Twenty- First-Century Challenges: The Use of Military Forces to Combat Criminal Threats

• Author: Juan Carlos Gomez
• Position: Colonel, Colombian Air Force
• Pages: 279-291

XIII

Twenty-First-Century Challenges:

The Use of Military Forces to Combat

Criminal Threats

Juan Carlos Gomez*

Jcant change the direction of the wind, hut Ican adjust my sails to always

reach my destination. 1

GIntroduction

legalization confronts governments with new threats. Moises Nairn, editor

of Foreign Policy, described these threats as follows:

The illegal trade in drugs, arms, intellectual property, people, and money is booming.

Like the war on terrorism, the fight to control these illicit markets pits governments

against agile, stateless, and resourceful networks empowered by globalization. Govern-

ments will continue to lose these wars until they adopt new strategies to deal with a

larger, unprecedented struggle that now shapes the world as much as confrontations

between nation-states once did.2-

The use of military forces by democratic States in the fight against these criminal

threats is viable and necessary; however, it is important to know when and how

military forces maybe used legitimately. To do so, it is necessary to understand the

transformation of the threat—armed groups, which once challenged governments

*Colonel, Colombian Air Force.