Download or read book State and Nonstate Associated Gangs written by Max G. Manwaring and published by Strategic Studies Institute. This book was released on 2009 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph explores the complex protean character and hegemonic role of gangs operating as state and nonstate surrogates in the contemporary asymmetric and irregular global security arena. Gangs come in different types with different motives, and with different modes of action. Examples include Venezuela's institutionalized "popular militias," Colombia's devolving paramilitary criminal or warrior bands (bandas criminales), and al-Qaeda's loosely organized networks of propaganda-agitator gangs operating in Spain and elsewhere in Western Europe. Motives and actions of these diverse groups are further complicated by their evershifting alliances with insurgents, transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), drug cartels, warlords, governments that want to maintain a plausible denial of aggressive action, and any other state or nonstate actor that might require the services of a mercenary gang organization or surrogate. Lessons derived from these cases demonstrate how gangs might fit into a holistic effort to compel radical political-social change, and illustrate how traditional political-military objectives may be achieved indirectly, rather than directly. These lessons are significant beyond their own domestic political context in that they are harbingers of many of the "wars among the people" that have emerged out of the Cold War, and are taking us kicking and screaming into the 21st century.