ZenPundit
Saturday, July 02, 2005
 
CORRUPTION AS A STRATEGIC VARIABLE IN THE TERROR WAR Posted by Picasa



A PROTOTYPE DIAGRAM FOR DISCUSSION

The Cold War was pleasantly simple, even when the Communist bloc split and France and the Nonaligned Movement were being obnoxious, the strategic variables were relatively few and were easily recognizable. Risk assessment for U.S. policy makers was an easier task as was communicating the stakes to the general public.

But today, while strategic challenges do not rise to the magnitude of avoiding WWIII they are more complex, interrelated and self-reinforcing.

There is a tendency to see corruption and organized crime strictly in national and law enforcement terms. Due to the tendency for modest levels of corruption to make otherwise inefficient statist economies of various autocratic regimes more humane and responsive, corruption as a strategic phenomenon tends to be overlooked, particularly in times of peace. It is a transaction cost of doing business in not-quite market, not so transparent states. In times of war, the scale of corruption assumes the position of a strategic variable for American policy makers.

There is a remarkable overlap between lists of most corrupt states and those countries considered candidates for State failure on Foreign Policy's Failed States Index ( subscription required). Those states whose economies appear to be wholly reliant upon oil production, incidentally, seem to be the most corrupt regardless of ethnicity or culture.

Corruption is a connecting variable that links otherwise unrelated networks and, unfortunately, can create a commonality of interests against U.S. policy. It figured decisively in PNM theory discussions about " Implicit Villains" in the Core states, to use the phrase of TM Lutas and there relationship with authoritarian " Gatekeeper" elites in the Gap states like Saddam's Iraq, Iran's clerical regime or Zimbabwe's thuggish dictatorship. Corruption undermines both explicit and implicit Rule-Sets and puts globalization itself at risk by making some New Core/Seam states agents of infection rather than healthy new additions to the Core. What Rule-sets get adopted and actually enforced in economically transitioning great power states like Russia and China matters a great deal.

And in this environmental geoeconomic context, the United States is at war with a transnational Islamist insurgency that draws upon a much larger socio-political extremist movement that numbers in the millions and possesses no central ideological authority or command hierarchy.

So I'm looking for comments on both the representational diagram, does it show an accurate " correlation of forces" in the strategic situation ? What important variables are missing ? Are my premises here questionable ?

Have at it !
 
Comments:
What about examples like Japan, where "corrupt" networks are intstrumental in destroying foreign criminal networks?

The diagram seems to state that the degree of corruption is directly correlated to the degree the society will deal with dangerous enemies. But most of this dealing will be through non-corrupt means, while much "corruption" will be inhospitable to the alien network (a network "corrupted" by anti-Arab racist Americans is much less friendly to Arab terrorists than a legally operating network, for example).

-Dan tdaxp
 
hi Dan,

I think your point that corruption is a two edged sword that can cut for us as well as against us is well-taken.

Anti-American networks are both enabled and undermined by corruption - though I doubt we are dealing with anything as favorable as a 50-50 ratio. Bin Laden may get ripped off by Russian mafiya trafficking in fake nuclear materials butI think his approach is not one that counts such costs.

I was more or less trying to outline how corruption unites disparate interests against us and undermines those networks that should be our allies
 
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