Most contemporary intrastate military conflicts have a criminalised dimension, using smuggling networks and criminal actors. Such conflicts are enabled by ‘taxing’ and diverting humanitarian aid, diaspora remittances, illicit exports, trading across front lines, and sale of looted goods. Quasi-criminal private combatants may operate in the absence of, alongside or within formal military units, especially when one side is not a fully-fledged state.
The criminalised dimensions of conflict tend to be underexplored. However, smugglers, arms traffickers and quasi-private criminal combatants not only profit from conflict but can be decisive in its course. Many also emerge as part of a new elite. A broad analysis also needs to include diverse local and transnational actors, including arms dealers, embargo busters and local black market entrepreneurs. This new focus does not mean ignoring politics: Many criminalised aspects of conflict are state-sponsored and directly serve political interests. They can even be essential to state survival.
In the 1992-1995 Bosnian conflict, access to supplies through smuggling networks and the use of quasi-private criminal combatants were crucial. They played a decisive role in explaining the war’s outbreak, persistence, termination and aftermath.
- Unevenness in access to weapons shaped the calculus to go to war. The international arms embargo in practice locked in the Bosnian Serbs’ military advantage. Their access to clandestine arms flows and irregular paramilitary groups helped large territorial gains in spring 1992. Fighters were wooed by the prospect of looting and selling goods and paramilitary units mainly comprised common criminals.
- Clandestine flows and criminal involvement subsequently prolonged the conflict. The Sarajevo government’s war effort was sustained by the criminal underworld’s involvement and engagement in large-scale clandestine commerce. This resulted in the siege’s stalemate.
- The many factors ending the war included a shift in the military balance on the ground. This was enabled by heightened Bosnian government access to clandestine arms supplies. Ironically, non-enforcement of the arms embargo assisted peace.
- The legacy of criminalised conflict has profoundly shaped the post-conflict reconstruction process. The essential smuggling networks criminalised the state and economy, and a criminal elite has emerged with close ties to government and political parties.
Clearly the criminalised dimensions of conflict are double-edged. Smuggling and criminal networks can contribute to conflict, looting and corruption, and hinder resolution and reconstruction. Yet they can also aid a country’s survival and defence effort, and represent essential survival strategies.
- The post war order is rooted in wartime dynamics where new political alliances and social relations are forged. Key players in criminalised conflict emerge as part of a new social elite.
- International intervention plays a role in the criminalisation of a conflict. Sanctions can create an economic opportunity structure for clandestine traders, criminalising the political economy of the conflict zone. When organised crime and corruption impede post-war reforms, the international community rarely acknowledges contributing to creating the problem.
- Humanitarian aid and peacekeeping efforts can become deeply enmeshed in criminalised aspects. Aid convoys are ‘taxed’ and partially diverted to the black market. Military supplies may be camouflaged as humanitarian. Peacekeeping forces can become complicit in smuggling schemes. Protected enclaves can turn into exchange centres and United Nations personnel, aid workers and journalists form a consumer base.
- Political science should not separate the study of political economy and security. Topics considered the realm of criminology are also of central importance to the analysis of war and post war reconstruction.
