and services provided will follow. Last, few NATO’s already taken measures to address security issues in this area will be presented. Defining basic terms
In the next chapter, I will analyse the global illicit
trade and how it has shaped a powerful global network of power. Mainly, through
drugs smuggling it will be showed the enormous amount of money it acquires
annually. It will be described how TOC has become a global business model
causing severe damages in states’ economies. Especially, in NATO’s southern
flank the use of ‘Balkan route” will be stressed in addition with states
responses to control TOCG’s smuggling drugs in their territory. Then, I will analyse
human trafficking and how has become rooted in this area as a threatening
social phenomenon leading to political and social instability. From gangs in
the streets up to global kleptocracy TOC system will be presentedfurthermore. Then the
relationship between human, state and war will examined and how TOC has become
part of the political agenda in states will follow. Last, state efforts to
respond to TOCGs business will be showed in addition with possible key players
that can contribute to a successful response to TOC. Indeed, this includes NATO
that has a critical role to play as showed.
Finally, in the last chapter I will focus on NATO’s
southern flank exclusively and show how following the collapse of Soviet Union
and the rise of a new underworld order in Europe stigmatized this region. The
combination of the geographical characteristics and the intense drugs and human
smuggling will be shown as catalysts in regions’ social and financial
anomalies. Then two main NATO state in the area, Turkey and Greece, will
presented in relation with their connection with TOCGs. For Turkey, I will
explain how drugs have affected Turkish politics, the formation of illegal
social capital, the domination of a ‘deep state’ and finally the exploitation
from Russia. Similarly, in Greece I will present the findings from first ever
study for the danger emanating from TOCGs’ activities and the potential of
financing of terrorism in Greece. Then the significant presence of drugs and
illicit tobacco trade in this country and last how Russia has tried to expand
its presence in this NATO member. Last, the key point for NATO’s response will
be presented in addition with possible means of action to address TOC
effectively.
As most scholars and politicians agree that global
security has changed irreversibly, NATO has to seek for its new role in 21th
century in order to secure its state members and people better. Admittedly, TOC
through its illicit business plays a part in global trade and states’
economies. NATO’s southern flank states have been affected by TOCG’s activities
significantly performing badly in NATO’s fundamental principles. Unfortunately,
relative scholarship examining the relationship and consequences of TOC
phenomenon to states’ and NATO’s coherence and integrity is limited. In my
opinion, NATO has to look into this modern and powerful threat closely and
address it properly before it is too late, especially in its southern flank.
Chapter 1
NATO Security
Post-WWII World order appears to be under revision thoroughly.
Globalization and digitization as main characteristics of our era force different
civilizations to pursue retaining their identity and satisfying their peoples’ vital
needs adequately in the same time. NATO as the prevailing West’s security organization
for seven decades with a global area of interest nowadays is challenged by both
state and non-states opponents. On the on hand, regional dominant states like Russia
and China and on the other hand non-state entities such as ITGs and TOC groups are
shaping complex and powerful networks. They are waging a new type of hybrid
warfare - a war without using traditional means like armies exclusively - by utilizing
technology and free movement of people, goods and ideas. Subsequently, NATO’s
security environment has altered, and an unforeseen combination of threats is challenging
its dominance gradually. Especially, TOC groups are exploiting domestic
conditions and all routes provided throughout NATO’s south-eastern flank increasingly
in order to infiltrate within Europe and not only.
As mentioned above, World order based on states as foreseen with Westphalia Treaty in
1648 is changing nowadays. Heading to mid-21th century, a complex, challenging,
insecure, well disordered and multi-polar World prevails putting serious
challenges in global security. As the
American political scientist Samuel Huntington had predicted more than two
decades ago in 1993, civilizations are mingling as never before, and a civilizations-based
order has emerged. Modernization is becoming more distinct from Westernization for
first time in modern human’s history (Huntington, 2002). The more in an interconnected
World we live the more the differences between various or even contradictory
ideas and identities increase rather reduce. This post-Cole era new environment
has provided unique opportunities to non-state actors to emerge and accumulate
power.
In the above spirit, what Huntington has predicted as a
possible ‘clash of civilizations’ to become a reality it cannot be excluded
anymore. Especially, in the fault lines between World major civilizations,
enmities are becoming more likely to happen in the future in order to engrave
the lines of division between different social and political systems, ideas and
identities. Authoritarian political systems and contradictory religious systems
shape various regional power centres and regional and local identities
respectively. NATO’s eastern and southern flanks are adjacent to different civilizations
based on different religious and/or political orientation and system posing
significant challenges to NATO security nowadays.
In this modern unstable security environment disruptive nations, sub-state and non-state actors aspire to shape a
different battlefield between or even within organized societies. States and
multi-national security organizations such as UN and NATO face
difficulties to identify and address them through traditional means and ways of
security. According to US National Intelligence Council and the ‘Global Trends:
Paradox of Progress’, report of 2017, key global trends such as population growth,
with the rich aging and the poor not, increase in demand of energy, shift in
global economy, and technology innovation perplex more the current social
paradox of simultaneous human progress and global security environment
deterioration. In addition, for the European Strategy, and Policy Analysis
System and its ‘Global Trends to 2030: Can the EU meet the challenge ahead?’,
report of 2015, a negative projection is considered more possible to happen
through events such as a massive financial and monetary crisis, a major
pandemic, a large scarcity in resources, a climate change or a conflict in
Asia-pacific region worsening even more predictions of global security (Table 3.1).
On the one hand, many theorists with Joseph S. Nye, a prominent American
political scientist, still believe that the 21th’century will remain an
American century due to US prevalence of a unique combination of ‘hard’ –
military and economy- and ‘soft’ – culture, academic, - power. On the other
hand, most scholars and leaders see the ending of a two-century European and US
global domination by Asia’s rise along other powers in Africa and Latin
America. It seems that a new equilibrium of a balance in global power between
societies, states, civilizations but also non-states actors is needed so as to
secure a safe and prosperous future for humanity.
This goal in the aftermath of a devastative WWII was
seek for by NATO Washington Treaty
signed in 1949 to secure peace within its members at least and prevent Europe
to become a battlefield again. Seventy years later, this Treaty proves still valid.
NATO members’ commitment to live in peace with faith in the purposes and
principles of the Charter of the United Nations and dedicated to the principles
of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law is still undoubted. At the
present time, NATO has already developed an unparalleled political-military
power focusing through its Strategic Concept (NATO Summit Declaration, Lisbon,
2010) on three core tasks mainly; collective defence, crisis management and
cooperative security. Indeed, political frictions within its members have been
intensified in our post-9/11 era with German Chancellor Angela Merkel even stating
‘post-war global order built over seven decades is
over — and grouped the United States with China and Russia as rivals of Europe’
recently (Merkel, 2019). Moreover, NATO’s Secretary General Jens
Stoltenberg during its 70th anniversary meeting in Washington DC addressing
for first time ever the US Congress found a mixed atmosphere. Distinctively, supporters
of a US leadership of NATO as was till now from the start and the critics of it
were identified. The latter were arguing that US leadership causes a loss of US
autonomy; heightened risks to US forces; continued European military dependence
on the United States; provoking Russia and a negative budgetary impact (US
Congressional Research Service, 2019).
No matter the different NATO members’ political goals
and its unique military strength, the Alliance recognizes the dangerous,
unpredictable and fluid security environment with enduring challenges and
threats from all strategic directions; different nature of opponents; other
military rivals; and terrorists cyber and hybrid attacks unanimously. (NATO Brussels
Summit Declaration, 2018). When interviewed on 16 April 2019, NATO's Deputy
Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Sir James Everard, defined NATO’s two contemporary
strategic opponents clearly besides different members’ approaches and the key
pursuit for a unified vision for the future. “NATO will talk about two strategic focuses for the Alliance
– one of those being Russia, and the other one being International Terrorist Groups.”
has stated decisively. While Russia as a UN state participates in global order
through known mechanisms, ITGs cover a broad spectrum of blur operations
mingling with states and organised crime often. Especially, in the
south-eastern flank of NATO both emerging strong states and ITGs presence affect
regional security environment significantly if not crucially.
In regard of Russia,
on the 12th July 2018 Heads of State and Government of the 29 NATO
member nations declared in Brussels that NATO ‘does not seek confrontation and
poses no threat to Russia’. In the same time, they acknowledged that
Euro-Atlantic security environment has become less stable and predictable due
to numerous challenges from Russia posed against NATO and non-NATO
European countries. Challenges that include hybrid actions as interference through
proxies in the election processes and the sovereignty of nations. Unequivocally,
US National Security Strategy released in December 2017 depicts Russia as
trying to weaken the credibility of America’s commitment to Europe, undermine
transatlantic unity and weaken European institutions and governments through
subversive measures. In the same spirit, on the 13th March 2019 Supreme
Allied Commander Europe General Curtis M. Scaparrotti while addressing United
States House of Representatives presented Russia as a revisionist and long-term
competitor advancing its national strategy in the expense of US prosperity and
security. In its effort it uses ‘a whole-of-society’ approach including
political provocateurs, information operations, economic intimidation, cyber
operations, religious leverage, proxies, special operations, conventional
military forces, and nuclear forces.’
On the other side, Russia within its National Security Strategy 2015 identifies
NATO as a national threat based on its military potential build up, its violation
of the norms of international law, the galvanization of its member’s military
activity and the proximity of NATO presence and infrastructure towards Russia
borders to be addressed timely. It rejects West accusations for interfering in
NATO members internal issues and on the contrary it presents NATO as expansive
and even potential able to repeat its intervention in Yugoslavia during 90s in
or around Russia (Rumer, 2016). Russia considers Balkans of strategic
significance historically while it has developed a strategic relation with
Turkey recently challenging the NATO’s coherence, credibility and expansion in
its southern flank through all means.
In regard of China, it is clear that has become another powerful modern state
challenging the World order. Though China incorporated in the international
institutions and established rules of world order, only after Mao’s Cultural
Revolution in late 60’s, it has progressed in the post-Cold era rapidly. Henry
Kissinger, American political scientist and geopolitical consultant acknowledges
China and the United States as
both indispensable pillars of present world order (Kissinger, 2014). Moreover, Charles
Glaser, professor of Political Science and International Relations at George
Washington University, US, refers to international relations theorists’ contradictory
opinions who diversify between liberals that see China fit in current
international order peacefully and realists who foresee a parallel to Cold War
era and even a hegemonic war (Glaser, 2011). According to ETH Zurich, China is not
foreseen to assume in 2030 the global role that UK played after 1870 and US
after 1945. Social, environmental and political uncertainties added to its lack
of the needed expeditionary fleet and military power may refrain China from a
global role or a full confrontation with West in the near future. Indeed, China
represents a different model of domestic order and approach to policy eschewing
Western model of democracy with various non-military means mainly.
US National Security Strategy depicts China as gaining a
strategic foothold in Europe by
expanding its unfair trade practices and investing in key industries, sensitive
technologies and infrastructure. As an example, Piraeus main port of Greece in
the southeast of the continent, has become a key entrance for Chinese goods,
owned and operated by COSCO Company. Ina addition China is looking to expand
its investment by acquiring Greece’s railway and shipyards companies. Overall, China is expected in 2020 to reach USD 1.0
trillion foreign direct investment worldwide (ESPAS, 2015). On its side, NATO
while not having security guarantees in Asia it has partners as Japan and Korea
and members as USA who as individual nation have presence in the region, in the
South China Sea especially. Especially in this matter, NATO supports all
efforts to resolve disputes by applying international law. (Stoltenberg,
2016)
Moving from strong states to different actors, as
Clausewitz has argued, it seems that the nature of the war may not change but
its character in our era has done it definitely. Some states appeared to have
endorsed and exploited this concept fully. On 19 December 2017, NATO Secretary
General Jens Stoltenberg at his lecture at the Ecole Militaire in Paris named
2014 as “a pivotal year when World changed again. The national security
rulebook that had served countries for decades had been torn up”. For first
time since WWII, one European country Russia seized territory, Crimea, from another,
Ukraine. An astonishing example of criminal
networks activities and negative effects produced was seen in Eastern Ukraine
and Donbas area where in early 2014 they managed to shape the security
environment and define the present status. In a country where corruption
was high due to the Soviet-past, weak national institutions and inefficient
governance, Russia found the opportunity to link with criminal networks in
Russian minorities dominated areas and when civil unrest begun exploit the
vulnerabilities by using them. Initially, these networks provided lethal aid
such as small arms, heavy weapons, vehicles and artillery pieces. When
situation was worsened, they participated in fighting, disrupted Ukraine
military forces and their supply lines and contributed to disinformation
rendering state responses inefficient. They favoured Russia Federation to
conduct a swift and deep military conflict while they were flourishing by
trafficking food, alcohol, cigarettes, coal, fuel and weapons forging a network
hard to be defeated by Ukraine conventional forces (NATO StratCom CoE, 2019).
As Prof. Lanoszka, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the
University of Waterloo, UK (Lasnoszka in Rusnakova, 2017) has analysed Ukraine 2014 events, wherever four
conditions exist such as the presence of an ethnic minority, the historical
grievances that can exaggerate a “divide and rule” status, weak local social
networks and a regional complexity difficult to be perceived the hybrid warfare
can thrive. For Prof.Rusnakova, Professor at the Tomas Bata University in Zlín, (Rusnakova 2017) cyber,
information and psychological operations combined with a modern and
sophisticated espionage in addition with economic warfare shape a
five-dimension new way of attack against states and robust armies too difficult
to be addressed timely (Gerasimov, 2016). Hybrid strategy provides a unique
tool to be used depending on the specificity and uniqueness of each
circumstance, the importance of the context to be applied and multimodality and
blending of conventional and unconventional methods. This makes it attractive
to gangs by using paramilitary, terrorist, criminal and coercive means
worldwide and in favour of many actors. An example of that were the Russian nationalist
biker gang Night Wolves, known to be endorsed by Putin, which was considered to
have made a subversive operation in Crimea (Rusnakova, 2017).
In the same year and with a similar method, ISIL or
Daesh, a non-state actor, posed a
threat towards NATO’s South-eastern flank that had to be addressed
simultaneously. NATO became a full part of the Global Coalition soon in order to
defeat ISIS/Daesh by providing support with AWACS, training and advising Iraqi
officers and helping to build defence capabilities of NATO partners such as
Jordan and Tunisia. (Stoltenberg, 2017). US National Security Strategy has depicted
violent Islamist extremists and other jihad groups coming from south mainly as
threats for many European countries. In parallel, thousands of migrants and
refugees arriving in the continent in large numbers through Greece and Italy have
produced instability and tensions within European countries. For Supreme Allied
Commander Europe General Curtis M. Scaparrotti, it is crystal clear that violent
extremist networks are trying to expand in Europe and recruit people posing a
clear and persistent threat to NATO members (Scaparrotti, 2019).
In the above new
security environment, technology has given already unique capabilities to people and defines our
daily life more than any other factor. According
to the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, data is the
critical factor that determines a nation’s power anymore. Data is the ‘new oil’
and networks the ‘new oil rings’ (Hybrid CoE, Hybrid Warfare-Orchestrating the
Technology Revolution, 2019). Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and
Intelligence (C4I), Network Enabled Operations, Situational Awareness, Analysis
and Evaluation of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence capabilities,
Communication and Cyber sections shape a robust Information Technology
framework altogether where whoever manages to control it wins. Autonomous
Systems and 5G communication capabilities will define the post-digital era. Not
only states but also companies and even individuals may produce effects by
exploiting technology developments on different prospects for international
order (Kissinger, 2014).
In a similar way, unmanned aerial systems have been
introduced widely in both military and civilian domains and the drone market
expands with an estimated growth rate of 30% both in revenues and units produced. In 2017, there were shipped 3
million personal and commercial drones and a forecast for 2021 estimates the
market up to $12 billion (Hybrid CoE, Drones and Countering them in a Hybrid
Environment, 2018). TOC groups are known to utilize drones for smuggling goods
over national borders and for distraction or deception of its own activities.
Technological advances in critical domains for drones manufacturing such as
global satellite position systems, robust and secure communications, highly
developed sensors, advanced airframe and propulsion technologies, AI and
algorithms, software and computing power and others have made commercial drones
acquisition with full capabilities similar to military ones feasible and cheap
for all. In the future artificial intelligence, distributed ledger technology,
extended reality and quantum computing are expected to blur the lines between
physical and simulated Wolds by providing unprecedented capabilities to
everyone theoretically (Thielle,2019). These new opportunities are open to all
including TOC groups. Many states defence capabilities will be challenged
significantly.
Subsequently, in NATO Heads of States Summit 2018
non-sate actors that seek for state-like aspirations, capabilities and
resources were recognized as a threat or factor affecting the security of
Allied populations and integrity of the Allied territory. The need to be
addressed properly was acknowledged. Non-state actors find attractive to
operate in the grey zones of security where they blur the lines of order,
create ambiguity, avoid attribution, exploit states’ vulnerabilities, paralyse
decision-making and limit option to respond (Figure 2.1). In this context
deterrence and defence against these
opponents it was endorsed by all NATO members unanimously. (NATO Summit Declaration,
2018) Hybrid activities below the threshold of Article 5 – the military
violation of a NATO member’s borders - including malicious cyber-attacks were
recognized as executable triggers for military operations against both state
and non-state actors. This led NATO leaders to render them even valid for the
activation of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty once considered violated only
by the military violation of a member’ borders. Counter Hybrid Support Teams
have been established in NATO to provide tailored assistance upon the request
of any member that faces a non-attributed hybrid threat and needs support. (NATO
Summit Declaration, 2018)
‘Hybrid warfare’ though not new it is defined by Dr.
Johann Schmid, Director, Community of Interest-Strategy and Defence (COI S7D),
the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki,
Finland, as a “combination of tailored use of hard power with the deployment of
a broad spectrum of soft power elements through the creative exercise of smart
power”, and it is expected to constitute the first mid-21th century’s ‘face of
war’ at least (Figure 2.2). This has obliged major powers and alliances to
reconsider their warfare doctrines and policies. Since February 2013 and based
on Arab Spring events, Valery Gerasimov, the Russian General of the Army, had identified
(Gerasimov, 2016) the fact that non-military means had overcome the power of
conventional armies and could bring a state into a web of chaos, humanitarian
disaster and civil war finally (Figure 2.3).
In this spectrum, both state and non-states seem to have already
developed all needed instruments to wage hybrid operations well ahead of their
victims worldwide. Simultaneously, there
are the diverging interest between
major powers, terrorist groups, weak and fragile states, and the spread of
lethal and disruptive technologies into criminal organizations combined with
the blur between war and peacetime, that enables non-state groups creating more
disruption, acquiring increased capabilities for stand-off and remote attacks
and causing new concerns about nuclear and WMD. These trends are likely to intensify
the changing character of conflict and how people will fight.
TOC no matter its various definitions
by focusing on activities or on hierarchical and logistical structures (Miraglia,
2012), it is wide accepted to have been placed on the top of the international security
agenda. It has made already a great impact in World economic development and
the stability even of strong states (Miraglia, 2012). As Claire Sterling, an
American author and journalist whose work focused on crime, political assassination,
and terrorism argues since 1994 there is not one region in the world
without the existence of an indigenous TOC group or not harassed by the
activities of an international one. TOC encompasses all illicit activities
ranging from human trafficking to drug smuggling, piracy and money laundering
worldwide. With huge profits made annually in combination with the
disintegration of states’ political and social systems, it threats to erode or
even replace them constantly by interconnected, flexible and opportunistic
networks. Transit states – states between the production states and the
delivery states of illegal goods - have become key nodes of this global network
for the global criminal expansion. Their institutional and social fragmentation
leads to inequality and a poorly functioning state ending even in the criminal
legitimacy and the entrenchment of violence as a way of life. As a cause more
than an effect of state fragility and internal conflict, TOCGs prevail on
eroding state’s capacity to deliver public goods, harming the state’s
legitimacy. The manage even to affect many peace processes in the 21th century by
altering the social security and the way warfare was executed for centuries
through legitimate states only. NATO
members’ territory and its periphery is not excluded, especially NATO’s south-eastern
flank.
Moreover, TOCGs provides a nexus to serve for many
actors to promote their interests while not assuming direct responsibility and in
this way avoid a full confrontation between states or alliances. This intention
is been exploited vice versa reinforcing the power of TOCGs and altering the modern warfare within UN states and
transnational centres of power. Sterling argues as potential for the bases of
TOC in a collapsing superpower, in a less-developed democracy and in previous
stable democracies. Having examined the cases of Italian, Colombian and the
post-Soviet Organized Crime, she concludes that there is no form of government
immune to TOC, no legal system capable to control the growth of TOC and no
economic or financial system able to resist the temptation of profits provided
by the TOC compared with legal systems. Finally, she foresees as a result the
disintegration in the world political, economic and social order. Security
bodies (such as CIA, KGB and the Mossad) and International Organizations (such
as the UN and the Council of Europe) are obliged to find new security solutions
and execute new missions to address TOCGs in the post-Cold era.
Europe’s southern
flank is shaped by NATO members such as Turkey, Greece,
Bulgaria, Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia which is in progress of
joining NATO and non-NATO countries such as Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina
and Kosovo which the latter to have been recognized by 120 countries worldwide
(Map 1.1). As an entrance in Europe for Middle East, Mesopotamia and Far East,
it is adjacent to areas of instability or conflict that threaten Alliance’s
security directly with the risk of importing extremism and transnational
illegal activities like trafficking in arms, narcotics and people (NATO Summit Declaration,
2010) within NATO member’s territories and societies. The sea environment
formed by the Black Sea, Aegean Sea and Southern East Mediterranean complicates
the security demands for controlling NATO’s South-eastern flank area while
providing international waters for all aspiring opponents to operate against
NATO members.
Greece and Turkey have
joined NATO since 1953 and though their harshening
bilateral tensions since then both have contributed in Alliance’s security and
stability for decades. Lately, NATO Secretary General has emphasized the
significant role of Turkey in the Alliance security many times (Stoltenberg,
2017). Not only due to its geographical position as it borders to many areas of
instability to its North (Black Sea, Georgia) and South (Middle East) but also
the perspective that a NATO without Turkey would mean a strong possibility to
bring all this turbulence closer to Europe. Rest of NATO South-Eastern Flank’s
countries have entered the Alliance since the first decade of 21th century
gradually and proceeded in the adaptation of their institutions including their
defence ones quickly. As confirmed in NATO Summit Brussels 2018, a
Comprehensive Approach Action Plan, a comprehensive political, civilian and
military approach, has been endorsed within NATO countries to address the
evolving present complex environment during crisis management and cooperative
security.
In the above context, NATO has identified Western
Balkans as a region of strategic importance, and it is committed to the
stability and security of this region. Democratic values, rule of law, domestic
reforms and good neighbour relations within this area are considered as vital
for NATO and the cooperation between countries as well. In the same time,
Russia competes NATO and EU in Western Balkans which it considers a key region
also in regard of energy supply routes to Europe and Russia’s fleet exit to the
South. A NATO-Serbia strong partnership is a mutual goal through political
dialogue and practical cooperation between the two entities. Serbian Orthodox
Church, a self-governing church among 13 others within Eastern Orthodox Church,
has strong links with Russian Orthodox Church and in 2015 the majority of Serbs
considered their country’s interest best served through strong ties with Russia
seeing them as ‘orthodox brothers’ (NATO StratCom CoE, 2019). In
Bosnia-Herzegovina, its NATO membership is supported by the latter focusing on
the former’s political, economic and defence reforms. NATO is committed to
Bosnia-Herzegovina’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and acknowledges its
contributions in NATO-led operations. In Kosovo, NATO retains its presence
through a NATO-led Kosovo Force (K-FOR) and supports the development of country’s
security forces by providing a NATO Advisory and Liaison Team. Russia doesn’t
accept Kosovo’s independence and blocks its accession to UN by using its veto vote
in the Security Council. It reiterates the EU-facilitated Belgrade-Pristina
dialogue to achieve a productive formal neighbouring.
According to Democracy
Index 2018 (Map 1.2) all south-east flank of NATO is characterized by
states valued in regard of their governance status ranging from hybrid regimes
with irregularities in their elections, widespread corruption and harassment
and pressure over media among other democratic defaults like Albania and Turkey
up to flawed democracies at their best like Bulgaria and Greece with
significant faults in democratic aspects. According to Legatum
Prosperity Index 2018 (Table 3.3) the level of prosperity in South Europe
countries is significant low compared to the rest of Europe. Romania is in the
45th place among 149 countries worldwide, Bulgaria scores 47th,
Greece 52th, North Macedonia 55th, Montenegro 58th,
Albania 64th, Serbia 56th, while Turkey 93th. Belarus, a strong
authoritarian and pro-Russia state is in the 89th place. To the
contrary, ex-communist Baltics countries are placed in much higher positions
than Western Balkans with Estonia in 26th, Lithuania in 36th
and Latvia in the 40th places respectively. In the same spirit but
with opposite results, NATO South-eastern flank members and other countries in
the region score high according to the Transparency
International Corruption Perceptions Index (Map 1.3). Among 180 countries
worldwide, south-east Europe countries are conceived by their own people
the more corrupted in Europe with Albania in 99th place, North
Macedonia 93th, Kosovo 93th, Bosnia & Herzegovina 89th, Serbia 87th, Turkey
78th, Bulgaria 77th, Montenegro 67th, Greece
67th, and Romania 61th places respectively. Belarus is in the 89th
place. Again, Baltics countries are placed much lower with Estonia 18th,
Lithuania 38th and Latvia in 41th places.
All above conditions provide the needed environment for
TOCGs to interfere with people and provide them alternative ways of easy
income. ‘Shadow economies’- financial areas where state is absent or engaged
illegally- consist of a respectful percentage of the GDP production in these
counties traditionally. Low-governance performances from states provide fertile
space for TOCGs to replace them. When states refuse to provide adequate goods
and services to their one citizens TOCGs exploit the opportunity to make quick
profits in short time (Stoica, 2016). They seek for taking advantage of this
new blur security environment and acquiring high level of capacities and
capabilities. They target and reinforce any frictions between states so as to
prevail in low-governing states and even civilizations. TOCGs reach an
operational tempo that surpass the reaction and intervention of states and
international organizations often. Even worse powerful states have not even the
needed will to use international organizations towards a strong response. But only
through an international strategy against TOCGs leaded by states with adequate
capabilities and social support an effective response can be formed. In this
absence, holes in security will be available always to TOGs to gill willingly
and cause serious security and political issues.
Especially for the South of the Alliance, NATO
endorsed a Package on South with
an array of measures both political and practical for cooperation focusing on
Middle East and Africa. With three main
objectives: strengthen NATO’s deterrence and defence; reinforce international
crisis management initiatives; and support regional partners enhance their
resilience against modern threats has defined a framework for its defence in
the area. In addition, a Regional Hub for the South has been decided. This
entity will raise the awareness of the Alliance for all threats emanating from
the South, improve the capabilities for expeditionary operations and enhance
Alliance’s ability to project stability through regional partnerships and
capacity building efforts (NATO Summit Declaration, 2018).
Overall, NATO’s Southeast
flank area of interest consists of a synthesis of NATO members and other
states. Unfortunately, according to international metrics, all are
characterized by low levels of democracy, high corruption, and low performance
in prosperity of their people. Moreover, this geographical area links three
continents through both land and sea lines of communication making security
challenging. The above fatal combination provides an attractive area of
operation for non-NATO powerful states and TOC groups to infiltrate, cultivate
and prevail their model of life and governing. NATO’s southeast flank security
has been reviewed and supportive measures have been taken.
No doubt the global wave of people and goods move, and
the unprecedented capabilities technology provides to them has affected
societies vitally. World order seems trembling. Governing of people as was done
for centuries or at least since the end of WII cannot go on the same. Non-West
emerging state powers Russia and China in co-existence with ITGs and TOC groups
have shaped a different security environment challenging NATO’s power and
effectiveness in protecting NATO members’ sovereignty. A modern hybrid warfare
has proven victorious in Ukraine 2014 neutralizing a state defence apparatus
and render is as a new model of addressing stronger opponents.
Chapter 2
Transnational Organised Crime
TOC generates a huge amount of money and accumulates
power on a global basis annually. TOCGs have shaped an international business
model damaging state’s economies severely. Trough drugs and human trafficking
among many other illegal activities TOCGs have managed to render their
activities a social phenomenon as well. A global kleptocracy has been emerged by
using gangs to make profit and gain power. In many occasions, TOCGs’ power
challenges vital states services by rendering them fragile and incapable of
exercising their legal power for the good of their people. TOCGs by contesting
states have altered the sense of security to people, states and the World.
States in coordination with other international actors ought to resist by
exercising a whole-of-government approach and unleash a powerful transnational counterattack
against TOC groups.
According to Renee Novakoff, Deputy National
Intelligence Manager for Western Hemisphere at the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence, US, global
illicit trafficking is estimated to be a $6 trillion industry. Totally, TOC
market accounts for 10% of the world’s GDP, placing it third behind only the
United States and the European Union but well ahead China. Annually, according
to 2011 White House Strategy to Combat TOC money-laundering has been estimated between
$1,3 to $3,3 trillion, TOC related briberies close to $1 trillion, counterfeit
and pirated goods around $500 billion and illicit firearms sales from $170
billion to $320 billion. Drugs trafficking generates up to $1 trillion while
the value of cocaine trade alone in Latin America networks exceeds any
country’s GDP in the region except Brazil. Indeed, these numbers reveal the
power TOCGs may acquire by using their profits from illegal activities
throughout World.
Moreover, according to UN World Drug report 2017, it is estimated that around 5% of
global adult population used drugs at least once in 2015 (Figure 2.4). Annual
drug-related deaths (Ekici, 2014) have estimated to 250.000 globally. Opioids
including heroine remain the most harmful drug type in health terms while
amphetamines are spreading widely. Cocaine use is increasing in North America while
remains stable in Europe. New psychoactive substances continue to evolve,
diversify and grow with 106 countries to have reported between 2009 and 2016 to
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime large numbers of new substances
found. World Opium production in 2016 increased by one third compared with last
year, produced in Afghanistan opium poppy yields primarily. One third of active TOCGs in Europe (Greek
Ministry of Finance, 2018) are engaged in drugs production, trade or
trafficking while their revenues are estimated at least in 24 billion euro
annually. Law enforcement agencies are becoming effective increasingly based on
international collaboration with an estimated rate of interception in cocaine
transfers in 2015 at the record level between 45% and 55% (Figure 2.5).
The main route of global heroin and morphine trafficking
remains the so-called ‘Balkan route’ with about 40% transferred of such drugs along
it. This route connects the biggest countries in opium production of Asia
(Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Laos) with consumer countries in
northwest Europe (Map 1.4). It presents a small decline (UNODC, 2017) compared
to 2012-13 perhaps due to the flow of refugees across Bulgaria, Greece and
Turkey during previous years. In any case, rapid changes in trafficking routes,
modi operandi and concealment methods appear in the flux of drugs flows
globally. This reveals a high level of flexibility and resilience for TOCGs
that adjust their activities in relation with law enforcement agencies presence
and controls.
Drugs remain still of continued importance to TOCGs with
Europol identifying 5,000 TOCGs operating in EU for 2017 and more than one
third involved in drugs trafficking. But the business model for drug trafficking is changing with TOCGs to
branch out by having almost two thirds of drug trafficking groups in EU involved
in more than one crime. Drug trafficking seems no longer the preserve of large
criminal groups. Europol based on evidence reports horizontal structured TOC
networks to have increased significantly and account for 30%-40% anymore with
the majority still of hierarchical top-down ones. Technology through mobile
communication plays significant role in creating relatively low-risk drug
markets even with no personal contact needed between sellers and clients and
new forms of money as crypto-currency serving dark purposes. It is clear that a nexus of TOC networks
technology driven and engaged in many illegal activities has evolved by
infiltrating Europe.
As a result, drug related businesses damage economies in the long term. For example, based on a study in Italy 30% of
cocaine proceeds contributes to illicit financial flows. No matter that TOC in
short time may boosts investment and local gross domestic product, drugs
produced money makes countries poorer in the long term as it may inflates
property prices, distorts export figures, creates corruption, unfair
competition, reinforces skewed income and wealth distributions and increases
corruption. Legitimate businesses are forced to exit the market and legitimate
investments may not enter ever. Subsequently, the rule of law (UNODC,
2017) weakens reinforcing the illicit drug sector again. As
corruption facilitates drug markets which fuel corruption themselves vice versa
this pervasive social phenomenon dominates all along the drug supply chain. From
the production level where farmers may bribe law enforcement forces and judges
goes to traffickers that bribe custom officials and exploit transport firms and
then to the customer level users who are provided drugs by corrupt doctors and
pharmacists finally. Following on terrorist,
insurgent and non-state armed groups exploit the global drug market by seeing
opportunities to generate large amounts of income. In the same time, they are
always ready to tap into multiple sources of revenues such as extortion,
kidnapping for ransom, bank robberies, sale of natural resources or sale of
cultural artefacts. This result in emanating significant threats in financial
and social order reaching many times high levels of political and national
insecurity.
In response
legal states authorities by international cooperation have been taken a variety
of measures to address the above ‘shadow’ market and governance timely.
Among many others preventing and treating opioid use, not excluding anyone from
treatment, continuous monitoring of the impact of new cannabis policies, better
understanding of the harm to health caused by new psychoactive substances, adopting
long-term and large-scale sustainable development interventions twined with
drug control strategies. In regard of law enforcement agencies they have
focused on searching for benefits from regional and international collaboration
in fighting drugs trafficking monitoring ‘Balkan Route’ illegal flow of drugs
and people, addressing illicit crop cultivation and terrorist links, integrating
technological change in the law enforcement interventions, going after drug
money increasing the role of the UN Convention against corruption and
strengthening the knowledge base of the drug problem.
Apart drugs human trafficking has emerged in the recent
years as a primary TOC business. According to the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress
and Punish Trafficking in Persons (Mece,2016) human trafficking is defined as ‘the recruitment, transportation,
transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means or use of threat or other
forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power
or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or
benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person,
for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation (UN 2000 in Mece 2016) shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the
prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or
services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of
organs.’
In 2018, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio
Guterres estimated war refugees exceeding 60 million human beings and stated
“We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which
the scale of global forced displacement as the well the response required is
now clearly dwarfing anything seen before”.
According to 2010 report ‘The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational
Organized Crime Threat Assessment’, smuggling
people from Latin America to USA generated around $6.6 billion annually. In EU smugglers revenues where
estimated between 4.7 and 5.7 billion euro for 2015 and 2 billion euro for
2016. In Greece only while the medium number of illegal entered people in years
2012-14 was around 30.687 during the next two years 2015-16 entered 1.141.275
people. It was found in one case that a TOCG (Greek Ministry of Finance, 2018) had
received up to 16.000 per person through “Hawala” payment system based on small
enterprises. In another case, a network including police members was found that
dealt with smuggling illegal immigrants from Kos island to Europe by charging
around 5.000 euro per person in advance and taking care for all needed protection
in airport checks.
The relationship between
human and drug trafficking is complicated more than the
overlap of their routes and it is least examined in the literature (Shelley, 2012).
Unfortunately, drug trafficking is related with other forms of labour
trafficking in agriculture, begging and different forms of hard physical labour.
Turkish and Balkan groups are used as logistic experts for drugs and human
trafficking from Asia to North Europe via ‘Balkan route’ while diaspora
communities (Cengiz in Shelley, 2012) serve as key facilitators for further
sexual and labour exploitation. In addition, drugs are used to compel people in
sexual acts or by using addicted persons keep them indebted and exploited by
TOC networks. Though human trafficking is considered less violent than drugs in
Balkans extraordinary violence (Shelley, 2012) has been enforced. As shown,
human trafficking demands the co-operation from border guards, law enforcement
agencies and other diplomatic personnel to provide the needed papers. Former
state security apparatus personnel even from military services (Leman and
Janssens in Shelley, 2012) have been identified to one quarter of Balkan
trafficking rings. Nowadays, it is common phenomenon state officials to abandon
their jobs and deal with private companies of ambiguous activities.
The long-term consequences of drug and human trafficking
are deep and complicated. A political
and social destabilization (JSOU, 2018) is expected in all regions
including Europe and psychology concepts of trauma, transference and countertransference
can (JSOU, 2018) explain better the damage to the social fabric with a
following political upheaval both in refugee and host populations. Human
trafficking networks as by nature transnational evolved and linked with TOCGs
to fund their activities may become even family trusted networks set up to
smuggle humans as an enterprise. In this case, it has been proved men having
the role of taking care for physical and protection-based needs while women
support financial and logistical nuances. Interestingly, smugglers may (JSOU,2018)
become even asylum seekers themselves to penetrate and trace state authorities’
procedures without excluding the capability to intervene in the official procedures
by exploiting their social ties.
UN analysts (JSOU, 2018) present TOC and its networks as
‘no more individuals’ driven illegal markets but a systemic, transnational,
multi-sectoral ‘parallel economy’ comprised by mutually supported
‘submarkets’.’ A shadow economy with its own labour exchange, distribution
methods and networks in addition with its own financial and banking system and
own firms may compete legal state and private enterprises activities. For Alison
Jamieson, freelancer and consultant, TOC (JSOU, 2018) has become a social phenomenon in the heart of
societies and their institutional and economic life, rooted in the core of
communities and much more than simple entities linked through mutual exchange
of money and benefits and affecting even their governing directly to their
interest. TOC groups appear unique methods of collaborating in our
interconnected World and they have managed even to drive technological
advancements putting states’ law enforcement agencies in the second place. TOCGs
don’t hesitate to recruit talented personnel from legitimate industries and
business so as to keep ahead from their pursuits and adapt quicker in
technological and social advances by endorsing them easily as they have no
legal and authority restrictions to hinder them.
As Prof. Papachristos, Professor of Sociology and the Director
of the North-western Network and Neighbourhood Initiative, US, argues (Papachristos,
2009) gangs either by selling
drugs or as terrorist organizations have gathered the attendance in modern
societies. According to National Youth Gang Center, US, 34% of all US gangs are
engaged in drug dealing that generates for young low-level dealers in the
streets a daily income of $50, little more to that earning by working in companies
such as McDonalds’s. Gangs by selling drugs
(Papachristos, 2009) seem to fill a void in
post-industrial urban economy and give an alternative to the disappearing manufacturing
and unskilled labour jobs of the past that had driven social mobility. Gangs With
a 433% increase since ‘70s exist anymore in all US states and 3.300 cities are
containing up to 21.500 different gangs. Gangs and other violent ‘youth groups’
are found in Greece, Germany, Belgium, Britain and worldwide. It is clear that
no amount of law enforcement can rid the states of gangs as they are not
considered a criminal justice but a social more problem. For Prof. Papachristos
more than arrest an incarceration is needed by looking into the economic and
social structure of the cities that breed street gangs.
Not surprisingly, as Alexander Cooley and J.C Sharman have
presented in their article ‘Transnational Corruption and the Globalised
Individual’ corruption within countries has developed in a powerful transnational
political network. Much more than a bilateral relation between bribe-givers and
bribe-takers a whole world of professionals and financial centres are shaping a
TOC system that operates efficiently and quite uncontrolled by legal
authorities. Astonishingly, this system provides the needed financial services,
physical residence and citizenship rights and legitimacy even through central
OECD countries. It focuses on reducing the total cost of transferring illegal
money while renders powerful globalised individuals as nodes of the system making
business on the margin of the law. TOCGS are reinforced through banks, shell
companies, foreign real estate and investor citizenship programs making it
harder for domestic authorities to reveal their illegal activities and
eliminate their threat (Map.1.5).
In this way, countries are not divided in civilized rich
and poor corrupted ones anymore. TOCGs serves to transfer the wealth to the
former and hinder any development in the latter countries. The case ‘Panama
Papers’ of law firm Mossak Fonseka with 11.5 million pages of documents
uncompromised in April 2016 revealed how stolen countries wealth is transformed
in legitimate assets and legal rights. A global kleptocracy has been identified where political authorities
were challenged or even worse substituted through TOCGs. Professionals such as
bankers, lawyers, realtors and corporate service providers have constituted
illegal financial networks of billions dollar value difficult to defeat. These
networks are found often with central presence in a few big cities of OECD
countries like New York, London, Paris, Luxembourg, Singapore and Dubai among
others. The threat of kleptocracy is not only to the development of whole
societies but to the worse to the adoption of a societal ideology of profitable
unaccountable business or useless and ineffective governments for their living or
even been governed. This causes great security concerns especially in regional
areas where TOGS thrive, and states are incapable of resisting them.
The findings about this way of international
business and a social system based on TOC are prominent. According to Swiss
financial transaction data, Gabriel Zucman Professor of economics at UC Berkeley a total of $7.6 trillion globally (Zucmnan in Cooley,
2017) is estimated as a hidden wealth in Switzerland and Luxembourg banks.
These banks have the role of channelling and recycling these unaccounted funds.
An OECD 2014 report on international bribery examining cases between the years 1999-2014
showed that 71% of bribes used an intermediary or shell company to obscure the
identity of the real owner and block countries’ efforts to reveal
cross-boundary financial crime. In
Mossack Fonseca’s case, shell companies (Cooley, 738) were mostly found in
China, Russia, and Latin America with the most popular destination as the
British Virgin Islands. In regard of foreign
real estate, it is confirmed by many sources such as government officials,
industry analyses and investigative journalists that luxury real estate
worldwide happens through shell companies incrementally. A typical transaction of
this type needs a foreign bank, a law firm or real estate agent and a local or
foreign shell company to serve the anonymity of corrupt foreign officials.
London market is characterized by foreign and anonymous home buyers with a
report of Transparency International UK based on police data to reveal at least
of 122 billion property value in England and Wales acquired by companies with
offshore registration. Lastly, investor visas and second-citizenship programs that
have been presented by governments often as a motive to attract international
capital and infuse it into local economies are used by TOCGs also. EU members
such as Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria and others have legitimized ‘golden passport
and residence’ initiatives offering to globalized individuals of various
businesses a security not provided in their homelands or a shelter to fugitives
from justice.
Kenneth N. Waltz, a
great political scientist of the 20th century, by Looking into the relationship
between state and individual in the aftermath of WWII, in his book ‘man, the
state and war’ attempted to identify the location of the presumed principal
cause of international political outcomes and the two define status of man and
societies, war and peace. He recognized the human behaviour, the internal
structure of state as the institution emerged from Westphalia Treaty in 1648
and the World anarchy - the absence of a global government - as the three level
of analysis that could explain human’s and state’s interactions. As Montesquieu
and Rousseau, philosophers of the Enlightenment, argued conflict between people
arise from the first level, Man, and his social situation. For theologist St.
Augustine, and Niebuhr and Morgenthau, classic political realists, Man is
defective in both mind and body. Moreover, the same goes for states and as
Cobden, an English manufacturer,
radical and liberal statesman, who referred from 1846 there is no chance
for states on earth to advance morally. US President Wilson’s (1913-21) aspiration
for a World community of power proved too ideal and unattainable in practice.
Even worse as La Bruyere, a French philosopher and moralist, stated in 17th
century there is a differentiation in states behaviour and people’s desire.
Conflict seems to be the by-product of competition and attempts at cooperation
in society and between states. A federal government at Kant’s, German famous
influential philosopher, third level of analysis could be the remedy for war
among states but even that it may be unattainable and risks the chance of
become ineffective and results in civil wars under non-state entities. Above
all from Greek philosopher Plato to modern US international relations scholar Mearsheimer,
no human could have ever been able to visualize the Word anarchy, conquer the
absolute truth and depict it in a paper so peoples’ tranquillity and states
longevity will always be unpredictable. TOC seems inevitable based on all
deficiencies derived from human, state and World. The question remains the
power it poses and the ways to be suppressed.
Looking into this
matter, ‘dependecia’ theorists, supporters of a theory that resources flow from a "periphery" of poor
and underdeveloped states to a ‘core’ of wealthy states,
enriching the latter at the expense of the former, disregard purely national, internal factors
such as historical traditions, institutions economic reforms and politics and
focus on capital, organization, technology and military preponderance. Transnational actors and modernization
constrain through interdependence freedom of actions for governments and
even international organizations severely. Transnational phenomena from both
sides, Good and Evil, through NGOs, Alliances, global institutions and
organizations, corporations and religious pilgrims and on the contrary
smuggling, briberies, off-shore and elites-based clubs drag Man between
liberalism and authoritarianism making states seem imbalanced and too fragile
anymore. Waltz had concluded through international relations theories that a
combination of knowledge based on realism focusing on great states power,
liberalism about institutions and organizations interference and constructivism
based on social networks interconnectedness, was needed to address the
complicated international relations problems. In addition, it is important to
realize that in our highly technology interconnected state-World most states
are still ruled by authoritarian regimes controlling billions of people in
their majority deprived from basic good and a vision to live. Russia, China and
many Africa countries are not famous for their preference to freedom.
Surprisingly, even in West having societies reached a high standard of life current
ideologies seem outdated, all past political trends failed and eternal
theological principles are misused nowadays. These facts provide familiar
conditions for TOCGs to operate and even dominate sometimes.
In post-Cod era of technology
explosion, economic boom, international trade and loosely controlled borders
the opportunities for TOCGs to shape a robust presence and become part of the
global political agenda have increased
alarmingly. International terrorist organizations and criminal groups have
been linked creating a transnational nexus by cooperating and undermining state
and world order incrementally. Though the idea advocated by Claire Sterling of
a ‘pax-mafiosa’ was considered premature in the 90s, TOC often substitute
states undergoing a transition to democracy by controlling key governmental
positions and affect the craft of legislation. It seeks for corrupting
political decision makers by financiering political campaigns and undermines
civil society and human rights. Some means of penetrating the legal state and
rendering it ineffective for its people while even leading it many times in regional
conflicts and instability that fosters TOC activities are targeting or
controlling freedom of press and individual expression in addition with
dominating philanthropic organizations, intimidate people who are opposed to
their interests, provide trafficking in prostitution and pornography and
illegal smuggling of individuals to work.
No matter if TOC is
considered as a cause or effect of state fragility and perhaps conflict, it has
been identified of great concern for economic development in World Bank’s
Development Report 2011 and US national security priority in Transnational
Organized Crime Strategy 2011. According
to OECD ‘Transnational organized crime
and fragile states’ report, 2012, in the majority of definitions for TOC
the sale of goods and services; a certain hierarchical organizational
structure; and the survivability through violence and corruption of public
officials dominate. TOC develops from local organizations primarily concerned
with local crime to local organizations with global reach then to transnational
logistical networks and finally to the rise of transit states. In this way, TOC
has succeeded in global criminal expansion, institutional and social
fragmentation of states, inequality and a poorly functioning state. The
dangerous end-state may be a criminal legitimacy and the entrenchment of crime
as a way of life. In sequence UN state’s capacity to deliver public goods has
been eroded, state’s legitimacy harmed severely, and conflicts and peace
processes affected from TOC significantly. There are numerous state cases where
TOC has taken advantage of domestic circumstances such as El Salvador that acts as a transit route for illicit
drugs, Tajikistan where TOC has found symbiotic ways with local institutions
and Kenya where TOC has created a regional hub of operations for many forms of
TOC.
The level of threat TOC poses to states has brought
deeper analysis recently. Focus has been given on the ways it is constructed
and operates with the goal of addressing it vitally no matter TOCGs’ possessed power
and well-established practices to predict states’ legal efforts to disrupt them in addition with the strength
given from their economic system interconnected at the local and societal
levels. Though state’s governments are the only who are trying to erase this
threat through their undermanned usually organizations, a progress has been
attained by concentrating not on the illegal and profitable commodities TOCs
move around globally but in the pathways they use. Both TOCGs and VEOs are examined for the
level of confidence they are mingling with local populations by exploiting the alluringness
of the capital they offer to them. By analysing TOCGs as a business model moving
through countries and creating enablers to secure the flow of their illicit
goods helps to understand how they operate and then be addressed properly. TOCGs
base their activities on supply and demand principles and struggle to secure
environment for their illegal business. They seek for outside vendors that
provide legal services both to legitimate business and themselves. Overall, this
creates the security need for a whole-of-government approach where all agencies
share their knowledge in trust and with a clear common vision of change in the
status quo. This can enable state to contain TOC primarily and eradicate its
critical elements afterwards. The corruption accountability under the society’s
pressure may sway political leaders to search for alternatives in governing
their people and become owners of the effort to defeat TOCGs in their state.
Overall in our
state ordered globalized era, it seems that another parallel illegal globalized
network of individuals has developed since the start of post-Cold era. Wealthy
individuals and families enjoy the luxury of changing nationalities and residence
no matter their place of birth and operate in the shadow of states and
corporations. States in addition with scholars, investigate journalists and
NGOs have a role to play for the understanding and eradication of TOC which
threatens not only the prosperity of citizens but even the existence of the
states sometimes. States have realized that they ought to re-organize their
security concepts and structures not in a pure geographical basis based on
boundaries. TOCGs seem to be ahead of many state security apparatuses in both
physical and virtual worlds securing a strategic initiative. No doubt, through
collaboration among military, intelligence, law enforcement and strategic
communication the transnational crime-nexus has been addressed more efficiently
the last years. Introspection (JSOU, 2018) appears to be a key issue to start
and analyse better who the real modern enemy and allies are, what legal
arrangements are missing, what are the feasible and productive measures to be
taken, what defines success and how our societies and states have shaped
morally and ethically. What is crystal clear is that states have the power and
mechanisms if used properly to eradicate TOCGs and achieve a measurable success
for them and their people. A define political objective as a baseline for
building up a strategy against TOC through different lines of operations (JSOU,
2018) is essential to provide a better than present or projected in the future
end-state.
Global illicit trafficking has reached astonishing and
threatening levels for all. Especially, drugs and human trafficking generate
huge amounts of illegal money that is laundered within NATO members and other
trade centres. This global phenomenon erodes NATO states by disintegrating
their economies and promoting a business model out of law. The enormous profits
TOCGs generate and the power accumulated leads them to substitute democratic
elected governments in providing solutions and services to people. This
contributes in a potential political and social destabilization within NATO
states. A dangerous environment for
their security and sovereignty is been shaped incrementally.
NATO members ought
to take the appropriate measures to address this lethal danger for their
coherence and security. A combination by World strong states, international organizations
and strong cooperation between all may accumulate the need power to suppress
TOCGs timely. Otherwise NATO members may be rendered fragile and TOC entrenched
as a way of life and security threatening fundamental NATO Washington Treaty’s
principles. A whole-of-government approach within NATO members is recommended
to be implement in the same time with peoples’ awareness and eagerness for
alternative ways of wealth acquisition. In the end, this method will generate
the necessary pressure to politicians for changing their thinking and
performing of governance in NATO members before TOCGs prevail.
Chapter 3
South East Flank
NATO’s South East
flank has always been a challenging and an unstable area of contest for all
rivals since post-WWII up to nowadays post 9/11 era. Soviet Union’s collapse
and following opening of Russia’s borders in the same time with EU’s abolishment
of borders controls created a unique chance for people and goods to move in
both directions. In result, TOCGs found the opportunity to thrive within this
area. There were no controls and limits for their operations made. Soon, states
and societies along famous ‘Balkan route’ – the geographical passage linking
Asia to Western Europe through Turkey, Greece ‘bridge’ and Balkans peninsula – discovered
an attractive way to make a significant portion of their GDP easily but
illegally indeed. Mainly drugs, tobacco and human trafficking shaped a
dangerous nexus of business affecting regional states’ sovereignty and
effectiveness for their services provided to people. TOCGs and Russia have exploited
this opportunity gradually focusing on undermining European security and posing
a threat to NATO’s coherence. In this way, both found a sneaky way balancing
their lack of power towards NATO as a peer opponent by unconventional ways.
Since ‘80s Milan had already become a crossroad for
Europe’s drug trafficking and arms trade dominated by crime and overwhelmed by
money laundering. Narco-dollars had penetrated city’s banking system, stock
market and legal business. As Italy’s Interior Minister (Sterling, 1994) revealed
that time enormous amount of illegal money was invested anonymously in
government bonds even affecting the finance of the national debt and the
currency value. Italian Federation of bar and restaurants, FIPE, had admitted
that mafia acquired and controlled everything, the market, commerce, real
estate and the whole territory. Many FIPE victims were led to bankruptcy as
Mafia was taking 30% of their revenues. In 1991, European Parliament’s Deputies
majority (Sterling 1994) had declared Italy
as ‘cradle of organized crime in Europe and the biggest single risk to the
community’s security in an open market’. In 1992, ‘Operation Clean Hands’
executed revealing that large portion of Milan’s officials were receiving money
illegally for at least one decade on all public works. Money that were divided
between governing and opposition parties based on a mathematical equity
controlled the political system.
Italy was only the start for TOC to prevail and expand
within Europe soon. In early 90’s, Germany
felt a new wave of TOCGs from the East no matter that it was already considered
Sicilian’s Mafia second home from ‘60s in addition of Turkish mafia as a main
partner from ‘70s. When in 1993 European state borders went down, Russia ones opened widely, the greatest
opportunity appeared. Claire Sterling,
argued in her book ‘Thieves’ World’ since 1994 about the emerge of a ‘pax
mafiosa’ - a worldwide TOCGs consortium - between the most notorious mafias
like Russian, American, Sicilian, Chinese Triads, Japanese Yakuza and the
Colombians all responsible for moving heroin and cocaine within all continents
in cooperation. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Wolfgang Schäuble, his
Interior Minister that time and President of the Bundestag nowadays, (Sterling,
1994) stated their worries for the enormous increase in drugs usage, the cover
of drugs traffickers, the laundering in banks, the intermingle with legitimate
business, the corruption of officials and the political pollution in whole
continent timely and frankly. States were too weak due to their wars waged
while legal jurisdiction issues, police agencies secrecy and unwillingness for
cooperation led to reluctance to counter this new threat. Apocalyptically,
Chancellor Kohl referred to Germany as “the face of a criminal Europe without frontiers”
(sterling, 1994). Even worse, Italian Interior Minister characterized mafia’s
structure, function and linkage with the legitimate World, its binding lines of
command between Europe and America, the loyalty of their people and the increasing
power as the TOCG’s ‘role model for the year 2000’.
This post-Cold War ‘new underworld order’ included an
alliance for the avoidance of conflict between mafias, a common strategy for
global dominance and making business altogether finally. That time a triangle –
from Palermo to Caracas to New York – was dealing already with the feeding of half
a million addicted heroin users in the United States. In 1992, Europe (Sterling,
2018) was overwhelmed with cocaine with more than 200 tons coming in the
continent valued on the street up to 10$ billion annually. A colossal amount of
Colombian narco-dollars was generated and required to be laundered by Sicilian
Mafia. Improvised post-communist Russia become a safe haven and an ideal
servant soon. In autumn 1993, Italy’s
Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission announced Russia as ‘The World capital of
organized crime’. This new economic and social environment affected pan-European
security especially wherever states were weak and fragile as it was in the south-eastern
area of the continent.
Subsequently, Derek
Blades, former Head of the National Accounts Division of the OECD Statistics
Directorate, argued that annual GDP
of countries should include the production of goods and services through
illegal activities as they are significant in many countries. Western Balkans’s
states like Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and
Herzegovina and Serbia were such examples indeed. No doubt, four kinds of
illegal activities – drugs, prostitution, smuggling cigarettes and alcohol, and
human trafficking – (Blades, 2011) were considered too widespread and significant
and should have been added in countries’ GDP. Furthermore, averages for 1996
and 1997 have estimated ‘underground’ or ‘black’ economy up to 30% for Italy
and Greece while even Scandinavian countries (Blades, 2011) had reached a 18%
percentage. Two decades later in 2018, Greek authorities still estimated it up to
20% officially. In 2004, an OECD program
for Western Balkans found that in some countries corruption is widespread, a
type of ‘insurance’ was paid by stall-holders in markets so as their property
not be destroyed and rewards to doctors and health workers were considered
customary adding to ‘black economy’ power. Conditions for TOCGs were favourable
to help them prevail and make their operations by reducing states’
effectiveness in providing prosperity and security to their people.
Analytically, heroin
route towards Europe and USA originates in Asia and used to transfer drugs in
all continents (Map. 1.6). Since mid-20th century the Triads, an
historic notorious Chinese gang based on Hong-Kong and Taiwan, second only to
Italian Mafia as a threat, (Sterling, 1994) is considered responsible for
trading heroin globally. Whoever going into business of supplying the World must
go through them initially. Italian Mafia as one and indivisible and not an
association of independent families anymore took over in agreement with them to
move forward heroin entering from southeast Europe to reach Germany. According
to Interpol, Germany (Sterling, 1994) had become after its unification ‘the
main point of transit for the entire European heroin market’. Chechens were
considered to play a central role in heroin trafficking through Berlin as well.
Turkish mafia and the Kurds through the ‘Balkan route’ the same. Germany’s
loose legislation and total absence of rules for money laundering that time facilitated
the Mafia, the Yakuza – Japan equivalent-, the Colombians and the Turks to
invest in almost everything – government bonds, real estate, hotels and
casinos, finance and leasing companies, banks and insurance companies
substituting real economy. Airlines, newspapers and radio and TV stations (Sterling,
1994) all become targets of acquisition in the same time with donating in
political parties to increase political influence.
In NATO’s south-eastern flank, across the ‘Balkan route’ the biggest two-way
trade in arms and drugs (Sterling, 1994) was revealed though this passage had
been in use for illegal activities since 60’s actually. Three-quarters of the
heroin destined to Western Europe and U.S. were pushed forward through this
route no matter states authorities’ controls. Moreover, Camorra, an Italian
mafia, had created a black-market monopoly on Philipps Morris equivalent to
state’s monopoly by using this route to move illicit tobacco also. In 1974, the
exploitation of this route brought Camorra in partnership with Sicilian mafia
initially and then with Turkish arms-drugs mafia to smuggle tobacco throughout
Europe. Finally, in 1992, a secret agreement with Russia mafia in Prague was
reached so as new illicit trade in Central Europe be protected and a global
network established. According to United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2017 report “The Drug Problem and Organized Crime,
Illicit Financial Flows, Corruption and Terrorism.”, Albanian TOCGs
rooted in this ex-communist poor country and NATO member anymore soon took the
role of leading in all types of drugs smuggling worldwide. In 2017, Europol
gave the role to Albania as a regional operational base of TOC where based on
country’s small territory, population size, and economy criminality it too high
and Albanian TOCGs were placed amongst the top of the World.
Moreover, Western Balkan countries by linking Greece and
Turkey with Western Europe (Mece, 2016) have been identified as source, transit
and destination countries of human
trafficking. In the same time, while becoming attractive for war refugees from
Syria and Afghanistan as well illegal immigrants from Africa and Asia looking
for a better life proved of limited capacity to implement a comprehensive and
regional approach response to combat the increasing human trafficking. These
countries with a mosaic of cultures, religion and ethnicities following civil
wars and the collapse of socialist system and centralized economy, the
disintegration of Yugoslavia and the EU enlargement have been dominated by a
social-economic and political context of low performance in sovereignty adding weak
structures and highly corrupted institutions. No matter that these countries
have ratified the 2000 UN Convention against TOC and the 2005 EU Convention on
Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (Zitnanova in Mece 2016) they do not
have in place the proper legal arrangements to support and protect migrants
resulting in various difficulties for the latter to receive adequate treatment
and attention. This fact of weak states existence in the region (Agir in Mece,
2016) has created favour condition for traffickers to intensify irregular
migration, human trafficking, and state corruption affecting region’s security
severely.
Interestingly, Prof. Danilo Mandic at Harvard University,
US, argues that Syrian refugees’ smuggling in 2014-16 did not include
trafficking. Evidence surveyed has shown the emerge of a special smuggler-migrant relation with astonishing
characteristics. Based on the findings of the survey migrants trust and identify themselves with their
smugglers by approving their criminal activities, refugees mostly seek for
smugglers than the opposite, states anti-smuggler policies have increased costs
and trafficking in ‘Balkan route’, smugglers (Mandic, 2017) are providing services
of shelter and care even health related some times more trusted than the state
authorities and lastly smugglers are more reliable on information needed by the
migrants. He even suggests a different approach from state authorities by
providing to refugees a more effective target advice about smugglers, focusing
on smugglers organizations, recruitment sites, and reputations, border crossing
risk comparisons and alternative options as well as smuggling prices.
Moving to NATO’s member Turkey, Prof. Gingeras at Naval post-graduate
School, US, acknowledges that drugs and
violence still have a core role in Turkish politics. Historically, TOCGs
and criminal syndicates (Gingeras, 2011) defined Anatolia’s transition from an empire
to nation-state with the result of Istanbul to be considered as a hotbed of
narcotics during ‘50s. Though Turkey (Ekici,123) has changed a lot from Nixon’s
early ‘70s times when U.S. pressed Turkey to reduce its opium crop and
Afghanistan replacing the former as a global producer, Europeans are supplied
with heroin from Turkish and Iranian TOC syndicates primarily. Prof. Gingeras
parallels Turkey with oil producers’ states Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan and Iran
pointing out that modern Republic of Turkey can be fully understood with
examining the local, national and transnational actors related to heroin’s flow
in, through and out of Asia Minor. The total amount of drug generated money in
Turkey is estimated around $15 billion annually. During the last decades of 20th
century, heroin smuggling from Central Asia resulted in Asia Minor (Gingeras, 2011)
became a node of distribution, transit and production of illegal narcotics
giving a new dimension in Turkey’s role. Many research papers (Ekici, 2014) have
indicated that 50-80% of heroin supply to Europe (Gingeras, 2011) is attributed
to Kurdish group PKK by giving it the role of controller for heroin entering
Turkey from Afghanistan and Central Asia. Turkish experts (Ekici, 2014) calculate
PKK’s profits from cannabis cultivation in the south-eastern Turkey around $400
million annually. Indeed, transnational networks of huge profits through drugs
trafficking require a sophisticated to operate and difficult to be revealed
financial system.
Furthermore, Prof. Emin
Baki Adas, Adhan Menderes University, Turkey, has examined the role and effects of the state on
the development of social capital
through the case study of Islamic holding companies in Turkey. Different scales
of enterprises with no legal basis that have been operating under the Islamic
principle of ‘profit-no-loss’ schema by moving internationally the savings of
hundreds of thousands of pious small savers in Turkey for decades. MUSAID as a
such enterprise became in ‘90s the largest voluntary business organization in
Turkey. By using a method based on trust created a relationship between the
state and transnational Islamic networks. With the huge improvements in
transportation, information and communications offering unique ‘just in time’
capabilities, these transnational networks between communities at home and
migrants in Europe especially shaped a transnational social space influencing
economic and political processes in European states significantly. Since ‘90s,
a ‘global Muslim business network’ beyond national economies (Adas, 2009) developed
rapidly. That contributed in a neo-liberal political and economic agenda of
shaping an unregulated market and a non-interventionist state. The economic
consequences from illicit drugs trafficking money moving uncontrolled by states
have been proven quite significant. Though many argue that it reinforces
financial reserves, creates capital and reduces unemployment the negative
results prevail finally. Narco-dollars money as never taxed and used for
sustainable investments they are ex-filtrated out from taxpayers and
transferred to TOCGs networks. In the end, they form an uncontrolled large
black market, erode the productivity of the labour force, create employment
without insurance and job security, hinder the development of a healthy economy
and consume state budget money for law-enforcement and criminal investigation
agencies.
In Turkey for defining the nexus of gangsters,
politicians, smugglers, military officers and clandestine agents dealing with
narcotics in Turkey commentators have found the term ‘deep state’. Former Prime
Minister Demirel in 2005 had stated “the deep state is the military. The deep
state is the state itself”. Beshat Ekici from the Department of Anti-Smuggling
and Organised Crime, General Directorate of Security in Turkey, links TOC
syndicates operating in the country with terrorism’s financing, corruption
instigation, economic development undermining and contributing in state’s
authority erosion. He considers TOCGs exploiting drugs trafficking within
Turkey as a political and military, economic, institutional threat endangering
population and law and order at national level. On the contrary, Turkish
Security Council (MGK) has not prioritize narcotics as a national security
problem. It is considered for the state as a secondary threat following
counter-terrorism efforts (Ekici,2014) focused on PKK and regional geopolitics
conflicts. ‘Sursuluk Incident’ back in 1996 – a traffic accident were many
state officials and drugs dealers where engaged- made Turkish Parliament to
introduce legislation against corruption and adopt strategies for drug
enforcement agencies. Better recruiting, detection of corrupted officials and
increase in salaries (Ekici, 2014) were considered to render them effective
enough to disregard drug-driven
corruption and consider it as a national security threat. Prof. Gingeras
argues that TOCGs have links with political networks not only in producers’
states such as Afghanistan, Colombia or Mexico but also there are intersections
of traffickers, gangsters and politicians in powerful states like United
States, France and China as well.
In 21th century, Turkey seems to tilt between West and
East within a security triangle formed by NATO, Russia and Iran on its corners. Tayip Erdogan, leader of AKP
(Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi/ Justice and Development Party) and Turkey’s
dominant political figure since 2002 has applied a Turkish Foreign Policy by
investing in the privileged geographical location and the Islamist
characteristics of his people focused on Turkey as a resurgent ‘central power’
in the new World order. As Turkey searches for a dominant at least regional
role, it has been allured by Russia to satisfy its vast energy needs and not
only. It goes on by building a strategic partnership with Russia through
bilateral trade, critical armaments’ procurements such as S-400 missiles and
monetary interdependence while (Aghayev, 2017) shaping a nexus that may trap
Turkey in Russia’s ‘near abroad’ area and
the adoption of a relative foreign policy by contributing in NATO’s disintegration.
As Turkey (Kang, Kim, 2016) still relies on Iranian hydro carbonation sources
to diversify from Russia gas and growing Salafism takes place regionally a
Turkey-Iranian alignment develops as well. To the opposite of these trends, Kang
and Kim conclude that Turkey
as long as it remains a NATO member will more align with the US and West than
balancing with Iran against them.
Adjacent to Turkey another NATO member Greece based on
2015/849 EU guidance released in October 2018 by the Greek Ministry of Finance
the first ever study for the danger emanating
from TOCGs’ activities and the potential of financing of terrorism in Greece.
The major threats and vulnerabilities in regard of TOCGs’ activities were
depicted with the estimate of the final level of national danger characterized
as ‘medium-high’ and that of national vulnerability as ‘medium’. For terrorism financing
the level was found ‘medium-low’. Professional social categories where the
danger of money laundering exists were banks, money sending services, lottery
firms, accounts, notaries, real estate, lawyers, luxury goods traders and pawnbrokers
(Table 3.2). The higher threat found was coming from the domains of drugs
trafficking, people smuggling, corruption, tax and financial crimes as well as
crimes against property. For drugs trafficking, Greece was found as a transit
country for cannabis and heroin coming from Albania and Turkey respectively with
significant loads of cocaine coming from Latin America. Noticeably, the highest
threat referring to legalize money from financial crimes come from cigarettes
smuggling where between 2012-16 the law enforcement authorities have
confiscated 2.5 billion cigarettes in 10.304 successful interventions.
According to Professors Chionis, University of Thrace,
Greece and Chalkia, Panteion University, Greece based on their article ‘Illicit
tobacco trade in Greece: the rising share of illicit consumption during crisis’,
the share of contraband and counterfeit cigarettes in EU (Chionis,, 2016) increased
by 60% between 2012-16. Greece due to its geographical location with land and
sea borders, the large number of islands, the extended coastline in addition
with high state taxes domestically has become a source, transit and destination
country for tobacco smuggling. Papastratos Tobacco Company has estimated that in
2018 about 23.6% of sold cigarettes in Greece to be illegal with a loss of
revenue up to 690 million and loses about 25 million annually. KPMG has characterized
Greece as a hotspot of tobacco smuggling in the EU since 2013 (Figure 2.7).
Professors (Chionis, 2016) identify as main routes of tobacco smuggling into
Greece the Turkish sector of Cyprus (especially Famagusta) to Greek ports,
North Macedonia and Balkan countries to Greece, and ex-USSR countries to Greek
islands via Turkey. TOCGs prefer sea shipping in smuggling tobacco. It has been
estimated that one container includes 9.6 million cigarettes and the tax
evasion rise to 1.4 million euro. Money laundering not only from tobacco
smuggling has been discovered to happen via legitimate companies involved in
the smuggling crime such as transportations companies, legitimate companies on
the Stock Exchange, professional football and basketball teams and through
gambling.
As an example, in the end of June 2019, Greek
authorities seized the World largest quantity of Captagon drugs weighed more
than 5 tons and numbered about t 33 million pills in a single ship. As a final
destination of the cargo it has declared China, but this hasn’t been verified
yet by authorities. The estimated value of that single load was 660 million
dollars. Special Secretariat for Financial and Economic Crime Unit (SDOE) has referred
to a network of small businesses of low capital usually not more than 3000 euro
dealing with coffee shops, restaurants and bakeries that appear earnings of millions
of euro. They are inspected as suspected for doing money laundering in regard
of money coming from drugs trafficking. Astonishingly, in a peculiar case, Greek
Chief of Defence, Chief of Coast Guard and US Ambassador in Greece in 2018, all
honoured the President of an NGO dealing with refugees’ treatment coming from
Turkey in the Aegean Sea. One week later the honoured person was arrested as
leader of a human trafficking network making around 600-million-euro profit in
total during the last two years of NGO’s operation.
Greece changed recently a radical left government that
demonstrated openly a great support in Venezuela’s President Maduro and
Russia’s President Putin. According to journals it was considered a vital
factor in preventing unanimous EU decisions against them and promoting more harsh
EU stances. Within a week of new government elected Greece recognized
Venezuela’s leader Juan Guaido as its legitimate President proving a very
contradictory national foreign policy. Greece & Russia are linked through
common religion allowing a wide human network to thrive and promoting exchange
of tourists, goods and information. In the last decade there was intense
efforts to connect through common energy pipelines strategically while a large
portion of Greek armament acquired was of Russia origin. Anti-West and
pro-Russian sentiment have been cultivated and prevailed in South east Europe historically
allowing even regional countries to maintain strong communist parties in the
21th century. Putin’s principles of governance and living have found ‘fertile’
land in NATO’s south east flank causing severe situations where officials’
bribing, elites’ prevalence and people’s resistance to free market and
transparency become key features of local societies and markets.
Introspection appears to be a key point for NATO states response to resolve war
against TOCGs and the threat posed at national security globally. As Sun Tzu, an ancient Chinese general, military strategist,
and philosopher who dominates east strategy thinking till nowadays,
described in the 5th century BC: ‘If you know the enemy and know
yourself, you need not fear the result of hundred battles.’ Identify, confront and defeat transnational
threats against nations sovereignty and NATO cohesion is feasible but needs
trust, collaboration and coordination between NATO members indeed. A
transnational opponent requires a transnational response respectively. A clear
strategy is a prerequisite for addressing post-Cold era TOCGs as an ‘hydra’
opponent who has developed a vital threat not excluding the potential to undermine
NATO members existence and itself finally. Starting from common political
objectives for enforcing states’ security and seeking for peoples’ prosperity
by a decisive confrontation with modern global threats to NATO members
especially its southern east any present vulnerabilities can be overcome. As Emily Spencer, Director of Research and
Education at the Canadian Special Forces Education and Research Centre, argues
from a military perspective it is critical to concentrate more on ‘why/how’
proper measures are taken than on ‘what I/what we can do’. NATO’s Special
Forces is a possible answer to this modern security threat as by exploiting
their agility by operating in small teams, rapidly deployed and working in the grey
zone of their opponent (Horn,137) can bridge NATO members nations territories
and agencies easily.
It is a historical
fact that the simultaneous collapse of Soviet Union and the abolishment of
controls within EU and NATO states added with the unforeseen capabilities
modern technology offered to TOCGs in early 90’s created a transnational threat
to EU states’ sovereignty. Europe transformed rapidly in an ‘Eldorado’ of drugs
and human trafficking alluring many states to increase their annual GDP through
illegal activities. This fact eroded many NATO states power and mechanisms to
enforce Washington Treaty’s principles adequately posing a severe social and
political threat gradually.
Turkey
and Greece two NATO members since 1953 have rendered as a ‘bridge’ linking
Middle East, Asia and Europe and allowing the flow of people and goods towards
West Europe. Both countries have been targets of TOCGs to develop their
networks and move their illegal products by generating enormous amount of money
for themselves. This flow has also overwhelmed Western Balkans and reached
other Europeans criminal hubs. The social and political consequences in both
countries of these illegal activities have been significant leading to
worsening their governance capabilities. NATO has ways and means to address
this dominating threat and restore its members capacity for the peace and
prosperity of their people.
Conclusions
The end of Cold-War followed by 9/11 and Ukraine 2014
events have altered the global security
significantly if not upturned it irreversibly. Globalization and digitization
have provided both unique capabilities for humans and states during the last
three decades and changed their way of life and function respectively. Indeed,
the same has happened for NATO opponents including both strong states like
Russia and China and non-states such as international terrorist organizations
and transnational organization crime groups. On a global basis a modern warfare
with hybrid characteristics is already been waged by the latter affecting UN
and NATO states’ capabilities of governing and protecting their peoples. NATO
as an international organization serving Washington Treaty 1949 and providing
security needs to adapt to 21th century complex security environment by focusing
on all emanating threats both within its members and beyond.
During the last three decades Transnational Organized Crime
has accumulated enormous money and power through illegal activities on a global
basis. A ‘pax-mafiosa’ seems to operate and intermingle with states’ functions while
providing a different and lucrative business model alluring people. Subsequently,
as this attractive way of doing business is being adopted by societies it becomes
a social phenomenon that erodes and weakens states’ power and ability to
provide necessary security and services to their people. Gradually, many states
including NATO members and partners are affected severely and faced with
security challenges unable to cope with. A coordinated states’ response is
needed to address this threatening model before it is too late.
NATO member states in
its southern flank perform low indexes for democracy
and prosperity on the contrary of those for corruption. NATO’s Treaty
fundamental principles of democracy, individual liberty and rule of law are challenged
in this area. This area geographical status by serving as a bridge between East
to West and containing the ‘Balkan route’ that connects southeast to west
Europe provides to non-states NATO opponents the conduit to smuggle both humans
and goods, mainly drugs and heroin. In both NATO members Turkey and Greece, TOCGs
show long lasting prevalence by infiltrating states’ mechanisms and usurp them.
A focused NATO’s evaluation and probable engagement is needed to reinforce its
members’ capacity to provide security and prosperity to their people and
engrave democracy for the common benefit of the Alliance.
Relative literacy about Transnational Organized Crime and its impact in modern
societies is limited. No matter prominent survey of Claire Sterling since 1993
for the TOC threat posed to European security and not only, adequate research
about Transnational Organized Crime groups’ power and effectiveness has re-appeared
only recently. It needs to be continued and cover the dearth in academic,
social and political work about the implications Transnational Organized Crime
groups have in societies, political and security organizations. In my opinion,
a good start could be done with the discussion of this topic in international
forums, conferences, and meetings where the real extent of this modern global
threat could be presented better.
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