"Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh see kingship in Trump. Merchan, true patriot. Roberts and Barrett, firm."
Firm in that one instance, i meant.
A rogue America is among the biggest threats of 2025.
January 13, 2025, 9:41 AM By Robert A. Manning, a distinguished fellow with the Strategic Foresight Hub at the Stimson Center, where he works on its global foresight and China programs, and Mathew Burrows, the director of the Stimson Center’s Strategic Foresight Hub and a distinguished fellow in its Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy program.
We have medium-to-high confidence in all the probabilities we have assigned to each of the risks, given the credible to high-quality level of information that is available. As with intelligence estimates .. https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Reports%20and%20Pubs/20071203_release.pdf , a high- or medium-confidence judgment still carries the possibility of it being wrong.
A Rogue America
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks to members of the media during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Jan. 7. Scott Olson/Getty Images
The most immediate peril is disruption and chaos as the new U.S. administration seeks to pursue contradictory competing goals (tariffs versus lower prices and a strong dollar, anti-globalist America Firsters versus stronger global primacy, with competing policy entrepreneur factions) at a time when the world is messier, more complex, and dangerous than in Trump’s first term.
Trump may be the first U.S. president who is not enamored with democratic values or American exceptionalism. He thrives in a Hobbesian, transactional, all-against-all world. Disdain of globalism among “Make America Great Again” acolytes portends unilateral economic interventionism to protect the U.S. economy. Yet his fear of war means military interventions will be limited and reactionary, as in his first term.
Multilateral institutions—such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and United Nations—and U.S. regional alliances that have been the pillars of a U.S.-led world order face a receding U.S. commitment, if not hostility. For the rest of the world, a standoffish United States under Trump will fuel doubts about the country’s reliability and interest in extended deterrence and promote more hedging behavior.
Most consequential will be Trump’s economic policies, centered on new tariffs of 10-20 percent on all trade, 60 percent or more on China, and 25-100 percent on Mexican and Canadian exports, which risk slowing growth, price hikes, inflation, and reduced productivity in the United States. A cycle of costly retaliation with Europe and competitive currency devaluations will increase the risks to global financial stability, potentially resulting in an all-out economic war with China. Under Trump, there will likely be an acceleration in worldwide economic fragmentation and greater protectionist trends that the IMF says .. https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2024/10/22/tr102224-weo-transcript .. could reduce global GDP by 1.6 percent by 2026.
Yet Trump’s view of himself as a dealmaker could have a positive side if he seeks to use his coercive bargaining techniques to persuade China against increased dumping, strike a bargain with Iran that lowers regional tensions, and encourage more alliance burden-sharing. However, from North Korea to China to Afghanistan, Trump’s previous efforts do not inspire confidence this time around.
Probability of crisis
Cascading Problems in the Middle East
An aerial photo shows a crowd of Syrians raising a giant independence-era flag, used by the opposition since the uprising began in 2011, as they celebrate the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus on Dec. 13, 2024. Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images
The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria is adding layers of risk on top of the Gaza and Lebanon wars and the Palestinian dilemma. These include the possibility of a new phase of civil conflict in Syria, as external powers such as Turkey, Israel, the United States, Russia, and internal parties compete to shape a post-Assad Syria; escalating Israel-Iran conflict; and prospective civil strife in a weakened Iran facing 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s eventual succession.
The new U.S. administration may not understand how much the Middle East is being transformed and that the tools employed in Trump’s first term—Israeli-Arab normalization and maximalist pressure against Iran—may be more likely to heighten dangers and conflict than resolve them.
Assad’s demise, enabled by Israeli military success in severely degrading the capabilities of Iran and its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, allowed Turkish-backed Islamist rebels to swiftly rout the regime. But even so, Gaza .. https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-war-lebanon-ceasefire-hamas-1a091e620e72c0fe341ff9e866237c08 .. is not pacified; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no clear post-conflict plan; the cease-fire in Lebanon is fragile; and Hezbollah is not defeated.
With Trump giving Israel the green light and the nomination of Mike Huckabee, a strong believer in Israel’s land claims, as U.S. ambassador, the Netanyahu government’s partial or full annexation .. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/will-israel-annex-west-bank-after-trump-takes-office/ .. of the West Bank may be the next shoe to drop—and with it an end to Saudi-Israeli normalization and a new set of regional conflicts that the United States could be easily sucked into.
A member of the Mexican Army walks next to a burning pile of illegal drugs seized as a result of investigations in Monterrey, Mexico, on June 28, 2024. Julio Cesar Aguilar/AFP via Getty Images
Trump’s team has reportedly been debating whether to invade Mexico and clear out the drug lords. Trump abruptly threatened 25 percent tariffs to stop the flow of drugs, particularly fentanyl, and seal the U.S. southern border. Mexico’s largest fentanyl bust in December may be a welcome response. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has vowed to retaliate any against tariffs, which Deutsche Bank estimates would raise core U.S. inflation by more than 1 percentage point—and disrupt a deeply integrated North American car market.
Trump needs Mexico’s help if he wants to deport 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States or, as a practical matter, even 1 million. Mexico reportedly has a plan for receiving deported citizens .. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexico-has-plan-ready-receive-deported-mexicans-us-2024-11-21/ , but Sheinbaum wants to convince Trump to keep many of them. Mexico has temporarily shut down deportations in the past and has been sending back caravans from Central America. A joint review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) signed during Trump’s first term is scheduled for 2026, and in preparation Trump wants to ban Mexican exports produced with Chinese help, such as electric vehicles.
That would send Mexico’s already slow-growth economy into a tailspin. Because of its long-standing free trade agreements with the United States, Mexico’s economy has been historically closer to its northern neighbor than much of Latin America. From possible military clashes to a costly trade war blowing up USMCA to the impact of mass deportations, Trump’s declared agenda could plunge bilateral ties into a full-scale crisis and, with already booming Mexico-China trade and investment, could tip the balance toward China.
Probability of crisis
A Bad Deal or Walkaway in Ukraine
A Ukrainian service member walks past a recruiting poster in Kyiv on April 23, 2024. Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Trump is intent on ending the Russia-Ukraine war and blaming President Joe Biden for allowing it to happen. The president-elect wants to decrease European dependence on the United States for its security, and stopping the war would be a first step. There is growing Republican opposition against any more assistance for Ukraine, which is helping to bring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the negotiating table. With Ukrainian losses increasing, Kyiv .. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8g8ylvyldo .. appears—without openly admitting it—desperate for a cease-fire, but Trump may allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to tip the scales.
Trump will face domestic and allied opposition if he presses Ukraine too hard for territorial concessions while squashing Zelensky’s demand for NATO membership, offering instead bilateral security guarantees. Putin will want assurances against substantial NATO defense assistance for a neutral Ukraine. Putin reportedly .. https://www.ft.com/content/ac39b604-ef6d-41cb-bb8c-0eb76e002176 .. is making any cease-fire conditional on wider talks on European security arrangements and may want some sanctions eased and restored access to Western financial markets to improve Russia’s gloomy .. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russias-economy-is-overheating-but-putin-cannot-change-course/ .. economic outlook.
The New START treaty expires in 2026, and both sides have an interest in avoiding an arms race, though Russia suspended its participation in the treaty in 2023. The recent U.S. decision to deploy missiles in Germany may be a worry, and Moscow may want to revive the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty .. https://2017-2021.state.gov/u-s-withdrawal-from-the-inf-treaty-on-august-2-2019/#:~:text=On%20February%202%2C%202019%2C%20the,continuing%20violation%20of%20the%20treaty. . Negotiations with Trump offers Putin the best opportunity for establishing limits on U.S. involvement in European security. The twin dangers are Trump pressing Ukraine into a Putin-shaped deal or Trump walking away when there is no early agreement and declaring it Europe’s problem. The latter might result in further Russian gains, eroding Ukraine’s ability to function as a sovereign nation and putting pressure on Europe to defend itself without U.S. help.
Probability of crisis
China Strikes Back
Employees work on the production line at a factory in Shenyang, China, on Oct. 17, 2024. Zhang Wenkui/VCG via Getty Images
Tension .. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/us/politics/trump-cabinet-china-policy.html .. looms between China hawks and business-centered advisors in Trump’s cabinet appealing to the president-elect’s penchant for dealmaking. There was continuity from Trump to Biden in defining China as a strategic competitor seeking to displace U.S. influence.
But as his policy architects have argued, Biden sought to create a framework to manage competitive coexistence—a “steady state”—balancing and constraining Beijing while creating guardrails to avoid conflict. Thus, Biden maintained and expanded tariffs, tightened tech and investment restrictions, imposed sanctions, and strengthened U.S. deterrence in the Asia-Pacific—but also bolstered risk-reduction mechanisms such as military-to-military talks.
Trump and many of his advisors, as well as congressional Republicans, criticize .. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/no-substitute-victory-pottinger-gallagher .. .Biden for trying to manage competition; they view the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as an existential threat and define an endgame not of coexistence but of victory, where the CCP, which pending congressional bills seek to sanction, is somehow replaced by a friendlier regime.
The plan, such as it is, is to put maximum pressure on China as a way to weaken it in all spheres, beefing up the U.S. military posture in Asia and more aggressively responding to Chinese coercion on Taiwan and the South China Sea. This will deepen the action-reaction spiral. The impending shift would be from derisking to decoupling, trying to fully disentangle the United States from China’s economy. Pending legislation in the House and Senate seeks to remove normal trade status from China. This would hit import prices and ripple across global supply chains using Chinese components.
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meet in the Demilitarized Zone separating South and North Korea on June 30, 2019. Dong-A Ilbo via Getty Images/Getty Images
It was a portent of coming world war when, in the late 1930s, Italy and Nazi Germany sent military aid and troops to aid fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent 10,000 troops to aid Russia in Ukraine in a worrying echo of that move.
The burgeoning Eurasian entente is one of several strategic shifts .. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/10/07/northkorea-war-nuclear-russia-china/ .. that have unfolded since the failed Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi in 2019, resulting in a predicament more dangerous than at any time since 1950. Kim has undermined core assumptions of U.S. and South Korean nuclear diplomacy over the past 30 years: the twin goals of denuclearization and North-South reconciliation.
Trump says Kim “misses” him and may try to rekindle negotiations, but Kim, if interested at all, will only discuss arms control, not denuclearization—a problematic agenda.
If Ukraine escalates or if China attacks Taiwan and U.S. troops intervene in either conflict, as war games suggest, Kim may see the diversion of U.S. focus and resources as an opportunity to attack South Korea, risking a two-front war with nuclear powers. The immediate risk is of escalatory North-South military confrontation over their disputed maritime border.
Probability of crisis
Climate Tipping Point
Women quench their thirst with tap water in Prayagraj, India, on June 10, 2024, during the longest heat wave ever recorded in the country. Anil Shakya/AFP via Getty Images
The world is approaching a climate tipping point, where change may become irreversible. Limiting temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, and well below 2 degrees, is the goal of the Paris Agreement. Yet 2024 was the hottest year on record, with temperatures rising over 1.5 degrees, after a decade of the warmest weather on record and more frequent and extreme weather.
To meet Paris climate targets, global emissions would need to be reduced by 43 percent by 2030 to reach net zero by 2050, requiring a transformation of global energy systems. At present, global greenhouse gas emissions have reached record levels, with total carbon dioxide emissions in 2024 projected at 41.6 billion metric tons. Though renewable energy is growing at exponential rates—by 415 percent since 2000—its share of total world energy consumption is still only 13 percent, which the International Energy Agency forecasts to grow to 20 percent by 2030. Fossil fuels account for about 82 percent of energy consumption and are flat, not significantly declining.
This paradox of sustained fossil fuel use amid soaring renewable investment—two-thirds of some $3 trillion in global energy investment in 2024—is epitomized by China, which accounts for 40 percent of the world’s deployed renewable energy and 60 percent of the world’s EV sales yet has built more than 1,000 gigawatts in coal power capacity since 2000. By 2050, when Paris adherents pledge net-zero emissions, fossil fuels are projected to be in use, though reduced by some 50 percent.
This helps explain why efforts at the most recent U.N. climate meeting in Azerbaijan, known as COP29, to agree on a timeline to phase out fossil fuels failed. China, the United States, India, the European Union, Russia, and Brazil together account for nearly two-thirds of current yearly emissions—and deciding how to divide current and historical responsibilities is a thorny diplomatic problem.
Trends suggest deepening risk: Trump will promote fossil fuels and roll back U.S. climate commitments, and new energy demands from data centers and cryptocurrencies will increase the damage.
Probability of crisis
A Lost Decade for the World’s Poorest
Children watch as models walk down a runway constructed on a heap of trash in Kampala, Uganda, on July 20, 2024. The fashion event, featuring items made from reclaimed waste, was held in Namuwongo, one of the poorest and largest slums in the country. Kabir Dhanji/AFP via Getty Images
Around 3.3 billion people live in nations that spend more on debt interest than on health and education. Growing deficits and debt are a global problem. The IMF’s Fiscal Monitor warned last year that global public debt would likely exceed $100 trillion, or about 93 percent of global GDP, by the end of 2024, which is 10 percentage points above the 2019 level.
[Why Debt Relief Matters to the Wealthy West Alleviating the debt crises currently experienced by many low- and middle-income countries is in the interest of wealthy Western countries like the United States. by Erica Hogan Published on January 17, 2024 [...] they are also strategic imperatives. The impacts of debt distress are not confined to the borders of indebted nations. High debt servicing costs increase poverty and fragility in developing countries, contributing to political instability. They also reduce those countries’ capacity to combat climate change, the effects of which are felt globally, including in the form of mass migration to Europe and North America. P - More generally, alleviating global debt burdens is in the economic interests of wealthy nations, particularly those in the West. Higher income growth in LMICs is likely to increase their imports and reduce demand for development aid, eventually driving growth in wealthy nations and freeing tax dollars to be spent domestically. Debt forgiveness could act as a transfer within creditor nations—from wealthy savers to farmers, manufacturers, and producers—by stimulating import demand from debtor nations, rather than act as a transfer from creditor nations to debtor nations. Poverty reduction through debt reform could thus lead to mutual benefits for wealthy nations and LMICs. Finally, debt reform could pay geopolitical dividends for Western countries, such as stronger diplomatic ties with LMICs and diminished Chinese and Russian influence. https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/01/why-debt-relief-matters-to-the-wealthy-west?lang=en ]
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, debt in what multilateral institutions define as “least developed countries” was growing: Between 2009 and 2019, the median debt-to-GDP ratio rose from 30.8 percent to 41.6 percent. The pandemic worsened the situation, with debt ratios consistently exceeding 50 percent after 2020. In 2023, debt-to-GDP ratios in many least developed countries were higher than in other developing countries for the first time, despite the former’s lower repayment capacity. There are fears that higher Western interest rates or devastating climate change-related disasters could worsen the outlook.
There is a tragic irony in the fact that the most climate-vulnerable poor countries .. https://www.iied.org/worlds-least-developed-countries-spend-twice-much-servicing-debts-they-receive-climate-finance .. are already “spending more than twice as much to service their debts as they receive to fight the climate crisis,” according to the International Institute for Environment and Development. Official development assistance from rich states is declining, and the COP29 agreement to boost assistance for poor countries won’t do much to help.
As the outlook for the least developed countries worsens, the number of active state-based armed conflicts has reached the highest level ever recorded by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program .. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/00223433241262912 , with gang violence also at historically highs. Rich countries delude themselves in thinking the conflicts won’t spill over and affect their futures.
Probability of crisis
Are Pakistan and Nigeria Too Big to Fail?
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party supporters hold portraits of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, as they protest against alleged vote rigging in Pakistan’s February general elections, in Peshawar on March 10, 2024. Abdul Majeed/AFP via Getty Images
Pivotal middle powers such as Nigeria and Pakistan are suffering the plight of the poorer developing states. If stabilized, they could be critical anchors; if they fail, they will be hubs of instability.
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo recently labeled his country a “failing state” recently, citing leadership failure and such underlying problems as youth restiveness, discord and divisions, corruption, and conflict. To the north, the Sahel is mired in multiple conflicts that Boko Haram, a Nigeria-based terrorist group, has helped fuel.
Currently the sixth-largest state, with 235 million people, and slated to be the third largest by 2050, Nigeria has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 55 percent, above the average for the least developed countries thanks to heavy domestic borrowing and currency depreciation.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan, the world’s fifth-largest state, is tittering on the precipice of becoming the world’s first failed nuclear power. It has received 23 IMF bailouts .. https://www.dawn.com/news/1803805 .. in 75 years, nearly the entirety of its existence as a nation. Its debt has soared since 2007, fostering a “consumption-focused, imported-addicted economy,” according to Tabadlab, a think tank based in Islamabad. Pakistan’s tepid growth cannot create enough jobs for young people under the age of 30, who comprise more than half of the country’s population. The majority of working-age women don’t participate in the labor force, depressing Pakistan’s economic potential. It is also facing a political crisis over jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan that has sparked riots in Islamabad, along with a wave of militant attacks .. https://thediplomat.com/2024/05/the-china-pakistan-economic-corridor-is-under-attack/ ..in its Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan provinces.
Probability of crisis
AI-Tech Governance Deficit
Trump (left) and billionaire Elon Musk, tapped to co-lead the new Department of Government Efficiency, watch the launch of the test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas, on Nov. 19, 2024. Brandon Bell/Getty Images
The fear of artificial intelligence dominating humans, rather than vice versa, is growing. Large language models of generative AI are rapidly improving their capacity, and some predict breakthroughs in artificial general intelligence (AGI)—AI with capabilities that rival human thinking—by 2030. An Elon Musk-backed push on frontier AGI could be dangerous.
Yet financial analysts worry that the projected $1 trillion in AI investment in the coming years will lack in commercial applications. How will Musk, whose super PAC spent $200 million to help elect Trump, and the tech lobby impact still uncertain norms and regulations for AI and other emerging tech? There are neither national nor global standards for AI, though there are more than 120 bills pending in Congress and 45 states have pending AI legislation.
To offset legislative dysfunction, the Biden administration sought to create standards and a regulatory framework for “safe, secure, and trustworthy AI systems” by executive order in 2023, followed by a memorandum last October to align AI with national security goals. Biden put the National Institute of Standards and Technology at the center of public-private partnership efforts to realize AI goals.
Trump may undo this strategy, as Musk’s program of budget cuts and streamlined government puts his stamp on the tech sector. Trump has already vowed to cancel Biden’s AI executive order.
It’s unclear how government scientists and engineers may be impacted by planned changes to the civil service. The EU and China have launched their own separate regulations. Trump is unlikely to harmonize standards and regulations with global partners or competitors; the future may be a race to the bottom—or there may be as-yet-undreamed-of possibilities.
Probability of crisis
Robert A. Manning is a distinguished fellow with the Strategic Foresight Hub at the Stimson Center, where he works on its global foresight and China programs. X: @Rmanning4
Mathew Burrows is the director of the Stimson Center’s Strategic Foresight Hub and a distinguished fellow in its Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy program. In August 2013, Burrows retired from a 28-year career in the State Department and CIA, the last 10 years of which were spent at the National Intelligence Council.
Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh see kingship in Trump. [...]Hey, Republicans! It's Trump who "criminalized politics" by turning GOP into a two-bit mafia [...]Donald Trump, Mob Boss—Then and Now Now that Trump has been indicted under RICO, let’s look at his past Mafia ties. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175653095
Trump demands apology from Bishop Budde .. [Out: “The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals,” she added. “They pay taxes and are good neighbors.”] https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175699315
Artificial intelligence and other technologies are turbocharging cartels, mafias, and other illicit networks.
By Robert Muggah, a principal at the SecDev Group and co-founder of the Igarapé Institute, and Misha Glenny, the author of McMafia: Seriously Organised Crime. .
Dollar banknotes are seen in a picture taken in Istanbul, Turkey, on Dec. 7, 2021. OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty Images
February 17, 2025, 10:03 AM View Comments (1)
On a gray afternoon in November 2021, Metropolitan Police officers pulled over a vehicle on a highway north of London, acting on a tip about a suspected drug deal. In the car, they found 250,000 pounds in cash, according to the investigators involved. A sweep of the driver’s home turned up a dollar-counting machine and another 24,500 pounds.
This was a significant coup for law enforcement, but the story .. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70ezyrep1go .. turned out to be much bigger. Further investigation revealed a thread that led British investigators to a building in the heart of Moscow. The money, the machine, and the man driving the car all traced back to a Russian intelligence operation.
Operation Destabilise, as the British National Crime Agency dubbed its investigation, exposed how two shell criminal networks—called Smart and TGR—masterminded a sprawling money-laundering operation to turn hard cash into cryptocurrency. The heads of both groups, Ekaterina Zhdanova and George Rossi, were sanctioned .. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2735 .. by the U.S. Office of Foreign Asset Control last year.
Hundreds of millions of dollars were laundered through the scheme, and more than 80 people were arrested, although several key actors remain out of reach of Western law enforcement. The two networks spanned more than 30 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and South America. Its clients included some of the biggest Russian and non-Russian organized crime groups involved in drug running and people smuggling.
What made this network different is that it seamlessly connected with otherwise competing criminal groups, specialized in multiple illicit markets, and received support from a foreign government. Spies, mafia bosses, cybercriminals, and Russian money launderers combined to create an industry that almost defies comprehension. Rob Jones, the director general of operations at the National Crime Agency, described it as the most significant money-laundering operation that the agency had ever uncovered. “It takes you from McMafia through to Narcos, through to [espionage thriller author John] le Carré,” he said.
Organized crime, one of the world’s oldest professions, is entering a golden age. Whether pursued by tomb robbers in ancient Egypt, assassins in the Middle East, secret societies in China, pirates in the Caribbean, or the Italian Mafia, the criminal underworld is a constant of history. Modern tools of the trade—intimidation, corruption, trafficking, and violence—are much the same as in past millennia. Yet as Jones observed, the sophistication, speed, and scale of today’s organized crime is breathtaking. And the international crime control regime—the legal frameworks, institutions, and cooperative mechanisms established by states and global organizations to prevent, investigate, and prosecute crime—is not remotely prepared.
In the late 20th century, globalization—the deregulation of financial systems and the surge of capital, goods, services, people, and ideas across borders—supercharged licit and illicit economies. Cartels, mafia networks, and freelance gangsters quickly learned the ins and outs of private banks, tax havens, special economic zones, container ports, and online markets. Most national police agencies lacked the mandate, skills, and resources to keep up. Even when they acted, they were often stifled by shadowy political and economic power brokers.
There are several reasons why organized crime is undergoing a renaissance. The first is the adoption of new technologies that are literally rewiring the way crime is conducted. Within criminal organizations, digital natives have started replacing less tech-savvy mafia bosses and operatives. As a result, cybercrime has evolved from lone-wolf attacks to highly skilled criminals hunting in packs. This new generation of gangs operates in structured networks, with members specializing in tasks such as malware writing, social engineering, and money management.
Just like in the regular economy, digital connectivity has dramatically increased the efficiency and lowered the costs of organized crime. Take cybercrime, which is increasingly dominated by automated phishing attacks and ransomware-as-a-service. In fact, virtually every category of criminal activity is leveraging technology to create economies of scale. Russian gangsters are using drones to assassinate rivals, Moroccan crime groups are smuggling narcotics into Spain using under-water drones, and British police are reporting areal drone-deliveries of drugs, phones and weapons into prisons. Home delivery services for drugs are as speedy as those for fast food across Europe and the United States. This new efficiency is the result of internet penetration, the spread of social media, encrypted platforms, ubiquitous GPS, and even enterprise software to manage crime groups’ personnel and finances.
Meanwhile, the supply of and demand for organized crime are also changing. Consider migration, which has become one of the most contested issues in European and U.S. politics. The more governments try to prevent migrants from traveling, the higher the profits derived from people smuggling. What was once a comparatively small business with low margins is now a globalized industry operating 24/7. Paradoxically, profits are up because the world’s poor are less destitute than they were a few decades ago, and many can now invest in smugglers. Few other types of criminal activity attract as much popular attention as people smuggling, even though the activity generates less violence than, say, narcotics.
Organized crime syndicates are also taking advantage of innovations in narcotics manufacturing and changing consumption habits. Synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, methamphetamines, and amphetamines aren’t dependent on coca or poppies produced in Colombia or Afghanistan; the growing appetite for these drugs has accelerated production closer to their end markets. According to the European Union Drugs Agency, hundreds of clandestine drug laboratories have been dismantled across Western Europe in recent years. Meanwhile, captagon production has soared from Syria to Iraq, spreading billions of dollars’ worth of tablets to consumers in the Gulf countries and elsewhere in the Middle East.
The quality of governance is yet another factor in the prevalence of organized crime. Weak governance—whether a result of corruption, social unrest, or armed conflict—is strongly correlated .. https://ocindex.net/report/2023/01-global-illicit-economy.html .. with the influence of criminal networks. Democratic governments tend to have an advantage: According to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, “full democracies … exhibit higher levels of resilience to organized crime than authoritarian regimes.”
In recent years, however, liberal democracies have been on the back foot. The 2008 financial crisis, increased migration in the 2010s, and the far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have strengthened populist movements across Europe and North America. Populist leaders often circumvent democratic checks and balances, with direct and indirect benefits for organized crime.One of the first acts of the new U.S. attorney general, for example, was to eliminate anti-corruption units targeting kleptocrats. In Europe, Brexit delivered a serious blow to coordination among European law enforcement agencies. Some police forces no longer share information with Hungary, an EU member, for fear that the information is being passed on to Russia.
The fewer democratic checks and balances, the greater the temptation for politicians, judges, police, customs agents, and tax officials to collude with organized crime. Consider U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent decision to pardon Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road, a website that trafficked in drugs, laundered money, and engaged in hacking. . Trump also ordered the U.S. Justice Department to halt the enforcement of a U.S. anti-corruption law that bars Americans from bribing foreign officials, ostensibly to promote U.S. competitiveness. Though the pardon was hailed by crypto fans, these actions came as a shock to investigators and transparency advocates.
Most law enforcement agencies know that they are lagging far behind organized crime groups. Struggling with their own challenges at home, the enforcers have few incentives to cooperate internationally. And although agencies such as Interpol and Europol periodically disrupt transnational criminal networks, powerful crime syndicates are running circles around police, immigration, customs, and coast guards—and not just in lower- and middle-income countries. Even in the most functional democracies, organized crime exerts influence over governments and launders funds into legitimate businesses with few checks. Emboldened gangs are also taking the fight to the police: In 2024, Europol suffered a data breach by IntelBroker, a cybercriminal gang that posted stolen data online.
There are good reasons to believe that organized crime will intensify in the coming years. Deepening geopolitical tensions are already disrupting collective action to fight criminal groups. Worsening relations between the United States and its traditional allies and partners under the second Trump administration undermine trust and obstruct cross-border cooperation. All the while, criminal groups, including some backed by nation-states, are moving quickly to exploit power vacuums—for example, by selling arms retrieved from the world’s battlefields to online scam farms in Southeast Asia.
The threats of metastasizing crime are particularly high when wars come to an end because there are often plenty of armed groups and leftover military kit that can easily cross borders. Polish President Andrzej Duda recently warned that Europe should brace itself for a crime wave when the Russia-Ukraine war ends, with intelligence agencies’ main concern being a possible flood of weapons westward. Similar spillovers occurred in the past, including after wars in the Balkans and Central America.
Emerging technologies threaten to further boost organized crime in the coming years. AI-powered hacking operations and untraceable cryptocurrencies are now a staple of money laundering and ransomware schemes. Financial companies and health care providers around the world are growing increasingly concerned about deepfakes enabling identity fraud on an industrial scale, rendering traditional verification systems obsolete. The transition to a digital-first economy is a gift to criminals.
In this environment, the lines between organized crime and state intelligence services are blurring. Long tolerated by the Kremlin, Russian cybercriminal gangs have now become the de facto arm of state-sponsored hacking and sabotage campaigns across the West. Hacker entities with links to the Russian Federal Security Service and Main Intelligence Directorate, such as APT28 (a.k.a., Fancy Bear), have been accused of launching cyberattacks against Western political targets, including most famously against the U.S. Democratic National Committee in 2016 and more recently against Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Sweden. To a growing number of hostile governments, criminal networks are assets to be sheltered rather than elements to be fought.
In the past two decades, the threat from transnational organized crime has climbed steadily up most countries’ risk rankings, while the rise of hacking and ransomware has brought home to corporations that this issue is not going away anytime soon. Governments are taking steps by means of tougher laws, more financial sanctions, and expanded police operations.
Some of these have yielded important results. In 2016, the United States expanded the Magnitsky sanctions to target corrupt officials linked to criminal networks, while Britain has tightened anti-money laundering regulations and launched a new organized crime strategy. Many countries also now compel offshore companies to reveal who their real beneficial owner is—a seemingly small development but one that makes it much harder to hide and launder money.
On the law enforcement side, Italy’s anti-mafia task force has made significant progress in dismantling the operations of Cosa Nostra and ‘Ndrangheta, two of the biggest crime groups. Canada and Australia have cracked down on foreign crime syndicates laundering money through real estate markets. Some police forces and private companies are exploring new technologies to fight back, including quantum computing and post-quantum cryptographic methods.
Overall, however, law enforcement agencies engaged in the battle against organized crime are still woefully under-resourced. Most of their efforts are domestically focused, with consistent information sharing and cross-border operations still rare. There is much scope for more oversight of digital financial systems. Concerted investment in the police and justice capacities of countries with governance challenges—including states recovering from conflict—is essential but less likely with a new U.S. administration that is hostile to foreign aid and has begun to dismantle crucial crime-fighting legislation.
The sober truth is that as long as corruption and the underlying conditions fueling organized crime are not addressed, law enforcement will fall short.
Robert Muggah is a principal at the SecDev Group, a co-founder of the Igarapé Institute, a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy, and the author, with Ian Goldin, of Terra Incognita: 100 Maps to Survive the Next 100 Years. X: @robmuggah
Misha Glenny is a rector at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and the author of numerous books, including McMafia: Seriously Organised Crime and Nemesis: The Hunt for Brazil’s Most Wanted Criminal.
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