Admiral James Stavridis, NATO Supreme Allied Commander from 2009 to 2013 and incoming dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts, had an opinion piece in the Washington Post for June 1, 2013. In it he acknowledged that there are current issues that appear daunting such as Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan’s insurgence, the Syrian civil war, cyberthreats, chemical weapons and terrorism. But his biggest concern, he wrote, was the emergence of convergence.
Stavridis defines convergence as a merger of activities which are each dangerous and are extrraordinarily dangerous when combined into joint activity.
Narco-terrorism provides a key example of convergence. Drug cartels develop trafficing routes to move large quantities of illicit drugs. Terrorists can then use this infrastructure to transport cash, munitions or people to a target, especially the United States.
Other traffic can move on these converged routes:
Stolen or counterfeit intellectual property
Illegal migrants
Human slaves
Laundered cash
Sophisticated armaments
Laboratory-produced weapons of mass destruction
Cyberworld threats and cybercrime
Intelligent responses as viewed by Admiral Stavridis:
Stavridis defines convergence as a merger of activities which are each dangerous and are extrraordinarily dangerous when combined into joint activity.
Narco-terrorism provides a key example of convergence. Drug cartels develop trafficing routes to move large quantities of illicit drugs. Terrorists can then use this infrastructure to transport cash, munitions or people to a target, especially the United States.
Other traffic can move on these converged routes:
Stolen or counterfeit intellectual property
Illegal migrants
Human slaves
Laundered cash
Sophisticated armaments
Laboratory-produced weapons of mass destruction
Cyberworld threats and cybercrime
Intelligent responses as viewed by Admiral Stavridis:
- Recognize that convergence is the big target rather than individual commerce and components
- The emerging converged networks should be met by a network of combined (interagency, inter-governmental and international) forces that cooperate effectively
- "Follow the money" and upend the financing of such threats with international initiatives and through interagency cooperation
- Win the narrative by continuing to champion the ideas of the Enlightenment: democracy, liberty, freedom of speech and religion
- Sort out the public and private sectors so they can cooperate in these endeavors and deal with legal issues of privacy and jurisdictional questions with an ear to past effective cooperation such as the successful efforts to capture narco-terrorists from Latin America and the Caribbean.
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