Drug threat strategy of nation against nation
Douglas J Davids
Originally Published on http://www.csuohio.edu/polisci/courses/PSC422/indirect.htm

THE INDIRECT APPROACH
An understanding of unconventional warfare theories is required to fully comprehend using drugs as a strategic weapon. Military strategist and author B.H. Liddell Hart wrote in his highly acclaimed book, Strategy. The Indirect Approach: "...in war, the aim is to weaken resistance before attempting to overcome it." The defect Clausewitz made was narrowing his meaning of "strategy" to pure utilization of battle as the only means to a strategical end.

Hart notes that Sun Tzu, in his book The Art of War, took a broader approach: "Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." Liddell Hart agrees: "It should be the aim of the grand strategy to discover and pierce the Achilles' heel of the opposing government's power to make war" and that "a strategist should think in terms of paralyzing, not killing." He also noted the important fact that "direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of the opponent...." This seems to be particularly true of the United States, as seen by the reaction to such an event as Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Yet, in contrast, how many in the United States give attention to the silent poison of drugs in our society?

Two top Chinese strategists, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, developed a modern work on the subject of the indirect approach called Unrestricted Warfare. This book clearly points out the great advantage the world's only current superpower, the United States, has over all other armies due to its superior technology. It also shows the authors' view that technology is overrated.'

Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui point out that superior weaponry need not come from technology. They particularly identify the United States as a nation that continues to count on technology to be deployed in a decisive manner but cannot come to grips with unconventional types of warfare where technology has no benefit, or can even become a liability. In Sun Tzu-like thinking, they write, "The best way to achieve victory is to control, not to kill."2 They prescribe many weapons, such as terrorism, targeting financial institutions, hacking into American computers, and other indirect approaches.

Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui write of war as now having "omnidirectionality," stating that "warfare can be military, or it can be quasi-military, or it can be nonmilitary. It can use violence, or it can be nonviolent. It can be confrontational between professional soldiers, or one between newly emerging forces consisting primarily of ordinary people and experts."3

STRATEGIC DRUG POISONING
In comparing Qiao Liang's and Wang Xiangsui's theories of "omnidirectionality," one can quickly identify several American vulnerabilities. One of these vulnerabilities is a sphere in which the Chinese have unmatched expertise and experience: illegal drugs. Ironically, China's knowledge of the subject comes from its own vulnerability to illegal drugs, and the destruction drugs played in China's history. Opium trafficking by the West (primarily Britain) into China during the 18th and 19th centuries caused extensive social decay in China and contributed to the ruin of a once-great nation.

In the early 18th century, Britain was pushing opium into China at an ever-increasing rate.4 By the early 19th century, opium infected China so badly that addicts were found among the king's court, and by 1832 even the military was partially debilitated by opium addiction. A sound defeat of the Chinese army by Yao rebels was partially attributed to the fact that "many of the troops from the coastal garrisons were opium smokers, and it was difficult to get any vigorous action from them."5 Many troops from the same army deserted to search for opium.6

In addition to the social harm, the opium problem caused near irrevocable damage to China's economy via the increasing outflow from China of silver, the currency of the opium trade. In 1793, China's silver reserve was estimated at 70 million taels of silver (approximately 2.6 million kilograms), but by 1820 this had been reduced to about 10 million taels.7...

Japan employed illegal drugs as a strategy against China during the former's occupation of Manchuria before World War II. The Japanese and Chinese had been enemies for centuries. Aware of the social destruction that drugs cause, as well as the devastating role that opium had played in China's history, the Japanese distributed opium, heroin and cocaine along the Chinese coast when they took control of Manchuria in 1931, earning Japan $300 million per year.11

The strategy not only helped finance Japan's war machine, but the Japanese planners thought that it would make the subsequent occupation of China much easier because drug consumption would reduce the combat-effectiveness of Chinese troops...

America's struggle to control the drug problem leaves it vulnerable to drug trafficking as a strategy, much like Japan exploited China's vulnerability. There are two primary factors that indicate this could occur: China's xenophobia and China's perception that the United States is its enemy.

China's xenophobia is partially derived from Britain's forced drug trafficking into China, from the West's occupation and exploitation of China in the 18th and 19th centuries, and from Japan's occupation during World War II. It's also no secret that China views the United States as one of its primary enemies, partially due to its differences with the United States over Taiwan and also over human rights. In addition, it appears that Unrestricted Warfare was written to show that China considers the United States its number one enemy. It is already being reported that China is teaming up with Iran and Russia to limit the United States' role in Middle Eastern affairs.

An equally important driver is the fact that America is highly vulnerable to drug abuse. Drug traffickers have never lacked a market in the United States. China has never forgotten the historical lessons learned from its drug vulnerability, either.

Perhaps the greatest Asian drug threat comes from a group called the Triads, the Chinese Mafia. The Triads are the most powerful and yet most secretive criminal organization in the world. In the highest levels of crime involving international criminals, a Chinese name often appears.

Whereas one estimate puts the Italian Mafia at 4,600 members, the Triads have 13 chapters, the smallest of which is believed by some Asian experts to have no fewer than 100,000 members. The Triads have always been an accepted part of the Chinese society. They have a history in China that goes back hundreds of years, and have even had Triads as key members of the Chinese government, even during the Chiang Kai-shek government.

When the communists took power in China, they were quick to dispose of all Triads remaining on the mainland, essentially forcing them into Hong Kong. When China regained control of Hong Kong, China experts anticipated that the Triads would be forced from the territory, but quite the opposite occurred. It appeared the Triads were invited back into China, and they began to take a strong hold of much of southern China. The Chinese people agreed that this could not have occurred without the approval of the military, giving an indication that .something" had been worked out. Coincidently, this occurred around the same time that Qiao Ling and Wang Xiangsui recommended that the Chinese "urgently need to expand [their] field of vision regarding forces which can be mobilized, in particular non-military forces.""'

The Triads are involved in all types of crime, from gambling and prostitution to money laundering, kidnapping, extortion, and drug trafficking. They are the "white collar" criminals, and often use non-Triad "blue collar" workers to accomplish their tasks. Of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) cases involving all Asian crime (of which 45 percent is Chinese Mafia related), drug trafficking far exceeds all other cases.

Author Martin Booth wrote, "By far the most lucrative Triad enterprise is the international trafficking of narcotics, particularly heroin."19 It was the Triads who internationalized the heroin trafficking from the Burmese guerrillacontrolled "Golden Triangle" in the 1960s, which in turn expanded Triad power and international influence.20 This trade became particularly attractive to the Teochiu Triads.21

Although it cannot be proved that there is no official Chinese government-Triad relationship, the Triad's reemerging influence and corruption within China's government is well known, and has historical roots.22 Because of the Triad's power, influence and connections within the international underground world, it is easy to see how they could assist the Chinese army with many of its "indirect" operations.23

One must realize that there are numerous organizations and working parts to drug trafficking in Southeast Asia. From cultivation, to production, international transportation, distribution, dealing, and money laundering, there are many different parties involved, including Nigerian criminal organizations.24 Neither the Triads nor any other organization is the single authority for Asian drug trafficking. The potential for the Chinese military to actively engage all these different parties, organize them to execute their specific drug strategy, and keep their activities relatively secret from foreign intelligence sources would be nearly impossible.

For the Triads to do the same, however, would require little more effort than to use their immense power and influence to shift the drugs in the direction the military requests. Perhaps it is not coincidental that, according to Philippine National Security Advisor Roilo Golez, Chinese army officers may be behind the manufacturing and trafficking of drugs sold in his country. If so, a relationship with the Triads makes perfect sense.25

Discussions with members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police reveal that the Triads have deeply penetrated Canadian society, which has opened its doors to Chinese citizens, increasing Canada's Chinese population at a remarkable rate. The China Reform Monitor reported on 22 April 2001:

An extensive network of Chinese businessmen in Canada who act as spies to steal industrial and state secrets for China's military was detailed by Lai Changxing, China's most-wanted man, who had close ties to Triad smuggling rings and military intelligence officials, reports the Vancouver Province. Lai ... described a massive business-espionage network run by the intelligence unit of the People's Liberation Army of China's National Security Bureau. Some of these businessmen, operating throughout North America, have bought extensive influence with the political elite in Canada and the United States.

If one adds the growing legal and illegal Asian populations in Canada and the United States, the numbers are staggering, if not threatening. Fan Ming of the Chinese People's Public Security University refers to such a mass moving population as a "floating population." Asian youth of the floating population, who cannot adapt quickly in American schools, feel like "outcasts," and often form gangs with other Asians, turning to crime as their only means of income. Such gangs are Triad recruiting grounds for blue-collar criminals.

Asian criminal organizations are always more than ready to fill any Mexican and Colombian heroin distribution gaps in the United States as the opportunity becomes available. When the DEA dismantled Mexican heroin drugs rings in the Midwest, the Triads quickly filled the void and China White became the most commonly used heroin in the Midwest ever since.26

China's entry into the WTO could have a tremendous impact on the Asian drug trade. For one, Chinese banks will follow Chinese business to the United States. The Triads are masters of money laundering, and soon they will have their own banks in which to launder the money.

Finally, China's increased acquisitions of ports around the Western Hemisphere could greatly enhance Chinese drug trafficking. They are already establishing ports in Peru (where there is already a significant Chinese population), Venezuela, the Bahamas, and Long Beach, Calif. In addition, China has become the virtual "gate-keeper" of the Panama Canal via the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa Company. According to one media source, a U.S. Customs Service report wrote: "Intelligence sources indicate Chinese and Russian organized crime factions are active in narcotics, arms and illegal alien smuggling utilizing Panama as a base of operations."27

It is not the case to say that when China enters the WTO they intend to implement a strategy of smuggling illegal drugs into the U.S., although there are Asian experts who believe they will, and others who say it has already begun. Rather, the above information is to show that the Chinese have firsthand knowledge of the damage from such an "unrestricted warfare" strategy, as well as the capability to implement it, and America's persistent drug problem leaves it vulnerable to such a strategy. However, China's entry into the WTO will likely enhance Asian drug trafficking capabilities worldwide, regardless of whether it is an intended strategy or not...

Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui clearly note that "to sense the existence of the threat, it is very difficult for [a nation] to be clear about the direction from which the threat is coming."32 A transparent demand problem, along with the "rodent" drug traffickers who easily sneak through our open society and highly sophisticated infrastructure, is a concept far removed from that of a Desert Storm battlefield. Perhaps this is why America still struggles with the whole concept of drug trafficking as a legitimate national security threat. -NSR

[For information on a strategy to defeat a GAPstyle drug threat, see A Unified Strategy against Narco-Terrorism by Douglas J. Davids, Chief, Analysis Section, National Guard Bureau Counterdrug Office, Arlington, Va.. Phone 703607-5744.]

This report is underwritten by the Defense Education Trust Fund of the Reserve Officers Association of the United States, 1 Constitution Avenue, NE, Washington, D.C. 20002-5655. The views expressed in this report are not necessarily those of the Defense Education Trust Fund or the Reserve Officers Association of the United States. Contributions to the fund are tax deductible under the provisions of Sections 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Defense Education Committee: COL Robert J. Nearine, AUS (Ret.), Chairman; Maj Joylyn M. Grant, USAFR; Col John X. Loughran Ill, USAF (Ret.); BG Louis L. Myers Jr., ARNG (Ret.); CAPT Ned K. Kulp, USCGR; CAPT David L. Woods, USNR (Ret.); RADM G. Robert Merrilees, USCGR (Ret.); CAPT Henry E. Plimack, USCGR, Ex-Officio-PAO; MG Arthur H. Baiden Ill, USAR, National Council Liaison; Mrs. Janice Connolly, ROAL Representative; Mr. Jayson L. Spiegel, Publisher; COL John R. O'Shea, USA (Ret.), Director, Defense Education; COL AlexanderA. C. Gerry, AUS (Ret.), Editor, Ms. Thuy Dang, Graphic Production; Ms. Tracey Coleman, Assistant Editor.

FOOTNOTES
1. "Americans...," they write, "...are slaves to technology in their thinking." Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare, Chapter 1, p. 6, www.fbis.cia.ic.gove/cgibin/cqcgi/@ rware.env. Beijing, Liberation Army Literature and Arts Publishing House, February 1999.
2. Ibid, chapter 1, p. 8.
3. Ibid, chapter 8, p. 3. The term "experts" can imply professionals in fields such as computers, finance and economics, or, as we shall see, criminal activity.
4. From 1729 to 1767 opium importation increased fivefold. And from 1767 to 1798, it nearly doubled. Zhou Yongming, Anti-Drug Crusades in Twentieth-Century China, New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., p. 13.
5. An essay by Jonathan Spence, "Opium Smoking in Ch'ing China," quoting from the biography of Li Hung-pin in Biographies of the Ching Dynasty, 1962.
6. Yongming, Anti-Drug Crusades, p. 15.
7. Martin Booth, Opium: A History, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998, p 128.
8. Yongming, Anti-drug Crusades, p. 16-17. Yongming credits Kathleen Lodwick, Crusaders Against Opium: Protestant Missionaries in China, 1874-1917, Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1996, p. 27.
9. The second Opium War for China was against a Western alliance, which involved British, French, and even some American forces.
10. Drug Enforcement Administration, "Drug Legalization: Myths and Misconceptions," U.S. Department of Justice, 1994, p. 23. The Drug Enforcement Administration credits Gabriel G. Nahas, "The Decline of Drugged Nations," Wall Street Journal, 11 July 1988.
11. The equivalent of $3.488 billion in 2001.
12. Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking, New York: Basic Books, 1997, p. 163. 13. Martin Booth, Opium: A History, p. 345.
14. Rachel Ehrenfeld, Narco-Terrorism, New York: Basic Books, 1990, p. 6.
15.Barry Seal was a pilot who worked undercover for the DEA. He posed as a drug trafficker and transported cocaine for the Colombian drug cartels during the early to mid1980s.
16. Hearings before the Senate Drug Enforcement Caucus, the Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, and the Foreign Relations Committee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, 30 April 1983: "The Cuban Government Involvement in Facilitating International Drug Traffic," pp. 45-46.
17. R. Ehrenfeld, Narco-Terrorism, p. xxii.
18. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare, Chapter 8, p. 7.
19. Martin Booth, The Dragon Syndicates: The Global Phenomenon of the Triads, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. p. 258.
20. Ibid., p. 168. 21. Ibid., p. 175.
22. Much of this influence is via a powerful Chinese "tradition" (but more of an unwritten rule) called guanxi, that is, the obligation of favor for favor. Author Guang Tian states that "guanxi" is an aspect of a Chinese value system that is "part of the essential `stock of knowledge? for Chinese in their management of everyday life." See endnote 31, p. 67.
23. The rule of "guanxi" applies to the Asian underground world as well.
24.Nigerian criminal organizations are involved in international drug trafficking. They transport heroin from the Golden Triangle to the United States and Europe. They also traffic cocaine to Europe.
25.Some Asian crime experts believe the Triads are currently not as involved in drug trafficking as the above information would indicate. Regardless, their ability to organize so many drug trafficking organizations to execute a specific strategy cannot be in doubt.
26.Colombian heroin has made a strong emergence in the Midwest, and may soon surpass China White as the heroin of choice in that area. Coincidentally, one Asian crime expert informed this author that it was Chinese scientists who taught Colombian drug cartels how to make heroin, showing that China need not use only Asians to execute their drug trafficking efforts.
27.Bill Gertz, "With U.S. Gone, Panama is a Mecca for Drug Trafficking," The Washington Times (online), 9 June 2000.
28.Max G. Manwaring, Gray Area Phenomena, Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, Inc., 1993, p. xiii.
29.For information on one theory to bring to an end drug trafficking, see A Unified Strategy Against Narco-Terrorism, by Douglas J. Davids, Chief, Analysis Section, National Guard Bureau Counterdrug Office, Arlington, Va., (703) 607-5744.
30.S. Dycus, A. L. Berney, W. C. Banks, & P. Raven-Hansen, National Security Law (2nd Ed). Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1997, p. 601.
31.Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare, Chapter 2, p. 8.
32. [bid., Part II, p. 2.