Security Through Partnership: Fighting Transnational Cartels in the Western Hemisphere

The growth in cartel violence throughout the Latin American region continues to be a principal security concern throughout the Latin American region. Last fall, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released the report Crime Wars: Gangs, Cartels and U.S. National Security, in which author Colonel Robert Killebrew, USA (Ret.) argued that the risk posed by transnational crime constitutes a networked form of criminal insurgency that threatens U.S. national security interests in the Western Hemisphere.

In the policy brief Security Through Partnership: Fighting Transnational Cartels in the Western Hemisphere, authors Robert Killebrew and Matthew Irvine argue that transnational criminal organizations continue to represent a dangerous threat to the United States and its Western Hemisphere allies by threatening law, order and government in Mexico and Central America. They advise that as drug violence continues to grow in the region, the United States must seriously reexamine its security strategy in the Western Hemisphere.

On March 29, 2011, CNAS hosted a briefing and roundtable discussion, led by CNAS President John A. Nagl, Bob Killebrew and Matt Irvine, that focused on the threat that transnational criminal cartels pose and recommendations for U.S. policymakers.