Two Problems

General Kelly summarizes the leviathan we have depicted throughout this case study as follows,

Picture an interconnected system of arteries that traverse the entire Western Hemisphere, stretching across the Atlantic and Pacific, through the Caribbean, and up and down North, South, and Central America. Complex, sophisticated networks use this vast system of illicit pathways to move tons of drugs, thousands of people, and countless weapons into and out of the United States, Europe, and Africa with an efficiency, payload, and gross profit any global transportation company would envy. In return, billions of dollars flood back into the hands of these criminal enterprises, enabling the purchase of military-grade weapons, ammunition, and state- of-the-art technology to counter law enforcement. This profit also allows these groups to buy the support—or silence—of local communities

Framing Littoral Maritime Security Through the Lens of the Broken Windows Theory through which these arteries flourish, spreading corruption and fear and

undermining support for legitimate governments.542

Threats to maritime security in the Caribbean exhibit the ambiguities of the hybrid threats discussed in Chapter One. Some non-state actors have even grown so large and influential that they are thought to leverage more financial and military weight than some regional states.543 The Coast Guard and White House refer to this hybridization directly, referencing a new “crime-terror-insurgency nexus” that connects transnational crime to political violence across the Basin.544 _{And while the Coast Guard is cognizant of the} growing threat to the maritime domain posed by hybridized transnational threats, the organization concedes that only now are the deep impacts of illicit trafficking making themselves understood.545 _{As we saw throughout Section 2 on narcotics, the Coast} Guard’s progressive policy paper has yet to be implemented in practice. Interdiction remains the most persistent form of American counter-narcotics in the transit zone. And by some metrics, the strategy has had remarkable success. Between efforts in the Pacific and Caribbean, not a week passes without reports of a “spectacular” seizure.546 Such an approach, however, has not systematically reduced the overall flow of drugs, which continues “virtually unabated.”547

The problem is twofold. First, as we noted throughout this chapter, such an approach deemphasizes the flexibility of modern networks, ignoring the seismic changes undergone in the structure of transnational crime. Naím presciently wrote in 2006 that the Mexican kingpin “[Chapo] Guzman will eventually be arrested or killed…[Yet,] that victory too will be transient.”548 Writing this chapter only a year after Chapo’s arrest in 2014 (he would later dramatically escape, only to be recaptured in early 2016), Naím’s prescience would seem prophetic if not for the predictable pattern of ineffective

enforcement techniques. As Naim notes,

That one high-profile criminal rises to replace another is a fairly easy notion to absorb…The diffusion of the drug business into the fiber of local and global economic life is much harder to fathom, let alone

combat…More than any cartel, kingpin, or rebel warlord, it is this

pervasive global mainstreaming of the business that the fight against drugs is up against.549

The nature of the threat has changed, and enforcement bodies have struggled to integrate these realities with the strategies they employ. As we noted in Section 3.1, the militarization of crime has produced an impulse towards militarizing law enforcement, with mixed results at best. With Caribbean police “fully committed with their primary law enforcement missions…it is now commonplace to have armies deployed on the streets and on the seas alongside the police in support of anti-crime efforts.”550 While the added resources of the military can be invaluable, the strategic conceptions common among militaries make them ill-equipped to operate as auxiliary law enforcement. Turning the region into a “fortress Caribbean” would not only be inimical to tourism but to the very survival of local communities (see our conversation on urbicide in Chapter One).551 And as General Kelly notes, “given its history, the region is sensitive to any appearance of increased militarization.”552 Until such a time as police and the military

can effectively combine the best of their strategies and resources, the evolution of the structure of criminal groups will continue to vastly outpace that of the enforcement strategy designed to combat them.

Second, the issue is not exclusively a failure in the capacity of law enforcement to evolve with dynamic networks, “but a spreading culture of lawlessness” and “no heritage of respect for the administration of justice.”553 This cultural ambiguity towards central authority and a marred criminal justice system is evident across our case study. It is evident in Alfonzo, the Mexican entrepreneur engaging in small-scale trafficking without regard for the rise and fall of kingpins. It is evident in the Costa Rican fishermen pressed to provide way stations and supplies for transiting traffickers. It is evident in the vast and poorly regulated torrent of human traffic whisking victims across borders with impunity. It is evident in the smuggling of migrants throughout the Basin, many of whom become victims or facilitators of transnational crime in the honest pursuit of a better life. It is evident in the free flow of billions of dollars, smuggled, laundered, and invested in drugs, guns or campaigns of terror. It is evident in the rise of self-defense militias, fractured sovereignty, and the popularity of gang leaders like Christopher Coke. It is evident in the proliferation of local violence, tied directly and indirectly to transnational crime. And finally, it is evident in the graft and corruption that blocks meaningful progress on

Caribbean security. This context pervades and defines this case study, yet its significance is understood most thoroughly through the lens provided by the Broken Windows theory. 8.3 Context

Cutting between both of these problems is the need to address context rather than any one particular crime, criminal, or criminal syndicate. If local Caribbean communities provide the ‘arteries’ (in General Kelly’s words) through which these networks flow, then Broken Windows can play a prominent role in shaping and constraining the illicit actors navigating through these avenues. Throughout this chapter, and throughout the literature on Caribbean security, references to context predominate. We began this section with a reference to the Caribbean’s long cultural history with the private trade. Historically, over the five centuries of Caribbean smuggling, traffickers have time and again sought out ungoverned spaces and regions of “tolerant government attitudes” in which to ply their craft.554 Academics and politicians alike have seized upon this theme. The former

Colombian ambassador to the Organization of American, States Fernando Cepeda Ulloa, made reference to the corrosive impact of this culture when he noted the region’s

“tolerance of criminal conduct” and the population’s “growing belief in the invincibility of the drug barons.”555 The ambassador also noted that this psychological defeat is intertwined with the consequences of a “lack of an effective international anti-drugs strategy.”556 _{In testimony to the House Armed Services Committee in 2013, General} Kelly made similar note of the region’s “corrosive criminal violence,” which is enabled in part by “permissive environments for illicit activities.”557 In 1992, the West Indian Commission expressed dismay at the appearance of “powerlessness” of regional governments in the face of transnational crime.558 James Zackrison, an intelligence analyst at the Office of Naval Intelligence, refers to a “culture of smuggling that permeates the Caribbean.”559 In Section 2.3, we quoted an Associated Press article that used the word “anxiety” to characterize the mood of a small Jamaican fishing village

Framing Littoral Maritime Security Through the Lens of the Broken Windows Theory

concerned about expanding trafficking.560 Even the United States government references perceptual obstacles to security in the region. In the Department of States’ 2014

International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, the authors cite a “culture of impunity” in Guatemala and the need for “culture of lawfulness training” in Mexico, the only two instances in the entire report where this wording is employed.561 The INCSR also references “frustration” in Jamaica, among both officers and the public, over the country’s struggle to meet its criminal justice obligations prosecuting corruption and narcotics, which extract “a significant social cost.”562

The Broken Windows theory (or the Power of Context), as detailed in Chapter Two, offers compelling evidence that environment impacts the decisions we make. In that chapter, we noted this impact in New York City, as well as in literature across

psychology and medicine. Yet, we need not rely exclusively on extrapolating the theory’s applicability from criminology and public health. In the weeks after the attacks of

September 11, narcotics trafficking across the U.S.–Mexico border plummeted by eighty percent, not because of any new program, but because of the “perception that security had been increased.”563 In the Caribbean, drug smuggling remained constant, but authorities registered a similar decline in illegal immigration “because of the same

perception.”564 There are examples on an even more local level. In November 2000, DEA and Colombian counter-drug officers uncovered the first credible evidence of Russian– Colombian collaboration on the manufacture of narco-subs. Authorities were tipped off by villagers in the small town of Facatativa, who became suspicious of Russian

newcomers who eschewed interaction with locals and remained sequestered in a

warehouse.565 Police succeeded because locals believed authorities could respond to their needs and, more critically, because locals were invested enough in their community to identify and report threats. This is an ideal, organic representation of self-efficacy and community policing.