Abstract
This chapter examines the ways that militias are key players in illicit trafficking and transnational crime, internal conflicts, and proxy wars. These issues are critical in framing today’s challenges to international peace and stability. Although many militias are formed to counter crime or counter insurgencies, they become enmeshed in activities that spark questions about their legitimacy. In the cases where militias are engaged in vigilantism, these groups often become serious threats to law and order themselves. Through a variety of connections, militias function as facilitators and drivers of many criminal activities and violent conflicts throughout the world.
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Notes
- 1.
United Nations Security Council S/PRST/2010/18, September 23, 2010, 1.
- 2.
John Picarelli, “Osama Bin Corleone? Vito the Jackal? Framing the Framing threat Convergence Through an Examination of Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism,” Terrorism and Political Violence 24 (2012), 182.
- 3.
Mike Davis, “Foreword,” in A World of Gangs, ed. John Hagedorn (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), xi.
- 4.
H. John Rosenbaum and Peter C. Sederberg, Vigilante Politics (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1976), 4.
- 5.
Rachel Monaghan and Peter Shirlow, “Forward to the Past? Loyalist Paramilitarism in Northern Ireland Since 1994,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 34, no. 8 (2011), 656.
- 6.
Angelika Albaladejo, “Spate of Murders in Brazil Shines Spotlight on Militia Phenomenon,” insightcrime.org, April 18, 2018. https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/spate-murders-brazil-shines-spotlight-militia-phenomenon/.
- 7.
Dom Phillips, “‘Lesser Evil’: How Brazil’s Militias Wield Terror to Seize Power from Drug Gangs,” The Guardian, July 12, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/12/brazil-militia-paramilitary-wield-terror-seize-power-from-drug-gangs?CMP=share_btn_tw.
- 8.
Rachel Stohl, “Fighting the Illicit Trafficking of Small Arms,” SAIS Review 25, no. 1 (2005), 60.
- 9.
United Nations Security Council, S2015/289, Secretary General Report: Small Arms and Light Weapons, April 27, 2015, 4.
- 10.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC Study on Firearms (Vienna: UNODC, 2015), 25–27.
- 11.
Small Arms Survey 2005.
- 12.
United Nations Security Council, “Human Cost of Illicit Flow of Small Arms, Light Weapons Stressed in Security Council Debate,” May 13, 2015. https://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sc11889.doc.htm.
- 13.
INTERPOL-UN Environment Programme, Strategic Report: Environment, Peace and Security—A Convergence of Threats (December 2016), 41.
- 14.
United States Attorney’s Office, Western District of Texas, “Eight Associated with La Familia Cartel Sentenced to Federal Prison for Roles in Austin-Based Meth Trafficking Operation,” June 28, 2017. URL: https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdtx/pr/eight-associated-la-familia-cartel-sentenced-federal-prison-roles-austin-based-meth.
- 15.
Benoit Faucon, “Smuggled Libyan Gas Fuels Conflict,” Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2015. https://www.wsj.com/articles/smuggled-libya-gas-fuels-conflict-1427064365.
- 16.
Alessandra Bocchi, “Libya’s Rogue Militias Keep Country from Tackling Human Trafficking,” Jamestown Terrorism Monitor, February 26, 2018. https://jamestown.org/program/libyas-rogue-militias-keep-country-tackling-human-trafficking/.
- 17.
Thomas Gibbons-Neff, “Libya has become a hub for online arms trading, report says,” Washington Post, May 2, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/05/02/libya-has-become-a-hub-for-online-arms-trading-report-says/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.acfb68166f09.
- 18.
James Risen, Mark Mazzetti and Michael Schmidt, “Weapons sold to Libyan Rebels with US Approval Feel into Islamist Hands,” New York Times, December 5, 2012. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/world/africa/weapons-sent-to-libyan-rebels-with-us-approval-fell-into-islamist-hands.html.
- 19.
Michael Miklaucic, Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2013), xiv–xv.
- 20.
Louise Shelley, Dirty Entanglements: Corruption, Crime and Terrorism (New York: University of Cambridge Press, 2014), 5.
- 21.
Chris Dishman, “Terrorism, Crime and Transformation,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 24, no. 1 (2001), 44.
- 22.
Thompson, 34.
- 23.
J. Joseph Hewitt, “Trends in Global Conflict, 1946–2007,” in Peace and Conflict 2010, ed. J. Joseph Hewitt, Jonathan Wilkenfield and Ted Robert Gurr (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publisher, 2010), 31.
- 24.
- 25.
Stanton, “Regulating Militias,” 918.
- 26.
English translation of Peruvian Legislative Decree 740, 1991 in Mucha, “Securitization,” 332.
- 27.
Goran Peic, “Civilian Defense Forces, State Capacity, and Government Victory in Counterinsurgency Wars,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 37, no. 2 (2014), 162–184.
- 28.
Carlos Ivan Degregori, “Harvesting Storms: Peasant Rondas and the Defeat of Sendero Luminoso in Ayacucho,” in Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980–1995, ed. Steve Stern (London: Duke University Press, 1998).
- 29.
Staniland, “Militias, Ideology and the State,” 773.
- 30.
Thompson, 36.
- 31.
Staniland, “Militias, Ideology and the State,” 775.
- 32.
Bard O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse (Dulles: Brassey’s Inc., 1990), 143.
- 33.
Liz Sly, “ISIS: A Catastrophe for Sunnis.” Washington Post, November 23, 2016. URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/world/2016/11/23/isis-a-catastrophe-for-sunnis/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5af6b8a7f5cb.
- 34.
Bolte, 26.
- 35.
Christopher Clapham, “Introduction: Analyzing African Insurgencies,” in African Guerrillas, ed. Christopher Clapham (Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 1998), 15.
- 36.
Smith, International Security, 101.
- 37.
Alden, Thakur and Arnold, Militias and the Challenges of Post-Conflict Peace, 153.
- 38.
Martin Booth, Opium: A History (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1996), 342.
- 39.
“Men of War,” Far Eastern Economic Review, February 27, 1992, 32.
- 40.
Tobias Hecker and Roos Haer, “Drugs Boosting Conflict? A Micro-Level Test of the Linkage Between Substance Use and Abuse,” Terrorism and Political Violence 27, no. 2 (2015), 208.
- 41.
Parliament of Canada, “Conflict, Drugs and Mafia Activities.” Contribution to the Prepara-tory Work for the Hague Peace Conference May 11–16, 1999.
- 42.
Daniel Byman, “Why States are turning to Proxy Wars,” The National Interest, August 26, 2018.
- 43.
Terrence McCoy, “Russian Troops Fighting in Ukraine? Naw. They’re just on Vacation,” Washington Post, August 28, 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/28/russians-troops-fighting-in-ukraine-naw-just-on-vacation/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d5b6b2d792bc.
- 44.
Smith, “Iranian Proxies.”
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
Geraint Hughes, “Militias in Internal Warfare: From the Colonial Era to the Contemporary Middle East,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 27, no. 2 (2016), 205–208.
- 47.
“Dutch Inquiry Links Russia to 298 Deaths in Explosion of Jetliner over Ukraine, New York Times, September 9, 2016. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/world/asia/malaysia-air-flight-mh17-russia-ukraine-missile.html.
- 48.
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, “Shi’I Militias in Iraq and Syria,” Middle East Review of International Affairs 19, no. 1 (2015), 81.
- 49.
David Sanger, Michael Schmitt, and Ben Hubbard, “Trump Ends Covert Aid to Syrian Rebels Trying to Topple Assad,” New York Times, July 19, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/world/middleeast/cia-arming-syrian-rebels.html.
- 50.
Hughes, “Militias in Internal Warfare,” 207.
- 51.
Tuvan Gumrukcu, “Turkey warns France could become a Target,” The Independent, March 31, 2018. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/turkey-france-syria-target-latest-kurds-sdf-ypg-tayyip-erdogan-emmanuel-macron-afrin-nato-a8282601.html.
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Kan, P.R. (2019). Militias, Crime, and Conflict. In: The Global Challenge of Militias and Paramilitary Violence. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13016-9_4
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