Dark Networks as

Organizational Problems

Brint Milward
Danish Centre for International
Studies and Human Rights
29 February 2008

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Collaborative Research
• This talk is based on a research
collaboration with René M. Bakker and
Jörg Raab of Tilburg University, The
Netherlands.

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Dark Networks as Problems
• Drug Smuggling
• Alien Smuggling
• Money Laundering and counterfeiting
• Intellectual Property Theft
• Terrorism
• Trafficking in Human organs
• Selling Stolen Art
• Sex Trafficking
• Arms Trafficking
• Nuclear Proliferation

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Organizations and Problems

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Problems as Organizations

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

Dark Networks as Global Governance
Problems
• All are facilitated by the increasing
interconnections among the countries and
peoples of the world
• Most of the illegal activity is organized in
network form with market aspects.
• States often play a limited or unwitting role
in much of this activity but this varies
• These activities are part of the horizontal
world of globalization

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Studying Dark Networks
• Research on dark networks creates difficult
ethical and empirical problems
• Assumes the things that make networks effective
for legal activities also makes them effective for
illegal activities
• The “ideal type” dark network is both covert and
illegal
• In reality there are a lot of "gray" networks

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Dimensions in the universe of networks

Legality

Legal

Dark Networks

Visibility Overt Covert

Illegal

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

Three Approaches to Dark Networks
• Psychological Models
• Economic Models
• Organizational Models

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 "A resilient organizational
network is one that is able
to achieve its core
objectives in the face of
adversity."

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 The Dark Networks Project
• We want to explain the resilience of dark
networks in the face of massive efforts to
destroy them
• We want to understand the relation of
networks to problems
• We want to understand the difference
between grievance and greed driven
networks
• We want to compare networks over time as
they differentiate and integrate

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Cases we are Compiling
• MK, Armed Wing of the ANC
• FARC
• Arms for Diamonds in West Africa
• Al Qaeda
• Hofstad Network in The Netherlands
• Cocaine Trafficking in Columbia

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Response to Shock

Operational S Robust Network

Performance
H
O Rebounding Network
C
K

Non-Resilient Network

T1 T2 T3 Time

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 1) MK resilience pattern: rebounding

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

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 2) FARC resilience pattern: robust

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

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 3) Hofstad resilience pattern: non-resilient

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

16
 The Problem to be Explained
• The resilience of dark networks in the face
of massive efforts to destroy them.
• This is a “one-sided” model.

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Form and Flexibility: Nuclear
Proliferation as an Example
• “A nuclear network like Khan’s is not a rigid
structure that can be shattered and shut
down but rather, something more like the
Internet – a vast and informal web of
flexible connections, capable of reshaping
itself with ease.”
– William Langewiesche

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Figure 3 : Elements of a Theory of Dark Networks

Uncertainty
Resources

Actors
Persistence and
Resilience
Capacity
Linkages

Drivers and
Facilitators of
Problems

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Resources are Necessary but not
Sufficient Conditions
• Territory
– Failed and failing states, etc.
• Technology
– The internet, cell phones, etc.
• Social Movements
– Religious and secular liberation movements
• Finances
– State sponsors, charities, illegal activities, etc.
• Weapons
– Small arms and munitions

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

Human Agency and Activation of Dark
Networks
• Linkages between nodes are facilitated by
– Slack Resources
– Trust
– Reciprocity
• Human Agency
– Task Specific Expertise (pilots, bomb makers, recruiters of
suicide bombers)
– Network entrepreneurship essential to overcome the costs
of organizing
– Entrepreneur brings “money, mission and market share”
(Stern, 2003)

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

What Creates a Dark Network’s Nodes?
• Supply of personnel
– Zeitgeist
– Repression fuels sense of anger and injustice
– Prisons as recruiting centers
• Demand for personnel
– Preexisting groups with ability to recruit, train,
and supply new members (requires a high
degree of organization)
– Technology as substitute for structure in
recruitment, training, and motivation?

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Figure 2 : Relations Between Control, Technology and Structure

Control

Technology Structure

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Problem Drives the Replication of
Network Linkages
• Even in the face of massive control efforts,
new nodes and linkages are driven by
– Drugs
• Demand
• Profit margin
– Al Qaeda
• Iraq Occupation
• Palestine

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 The Problem Facilitates Network
Linkages
• Even in the face of massive control efforts, new
nodes and linkages are facilitated by
– Al Qaeda
• Limited integration of the Islamic Diaspora in Europe
• Lack of opportunity in the corrupt/autocratic regimes in the
Middle East
• Sense of injustice that flows from Western economic and
military hegemony
– Drugs
• Conflicting goals of US in drug growing regions
• Corrupt regimes
• Opportunity provided by failing states

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Network Resilience
• The drivers and facilitators are the forces
behind the differentiation and integration
of dark networks.
• Uncertainty leads to the tradeoff between
persistence/capacity
• The ability of the dark network to persist
(or not) is the result.

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

Policy Dilemma: Nodes vs. Network
• As long as a problem persists, dark
networks can be destroyed, but they may
reemerge in a different form.
• Without attacking the problem, control
efforts will simply transform networks of
actors.
• Loss of actors with critical skills can
degrade whatever network(s) emerge.

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 The Denominator Problem
• You can try to manage the problem or try
to destroy nodes of a network.
• If you can lower the denominator, the
problem becomes easier to manage.
• A retail strategy is to target the nodes, a
wholesale strategy is to target the problem.
• To destroy a dark network, the extinction
rate for nodes must be higher than the
replacement rate

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems

 Managing Dark Networks
• Focus on the problem and not just the
specific network:
– Islamic jihadist terrorism not Al Qaeda
– Cocaine not Pablo
– The problem and the specific dark network are
both the objects of control

Dark Networks as Organizational Problems