[Advanced Aircraft Analysis 3.5 Crack Cocaine
Saija Grzegorek
Right now, the service would have to send ships and aircraft to feed, fuel, and arm these scattered forces just to keep them alive and in the fight. However, sending manned logistics ships into this lethal environment ranges from risky to reckless, while cargo aircraft lack the carrying capacity required to keep marines fed and equipped for very long.
To address this logistical conundrum, the United States should mimic drug traffickers. These undeniably resourceful adversaries have developed a vessel ideally suited to routinely smuggle tons of critical supplies (i.e., cocaine) thousands of miles past the most technologically advanced and well-resourced nation on Earth to their distributors in North America. Their long-range transits even extend to Europe. Manned, semi-submersible, low-profile vessels, also known as narco-submarines, have profitably solved covert logistics across the maritime tyranny of distance. These air-breathing vessels evade detection by staying almost entirely underwater, trading speed for semi-submerged invisibility.
Low-profile vessels that are purpose-built for delivering logistics materiel would be a cheap and expendable logistics platform for the Navy and Marine Corps, and easy to mass-produce. These low-profile vessels could be standardized in their propulsion and guidance with other proposed variants, but constructed modularly to allow for different forward cargo sections, which would vary in size and configuration. Smaller and more covert vessels, most resembling current drug trafficking low-profile vessels, could carry a few tons of essential supplies to the smallest units on the most advanced and vulnerable outposts. Vessels with larger forward cargo sections would be able to deliver palletized cargo, small vehicles, trailers, or bulk fuel to resupply larger bases that would otherwise endanger manned resupply vessels.
On arrival to the objective area, the autonomous vessels would beach for unloading and then depart on the next high tide. Because the low-cost design makes recovery and reuse an option, not a necessity, they could either return to a collection point or simply self-scuttle in the ocean. The vessels could also sink themselves to avoid capture if intercepted at any point along the voyage.
For naval operations in the western Pacific, unmanned logistics vessels would probably need large ballast tanks to achieve both low, submarine-like freeboard in transit and reduced draft for beaching. Producing these vessels in factories and commercial shipyards instead of jungle craft shops would allow for the construction of higher-quality vessels with better features for lower costs. The navigation, communication, and propulsion components would be kept mostly common between variants to reduce cost. On the other hand, producing a steel, aluminum, or composite hull is relatively cheap. Like traditional low-profile vessels, these ones would also vary in size, payload, and range. But the first generation of vessels would closely match the form and function of the largest drug smuggling predecessors. This model would allow for spiral development from a well-proven base design into more complex later models.
The other challenge inherent in using potential profits is the assumption that they translate to true losses to the cartels, but the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that as much as 70% of the profits in the U.S. cocaine market remain with mid-level dealers in the United States.
While purchasing cocaine directly at a wholesale price is certainly not an option for the DoD, this analysis does point to an important consideration for strategists and policymakers. The addition of larger surface combatants to the region, alongside more sophisticated aircraft, does not necessarily translate to efficient benefits unless they can seize vastly more cocaine. This presents a case for using two business-oriented metrics as better guides for operational planning: (1) assessing the value of seized cocaine commensurate with its location in the value chain and (2) measuring the total cost per kilo acquired.
Chris Bernotavicius is an active-duty commander in the US Navy and a foreign area officer specializing in Latin America. He is a military fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and an adjunct fellow at the U.S. Naval Institute.
Explore the most recent data on the drug situation in Europe provided by the EU Member States. These datasets underpin the analysis presented in the agency's work. Most data may be viewed interactively on screen and downloaded in Excel format.
We have developed a systemic approach that brings together the human networks, processes and scientific tools necessary for collecting, analysing and reporting on the many aspects of the European drugs phenomenon.
Much of our knowledge about cocaine trafficking routes results from law enforcement activity and intelligence. Information on types and quantities of drugs seized and information on the origin and destination of shipments give indications of the main routes and modes of transport. However, such information is affected by factors such as law enforcement strategies, resources and priorities, as well as temporary changes to routes and practices in response to interdiction efforts or new opportunities. Hence, caution is needed in interpreting these data.
The 1 436 tonnes of cocaine seized worldwide in 2019 was the highest ever to be reported. Quantities of cocaine seized globally increased by more than 50 % between 2015 and 2019, and cocaine was the second-most seized drug globally after cannabis in 2019 (UNODC, 2021b). As in previous years, the vast majority of the global total was seized in the Americas, followed by western and central Europe. Although small in comparison with the Americas and Europe, quantities seized in emerging cocaine markets in Africa and Asia also reached record highs in 2019 (UNODC, 2021a) (see Figure Global quantity of cocaine seized).
The intensification and diversification of cocaine trafficking activities targeting the EU have continued since the last EU Drug Markets Report (EMCDDA and Europol, 2019). Record levels of cocaine production have been matched by record quantities seized, especially from containers handled in the numerous ports along the transatlantic cocaine routes.
There have traditionally been two main areas through which maritime and air shipments of cocaine transit en route to Europe: the Caribbean, and the West African mainland and neighbouring islands of Cape Verde, Madeira and the Canaries. While these are likely to remain significant transit areas, there are indications that North Africa continues to grow in importance and that transhipment through the Western Balkans, while remaining more limited in scope, may also have increased.
From the Caribbean, cocaine is typically shipped on pleasure craft via the Azores, or by air, either on direct flights or via a variety of transit points. In 2019 cocaine seizures in the Caribbean region amounted to 14 tonnes, or about 1 % of the global total, but it is difficult to ascertain what proportion of this total was destined for Europe (UNODC, 2021a).
North Africa is strategically located at a crossroads between Europe, West Africa and the Middle East. Although considerably less cocaine was seized in North Africa (1.8 tonnes) in 2019 than in West Africa (UNODC, 2021a), cocaine smuggling through North Africa, often taking advantage of pre-existing cannabis routes between Morocco and Europe, was identified as an issue many years ago (UNODC, 2007). However, developments in the last four or five years suggest that the region, particularly its coasts on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, is a growing transit and storage hub for cocaine both arriving by sea directly from South America and coming via West Africa by land for onward transport to Europe or elsewhere, for instance the Middle East (EMCDDA and Europol, 2019; GI TOC, 2022).
The main cocaine hub of North Africa is probably Morocco. The country has traditionally seized the largest quantities of cocaine in the region, which continued in 2019 with seizures totalling 1.5 tonnes, more than 80 % of the reported North African total (UNODC, 2021a). There are indications that the 2021 Moroccan total could be even higher. For instance, in October 2021, more than 1.3 tonnes of cocaine was reported seized in the Tanger-Med port in northern Morocco. The drugs were concealed in a container on a ship that had departed from Brazil and was bound for Antwerp, Belgium, and Portbury, a middle-sized port in Bristol, United Kingdom (Kundu, 2021).
Data available for a few key countries indicate that even larger quantities of cocaine were seized in the EU in 2021. For instance, data on cocaine seizures in Belgium indicate that almost 92 tonnes of cocaine was seized in 2021, almost all in the port of Antwerp. If seizures made elsewhere of shipments that were destined for Antwerp are taken into account, then close to 194 tonnes of cocaine was seized in connection with Antwerp in 2021 (Belgian Federal Police, personal communication). Similarly, the Netherlands (73 tonnes), Spain (more than 49 tonnes) and France (more than 19 tonnes) seized new record quantities of cocaine in 2021 (Douane, 2022; Openbaar Ministerie, 2022; CITCO, communication to the EMCDDA). The preliminary 2021 data available from a few countries indicates that more than 240 tonnes of cocaine were seized in the EU in 2021, exceeding the previous record European total (214.6 tonnes) in 2020.
Cocaine traffickers flexibly use a wide range of innovative trafficking methods, which evolve over time in response to enforcement efforts and other factors. Although cocaine also enters the EU by air, the main route used to smuggle the drug into Europe is still the maritime route from South America to western Europe, especially taking advantage of the licit containerised trade. Maritime transport allows the smuggling of large quantities, and the nature of international commercial maritime traffic means that a vast number of routes can be and are used. In addition, smaller, private sailing boats or even semi-submersible vessels are capable of bringing in large quantities of cocaine in single shipments, entering Europe at many points (see Box First two semi-submersible drug-smuggling vessels captured in Europe).
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