ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses what may be some of the most challenging concerns for US planners and policymakers concerned with foreign affairs. Organized crime is an acute problem for fragile democracies facing periods of civil war or conflict, and for newly constituted democracies such as those established in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Heightened levels of political, criminal, and random violence beyond the capabilities of conventional law enforcement to handle have made the crime problem a greater daily concern for citizens in a number of nations around the world. Crime has been a close companion of unconventional warfare in its various forms, and there has often been difficulty in distinguishing among the various criminal and political agendas present. One of the historic consequences of the demobilization of armies upon the end of a war, breakup of an empire, or other event that removes soldiers from armies faster than they can be absorbed is the growth of crime and banditry.
