The Fight against Drug Trafficking: Mechanisms of Regional Cooperation and Their Limits

Abstract

Between 12 and 21 million individuals in the world consume opiates, three-quarters of them heroin. Afghanistan is the epicenter of the traffic as the world’s largest producer of opium and its derivatives. Contrary to Burmese heroin, essentially trafficked to China, and Mexican heroin, by and large destined for the United States (U.S.), Afghan production travels to nearly all parts of the world, with the exception of Latin America. Beyond the health consequences for consumers, the stakes are political. The illegal-narcotics trade constitutes one of the main financial sources of the insurgency groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but, more importantly, it feeds criminality in the set of countries through which they transit. The attention brought by the international community to such questions heightened in the 2000s as a result of the Western military engagement in Afghanistan. The 2014 withdrawal means that the countries of the region will have to play a greater role in the management of their borders and to confront questions about their capacity to stop potentially destabilizing trends emerging from Afghanistan. Numerous international and regional structures are trying to develop and coordinate counter-narcotics actions in the so-called Golden Crescent region (Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan) and in post-Soviet Central Asia. Nevertheless they face many obstacles of various natures, and their strategic choices are often made without sufficiently considering the aims of these actions.