Welcome to this weekend’s Non-State Update. Below is a list of some of the best articles, podcasts, and videos from this week. Like always, the topics addressed are the usual Drugs and Thugs issues: terrorism, insurgency, transnational criminal organizations, and narcotics trafficking.
Leading off this week, an article from Foreign Policy by Laura Kasinof on where last week’s events in Yemen came from. She outlines the gradual buildup and expansion of the Houthi movement over the preceding four years. The fractured political system in Yemen following the Arab Spring of 2011 provided limited resistance against the Houthis, culminating in their takeover of Sanaa and the Presidential palace.
At Small Wars Journal, Jeff Moore writes on Boko Haram and Nigeria’s attempt at a COIN-based strategy. Although the Nigerian conflict has received little press coverage, it’s one of the largest and most violent insurgencies in the world, with designs on a larger swathe of territory than just northern Nigeria. Regional partners in west Africa need to cooperate now before Boko Haram spreads further.
More information on the ISIS-affiliated group in Afghanistan, once part of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), from the Long War Journal. The former TTP group pledged their support to ISIS last week, and now ISIS has used the organization to implicitly threaten the TTP and the Afghan Taliban.
At War on the Rocks, LTG David Barno and Dr. Nora Bensahel begin their new column by examining the declining necessity of traditional warfare and the rise of asymmetric conflict. They argue that although the US will continue to need conventional power to deter adversarial states, we need to additionally retool our conception of warfare to include indirect methods like cyber.
Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez has a piece at Foreign Policy that looks at the recent revelations from a defected Venezuelan official. The official confirms long held suspicions that the Venezuelan military ran drug trafficking operation in the country, known as the Soles Cartel for the suns on the higher ranking officers’ uniforms. This development is not terribly surprising (D&TB covered this over the summer here), but it is fascinating to get some confirmation of the military’s involvement in drug trafficking.
At InSight Crime, David Gagne has an article on the limited jail sentences of two Sinaloa lieutenants after they divulged a massive amount of information on the Sinaloa Cartel’s operations. The brothers’ knowledge of the organization was enough to lead to the indictment of 62 Sinaloa members, including the boss, Joaqin “Chapo” Guzman. Although they will still serve 14 years in jail for their crimes, their help in was clearly invaluable.
At the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Antonio de Bonis has an interesting piece on the recent discovery of a Mafia Capitale, which sought to operate as a middleman between the licit world and the illicit underworld. With strong ties to Italian upper society, the Mafia Capitale controlled much of the white collar crime in Italy.
This story is nearly unbelievable. There have been many bizarre links on these Friday posts in the past, but this might be the strangest one of them all. Justin Rohrlich traces counterfeit US currency from a Pittsburgh fraudster to the son of missionaries who counterfeited the bills in Uganda. This story is absolutely fascinating.
Finally, a new Loopcast episode from earlier this week. Chelsea Daymon talks to OSMahmood and North Caucasus Caucus on Turkish foreign fighters in Ogaden, Somalia during the 1990s. Their discussion sheds some interesting insights into the current foreign fighter situation in Syria and Iraq. Definitely worth a listen this weekend.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy the weekend.
For comments, thoughts, concerns, criticism, or article submissions to D&TB, please comment below, email me at conormlarkin@gmail.com, or follow me on Twitter @ConorMLarkin.
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