Criminal Challenges and Military Capabilities

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Guatemala on Wednesday, and among the topics to be discussed is the challenge of dealing with narcotic trafficking in the region.

The chief US diplomat, aides said Monday, will visit Guatemala City to discuss a counter-narcotics strategy with the leaders of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

President Laura Chinchilla will join the other Central American leaders in Guatemala's capital to discuss how the region can better combat organized crime and drug trafficking.

The leaders will discuss implementing strategies for crime prevention, rehabilitation and prison security and specific visions for each country. In addition, the presidents will be looking for ways to finance these plans through other countries, international organizations and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE).

"This meeting will be an opportunity for other countries to turn their eyes with more determined efforts toward the countries of Central America in the fight against narcotrafficking," Chinchilla said in a press release. The president will be accompanied by Costa Rica's foreign minister, public security minister, the vice minister of the interior and the head of the country's anti-drugs commission.

Other leaders or top officials attending the talks will represent Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Spain and the European Union, they added.

This issue is becoming more and more important to the United States as it is the fuel to the violence just off the southern United States border. In politics the border is too often discussed in the context of immigration, but if you ask me the real challenge of the US-Mexico border today has almost everything to do with narcotics trafficking. It was disheartening when CNN celebrated the 40th anniversary of the war on drugs in America, and the chart on the TV showed that for the trillion dollars spent over that 40 years - all the trends related to usage and violence were heading in the wrong direction.

I am one of those folks who does not see a future war scenario between the US and China, although similar to the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States during the cold war, I do believe there will be considerable stress and tension in the US-China relationship before any genuine cooperation or partnership is achieved - if it is ever achieved.

The other end of the military spectrum is where I see the most common threats facing military forces in the near-to-long term future - specifically in the emerging shadow zones throughout Africa and South America that blur the lines between criminal activity and military capabilities as non-government organizations leverage the advances made in technology faster than government law enforcement can adapt. I strongly believe that in the future - and potentially continuing next month in southern Sudan, US military forces are going to continue to be asked to undertake roles that address stabilization and security in troubled regions.

At sea, that means the US Navy must find ways to continue and leverage the partnership with the US Coast Guard to become more effective - indeed more proactive - in addressing challenges like narcotics submarines. This problem isn't getting smaller, and like piracy it pays enough to sustain growth trends that lead to uncomfortable levels down the road if real solutions aren't found. We are already seeing another evolution in the narcotics submarine efforts as they transition from being capable of crossing seas in the Gulf of Mexico and littoral Pacific towards being able to cross oceans - like the Atlantic.

Latin American cocaine traffickers may be using submarines to move the Europe-bound drugs across the Atlantic Ocean, a top official said Monday during a conference aimed at stemming the flow of the drugs through Africa.

Alexandre Schmidt, the head of the West African branch of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said drug cartels are known to have already used submarines off the South American and Caribbean coast. Even though no submarines have been seized in West African waters, there is anecdotal evidence to suggest they are in use there as well, he said.

"We are not talking about military vessels here, but rather smaller ones which can be bought freely on the international market by anybody who has a couple of million dollars to spare," said Schmidt, who spoke during the inaugural session of a policy committee, dubbed the West Africa Coast Initiative.

Enforcement of narcotics smuggling through traditional methods like small aircraft and small boats from South America to Africa has improved over the last few years (although corruption is still a major problem), but seizures are down while cocaine use is up. That suggests narcotics are now being moved by different means, and submarine technologies are one possibility. It makes sense, because in the big picture capabilities for finding low observable simisubmersibles - much less a fully submerged capability - simply do not exist in sufficient numbers among West African nations to be even marginally effective.

The street value for 1 kilogram of cocaine in the United States can be averaged at $20,000. These simisubmersibles can transport between 3 and 7 tons of cocaine, and one short ton contains about 907 kilograms. That puts the street value of one simisubmersible full of 3 tons of cocaine at just over $54 million. At $54 million the transport costs using simisubmersibles with a 3 ton payload from South America to the United States is below 1% of the total street value. Similar cost estimates can be scaled to Europe.

Over the last decade in both narcotics smuggling and piracy we have seen remarkable adaptation and use in technology that has significantly increased the challenges for what have traditionally been law enforcement problems. Obviously technologies in narcotics smuggling has advanced pretty far when full blown submarines are now in use, but technologies being leveraged by Somali pirates are just as remarkable when one considers how many millions are being made leveraging five guys with AK-47s and old fishing boats with an outboard motor. Will there ever be a shortage of guys, guns, and outboard motors? If not, it's time to adapt.

The budget for the Coast Guard is just as strained as the Navy, indeed perhaps more strained given the cost problems that so many Coast Guard acquisition programs currently have. Without political leadership first, supported by both services and a great deal of investment in innovation by everyone involved; the challenges already found in the maritime shadow zones today will continue to outpace responses, and left unaddressed the problems will simply continue to grow.