How Do Cartels Break and What Explains Differences in Their Violence?

Join the Irregular Warfare Center on 15 July  at 1200 EST for an exclusive virtual Lunch & Learn previewing two upcoming research on Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs).

This IWC-sponsored project flips the script on network resilience. Led by Dr. Steve S. Sin and Michaela L. Gawrys, the research team is analyzing successors to the Guadalajara Cartel to uncover the compounding vulnerabilities that lead to organizational ruin.

A companion IWC-sponsored project pries open the cartel monolith. Led by Dr. Louis M. Wasser, the research team is dissecting four Latin American cartels to expose the divergent structures and patterns of violence that set each group apart.

During this briefing, the team will preview their 8-factor diagnostic framework for TCO failure points and a comparative framework for cartel violence – new tools designed to help Irregular Warfare practitioners pinpoint and exploit the internal and external fragilities of complex threat networks.

The Bottom Line: Collapse is rarely caused by a single shock, and cartel violence follows no single playbook.. This briefing will offer early insights into how operational planners can leverage these findings to design multidimensional campaigns that accelerate the degradation of TCOs prior to the official publication of the report.