Prerequisite: None

The decapitation of the FARC and the Colombian drug cartels failed to prevent their growth and regional expansion. Instead they regrouped in cartelitos and created illegal paramilitary forces, infiltrating the judicial, political, economic and social systems of Columbia. The same will happen in Mexico and Central America under current decapitation policies. As the Mexican cartels and the Mara organizations fragment, the reorganized groups present clear and present danger and risks to the security of the U.S. because the shared border facilitates trafficking in people, drugs, arms, and chemicals.

It is imperative the U.S. identifies and understands the drivers that underpin the regrouping and expansion of TTOs and TCOs in Mexico and Central America. This session identifies the political, economic, social, and cultural drivers the U.S. needs to understand to formulate well-informed counter-terrorist and counter-criminal policies with the highest probability of success and the lowest potential for failure. The predictive process described will help prevent U.S. policymakers from being blindsided by the criminal, and probable terrorist threats and risks coming to the U.S. through its southern border from Mexico and Central America.

Learning Objectives:

• How to design policies that deter terrorists using their own thinking and behavioral patterns

• Understand the nature of Latin America's TTOs and TCOs

• Understand the political, economic, social and cultural underpinning that facilitate their formation and growth

• Understand their modus operandi