Organized Crime and the Nation-State

Geopolitics and National Sovereignty

De Leon Petta Gomes da Costa

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429760594
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Genocidio y crímenes de guerra

Geopolitics is an increasingly important tool to understand national and international relations.

This book unravels how organized crime is not just a marginal problem but part of a bigger geopolitical and asymmetrical warfare strategy. It seeks to establish a direct relationship between Nation States and organized crime groups. Many States have been using criminal and terrorist organizations as a policy for issues of national sovereignty or as a tool to strengthen a nation's geopolitical position. This book demonstrates how national states are utilizing criminal organizations in covert operations and "dirty jobs" such as espionage, proxy war, arms trafficking and sabotage. Examples from the United States, China and the Soviet Union are explored, providing both an historical and contemporary analysis, from World War II through to the Cold War and to the present day. The book brings together perspectives from international relations and criminology drawing on insights from a variety of sources, including public documents and interviews.

1 Geopolitics and organized crime

Delimiting the geopolitical subject and its relation to organized crime

It is not easy to connect two subjects that are so different and are commonly considered to be unrelated; moreover, the two concepts by themselves are very problematic. For example, both of them are polemic, with no consensus on their delimited usage in academia; and have, at times, been accused of being a non-scientific tool to justify some type of oppression. For others, raising one concept would probably mean the weakening of the other. For example, geopolitics would be limited to a mechanical vision attached to the old and static national state while organized crime (especially international crime) would be a new era in international relations with weak borders in a globalized world dictated by non-state actors. Nothing could be further from the reality of both visions. Not only are geopolitics and organized crime real, but they are also not each other’s competitor; they not only coexist, but they can be part of the same strategic realm too.

The drama and antagonism of geopolitics dates back to the post-war period after 1945, when several researchers related and limited the concept of geopolitics to a militaristic view linked with the German Geopolitik and the concept of the politically and militarily dominated space of Lebensraum (living space). This eventually resulted in a distance between Geopolitical Studies and other academic areas, especially Geography, in North America and Europe. In fact, some scholars were even more radical, claiming that geopolitics should be abandoned completely as a scientific term except for historical uses. In general, Geopolitical Studies became limited to military academies and staff colleges, with only occasional aspects coming to the surface in publications, but even in these cases, very few contributed new literature or analyses to the public debate. In general, the conclusion must be that geopolitical writing declined in both language and substance (Hepple, 1986). However, despite those problems among academics, the foreign and national policies of many governments were still guided by geopolitical objectives and goals.

In the 1980s, Yves Lacoste stated the Nazis did not have a monopoly on the concept by arguing that geopolitics was a concern even for Élisee Reclus, (a geographer and anarchist) and clarified that it was not a change in his orientation but rather an explanation of characteristics. In fact, Lacoste considered the use of the term geopolitics by scholars to be natural, as they should be explicitly dedicated to this subject. Furthermore, he proposed a critical geopolitics more related to peace, social justice and democracy (Costa, 2008, p. 244). Some of the recovery of the concept can be assigned to Henry Kissinger, who was partly responsible for the rebirth of the term in the 1970s and 1980s and who often used the concept in his speeches to justify aspects of strategical planning.

The concept of geopolitics would be targeted again after the Cold War in a boost to liberal idealism, bringing statements such as the weakening or even the end of the borders, the inevitable spread of democracy and the loss of the importance of countries’ geography and the national state in a globalized world. In national security matters, even a new generation of threats, such as organized crime, terrorism and other non-state agents, would be more important than the older security model based on threats from states. This “new world” would have deprived the State of its sovereignty with many new globalized threats that do not respect national borders. Moises Naim would establish the idea of drastically increased mobility of people and products that would lower transaction costs, resulting in a situation where national security would be primarily related to asymmetrical threats. Furthermore, new technologies would make geography far less important (Naim, 2006, p. 12, 135). In fact, the phrase “because the globalization. . .” turned into a general motto or excuse to explain almost any situation, some of them not even really new but only interrupted or diminished by the Cold War.

In addition, the concept of organized crime also faced its own problems. In Brazil, for example, many scholars and professors questioned if such a criminal mode would really exist or if it was a governmental excuse to justify an increase in its repressive capacity (Mingardi, 1998, p. 26). Christopher Duggan, for example, argued the Mafia was only a fantasy and may be an invention of politicians to explain their failures or a Mussolini invention to strike political enemies, Duggan, in short, denies the Mafia’s existence at all (Duggan, 1989). Even the first director of the FBI, J. Edgar Roosevelt, denied the existence of the Mafia and organized crime while he was trying to convince the US government to maintain focus on the communist threat.

Today, few would dare to say that organized crime is an invention or that geopolitics and Geography do not matter or influence international relations and national policy. The idea of criminals with a hierarchal structure acting like a company to obtain profits, avoiding law enforcement and sometimes connected by codes and brotherhood ties is vastly accepted around the world, only varying in its definition, delimitation and methods of engagement. The concept of geopolitics is a little more complicated to define; in general all serious researchers and scholars accept the concept and its obvious geographical impact on human relations; however, for others generally driven less by scientific and realistic views and more by ideological or/and emotional views, the security, politics and economy would be “ethereal and unrelated with the space”, flowing like a magical energy through individuals and institutions in a world where distance or its geographical shape do not interfere.

Methodology for geopolitics

If, on the one hand, geopolitics has mostly recovered its academic position, there is, on the other hand, overuse of this word. In many cases the term geopolitics is applied to situations where there is not a real geopolitical subject and in some extreme cases, there is not even a Geographical and spatial-subject-related issue. It is not difficult to search the internet to find many articles, reviews, analyses and news mistakenly using the concept. There are discussions of the geopolitics of football, of prostitution, of religion, of games, of alcohol and even of love. Most of them relate the subject with the idea of “if there is a flag or a nationality there is geopolitics” or in some cases the less inaccurate idea of “if there is a map there is geopolitics”. In 1986 Hepple raised the same problem:

Geopolitics serves as an umbrella term, encapsulating the interaction of global and regional issues with economic and local structures. But the term geopolitics often appears only in the title, introduction and conclusions, with no linkage to other geopolitical literature and with the major analysis being conducted using other political and economic intellectual frameworks, usually with little geography and few maps.

In other situations, the term is applied to negatively convey a movement in some country, such as the Chinese involvement in Africa (Florcruz, 2015). In general, the Chinese interest in Africa and its investments in African countries are typically seen as a geopolitical movement in an eventual geostrategic expansion. However, such terms are less commonly used when the same situation involves European (Doya, 2015) countries’ investments or those of Japan, even if Japanese investments are three times larger than those of China in African countries (Crowley, 2015). So despite the fact that every country in the world shares mutual interests in Africa, the term geopolitics is only applied when it is attached to a more militaristic or “sinister” aspect of a country. Not even all military involvement can be directly related with geopolitical subjects. A good example can be found in the Iraq War in 2003. Besides the United States, the coalition forces comprised countries such as Poland, South Korea, Nicaragua and El Salvador and other countries that, of course, would have an interest and things to gain in joining the American side. However, unless Mongolia (also a member of the coalition) is trying to re-establish the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan or Portugal (another member) the old glory of the Portuguese Empire, no one would say the Mongolians and Portuguese will have a geopolitical interest in Iraq, for example.

Rudolph Kjellén defined geopolitics as being “the theory of the state as a Geographical organism or phenomenon in space”. Edmund Walsh stated that it is “a combined study of human geography and applied political science . . . dating back to Aristotle, Montesquieu and Kant” and Saul B. Cohen defined it as an interaction between geographical settings and political processes (Cohen, 2003, p. 11). However, it does not help to establish a methodological function that applies and defines when a subject, issue or event should be considered as geopolitics. The irony of this lack of delimitation is the fact that geopolitics and political geography provide some of the most accurate and mathematical tools and information in Humanities studies, such as the size of the territory, the demographics, the size of its economy, where it is located and how it has shaped the industry and agriculture, what type of natural sources such territory possesses and other data that can lead researchers to develop accurate analyses.

To establish an accurate framework of “what is a geopolitical area of interest”, first we need to look into structures of geopolitics. According to Cohen, the structures of geopolitics are composed of patterns (the shape, size and characteristics of the human and physical geography) and features (political-geographical nodes, areas and borders). Those structures are hierarchically arranged in spatial layers that are the geostrategic realm (macrolevel), geopolitical region (mesolevel) and national states, quasi-states or territorial subdivisions (microlevel). The geographical settings can be divided into maritime and continental: reunited geopolitical areas featuring historic and/or nuclear cores, areas where a national state was originated; capitals or/and political centres, where the political and symbolic government rules the population of the delimited territory of the State; ecumenes, i.e., the greatest demographic or economic areas; effective national territories and/or effective regional territories, i.e., the moderately pro-state population areas; empty areas, i.e., essentially areas devoid of population; boundaries, i.e., the borders of the national states; and nonconforming sectors, i.e., areas with separatism sentiment (idem, p. 33).

Another scholar with interesting perspectives is Al-Rodhan, who works with the concept of metageopolitics.¹ For him, the projection of a country into the metageopolitical sphere can be determined by seven dimensions owned by countries. They are social and health issues; domestic politics; economics; environment; science and human potential; military and security issues; and international diplomacy (Al-Rodhan, 2012, p. 25). Here, it is important to make some changes in the Environment dimension; according to Al-Rodhan, climate change would change the geopolitical movements of the countries. Not only is this view based on an idealistic presumption, but aside from being mere rhetoric and speculative, it also does not change the geopolitics at all,² so the Environment dimension should be ignored. That does not invalidate the other “dimensions” ideas.

The methodology used in this research to determine if an event or issue is really a geopolitical subject will take into account the confluence of security, economics and political interests inside a delimited geographical area. The projection capacity of each country will be based on Cohen’s patterns, Rodhan’s six valid dimensions and the geopolitical fundamental literature (Ratzel, Mackinder, Mahan, Spykman, etc.), to include in the research four main principles and assumptions that, although seeming obvious, must be considered. First, each and every country will have different geopolitical ambitions due to many facts, not only its physical and human geography characteristics but also its culture and historical development. A good example would be “manifest destiny” pushing the United States in the direction of the West and eventually colliding with Mexican territories in what is currently Texas, New Mexico and California (Karnal et al, 2008, p. 125). There was a similar situation with the Russians, who originated from a population that huddled in the forests of the plains in what is currently Hungary, Ukraine and North Caucasus by using the forests as a shield to defend themselves from the Asiatic nomads from the steppes of the south and east until they decided to launch campaigns to conquer those nomads and expand their empire in these areas as a way to ensure their defence (Kaplan, 2013, p. 157). Yet, the idea of geoeconomics as an alternative, a rival or even “a new” substitute to geopolitics as explored by some authors is failed. Geoeconomics is in fact just a layer (or a tool) inside geopolitics. Despite seeming obvious, the idea of each country having a different geopolitical ambition would exclude many universalist and idealist views that repeatedly minimize and standardize international relations to simplistic and superficial aspects.

Second, every country will have a different limitation in its geopolitical expansion (direct or indirect through influence). As is well established by the academic nuclear core of geopolitics research represented by researchers such as Ratzel, Vallaux, Mahan, Mackinder and Spykman, etc.; and more recently by Kaplan, Cohen and Rodhan, among others, different countries will have different configurations that will play an important role in their limitations³ of foreign and national policy. Physical geography includes the location and size of the territory, access to natural resources in its territory that are characteristic of its geology, access to good seaports, the number and types of rivers and climate. Human geography includes the type of government; the demography and its configurations, such as ethnicity and its growth rate; the size and characteristics of its economy; accessibility to power generation; infrastructure, etc. In fact, there are many aspects of Human and Physical Geography that are capable of influencing a country’s behaviour and limitations.

Third, this geopolitical limitation may change according to the capacity and needs of each country to sustain its expansion. It is important to understand that geopolitical areas of interest to such countries may or may not change in the future, according to several factors related to a country’s capacity to sustain its ability to project itself in such areas. For example, the European colonial empires were able to sustain geopolitical interests in different parts of the globe; however, with their retraction, this situation changed. While in the 19th century France was capable of interfering in the Indochina area or Latin America, today France is no longer able to interfere in Southeast Asia or Latin America directly because of the weakening in its capacity for geopolitical projection. China, in contrast, saw retractions and expansions in the last centuries in its geopolitical limitations because its capacity to interfere outside of its own borders has changed many times since the arrival of the European empires in Asia. Such retractions may progress to the point at which a country starts to lose control inside its own borders and may be “devoured” by geopolitical expansions of other States. Alternatively, the geopolitical area of interest of a country may grow to a point in which it...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Geopolitics and Organized Crime: Delimiting the Geopolitical Subject and its Relation to Organized Crime
• 2 Filling Vacuums: Bourdieu and Alinsky Meet Ratzel and Kissinger
• 3 Cooperation Between Nation-States and Organized Crime
• 4 China and its Invisible Hand
• 5 Soviet Union and Russia: The Use of Underground Forces
• 6 Conclusions and Final Considerations
• Bibliography
• Index