Designating Gangs as Insurgents / Paramillitary actors?

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Highway Star
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Designating Gangs as Insurgents / Paramillitary actors?

Post by Highway Star »

So, here is some food for thought.....

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.ar ... ?pubID=597" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
SUMMARY
This monograph explains the linkage of contemporary
criminal street gangs (that is, the gang phenomenon or third
generation gangs) to insurgency in terms of the instability it
wreaks upon governments and the concomitant challenge to
state sovereignty. Although differences between gangs and
insurgents regarding motives and modes of operations exist,
this linkage infers that gang phenomena are mutated forms
of urban insurgency. In these terms, these “new” non state
actors must eventually seize political power to guarantee
the freedom of action and the commercial environment
they want. The common denominator that can link the gang
phenomenon to insurgency is that some third generation
gangs’ and insurgents’ ultimate objective is to depose or
control the governments of targeted countries.

The author identifies those issues that must be taken
together and understood as a whole before any effective
countermeasures can be taken to deal with the half-criminal
and half-political nature of the gang phenomenon. This
is a universal compound-complex problem that must be
understood on three distinct levels of analysis: first, the gangs
phenomena are generating serious domestic and regional
instability and insecurity that ranges from personal violence
to insurgent to state failure: second, because if their criminal
activities and security challenges, the gangs phenomena
are exacerbating civil-military and police-military relations
problems and reducing effective and civil-military ability to
control the national territory; and, third, gangs are helping
transitional criminal organizations, insurgents, warlords, and
drug barons erode the legitimacy and effective sovereignty
of nation-states . The analytical commonality linking these
three issues is the inevitable contribution to either (a) failing
and failed state status of targeted countries, or (b) deposing
or controlling the governments of targeted countries. In these
terms, we must remember that crime and instability are only
symptoms of the threat. The ultimate threat is either state
failure or the violent imposition of a radical socio-economic political
restructuring of the state and its governance.

In describing the gang phenomenon as a simple mutation
of a violent act we label as insurgency, we mischaracterize the
activities of non state organizations that are attempting to take
control of the state. We traditionally think of insurgency as
primarily a military activity, and we think of gangs as a simple
law-enforcement problem. Yet, insurgents and third generation
gangs are engaged in a highly complex political act—political
war.
Under these conditions, police and military forces would
provide personal and collective security and stability, while
they and other governmental institutions combat the root
causes of instability and political war—injustice, repression,
inequity, and corruption. The intent would be to generate
the political-economic-social development that will define
the processes of national reform, regeneration, and wellbeing.
The challenge, then, is to come to terms with the fact
that contemporary security and stability, at whatever level,
is at base a holistic political-diplomatic, socio-economic,
psychological-moral, and military police effort.
This monograph concludes with implications and strategic level
recommendations derived from the instability, civil military
jurisdiction, and sovereignty issues noted above that
will help leaders achieve strategic clarity and operate more
effectively in the complex politically dominated, contemporary
global security arena.
https://www.gwu.edu/~clai/recent_events ... _Paper.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.au.af.mil/au/afri/aspj/apjin ... ingeng.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

CONTEXT: GANGS AS NON-STATE THREATS
IN THE GLOBAL SECURITY ARENA

The evolution of street gangs from small, turf-oriented, petty-cash entities to larger, internationalized, commercial-political organizations is often slow and generally ad hoc—depending on leadership, and the desire and ability to exploit opportunity. Thus, the development of gang violence from the level of “protection,” gangsterism, and brigandage--to drug trafficking, smuggling of people, body parts, armament, and other lucrative “items” associated with the global criminal activity—to taking political control of ungoverned territory and/or areas governed by corrupt politicians and functionaries can be uneven and incomplete. That is, most gangs never move beyond protectionism and gangsterism. Other gangs, however, act as mercenaries for larger and better organized criminal organizations. And, as other gangs expand their activities to compete with, or support, long-established TCOs, they expand their geographical and commercial parameters. Then, as gangs operate and evolve they generate more and more violence and instability over wider and wider sections of the political map, and generate sub-national, national, and regional instability and insecurity. Finally, as gangs evolve through these developmental and functional shifts, three generations emerge to clarify analytically the gang phenomenon.

Three Generations of Gangs

First Generation Gangs: Organization, Motives, and Level of Violence. An analysis of urban street gangs shows that some of these criminal entities have evolved through three generations of development. The first generation—or traditional street gangs—are primarily turf-oriented. They have loose and unsophisticated leadership that focuses on turf protection to gain petty cash, and on gang loyalty within their immediate environs (e.g., designated city blocks or neighborhoods). When first generation street gangs engage in criminal enterprise, it is largely opportunistic and individual in scope, and tends to be localized and operates at the lower end of extreme societal violence—gangsterism and brigandage. Most gangs stay firmly within this first generation of development, but more than a few have evolved into the second generation.8

Second Generation Gangs. This generation of street gangs is organized for business and commercial gain. These gangs have a more centralized leadership that tends to focus on drug trafficking and market protection. At the same time, they operate in a broader spatial or geographic area that may include neighboring cities and countries. Second generation gangs, like other more sophisticated criminal enterprises, use the level of violence necessary to protect their markets and control their competition. They also use violence as political interference to negate enforcement efforts directed against them by police and other national and local security organizations. And, as they seek to control or incapacitate state security institutions, they often begin to dominate vulnerable community life within large areas of the nation-state. In this environment, second generation gangs almost have to link with and provide services to TCOs. As these gangs develop broader, market-focused, and sometimes overtly political agendas to improve their market share and revenues, they may overtly challenge state security and sovereignty. If and when they do, second generation gangs become much more than annoying law enforcement problems.9 This point was made over three years ago in the following statement made by former El Salvadoran Vice-Minister of Justice, Silvia Aguilar, “Domestic crime and its associated destabilization are now Latin America’s most serious security threat.”10

Third Generation Gangs. More often than not, elements of some gangs continue first and second generation activities as other elements expand their geographical bounds, as well as their commercial and political objectives. As they evolve, they develop into more seasoned groups with broader drug-related markets. They also develop into very sophisticated TCOs with ambitious economic and political agendas. In these terms, third generation gangs inevitably begin to control ungoverned territory within a nation-state and/or begin to acquire political power in poorly-governed space.11 This political action is intended to provide security and freedom of movement for gang activities. As a consequence, the third generation gang and its leadership challenge the legitimate state monopoly on the exercise of political control (authoritative allocation of values) and the use of violence within a given geographical area. The gang leader, then, acts much like a warlord or a drug baron.12 That status, clearly and unequivocally, takes the gang into intrastate war or non-state war. Here, gang objectives aim to 1) neutralize, control, or depose and replace an incumbent government, 2) to control parts of a targeted country or sub-regions within a country and create autonomous enclaves that are sometimes called criminal free states or para-states, and 3) in doing so, radically change the authoritative allocation of values (governance) in a targeted society to those of criminal leaders.13

Summary. First Generation Gangs are traditional street gangs with a turf orientation. When they engage in criminal enterprise, it is largely opportunistic and local in scope. Second Generation Gangs are engaged in business. They are entrepreneurial and drug-centered, and tend to pursue implicit political objectives. Third Generation Gangs are primarily mercenary in orientation, and many of them have sought to further explicit political and social objectives. As such, Third Generation Gangs find themselves at the intersection between crime and war—and politics where there is only one rule—that is, there are no rules (criminal anarchy).14
Chicago?
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