Thread by @jmhumire

President Trump’s EO designating the Cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations is designed to elevate Counter-Transnational Organized Crime (CTOC) to the highest levels of U.S. national security using three concepts mentioned in the executive order.

1) Crime-Terror Convergence
2) Complex Adaptive Systems
3) Asymmetric Warfare

I’ll unpack in this Thread 🧵1/10

whitehouse.gov/presidential-a…

2) Crime-Terror Convergence is when international terrorist organizations engage in a systematic and symbiotic relationship with major drug cartels, not because they have the same strategic goals but rather because of logistics. The Fixers, Financiers, and Facilitators that provide logistical services to Mexican cartels and other TCOs also provide the same services to Jihadist organizations.

In the military we say “amateurs talk about strategy, professionals talk about logistics” and the logistical networks that enable crime-terror convergence are growing so big and powerful they are empowering illicit economies to take over countries. 2/10

3) A notable example of crime-terror convergence is the case of Ayman Joumaa, a Colombian-Lebanese financier and facilitator for both the Mexican cartels, namely Los Zetas, and Hezbollah. Joumaa moved massive amounts of cocaine into the U.S. and laundered hundreds of millions of dollars through the U.S. financial system and the Lebanese Canadian Bank.

In 2011, Joumaa was indicted and sanctioned as a drug kingpin but in reality he should have also been listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. 3/10

4) The other concept mentioned in the EO is complex adaptive systems (CAS), which comes from the world of science and math and often used in social systems theory. How it applies to TCOs is in their structure, which today are more dynamic, decentralized, nonlinear and rely less on “kingpins” and more on territorial control.

To simplify, this means that modern day “Cartels” don’t actually function like cartels and their structure is not vertical nor relies on a centralized command and control. It is now more horizontal, decentralized and based on networks with many adaptive agents that blend “cartel” activity with terrorist activity in specific territories and industries key to their supply chain of smuggling drugs, weapons, and jihadists. 4/10

5) a prominent example of this is in Venezuela where both Mexican cartels and major terrorist organizations, namely Hezbollah, have developed a supply chain that includes media entities, transportation companies, NGOs, and several other “adaptive agents” enabling criminals and terrorists to legitimize their activities and make their operations more efficient.

That is why Venezuela is such a difficult case to crack - because it uses an insurgency-style, CAS network to adapt to pressure from the U.S. and other countries.

6) speaking of Venezuela, the Tren de Aragua, now accurately classified as both a TCO and a FTO, is a perfect example of how crime-terror convergence and CAS can put a prison gang on steroids and transform them into a major insurgency-like force in multiple countries and across several U.S. states in the matter of years and months and not decades.

TdA is a state sponsored TCO of Venezuela in the same way Hezbollah is a state sponsored FTO of Iran - but both are equally engaged in major criminal and terrorist operations. Both groups are weapons of asymmetric warfare. 6/10

7) Asymmetric warfare is simply when one side uses non conventional ways and means to achieve a strategic end-state. It’s still war and it still involves imposing your will. Proxies are paramount in asymmetric warfare.

Today’s “cartels” and TCOs are used more like soldiers on a battlefield, invading and occupying territory in the United States. They aren’t just doing illicit activity. Because of the CAS structure and convergence paradigm criminal organizations are naturally designed to expand and capture more territory. And regimes from Beijing to Tehran to Caracas are using TCOs as weapons of asymmetric warfare. 7/10

8) one feature of the criminalized state and cartel model is using drug trafficking networks as parallel intelligence agencies to spy on and infiltrate targeted nation-states. Here I’ll cite from a 2022 SFS study we published on Weaponized Drug Trafficking.

“Drug trafficking can exist for purposes other than profit. That is especially true when we consider Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution that from the outset was dedicated to the development and deployment of illicit drugs for purposes of asymmetric warfare against the United States.

As of 2022, Venezuela is responsible for distributing close to 400-450 metric tons of cocaine out of the global cocaine market of ~1800 metric tons. Therefore, the Cartel of the Suns went from a ~1% portion of the global market in 2010 to close to ~25% of the global market today.

The crucial element in Hugo Chávez’s strategy, which ended up turning the Venezuelan government into a drug trafficking organization, was the merging of military and intelligence services with drug trafficking operations. Chávez’s use of the entire Venezuelan government birthed a unique angle within this asymmetric war: sophisticated counterintelligence operations based on drug distribution, illicit arms trafficking, and infiltration. There are several cases that illustrate how this strategy has possibly played out in Venezuela and the United States.” 8/10

9) In President Trump’s EO it mentions cartel “infiltration into foreign governments in the Western Hemisphere.” And that alludes to this point of weaponized drug trafficking. The Concepts in the EO are much more aligned with today’s complex reality than previous CTOC policies. 9/10

10) With one signature, @realDonaldTrump brought CTOC to the 21st century and started the process of protecting the territorial integrity of the United States and saving American lives.

Make no mistake, America is under attack by the Mexican Cartels, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, MS-13, TdA, and host of other gangs, criminals, and terrorists that are increasingly converging and increasing in strength.

Now they have met their match.

END 🧵