Red Teaming Criminal Insurgency

The specter of criminal insurgency is haunting the police stations and barracks of North America. Powerful criminal networks increasingly challenge the state’s monopoly on force, creating new threats to national security. Mexico is currently deteriorating under the weight of criminal violence, but it is by no means the only state in the Americas suffering from criminal insurgency. We are seeing a general rise in the power of transnational criminal organizations ranging from the street collective MS-13 to the powerful Mexican drug cartels—and the threat could hit us very close to home. Even American street gangs are increasingly evolving into “third generation” gangs: large, networked, transnational bodies that may yet develop true political consciousness. (Red Team Journal)