July 8, 2025 • 58 mins
From the jungles of Mindanao to the back alleys of Damascus, Tom Sanderson has gathered intelligence the hard way. This episode of Coercive Capital is a behind-the-scenes look at the realities of global risk, drawn from firsthand encounters in conflict zones worldwide.
Host Elaine Dezenski and Sanderson explore:
The role of fieldwork in modern intelligence
How proxy networks and non-state actors shape today’s power landscape
The blind spots that leave institutions vulnerable
What Sanderson is watching next
Essential listening for anyone navigating today’s complex risk environment.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hey, Welcome back coercive capital listeners and viewers. Great to
have you here today. We have fantastic guest Tom Sanderson,
geopolitical risk expert extraordinaire and co founder and former director
of the Transnational Threats Program at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, a think tank here in Washington, d C.
(00:36):
Where he worked between two thousand and two and twenty eighteen.
He now runs his own geopolitical risk firm, Tom Sanderson Consulting,
working with more than two dozen analysts around the world.
He has worked in more than eighty countries, interviewing insurgents, smugglers, clerics,
and power brokers in conflict zones. His recent travels, which
(00:59):
we're going to hear a little bit about today, span Ukraine,
Horn of Africa, the Sahal, Central Asia, and the Middle East.
So there's lots to talk about, especially at this moment
of fragility in the Middle East and today as we
go deeper into some of the dynamics and systems that
have supported proxy warfare, ideological finance, and informal power. So
(01:24):
Tom's research helps financial institutions, corporate strategy teams, and policy
makers take a more nuanced view of global threats and risks,
including some of his more recent work, which he'll talk
about in Geopolitical Risk Assessment. So I think it's interesting
to start with Tom's story. So Tom, welcome to the show.
(01:46):
It's great to have.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
You here, Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah, and I should mention that I've had the pleasure
of knowing Tom for a very long time, more than
three decades, which means we know we met when we
were small.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Filter.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Tom and I are both Wheaton College grads, so proud
Wheatie's and Tom, it's been absolutely fantastic to see your
work evolve over the years. So congratulations on everything that
you've done.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Likewise, thank you, thank you. So let's talk about how
you got to where you are. You know, you've really
started in the counter terrorism space. All of your foundational
work at csis the eighty countries that you've been exposed to. Now,
how'd you get into this space?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, the earliest stage that I got into us was
at a very young age, actually thirteen, going back to Borg,
just before we met at Wheaton, and that was when
the Soviet Union shot down Korean Airliner seven forty seven
that's straight over its aerospace in the summer of eighty three,
and just a few weeks after that, two hundred and
forty one US Marines were killed in Beirut in that
(02:56):
terrorist bombing of their barracks. And those two incidents just
opened my eyes to this world of threat actors and
geopolitical friction and confrontation in the Cold War, and I
never looked back. I chose Wheaton because it had an
international relations major, and then when I was there, I
knew I was heading to Washington after that, and that
(03:16):
I needed to head abroad in order to better understand
this array of threats and actors that include illicit actors
and all sorts of criminal activity. So I made my
way to Washington, but ultimately I never got abroad until
age twenty five, and then in the ensuing three decades,
(03:39):
I have done field work in these eighty plus countries,
mostly in austere environments and in conflict zones and in
those zones adjacent to them. But how I got into
the work i'm in now came right out of graduate
school at Tufts Fleccher School. I came down to d
C right after Bin Laden attacked our embassies in East
(04:00):
Africa and got a job with a intelligence community contractor
working for the Defense Intelligence Agencies Transnational Threats and Worldwide
Crime Office, and was immediately a signed to a project
looking at factors and indicators that would tell us terror
groups were transitioning from conventional weapons to weapons of mass destruction.
(04:22):
And I did that project for four years through nine
to eleven, and then after that happened, I moved to
CSIS in early two thousand and two. Now CSIS had
a project called the Global Organized Crime Project, run by
the late great inimitable Arno de Borgrev and his deputy
(04:43):
Frank Slufu, and they looked at all manner of organized
transnational crime. And when nine to eleven happened, I came in.
We changed the name of the project to Transnational Threats
to look at and measure and investigate the degree and
nature of the terror threat, but importantly always including the
(05:03):
criminal network. So we looked at the nexus of organized
crime and terrorism, essentially how terror groups fund themselves. So
that's two thousand and two, and for the next sixteen
years I conducted fieldwork in scores of countries, two thousand
interviews across the spectrum of sources. As you mentioned, insurgents, terrorists,
(05:25):
intelligence officers, clergy refugees, academics, chiefs of station, diplomats and
all with the goal of getting an on the ground
perspective on the nature of the terror threats and then
bring that information back, put it into briefings across the
intelligence community, across the diplomatic community on Capitol Hill, through
(05:47):
testimonials or direct briefings with committees, into the media, and
into the general public through the hundreds of events we
did at CSIS just from our program alone. What years
of doing counter terrorism research in the field also brought
me was geopolitical risk perspective. So when I was doing
(06:08):
that work, I wasn't only talking to terrorists or counter
terrorist forces. I was talking to government officials. I was
talking to bankers, I was talking to NGOs, I was
talking to everyone involved in the nature of geopolitics, and
that enabled me to build the consulting practice part time
(06:28):
through those sixteen years. I also began eighteen years of
teaching at the National Security Agency while I was at
CSI's and then beyond CSIS, where I did about seventy
five three day classes on terrorism of China's People's Liberation
Army and then generally global threats and trends around which
I formed a presentation that today is my main consulting
(06:53):
presentation product called Global Disruptive Forces. So that's how I
got into it. How I cover just a wide array
of threat actors and conditions around the globe. As you
mentioned Africa, Sahel Horn of Africa. I was in Somalia
a year ago, in Mogadishu, Russia, Ukraine. I've been to
(07:13):
Ukraine seven times since the latest invasion China Taiwan to
look at China's threat to Taiwan. All over the stands Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrghyzstan, Kazakhstan,
and then a heavy focus on the Middle East and
North African, particular Persian Arabian Gulf and then North Africa
(07:35):
and throughout this environment. What I have clearly seen is
that the wheels of geopolitical conflict and of regional conflict
are greased with illicit activity that really makes things happen,
obviously in a very negative way.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Absolutely, so I want to build on that because you know,
a lot of our listener base comes from the banking
and finance community and they're struggling with issues around due diligence,
particularly at the country level, probably at the regional level.
So over the years, has your view changed in terms
(08:15):
of what due diligence demands in fragile states? And are
there any aspects of due diligence that you think are
particularly important for organizations to understand right now based on
some of your more recent field work.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Sure, I'll be fair and talk about one thing that
I think I have learned in all of those years.
That is something I do and do well, and then
something that I don't do but I am able to
accomplish through partner institutions. So the number one thing is
being on the ground and getting perspective at the granular
level by engaging a full spectrum of actors. It's what
(08:54):
I did for sixteen years at CSIS, It's what I've
done for the last seven or eight years running my
own firm, And it is getting on the ground and
talking to those people and hearing what they have to say.
And all of those multiple perspectives allow you to check
the information that everyone's giving you. So it's not just
twenty ENGOs, it's not just twenty intelligence officers or twenty clerics.
(09:17):
It's two of each across maybe ten categories of people.
So Number one is field work, getting on the ground
and then maintaining networks that you met on the ground,
your fixer, the people you talk to other friends that
are traveling through these areas to refresh that contact. Just
a couple of days ago, I did a keynote for
(09:39):
a project looking at threats across the Sahel, the coups,
the outside actors Russia and China, and then the terror organizations,
the al Kada and is Islamic state affiliates that are there.
How did I refresh my knowledge on the Sahel? Not
only through my team and the desktop research they did,
(10:00):
but I called all of the fixers that I had
in Mali, Nijier, Burkina, Faso, Senegal, and I talked to
them this past week and said, what have you seen
since the coup leaders have taken over? Are the Russians
holding back on delivering armored vehicles and ammunition because of
what's happening in Ukraine? How are people reacting to the
(10:24):
narrative and messaging from jnim in ISSP the terror groups
that are most active in this region, which, by the way,
I'll tell you that region accounts for fifty one percent
of all terror deaths in twenty twenty four. But to
the main point, which is an extraordinary number, But to
your point is, you know, I just went to the
people that I built up over the years is my network,
(10:47):
and they were ready right away to provide me with
thirty to sixty minutes of perspective on everything they were seen,
and then they sent me footage, they gave me their
own perspective, and then they connected me to other people
and that in the span of forty eight hours, I
had an incredibly accelerated, up to date perspective on those
(11:08):
three main areas of threats and instability in the Sahel.
So that's number one. On the ground, knowledge yourself and
your context. Number two. It is so clear that information
on threat actors, be these states or individuals that are
being hired into companies who are stealing intellectual property, or
(11:30):
people moving money and goods illicitly, you have to have
access to massive amounts of data and records. So I
now partner with two companies that have access to this data.
And when I'm doing a background investigation a link chart
on an individual or an entity, my team is remarkable
in producing those. But I can also go to these
(11:52):
data brokers who have threat intelligence on a range of
actors from mostly threatening countries like Russia, China, Ron, North Korea,
Venezuela to provide me with access to records that I
simply can't get myself. So no one person, no one
firm has all of what's needed to serve geoplical risk clients.
(12:14):
And I have definitely learned that, and I've happily embraced
those areas of weakness with augmentation from some of these companies.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, and are you finding it more difficult to get
at that research on the ground in terms of sources
the willingness of some of these actors, particularly coming from
you know, terrorist organizations. I mean you talk to everybody.
Is it getting more difficult to get data of integrity?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Well, it's somewhat more difficult to get people to speak
freely because they're so concerned that their phones are suspect
that even with signal, that maybe Pegasus is on their
phone and that their phones are insecure, So that that
is a concern. Some people are just very worried about
whether they have secure data. And I'll tell you you know,
(13:10):
one of the fixes I called gave me plenty over
the phone but when I asked the fixer if they
could join me on a team's call for this discussion,
they said absolutely not. They just felt the risk was
too high in terms of fidelity. Again, the way I
go about that is just getting twenty or so people
(13:31):
to talk about the same issue or their angle on
the same issue, and that gives me a chance. And yes,
we are in this age of disinformation that certainly was
nothing like it is now five years ago or ten
years ago. But you know, I always I had great
advisors at CSIS and including a former six time chief
(13:51):
of station, who told me, you know, pay very attention
to what people lie about, because often you turn one
hundred eighty degrees away from what they're pointing you to,
and that's the truth. Because people want to divert you
from dirty laundry that's happening in their country, from the
sources of their funding, who their networks are, and so
(14:13):
they will vector you in a particular direction to throw
you off the trail. And my advisor said, just turn
right around, you know, theoretically academically, and look at what
is the opposite of what they're saying, because that is
often what they're trying to hide. So you know, and
you have to have good friends and advisors in a
team like I do and many others have that can
(14:36):
look at the same information and call bs on something
because again, no one person, no one company, has a
monopoly on fidelity.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah. So how do you see institutions translating your field
research and insights into their risk assessment processes? Do you
think institutions at least from what you've seen, or getting
better at the gray zone threat assessment or trying to
understand it in different ways.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Well, the fact that some companies and clients are asking
about the gray zone threat in environment in which they
have to operate, or their money flows through or their
people come from that that is a good step in
the in the right direction. I'll give you an example
of a company that did something that was I think
very effective. This is a major US company and they
(15:29):
are they have employees in dependence in a zone that
is within range of rockets of an adversary. And the
debate was at their company between the security officials and
those officials who wanted to allow dependents to go with
their with the executives on the ground in this particular country.
(15:51):
And so they came to me and my team in
some of my colleagues to say, what is the nature
of the threat to this region? And we came back
to them and said, your company compounds are within range
of this group, and the group's inclinations seemed to be
that by pressuring your company or the private sector is
(16:16):
a way to weaken the host country. So we recommended
no dependence with them. Within three weeks, rockets struck the
city where that company compound was. I don't know, I
can't remember if the compound itself was said, I don't think,
but close enough to make the company realize that their
decision not to allow dependents to go there was critical.
(16:40):
And that threat actor is a classic gray zone hybrid
between a non state actor and a proto state actor
that has access to some of the weapons and capabilities
of a state, but can move and maneuver the way
non state actors do. Terror groups, insurgent groups, so they
are very tough nut to crack, and the better move
(17:02):
here was to just stay out of range of the group.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, so you've been to a lot of conflict zones,
and you know most of them would probably be categorized
as fragile states. What breaks first when formal governance fails,
when traditional governance structures somehow give way to terrorists, insurgents,
(17:28):
you know, these asymmetric threats. What what have you seen goes?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
First?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Are there signs.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Well the economy in services to people. Now, in most
of these fragile states, governance is already terrible. It's already poor.
So social services are often absent or patchy, or they
are only provided to favored groups. So when there's a
breakdown even to provision of services to favored groups, be
it an ethnic or religious or racial group, then you're
(17:59):
start to see indicators that things are getting worse. But
the economy, I'll give you an example. I interviewed a
former cabinet minister from Tunisia under the government of Benali.
So this was a field visit. I interviewed the family
in the Tunisian city that had two of their four
sons joined militant groups in Libya and in Iraq. And
(18:24):
I was talking to this minister and the minister readily acknowledged.
He said, look, our concentration of wealth under the Benali
regime distorted the legitimate economy, and that pushed young men
into the arms of transnational crime and militant actors full
up recognition that by hoarding the nation's wealth, by distorting
(18:48):
the private sector, by giving handouts to only favored groups,
that created a massive population of marginalized men and women,
boys and girls actually, and to provide any ability to
get married, to have dignity, respect a future, a motorcycle,
(19:09):
money for healthcare, these people had to go into cross
border activity that was criminal or militant in nature. And
you know, would this minister have acknowledged that while he
was in power, of course, not because he was enjoying
the fruits of corruption. But once he was out and
(19:30):
free to speak about this, he was completely candid with
me and said, we know that the only options we
opened up for the marginalized and displaced in our country
was criminal activity.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
So I'm curious about you mentioned the Sahal and having
spent some time there are there signals coming out of
that region in particular that we need to be thinking about.
There's such distress there and so much problematic activity, military activity,
(20:07):
the illicit economy which is flourishing in that space and
has been for a long time. What are some things
that we need to be thinking about in terms of
risk coming out of the Sahel.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
There are several risks in the Sahel, red flags, whatever
it is you want to call them, and they include
the following coups, military coups that have taken over poorly performing,
democratically elected but corrupt governments in Mali, Niger, in Burkina Faso.
So now you have military leadership in these countries and
they threw out these governments, they executed cups because they
(20:41):
felt that those governments were not countering the terror threat
effectively and the military was suffering from that. Well, some
of these military leaderships have now formed militias from favored
communities who are going after some of the terrorists but
also killing particular ethnic groups, which is driving the young
men from those groups into the arms of those terror groups,
(21:04):
creating this incredible cycle of violence. So this recent spate
of coups in the last three years has really been
a destabilizing factors factor. A huge compliment to that, a
negative compliment to that has been the entry of Russia's
Wagner Group, which in Mali was just officially disbanded, but
(21:25):
seventy five percent of the fighters from Wagner joined the
Russian Ministry of Defense's Africa Corps, which is doing the
same work largely, but you know, some more on the
logistics side. So the fact that you have outside actors
like the Russians in there, but others as well. And
I heard, you know, really absurd stories about the Chinese
coming to members of parliament in Burkina Faso and offering
(21:49):
to give them first class tickets and five star hotels
accommodations when they traveled outside of Africa to conferences in
other countries. That had nothing to do with China, was
just building networks among the parliamentarians. Another red flag is
disinformation of social media. But another problem is that the
(22:12):
US has cut security assistance across the Sahel and has
cut our diplomatic presence and of course has cut us
a I D. And that provided us with incredible soft
power capabilities and access and ears and eyes on the ground,
and we are losing that all along the coast of
(22:33):
West Africa near the Gulf of Guinea. And that that
is also problems, not just the outside actors. It's shooting
ourselves in the in the feet by doing this. And
you know, there's a lot of other things that we
can talk about, but if you're a company and you're
looking at commercial activity in West Africa, you have an
exceptional level of risk because of the thread actors that
(22:55):
are there, the ones that come from the outside, but
also because of our action in aid and other capabilities
that we traditionally provided to our partners are week but
hard working partners in West Africa.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah. Yeah, it's almost like an open door across the board,
you know, particularly to exploit you know, mining resources, you know,
as you said, building diplomatic support. Have you seen any
evidence of Chinese and Russian cooperation, for example in the
sahell Are they working together, are they working independently?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
They're doing both. So they are working independently of course,
with their own specific goals, and they have very different tactics.
The Russians are bare knuckle, bear fisted fighters who go
out on patrol with military forces or on their own.
In fact, they lost scores of Wagner mercenaries and battles
with rebels in the north of Mali last year. That
(23:58):
is something that Chinese will app absolutely never do, at
least right now. They just do not have the sort
of expeditionary military appetite that the Russians do, and the
Russians do it because they have so much experience, and
this is just the nature of how they conduct their business.
But what I did see, which was interesting when I
visited Gao, Mali many years ago in other parts of Africa,
(24:22):
is that I think through the provision of Chinese soldiers
to the UN peacekeeping Forces blue helmets, I think the
Chinese are doing that in part to gain some degree
of expeditionary experience for their military. It is not like
what the Russians are doing, but nonetheless it's putting Chinese
troops on the ground and having them understand how to
(24:44):
operate in an austere environment, even if it's not a
holy hostile environment where they're taking rounds from insurgents or
terror groups, but they are acting that way. But here's
how they're working together. And this is what I got
from one of my fixers just this week when I
when I did the update on Sahelian activity, and he
told me that in the particular country that I've speaking
(25:06):
to and I won't identify it to keep him safe,
but the Russians and the Chinese are working together to
block Western media from coming in, blocking signals, blocking internet
access through all of their extraordinary cyber capabilities, and they're
doing this together to block Deutsche Vella, BBC, France, twenty four,
Voice of America, all outside media sources to make sure
(25:31):
that they dominate the information landscape. And in this region,
two way radio regular broadcast radio are still dominant forms
in television or dominant forms. And the Russians play a
huge role here, but so do the Chinese, and so
they have really influenced the information influenced landscape in Africa.
(25:54):
And they do that because they have a common adversary,
and that's the US and France in particular in this rega.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I want to dig into the point about Wagner Group
just to understand a little bit more detail about how
Wagner forces are now working under local control. Is that
in name only or is that an arrangement where Wagner
is still getting paid. But you know, their their forces
(26:23):
are wearing they're they're just wearing a different uniform. How
exactly is that working well?
Speaker 2 (26:29):
They are wearing their own, you know, camouflage outfits when
they go out in these operations, but they also wear
civilian clothes. In some of these countries they are also targeted,
so they actually maintain try to maintain in some places
a very low profile. In other places they're very obvious.
They're actually sitting with standing with guarding the military leaders
(26:50):
who've taken control of these countries. So it depends on
on the context in the environment in which they are operating.
And for compensation, they get direct payments from these countries,
and they also get a share of mining revenues and
other rev share, revenue share on a on a number
of commercial activities. So you know they are on the ground,
(27:12):
they are important players, and they are a hard hard
nut to crack. I don't think they'll be there necessarily forever.
The Chinese are definitely longer term partners for West Africa
than the Russians are. But right now, the Russians have
this positive aura in the minds of many in the
(27:34):
global South, and that includes the Sahel, where they're countering
the classic you know, colonial actors of yesteryear, who they
still you see as colonial actors today. And that's in
part that that that explains in part why Ukraine is
not resonated as a victim and meant and much of
(27:54):
the global South because the Russians have really dominated the
information space here.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
So I want to pick up on Ukraine in just
a minute. But I know you'll also spend some time
in Somalia, so I'd be really interested for your kind
of your top line takeaways from what's going on on
the other side of Africa.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Sure, Somalia is an incredible place, incredibly dangerous, incredibly beautiful,
incredibly talented people. There the longest coastline in all of Africa,
Somalia has and it is such an incredibly strategic position
where it is at the Horn of Africa. So I
went there last year. I spent five days at the
(28:34):
airport compound. It is incredibly insecure. My fixer again, the
value of the fixer is indisputable. And my fixer said, look,
we can go into the city, but everyone knows you're
already here. You know, there's not that many visitors there.
People know who's coming into the airport. People report very quickly.
(28:54):
There are so many people on the payroll of al Shabab,
including people in lawnforcement in the military at the airports,
so they know who's coming and going into the country,
into Mogadishue. So I went there to look at you know,
what is the degree in nature of the al Chabab
(29:15):
threat on all different levels, and who are the problematic
outside actors who are doing business in the Horn of
Africa and East Africa generally, who are doing good and
bad things. And so, you know, while I was there,
I learned, of course that number one, that the government
is just not able to deliver you know, economic development
(29:38):
and security for the country. And Al Shabab controls those areas.
It has long had a really impressive taxation scheme, dominating
the sugar trade, dominating the charcoal trade to the Persian Gulf,
dominating all sorts of businesses where they are in controlling
the telecom towers that are in their territory that that
(30:00):
are needed for telecom services throughout the country. So they
have a lock on those areas. And the areas that
are under government control just do not feel secure, according
to the twenty five plus people that I met while
I was there, And so you know, I heard from
a lot of people, including former Alshabab fighters, and you know,
(30:21):
the country is in tremendous trouble. There is just you know,
this is another instance of an underperforming government. And meanwhile
the state is breaking apart, and you have the semi
autonomous areas in the North Poutland and Somaliland where outside
actors are as the British would say, you know, trousering money,
(30:42):
putting money in people's pockets in order to get port access,
to get intelligence from them, in order to be able
to have a military and security presence, both for their
own national security but also for their commercial activity, which
of course is a component of national security. But it
is a very insecure area and it is a shame
because the talented people there are really remarkable, and you know,
(31:07):
I don't see it changing, and I do, in fact
see it getting worse.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, So I want to ask you one question about fixers.
How do you find them? How do you figure out
who to trust? What are the dynamics around that.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Give you an example from the Turkey Syria border where
I had to worry where the risk was highest for
me of kidnapping for kidnap ransom scenario. When I went
to Turkey and over several visits over in the last
dozen years, I found a fixer through a US run
(31:47):
NGO near the border, where the head of that NGO
was using fixers to do everything including bring him into
Syria to observe humanitarian aid shipments. So I went to
that person, I knew that at least he had not
been sold in handed over in a deal for kidnap
(32:10):
ransom situation. So I felt that that already gave me
a sense of security that his fixers would be reliable.
So I went to him and said, look, I need
a fixer, and I need to lily Pad with that fixer.
So I'm not spending the night in any place. I'm
just going from one city to five different locations to
(32:31):
meet ISIS fighters, Kurdish fighters, al Qaeda fighters, news for
front activists, off duty police officials, people working at hospitals,
very importantly, because we knew that ISIS fighters were being
treated in hospitals a range of people, and I knew
(32:51):
that the fixers had those contacts because that's what made
them effective for this particular NGO. And so I would
I would be given, you know, that fixers, and then
I would hire them to arrange the meetings. And these
are people that they knew throughout their environments. They were
often from Syria themselves, and they were working inside of Turkey,
and so I would go to them and hire them,
(33:13):
and then I would go again like Lily Padding and
just making sure that I was only in one place
for two to six hours, and then sitting down with
these people, and you would just be amazed at how
willing people are to sit down, even if they are
being sought by US authorities. And of course they were
concerned that I was going to that I was part
(33:33):
of some COVID operation to grab them, and I was
concerned they were going to grab me. So there was
mutual fear here. But that's where the fixer is critical
in soothing their concerns and my concerns about security. And
so that's how I would operate. And I also would
check on the fixer in other ways because I had
(33:54):
their license plate, I had their phone number. I would
often ask for their ID cards. My own other networks
were able to check on them to make sure that
they were not on some kind of watchless and none
of them were, and thankfully everything worked out. But I
also had to hire a security company that provided me
(34:15):
with an app on my phone that would track me
where I would go and that would provide, you know,
rescue operations for me. But I also went in to
see the FBI's hostage Rescue team for a one on
one seminar with their team and where they taught me
how to conduct myself in captivity if I were in
fact taken, And that is an extremely sobering discussion to have,
(34:40):
but that that fixer is my you know, buffer between
getting into that situation, and of course there's no guarantee
that the fixer has not decided that this is the
moment where they take the Westerner into or any any
person into Syrian and into his hands and sell them.
(35:02):
So that was always a concern. And I'll note one
of the best sources I ever had was a trafficker
on the border of Turkeys area at the Kilis and
Baba Salam border crossing, where I had line of sight
vision of an Isis of Vice's territory. And we interviewed
(35:22):
that person okay, and he was providing travel documents for
people coming into that country, good people and bad people.
I interviewed them twice. It resulted in an op ed
that wan Zarati and I published in the New York
Times called How the Terrorists Got Rich, And it opens
with that vignette of me going into this cafe and
(35:43):
using my fixer to say to the guy, these people
are here. They're not a threat to you, but they
are eager to understand what's off the menu at the
cafe and what's available off the menu, and he told us,
and we saw people taking pictures for their their new ideas.
We heard about the price list for passports and I
(36:06):
brought this to Frank Taylor at DHS to tell him.
You know, he here are the passports that we heard
about that are fraudulent that they're using to move people
in and out of the border. So that's an example
of getting that ground intelligence and handing it to people
who are actually concerned with that risk.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
So I want to I want to I want to
move into Ukraine, where I know you've you've also been
quite recently, and you know, we may be heading into
some type of post conflict environment. Maybe who knows, in
the next I don't know, six months, twelve months, We'll
(36:47):
see how things go forward. There's the critical minerals deal
an active conversation on where this where this is all headed.
But I'd love to get your take on what's how
on the ground there and going back to some of
the concerns around the listed finance risks. You know, whenever
(37:08):
we move into an environment that is one of reconstruction,
we're getting close to that. There's a whole lot of
money floating around, a lot of goods, a lot of
hardware and tech and people. And I'm curious how you're
thinking about all of that, and and just some general
(37:30):
observations on what you were seeing on the ground.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Let me first tell you what I've been doing in
Ukraine and note some of the positive things that I've
been seeing there. So I've been seven times since about
two years ago, and I'm teaching how to graduate school there.
I'm meeting with members of the rod of the Parliament.
I'm meeting with lawyers and consultants, with fighters, both Ukrainian fighters,
(37:54):
but also members of the international Legion, including Americans who
are fighting there against the Russians. And so I'm seeing
this indomitable spirit among those that are defending Ukraine. You
and I both know people who've worked full time and
gotten their master's degree at night. I think you did
that for your program at Georgetown. Imagine doing that while
(38:17):
your apartment building is getting struck by a shah Head
drone or a Russian cruise missile. This is what my
students are going through. It's really quite remarkable. Yet they
motor on and they continue to do it. Let's also
remember that Ukraine was the back office for a lot
of US financial institutions. The unbelievable talent at a really
(38:37):
good price made Ukraine a very popular place to do
business for financial firms and lots of other firms tech
tech firms in the US and Europe, and so there
is a lot of opportunity with the reconstruction of Ukraine.
We don't know what is going to happen with the
twenty percent that's under Russian occupation, but certainly hundreds of
(39:00):
billions of dollars will flow into Ukraine for reconstruction, for
investment in the defense industrial base, for new roads, for
expanded and enhanced agribusiness. Don't forget, Ukraine is a world
leader in agriculture and agribusiness. So lots of positive flows
of money are going to come into Ukraine and into
(39:20):
areas adjacent to it, such as Poland, Romania and others.
So that's a great opportunity on the horizon, and I
think we're getting close to that, but we're considering the
nature of this podcast. In illicit finance and coers of capital,
there are many ingredients to a toxic stew of criminality
(39:41):
that are brewing in the broader region, in particular in Russia.
But what we're going to see with Ukraine is again
hundreds of billions of dollars of reconstruction funds, people with
immense talents that have created things on the fly that
have really helped the Ukraine. But also they're doing the
same in Russia talking about drone production, et cetera. But
(40:04):
incredible skill building under austere in difficult conditions. You're going
to have the movement of people coming in and out
of the region as people IDPs as well as refugees
come back. And it's not just Ukrainian IDPs moving to
different parts of the country or Ukrainian refugees. It's hundreds
of thousands of Russians who fled the country who may
(40:27):
be coming back into Russia or going on to a
third country. And there are people with two sets of credentials.
You know, they have their Ukrainian or Russian passport, but
they also have residency in other places. Then you have
war fighters, and you're going to have war fighters that
we've seen in lots of other countries that are being demobilized,
(40:48):
demobilized and with great skill and who can present opportunity
but also threats in what they do going forward. And
I'm much more concerned here about the Russian fighters that
are inside of Ukraine, who you know, many of them
with criminal backgrounds, many of them who clearly are not
(41:09):
abiding by the laws of warfare. They will go on
to be the new Wagner Forces or New Africa Forces,
Africa Core Forces in Africa or in other parts of
the world. So Russia is going to have this huge
influx of demobilized fighters and in fact, that's one of
the reasons why Putin is dragging his feet. Is the
(41:31):
end of the war means what do you do with
all these guys who are fighting, who are now coming
back to Russia. Well, that is one of the problems.
So you have the ingredients for organized criminal activity. And
let's not forget theredit. The heritage of my program at
CSIS is the Global Organized Crime Project that looked at
so many different angles of Russian organized crime. Those networks,
(41:54):
which never died during the war, in fact some were stimulated,
will certainly take advantage of any new environment. But there's
another thing that I want to talk about that goes
beyond these issues. And let me just commend to your
audience a report by the I think it's the Global
Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. They have this great report
(42:16):
about the transnational criminal activity that's likely to emerge out
of the Russian war on Ukraine. So please, folks do
look at that. But something that I've been thinking through
my own work on risk and what I'm seeing with
Russia and Ukraine, we have been able to isolate Russia
(42:36):
during this three and a half year war to a
decent degree. Okay, sanctions, travel bands, et cetera. Russia has
always been a partly criminal state. They have illicit economy
in an illicit economy. During these past three and a
half years, you and I and your audience all know
that Russia has had to expand the revenues coming through
(42:58):
it's illicit networks ghost fleets for its oil, which in
turn drag anchors and cut cables of our allies in
the Baltic States in Scandinavia, but also their criminal activities
and networks that have been able to bring in semiconductors
by all sorts of illegal trades, by masking invoices and
(43:23):
bills of lady to hide different products that they're getting
through third countries in order to be able to rebuild
their missiles in their aircraft that the Ukrainians have been
able to destroy. So the Russians have kept themselves afloat
in the war and kept their domestic economy and float
afloat in part by running these illicit networks. And if
(43:46):
you're sitting in Moscow and you're thinking about the next stage,
there's a ceasefire, there's a peace agreement, whatever, that looks like,
why would you abandon this structure, this network of criminality
and illicit activity that helped you the Western sanctions and
isolation of your country. No way, you're going to keep
(44:07):
that in play, not only because it's generated revenue and
we'll continue to generate revenue. But Russia's probably thinking about
their next move. Do they take more of Georgia? Do
they go back into Ukraine if they're out, or go
and try to take more of Ukraine? Do they do
something else in another former Soviet state? They want to
keep those arrows in their quiver that kept them safe,
(44:31):
kept them with access to the components they needed to
wage war, and to keep domestic communities happy. So I
do not see that going away at all. I think
that will be a new dimension of the Russian organized
crime illicit state threat, and I think we need to
pay attention to that in fortify our partnership with the
(44:53):
Ukrainians that will be the frontline against that illicit activity.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Are you worried about the deep and legacy networks in
Ukraine that we're also connected into these Russian networks? Do
you think there's the potential that they'll re emerge?
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Of course, and anyone who tries to paint those networks
as benign is simply not being truthful. Every country has
its criminal networks. Ukraine certainly has had them, and some
of those didn't go away. And when the war's over,
you know, you will certainly see Russian and Ukrainian organized
crime figures cooperate again. So I don't think we're going
(45:34):
to see a crime free Ukraine. Of course, we will
not see that. So I do worry about that. But
the Western presence in Ukraine, the activities that they've undertaken
to reduce corruption in Ukraine, all, you know, show us
that there is growth there, that there's opportunity there to
reduce the role of criminal activity in Ukraine and to
(45:57):
abandon them to the Russians or to a B and
in them to a future without strong support from their
Western partners in Europe and in the United States and
North America means that those criminal networks will flourish. We
should be on the ground providing engagement and providing presence
(46:18):
that reduces the re emergence of those criminal networks in
Ukraine and allows us instead to focus on the criminal
state of Russia.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Yeah, fascinating, And you know, there's so much to dig
into there. Maybe I'll just do a quick shout out
for Ukrainian civil society in general, which I think has
been an incredibly important, you know force in terms of
you know, building up response and resilience right within the
(46:51):
Ukrainian population. And you know, going back to your comment about, Okay,
what do we do now around the soft power question
with US A I D leaving a bit of a vacuum.
I think I think there's still such an argument for
how we think about foreign aid to build up that
(47:11):
resistance to the illicit economy, and I think that that's
something we really need to consider going forward. And you know,
I wouldn't be surprised if we also see this deepening
of ties between Russian illicit financial networks and criminal organizations
(47:32):
and Chinese networks. No doubt those connections are already there.
But as we think about the access of aggressors and
how the connectivity across economies and political actors and and
and black markets, you know, continue to grow, I think
we're You're right, we're facing another order of magnitude of challenge.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Absolutely and again, these this access of progressors, these states
have been able to fortify one another. They don't always
act in unison, and they have their own interests. In
China's much more tied to the global economy than Russia,
North Korea, in Iran, so they have much more to lose.
But nonetheless they have something to gain by attenuating the
(48:20):
reach of the United States and our NATO allies. So
I'm certain that they're cooperating on criminal activities and that
will expand in the future. But I do want to
go back to your point about the resilience of society
in Ukraine. I've traveled all across the country, to Harkiv
in the east, to Odessa in the south, to Leviv
(48:40):
in the west, and all around Kiev in the center.
This population is incredibly strong, resilient, proud capable and eager
for partnership with the United States and with Europe. I
just came from a meeting with the Polish embassy and
talking about their perspective on Ukraine. We have incredible partners
(49:02):
in Poland, in Finland, in the Baltic States, in Romania
to help us fortify Ukraine so that they are not
a victim of Russian aggression again. And on top of
that are a huge contributor to the global economy and
too the global talent base. And I'll just point out
one example of an individual, a Supreme Court justice that
(49:25):
I know and I've published about him. The Wall Street
Journal has published about him. He's a Supreme Court justice who,
among many other justices in the country, they operate World
War two era Maxim machine guns on the rooftops of
Ukrainian buildings that try to shoot down Irani and Shahad
drones that fly into the city. They are Supreme Court
(49:49):
justices by day, and then they have formed a local
militia essentially that goes onto these rooftops and they get
information from the National Defense is that a drone is
coming in from a particular angle, and they get on
these machine guns and I have put my hands on
these guns seeing what they do. Look at the cots
(50:10):
that they sleep on at the top of these buildings
overnight during these four hundred and five hundred missile and
drone attacks by the Russians, and I mean four hundred
to five hundred a night coming in from the Russian side.
And this is a Supreme Court justice who's operating a
machine gun trying to shoot down a shah Head drone.
(50:32):
It is really remarkable how we have citizen soldiers in
that country that just go from day job to night job.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
Tom, thanks for those stories and for shining a light
on what it means to be resilient. I think there's
a lot we can learn from the Ukrainians and should learn,
and we should be bringing those stories to more people
in this country. I'd like to now turn to Taiwan,
where I know you've also been spending some of your
(51:03):
bright and power and trying to think through some of
the risks and what China may or may not do
in the near future. So curious about your thoughts on
the Taiwan challenge. And then maybe as a final question,
are there regions of the world that really haven't been
on the radar for US policy makers that you think
(51:24):
we need to bring to the four.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Let me take China Taiwan first and put out a
few important facts. Chijin Paining told the People's Liberation Army
that you need to be capable of a full scale
assault of Taiwan by twenty twenty seven, the date at
which the CIA and the Pentagon have also estimated the
PLA would have the capability to do this. Whether or
(51:47):
not they would execute that is a different thing. And
there's the debate whether China will seize or squeeze Taiwan.
And of course we know that ninety one percent of
the world's Tier one semiconductors are made in Taiwan. We
have exceptional talent there, exceptional exposure and risk in Taiwan.
The world is highly dependent on Taiwan for what it
(52:07):
does for the global economy and the supply chain. There's
a direct tie in here with Russia Ukraine. There is
no doubt that China and Taiwan both have been looking
at Russia Ukraine, looking at the parallels to the potential
for a battle there and preparing themselves or not preparing themselves.
Certainly the Chinese have looked at Russia's debacle in Ukraine
(52:31):
and have learned some lessons from it. Move fast, don't
let the international community gather steam. Do everything as quickly
as you can. Make sure you have enough artillery shells
or enough of whatever you need drones to be able
to execute this kind of attack and not fail in
the many ways that the Russians have failed in Ukraine.
(52:52):
They obviously have twenty percent of the country, but they
thought they would take the country in three to five days.
So one thing I'm looking at is how are the
Taiwanese looking at this. Are they preparing their militarying their
people to act the way that these Supreme Court justices
in Ukraine have done, you know, who have become part
of the defense of the country. When I went there
(53:15):
just two years ago in service of a client, I
asked people there, you know, are citizens prepared to do
what the Ukrainians are doing? And definitely not. They are
not prepared. They expect the military to do it. They
hope the United States will come in to defend them,
but they are not certain about that. There's certainly an
implicit commitment, but not an explicit one by design. So
(53:40):
there I came out of that visit with a lot
of concern over Taiwan's ability to defend itself in the
face of that kind of threat. But they have since
increased their readiness, but there's a long way to go,
and we need to deliver the weapons that they have
bought from the United States. I am concerned about that,
(54:01):
and we've seen with the Nancy Pelosi visit to Taiwan,
the visits between Taiwan leadership and Kevin McCarthy and other
statements by Americans. The Chinese respond by surrounding the island,
conducting missile exercises in interrupting the supply chain, and we
see the ripple effects and they are massive. Now some
Taiwanese think that they have this emerald, I'm sorry, this
(54:24):
silicon shield, that the world will protect them because they
do produce these ninety tier one semiconductors, and that the
Chinese wouldn't want to destroy those. Nothing is guaranteed in
the Chinese have said by the one hundredth anniversary of
the founding of the People's Republic of China the establishment
(54:46):
in nineteen forty nine. In twenty forty nine, Taiwan must
be reintegrated into the country for the full rejuvenation of
the nation. They are going to attempt it, whether again
it's caese or squeeze, they are going to try. So
that's that's a great concern to me.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
So maybe onto our final question, Tom, is there a
region that you think policymakers need to be spending more
time thinking about where maybe the risks are underrepresented, are
not well understood, or maybe even not politically palatable right now,
but where you see some clear warning signs.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
There's a long list to choose from. I do think
that policy makers, the intelligence community and others aren't aware
of the wide array of risk. It's whether we're actually
putting resources against them. So I wouldn't say there's any
great surprise out there that could hit us, though there's
always the potential for a technological surprise. But in terms
(55:43):
of a region, we know, we understand that, you know,
so many areas are susceptible to these pressures. We definitely
have to look at what climate change is doing to
prompt emergencies and conflict and risks. And you don't have
to agree or on what causes climate change. You just
have to recognize that it is underway, that it is
(56:05):
forcing people to move. It is generating hardships, and we
have to look at areas that are going to be
especially hard hit by climate change that will push people
into different areas, cause conflicts, etc. Let me bring us
back to the Sahal region, as Isis and al kada
Jnim and ISSP move southward into Togo, Benin in Koti Voir,
(56:30):
they're getting closer to the coastline. This would give them
greater access to other parts of the continent, and just
their ability to demonstrate that they are at the vanguard
of these worldwide movements would give them a sense of
empowerment and maybe move on to impact areas that are
of great interest to the United States, whether that's critical
(56:52):
minerals concentrations in Africa or hitting embassies or going again
to the Red Sea, whether Huthis are are making a
big impact. So the Sahel is out of control. I mean,
it is remarkable how unstable that area is becoming an
increasing just this week, and then I returned to two
(57:14):
areas that again are not surprises, but places that we
know the Middle East, but Eastern Europe with the Russians
and how the Russians react to whatever agreement is struck
here and what they will go on to do next.
I think that will always remain an area of exceptional
risk and opportunity, and that's going to drive people to
(57:35):
take chances to do business there. But Russia should be
at the top of our list. But the Sahel is
also an absolutely critical region to focus on. But it
is a tier three interest of the administration right now.
It has never been a tier one interest of any
administration I would I would suggest, And there's an incredible
(57:56):
amount of business. This is where incredible high growth in
telecom adoption is taking place, where all sorts of extractive
industries are increasing. There's a lot of business to do
across Africa and we should be making a much greater
commitment there to reduce the sources of instability. Tom.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
Thank you so much for joining us. It's been a
fantastic conversation. We'd love to have you back. You can
keep us updated on your travels, but stay safe out
there and hope to see you again soon.
Speaker 2 (58:31):
Thank you, Elane, much appreciated.
Hey, Welcome back coercive capital listeners and viewers. Great to
have you here today. We have fantastic guest Tom Sanderson,
geopolitical risk expert extraordinaire and co founder and former director
of the Transnational Threats Program at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, a think tank here in Washington, d C.
(00:36):
Where he worked between two thousand and two and twenty eighteen.
He now runs his own geopolitical risk firm, Tom Sanderson Consulting,
working with more than two dozen analysts around the world.
He has worked in more than eighty countries, interviewing insurgents, smugglers, clerics,
and power brokers in conflict zones. His recent travels, which
(00:59):
we're going to hear a little bit about today, span Ukraine,
Horn of Africa, the Sahal, Central Asia, and the Middle East.
So there's lots to talk about, especially at this moment
of fragility in the Middle East and today as we
go deeper into some of the dynamics and systems that
have supported proxy warfare, ideological finance, and informal power. So
(01:24):
Tom's research helps financial institutions, corporate strategy teams, and policy
makers take a more nuanced view of global threats and risks,
including some of his more recent work, which he'll talk
about in Geopolitical Risk Assessment. So I think it's interesting
to start with Tom's story. So Tom, welcome to the show.
(01:46):
It's great to have.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
You here, Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah, and I should mention that I've had the pleasure
of knowing Tom for a very long time, more than
three decades, which means we know we met when we
were small.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Filter.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Tom and I are both Wheaton College grads, so proud
Wheatie's and Tom, it's been absolutely fantastic to see your
work evolve over the years. So congratulations on everything that
you've done.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Likewise, thank you, thank you. So let's talk about how
you got to where you are. You know, you've really
started in the counter terrorism space. All of your foundational
work at csis the eighty countries that you've been exposed to. Now,
how'd you get into this space?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, the earliest stage that I got into us was
at a very young age, actually thirteen, going back to Borg,
just before we met at Wheaton, and that was when
the Soviet Union shot down Korean Airliner seven forty seven
that's straight over its aerospace in the summer of eighty three,
and just a few weeks after that, two hundred and
forty one US Marines were killed in Beirut in that
(02:56):
terrorist bombing of their barracks. And those two incidents just
opened my eyes to this world of threat actors and
geopolitical friction and confrontation in the Cold War, and I
never looked back. I chose Wheaton because it had an
international relations major, and then when I was there, I
knew I was heading to Washington after that, and that
(03:16):
I needed to head abroad in order to better understand
this array of threats and actors that include illicit actors
and all sorts of criminal activity. So I made my
way to Washington, but ultimately I never got abroad until
age twenty five, and then in the ensuing three decades,
(03:39):
I have done field work in these eighty plus countries,
mostly in austere environments and in conflict zones and in
those zones adjacent to them. But how I got into
the work i'm in now came right out of graduate
school at Tufts Fleccher School. I came down to d
C right after Bin Laden attacked our embassies in East
(04:00):
Africa and got a job with a intelligence community contractor
working for the Defense Intelligence Agencies Transnational Threats and Worldwide
Crime Office, and was immediately a signed to a project
looking at factors and indicators that would tell us terror
groups were transitioning from conventional weapons to weapons of mass destruction.
(04:22):
And I did that project for four years through nine
to eleven, and then after that happened, I moved to
CSIS in early two thousand and two. Now CSIS had
a project called the Global Organized Crime Project, run by
the late great inimitable Arno de Borgrev and his deputy
(04:43):
Frank Slufu, and they looked at all manner of organized
transnational crime. And when nine to eleven happened, I came in.
We changed the name of the project to Transnational Threats
to look at and measure and investigate the degree and
nature of the terror threat, but importantly always including the
(05:03):
criminal network. So we looked at the nexus of organized
crime and terrorism, essentially how terror groups fund themselves. So
that's two thousand and two, and for the next sixteen
years I conducted fieldwork in scores of countries, two thousand
interviews across the spectrum of sources. As you mentioned, insurgents, terrorists,
(05:25):
intelligence officers, clergy refugees, academics, chiefs of station, diplomats and
all with the goal of getting an on the ground
perspective on the nature of the terror threats and then
bring that information back, put it into briefings across the
intelligence community, across the diplomatic community on Capitol Hill, through
(05:47):
testimonials or direct briefings with committees, into the media, and
into the general public through the hundreds of events we
did at CSIS just from our program alone. What years
of doing counter terrorism research in the field also brought
me was geopolitical risk perspective. So when I was doing
(06:08):
that work, I wasn't only talking to terrorists or counter
terrorist forces. I was talking to government officials. I was
talking to bankers, I was talking to NGOs, I was
talking to everyone involved in the nature of geopolitics, and
that enabled me to build the consulting practice part time
(06:28):
through those sixteen years. I also began eighteen years of
teaching at the National Security Agency while I was at
CSI's and then beyond CSIS, where I did about seventy
five three day classes on terrorism of China's People's Liberation
Army and then generally global threats and trends around which
I formed a presentation that today is my main consulting
(06:53):
presentation product called Global Disruptive Forces. So that's how I
got into it. How I cover just a wide array
of threat actors and conditions around the globe. As you
mentioned Africa, Sahel Horn of Africa. I was in Somalia
a year ago, in Mogadishu, Russia, Ukraine. I've been to
(07:13):
Ukraine seven times since the latest invasion China Taiwan to
look at China's threat to Taiwan. All over the stands Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrghyzstan, Kazakhstan,
and then a heavy focus on the Middle East and
North African, particular Persian Arabian Gulf and then North Africa
(07:35):
and throughout this environment. What I have clearly seen is
that the wheels of geopolitical conflict and of regional conflict
are greased with illicit activity that really makes things happen,
obviously in a very negative way.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Absolutely, so I want to build on that because you know,
a lot of our listener base comes from the banking
and finance community and they're struggling with issues around due diligence,
particularly at the country level, probably at the regional level.
So over the years, has your view changed in terms
(08:15):
of what due diligence demands in fragile states? And are
there any aspects of due diligence that you think are
particularly important for organizations to understand right now based on
some of your more recent field work.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Sure, I'll be fair and talk about one thing that
I think I have learned in all of those years.
That is something I do and do well, and then
something that I don't do but I am able to
accomplish through partner institutions. So the number one thing is
being on the ground and getting perspective at the granular
level by engaging a full spectrum of actors. It's what
(08:54):
I did for sixteen years at CSIS, It's what I've
done for the last seven or eight years running my
own firm, And it is getting on the ground and
talking to those people and hearing what they have to say.
And all of those multiple perspectives allow you to check
the information that everyone's giving you. So it's not just
twenty ENGOs, it's not just twenty intelligence officers or twenty clerics.
(09:17):
It's two of each across maybe ten categories of people.
So Number one is field work, getting on the ground
and then maintaining networks that you met on the ground,
your fixer, the people you talk to other friends that
are traveling through these areas to refresh that contact. Just
a couple of days ago, I did a keynote for
(09:39):
a project looking at threats across the Sahel, the coups,
the outside actors Russia and China, and then the terror organizations,
the al Kada and is Islamic state affiliates that are there.
How did I refresh my knowledge on the Sahel? Not
only through my team and the desktop research they did,
(10:00):
but I called all of the fixers that I had
in Mali, Nijier, Burkina, Faso, Senegal, and I talked to
them this past week and said, what have you seen
since the coup leaders have taken over? Are the Russians
holding back on delivering armored vehicles and ammunition because of
what's happening in Ukraine? How are people reacting to the
(10:24):
narrative and messaging from jnim in ISSP the terror groups
that are most active in this region, which, by the way,
I'll tell you that region accounts for fifty one percent
of all terror deaths in twenty twenty four. But to
the main point, which is an extraordinary number, But to
your point is, you know, I just went to the
people that I built up over the years is my network,
(10:47):
and they were ready right away to provide me with
thirty to sixty minutes of perspective on everything they were seen,
and then they sent me footage, they gave me their
own perspective, and then they connected me to other people
and that in the span of forty eight hours, I
had an incredibly accelerated, up to date perspective on those
(11:08):
three main areas of threats and instability in the Sahel.
So that's number one. On the ground, knowledge yourself and
your context. Number two. It is so clear that information
on threat actors, be these states or individuals that are
being hired into companies who are stealing intellectual property, or
(11:30):
people moving money and goods illicitly, you have to have
access to massive amounts of data and records. So I
now partner with two companies that have access to this data.
And when I'm doing a background investigation a link chart
on an individual or an entity, my team is remarkable
in producing those. But I can also go to these
(11:52):
data brokers who have threat intelligence on a range of
actors from mostly threatening countries like Russia, China, Ron, North Korea,
Venezuela to provide me with access to records that I
simply can't get myself. So no one person, no one
firm has all of what's needed to serve geoplical risk clients.
(12:14):
And I have definitely learned that, and I've happily embraced
those areas of weakness with augmentation from some of these companies.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, and are you finding it more difficult to get
at that research on the ground in terms of sources
the willingness of some of these actors, particularly coming from
you know, terrorist organizations. I mean you talk to everybody.
Is it getting more difficult to get data of integrity?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Well, it's somewhat more difficult to get people to speak
freely because they're so concerned that their phones are suspect
that even with signal, that maybe Pegasus is on their
phone and that their phones are insecure, So that that
is a concern. Some people are just very worried about
whether they have secure data. And I'll tell you you know,
(13:10):
one of the fixes I called gave me plenty over
the phone but when I asked the fixer if they
could join me on a team's call for this discussion,
they said absolutely not. They just felt the risk was
too high in terms of fidelity. Again, the way I
go about that is just getting twenty or so people
(13:31):
to talk about the same issue or their angle on
the same issue, and that gives me a chance. And yes,
we are in this age of disinformation that certainly was
nothing like it is now five years ago or ten
years ago. But you know, I always I had great
advisors at CSIS and including a former six time chief
(13:51):
of station, who told me, you know, pay very attention
to what people lie about, because often you turn one
hundred eighty degrees away from what they're pointing you to,
and that's the truth. Because people want to divert you
from dirty laundry that's happening in their country, from the
sources of their funding, who their networks are, and so
(14:13):
they will vector you in a particular direction to throw
you off the trail. And my advisor said, just turn
right around, you know, theoretically academically, and look at what
is the opposite of what they're saying, because that is
often what they're trying to hide. So you know, and
you have to have good friends and advisors in a
team like I do and many others have that can
(14:36):
look at the same information and call bs on something
because again, no one person, no one company, has a
monopoly on fidelity.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah. So how do you see institutions translating your field
research and insights into their risk assessment processes? Do you
think institutions at least from what you've seen, or getting
better at the gray zone threat assessment or trying to
understand it in different ways.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Well, the fact that some companies and clients are asking
about the gray zone threat in environment in which they
have to operate, or their money flows through or their
people come from that that is a good step in
the in the right direction. I'll give you an example
of a company that did something that was I think
very effective. This is a major US company and they
(15:29):
are they have employees in dependence in a zone that
is within range of rockets of an adversary. And the
debate was at their company between the security officials and
those officials who wanted to allow dependents to go with
their with the executives on the ground in this particular country.
(15:51):
And so they came to me and my team in
some of my colleagues to say, what is the nature
of the threat to this region? And we came back
to them and said, your company compounds are within range
of this group, and the group's inclinations seemed to be
that by pressuring your company or the private sector is
(16:16):
a way to weaken the host country. So we recommended
no dependence with them. Within three weeks, rockets struck the
city where that company compound was. I don't know, I
can't remember if the compound itself was said, I don't think,
but close enough to make the company realize that their
decision not to allow dependents to go there was critical.
(16:40):
And that threat actor is a classic gray zone hybrid
between a non state actor and a proto state actor
that has access to some of the weapons and capabilities
of a state, but can move and maneuver the way
non state actors do. Terror groups, insurgent groups, so they
are very tough nut to crack, and the better move
(17:02):
here was to just stay out of range of the group.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, so you've been to a lot of conflict zones,
and you know most of them would probably be categorized
as fragile states. What breaks first when formal governance fails,
when traditional governance structures somehow give way to terrorists, insurgents,
(17:28):
you know, these asymmetric threats. What what have you seen goes?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
First?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Are there signs.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Well the economy in services to people. Now, in most
of these fragile states, governance is already terrible. It's already poor.
So social services are often absent or patchy, or they
are only provided to favored groups. So when there's a
breakdown even to provision of services to favored groups, be
it an ethnic or religious or racial group, then you're
(17:59):
start to see indicators that things are getting worse. But
the economy, I'll give you an example. I interviewed a
former cabinet minister from Tunisia under the government of Benali.
So this was a field visit. I interviewed the family
in the Tunisian city that had two of their four
sons joined militant groups in Libya and in Iraq. And
(18:24):
I was talking to this minister and the minister readily acknowledged.
He said, look, our concentration of wealth under the Benali
regime distorted the legitimate economy, and that pushed young men
into the arms of transnational crime and militant actors full
up recognition that by hoarding the nation's wealth, by distorting
(18:48):
the private sector, by giving handouts to only favored groups,
that created a massive population of marginalized men and women,
boys and girls actually, and to provide any ability to
get married, to have dignity, respect a future, a motorcycle,
(19:09):
money for healthcare, these people had to go into cross
border activity that was criminal or militant in nature. And
you know, would this minister have acknowledged that while he
was in power, of course, not because he was enjoying
the fruits of corruption. But once he was out and
(19:30):
free to speak about this, he was completely candid with
me and said, we know that the only options we
opened up for the marginalized and displaced in our country
was criminal activity.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
So I'm curious about you mentioned the Sahal and having
spent some time there are there signals coming out of
that region in particular that we need to be thinking about.
There's such distress there and so much problematic activity, military activity,
(20:07):
the illicit economy which is flourishing in that space and
has been for a long time. What are some things
that we need to be thinking about in terms of
risk coming out of the Sahel.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
There are several risks in the Sahel, red flags, whatever
it is you want to call them, and they include
the following coups, military coups that have taken over poorly performing,
democratically elected but corrupt governments in Mali, Niger, in Burkina Faso.
So now you have military leadership in these countries and
they threw out these governments, they executed cups because they
(20:41):
felt that those governments were not countering the terror threat
effectively and the military was suffering from that. Well, some
of these military leaderships have now formed militias from favored
communities who are going after some of the terrorists but
also killing particular ethnic groups, which is driving the young
men from those groups into the arms of those terror groups,
(21:04):
creating this incredible cycle of violence. So this recent spate
of coups in the last three years has really been
a destabilizing factors factor. A huge compliment to that, a
negative compliment to that has been the entry of Russia's
Wagner Group, which in Mali was just officially disbanded, but
(21:25):
seventy five percent of the fighters from Wagner joined the
Russian Ministry of Defense's Africa Corps, which is doing the
same work largely, but you know, some more on the
logistics side. So the fact that you have outside actors
like the Russians in there, but others as well. And
I heard, you know, really absurd stories about the Chinese
coming to members of parliament in Burkina Faso and offering
(21:49):
to give them first class tickets and five star hotels
accommodations when they traveled outside of Africa to conferences in
other countries. That had nothing to do with China, was
just building networks among the parliamentarians. Another red flag is
disinformation of social media. But another problem is that the
(22:12):
US has cut security assistance across the Sahel and has
cut our diplomatic presence and of course has cut us
a I D. And that provided us with incredible soft
power capabilities and access and ears and eyes on the ground,
and we are losing that all along the coast of
(22:33):
West Africa near the Gulf of Guinea. And that that
is also problems, not just the outside actors. It's shooting
ourselves in the in the feet by doing this. And
you know, there's a lot of other things that we
can talk about, but if you're a company and you're
looking at commercial activity in West Africa, you have an
exceptional level of risk because of the thread actors that
(22:55):
are there, the ones that come from the outside, but
also because of our action in aid and other capabilities
that we traditionally provided to our partners are week but
hard working partners in West Africa.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah. Yeah, it's almost like an open door across the board,
you know, particularly to exploit you know, mining resources, you know,
as you said, building diplomatic support. Have you seen any
evidence of Chinese and Russian cooperation, for example in the
sahell Are they working together, are they working independently?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
They're doing both. So they are working independently of course,
with their own specific goals, and they have very different tactics.
The Russians are bare knuckle, bear fisted fighters who go
out on patrol with military forces or on their own.
In fact, they lost scores of Wagner mercenaries and battles
with rebels in the north of Mali last year. That
(23:58):
is something that Chinese will app absolutely never do, at
least right now. They just do not have the sort
of expeditionary military appetite that the Russians do, and the
Russians do it because they have so much experience, and
this is just the nature of how they conduct their business.
But what I did see, which was interesting when I
visited Gao, Mali many years ago in other parts of Africa,
(24:22):
is that I think through the provision of Chinese soldiers
to the UN peacekeeping Forces blue helmets, I think the
Chinese are doing that in part to gain some degree
of expeditionary experience for their military. It is not like
what the Russians are doing, but nonetheless it's putting Chinese
troops on the ground and having them understand how to
(24:44):
operate in an austere environment, even if it's not a
holy hostile environment where they're taking rounds from insurgents or
terror groups, but they are acting that way. But here's
how they're working together. And this is what I got
from one of my fixers just this week when I
when I did the update on Sahelian activity, and he
told me that in the particular country that I've speaking
(25:06):
to and I won't identify it to keep him safe,
but the Russians and the Chinese are working together to
block Western media from coming in, blocking signals, blocking internet
access through all of their extraordinary cyber capabilities, and they're
doing this together to block Deutsche Vella, BBC, France, twenty four,
Voice of America, all outside media sources to make sure
(25:31):
that they dominate the information landscape. And in this region,
two way radio regular broadcast radio are still dominant forms
in television or dominant forms. And the Russians play a
huge role here, but so do the Chinese, and so
they have really influenced the information influenced landscape in Africa.
(25:54):
And they do that because they have a common adversary,
and that's the US and France in particular in this rega.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I want to dig into the point about Wagner Group
just to understand a little bit more detail about how
Wagner forces are now working under local control. Is that
in name only or is that an arrangement where Wagner
is still getting paid. But you know, their their forces
(26:23):
are wearing they're they're just wearing a different uniform. How
exactly is that working well?
Speaker 2 (26:29):
They are wearing their own, you know, camouflage outfits when
they go out in these operations, but they also wear
civilian clothes. In some of these countries they are also targeted,
so they actually maintain try to maintain in some places
a very low profile. In other places they're very obvious.
They're actually sitting with standing with guarding the military leaders
(26:50):
who've taken control of these countries. So it depends on
on the context in the environment in which they are operating.
And for compensation, they get direct payments from these countries,
and they also get a share of mining revenues and
other rev share, revenue share on a on a number
of commercial activities. So you know they are on the ground,
(27:12):
they are important players, and they are a hard hard
nut to crack. I don't think they'll be there necessarily forever.
The Chinese are definitely longer term partners for West Africa
than the Russians are. But right now, the Russians have
this positive aura in the minds of many in the
(27:34):
global South, and that includes the Sahel, where they're countering
the classic you know, colonial actors of yesteryear, who they
still you see as colonial actors today. And that's in
part that that that explains in part why Ukraine is
not resonated as a victim and meant and much of
(27:54):
the global South because the Russians have really dominated the
information space here.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
So I want to pick up on Ukraine in just
a minute. But I know you'll also spend some time
in Somalia, so I'd be really interested for your kind
of your top line takeaways from what's going on on
the other side of Africa.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Sure, Somalia is an incredible place, incredibly dangerous, incredibly beautiful,
incredibly talented people. There the longest coastline in all of Africa,
Somalia has and it is such an incredibly strategic position
where it is at the Horn of Africa. So I
went there last year. I spent five days at the
(28:34):
airport compound. It is incredibly insecure. My fixer again, the
value of the fixer is indisputable. And my fixer said, look,
we can go into the city, but everyone knows you're
already here. You know, there's not that many visitors there.
People know who's coming into the airport. People report very quickly.
(28:54):
There are so many people on the payroll of al Shabab,
including people in lawnforcement in the military at the airports,
so they know who's coming and going into the country,
into Mogadishue. So I went there to look at you know,
what is the degree in nature of the al Chabab
(29:15):
threat on all different levels, and who are the problematic
outside actors who are doing business in the Horn of
Africa and East Africa generally, who are doing good and
bad things. And so, you know, while I was there,
I learned, of course that number one, that the government
is just not able to deliver you know, economic development
(29:38):
and security for the country. And Al Shabab controls those areas.
It has long had a really impressive taxation scheme, dominating
the sugar trade, dominating the charcoal trade to the Persian Gulf,
dominating all sorts of businesses where they are in controlling
the telecom towers that are in their territory that that
(30:00):
are needed for telecom services throughout the country. So they
have a lock on those areas. And the areas that
are under government control just do not feel secure, according
to the twenty five plus people that I met while
I was there, And so you know, I heard from
a lot of people, including former Alshabab fighters, and you know,
(30:21):
the country is in tremendous trouble. There is just you know,
this is another instance of an underperforming government. And meanwhile
the state is breaking apart, and you have the semi
autonomous areas in the North Poutland and Somaliland where outside
actors are as the British would say, you know, trousering money,
(30:42):
putting money in people's pockets in order to get port access,
to get intelligence from them, in order to be able
to have a military and security presence, both for their
own national security but also for their commercial activity, which
of course is a component of national security. But it
is a very insecure area and it is a shame
because the talented people there are really remarkable, and you know,
(31:07):
I don't see it changing, and I do, in fact
see it getting worse.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, So I want to ask you one question about fixers.
How do you find them? How do you figure out
who to trust? What are the dynamics around that.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Give you an example from the Turkey Syria border where
I had to worry where the risk was highest for
me of kidnapping for kidnap ransom scenario. When I went
to Turkey and over several visits over in the last
dozen years, I found a fixer through a US run
(31:47):
NGO near the border, where the head of that NGO
was using fixers to do everything including bring him into
Syria to observe humanitarian aid shipments. So I went to
that person, I knew that at least he had not
been sold in handed over in a deal for kidnap
(32:10):
ransom situation. So I felt that that already gave me
a sense of security that his fixers would be reliable.
So I went to him and said, look, I need
a fixer, and I need to lily Pad with that fixer.
So I'm not spending the night in any place. I'm
just going from one city to five different locations to
(32:31):
meet ISIS fighters, Kurdish fighters, al Qaeda fighters, news for
front activists, off duty police officials, people working at hospitals,
very importantly, because we knew that ISIS fighters were being
treated in hospitals a range of people, and I knew
(32:51):
that the fixers had those contacts because that's what made
them effective for this particular NGO. And so I would
I would be given, you know, that fixers, and then
I would hire them to arrange the meetings. And these
are people that they knew throughout their environments. They were
often from Syria themselves, and they were working inside of Turkey,
and so I would go to them and hire them,
(33:13):
and then I would go again like Lily Padding and
just making sure that I was only in one place
for two to six hours, and then sitting down with
these people, and you would just be amazed at how
willing people are to sit down, even if they are
being sought by US authorities. And of course they were
concerned that I was going to that I was part
(33:33):
of some COVID operation to grab them, and I was
concerned they were going to grab me. So there was
mutual fear here. But that's where the fixer is critical
in soothing their concerns and my concerns about security. And
so that's how I would operate. And I also would
check on the fixer in other ways because I had
(33:54):
their license plate, I had their phone number. I would
often ask for their ID cards. My own other networks
were able to check on them to make sure that
they were not on some kind of watchless and none
of them were, and thankfully everything worked out. But I
also had to hire a security company that provided me
(34:15):
with an app on my phone that would track me
where I would go and that would provide, you know,
rescue operations for me. But I also went in to
see the FBI's hostage Rescue team for a one on
one seminar with their team and where they taught me
how to conduct myself in captivity if I were in
fact taken, And that is an extremely sobering discussion to have,
(34:40):
but that that fixer is my you know, buffer between
getting into that situation, and of course there's no guarantee
that the fixer has not decided that this is the
moment where they take the Westerner into or any any
person into Syrian and into his hands and sell them.
(35:02):
So that was always a concern. And I'll note one
of the best sources I ever had was a trafficker
on the border of Turkeys area at the Kilis and
Baba Salam border crossing, where I had line of sight
vision of an Isis of Vice's territory. And we interviewed
(35:22):
that person okay, and he was providing travel documents for
people coming into that country, good people and bad people.
I interviewed them twice. It resulted in an op ed
that wan Zarati and I published in the New York
Times called How the Terrorists Got Rich, And it opens
with that vignette of me going into this cafe and
(35:43):
using my fixer to say to the guy, these people
are here. They're not a threat to you, but they
are eager to understand what's off the menu at the
cafe and what's available off the menu, and he told us,
and we saw people taking pictures for their their new ideas.
We heard about the price list for passports and I
(36:06):
brought this to Frank Taylor at DHS to tell him.
You know, he here are the passports that we heard
about that are fraudulent that they're using to move people
in and out of the border. So that's an example
of getting that ground intelligence and handing it to people
who are actually concerned with that risk.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
So I want to I want to I want to
move into Ukraine, where I know you've you've also been
quite recently, and you know, we may be heading into
some type of post conflict environment. Maybe who knows, in
the next I don't know, six months, twelve months, We'll
(36:47):
see how things go forward. There's the critical minerals deal
an active conversation on where this where this is all headed.
But I'd love to get your take on what's how
on the ground there and going back to some of
the concerns around the listed finance risks. You know, whenever
(37:08):
we move into an environment that is one of reconstruction,
we're getting close to that. There's a whole lot of
money floating around, a lot of goods, a lot of
hardware and tech and people. And I'm curious how you're
thinking about all of that, and and just some general
(37:30):
observations on what you were seeing on the ground.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Let me first tell you what I've been doing in
Ukraine and note some of the positive things that I've
been seeing there. So I've been seven times since about
two years ago, and I'm teaching how to graduate school there.
I'm meeting with members of the rod of the Parliament.
I'm meeting with lawyers and consultants, with fighters, both Ukrainian fighters,
(37:54):
but also members of the international Legion, including Americans who
are fighting there against the Russians. And so I'm seeing
this indomitable spirit among those that are defending Ukraine. You
and I both know people who've worked full time and
gotten their master's degree at night. I think you did
that for your program at Georgetown. Imagine doing that while
(38:17):
your apartment building is getting struck by a shah Head
drone or a Russian cruise missile. This is what my
students are going through. It's really quite remarkable. Yet they
motor on and they continue to do it. Let's also
remember that Ukraine was the back office for a lot
of US financial institutions. The unbelievable talent at a really
(38:37):
good price made Ukraine a very popular place to do
business for financial firms and lots of other firms tech
tech firms in the US and Europe, and so there
is a lot of opportunity with the reconstruction of Ukraine.
We don't know what is going to happen with the
twenty percent that's under Russian occupation, but certainly hundreds of
(39:00):
billions of dollars will flow into Ukraine for reconstruction, for
investment in the defense industrial base, for new roads, for
expanded and enhanced agribusiness. Don't forget, Ukraine is a world
leader in agriculture and agribusiness. So lots of positive flows
of money are going to come into Ukraine and into
(39:20):
areas adjacent to it, such as Poland, Romania and others.
So that's a great opportunity on the horizon, and I
think we're getting close to that, but we're considering the
nature of this podcast. In illicit finance and coers of capital,
there are many ingredients to a toxic stew of criminality
(39:41):
that are brewing in the broader region, in particular in Russia.
But what we're going to see with Ukraine is again
hundreds of billions of dollars of reconstruction funds, people with
immense talents that have created things on the fly that
have really helped the Ukraine. But also they're doing the
same in Russia talking about drone production, et cetera. But
(40:04):
incredible skill building under austere in difficult conditions. You're going
to have the movement of people coming in and out
of the region as people IDPs as well as refugees
come back. And it's not just Ukrainian IDPs moving to
different parts of the country or Ukrainian refugees. It's hundreds
of thousands of Russians who fled the country who may
(40:27):
be coming back into Russia or going on to a
third country. And there are people with two sets of credentials.
You know, they have their Ukrainian or Russian passport, but
they also have residency in other places. Then you have
war fighters, and you're going to have war fighters that
we've seen in lots of other countries that are being demobilized,
(40:48):
demobilized and with great skill and who can present opportunity
but also threats in what they do going forward. And
I'm much more concerned here about the Russian fighters that
are inside of Ukraine, who you know, many of them
with criminal backgrounds, many of them who clearly are not
(41:09):
abiding by the laws of warfare. They will go on
to be the new Wagner Forces or New Africa Forces,
Africa Core Forces in Africa or in other parts of
the world. So Russia is going to have this huge
influx of demobilized fighters and in fact, that's one of
the reasons why Putin is dragging his feet. Is the
(41:31):
end of the war means what do you do with
all these guys who are fighting, who are now coming
back to Russia. Well, that is one of the problems.
So you have the ingredients for organized criminal activity. And
let's not forget theredit. The heritage of my program at
CSIS is the Global Organized Crime Project that looked at
so many different angles of Russian organized crime. Those networks,
(41:54):
which never died during the war, in fact some were stimulated,
will certainly take advantage of any new environment. But there's
another thing that I want to talk about that goes
beyond these issues. And let me just commend to your
audience a report by the I think it's the Global
Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. They have this great report
(42:16):
about the transnational criminal activity that's likely to emerge out
of the Russian war on Ukraine. So please, folks do
look at that. But something that I've been thinking through
my own work on risk and what I'm seeing with
Russia and Ukraine, we have been able to isolate Russia
(42:36):
during this three and a half year war to a
decent degree. Okay, sanctions, travel bands, et cetera. Russia has
always been a partly criminal state. They have illicit economy
in an illicit economy. During these past three and a
half years, you and I and your audience all know
that Russia has had to expand the revenues coming through
(42:58):
it's illicit networks ghost fleets for its oil, which in
turn drag anchors and cut cables of our allies in
the Baltic States in Scandinavia, but also their criminal activities
and networks that have been able to bring in semiconductors
by all sorts of illegal trades, by masking invoices and
(43:23):
bills of lady to hide different products that they're getting
through third countries in order to be able to rebuild
their missiles in their aircraft that the Ukrainians have been
able to destroy. So the Russians have kept themselves afloat
in the war and kept their domestic economy and float
afloat in part by running these illicit networks. And if
(43:46):
you're sitting in Moscow and you're thinking about the next stage,
there's a ceasefire, there's a peace agreement, whatever, that looks like,
why would you abandon this structure, this network of criminality
and illicit activity that helped you the Western sanctions and
isolation of your country. No way, you're going to keep
(44:07):
that in play, not only because it's generated revenue and
we'll continue to generate revenue. But Russia's probably thinking about
their next move. Do they take more of Georgia? Do
they go back into Ukraine if they're out, or go
and try to take more of Ukraine? Do they do
something else in another former Soviet state? They want to
keep those arrows in their quiver that kept them safe,
(44:31):
kept them with access to the components they needed to
wage war, and to keep domestic communities happy. So I
do not see that going away at all. I think
that will be a new dimension of the Russian organized
crime illicit state threat, and I think we need to
pay attention to that in fortify our partnership with the
(44:53):
Ukrainians that will be the frontline against that illicit activity.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Are you worried about the deep and legacy networks in
Ukraine that we're also connected into these Russian networks? Do
you think there's the potential that they'll re emerge?
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Of course, and anyone who tries to paint those networks
as benign is simply not being truthful. Every country has
its criminal networks. Ukraine certainly has had them, and some
of those didn't go away. And when the war's over,
you know, you will certainly see Russian and Ukrainian organized
crime figures cooperate again. So I don't think we're going
(45:34):
to see a crime free Ukraine. Of course, we will
not see that. So I do worry about that. But
the Western presence in Ukraine, the activities that they've undertaken
to reduce corruption in Ukraine, all, you know, show us
that there is growth there, that there's opportunity there to
reduce the role of criminal activity in Ukraine and to
(45:57):
abandon them to the Russians or to a B and
in them to a future without strong support from their
Western partners in Europe and in the United States and
North America means that those criminal networks will flourish. We
should be on the ground providing engagement and providing presence
(46:18):
that reduces the re emergence of those criminal networks in
Ukraine and allows us instead to focus on the criminal
state of Russia.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Yeah, fascinating, And you know, there's so much to dig
into there. Maybe I'll just do a quick shout out
for Ukrainian civil society in general, which I think has
been an incredibly important, you know force in terms of
you know, building up response and resilience right within the
(46:51):
Ukrainian population. And you know, going back to your comment about, Okay,
what do we do now around the soft power question
with US A I D leaving a bit of a vacuum.
I think I think there's still such an argument for
how we think about foreign aid to build up that
(47:11):
resistance to the illicit economy, and I think that that's
something we really need to consider going forward. And you know,
I wouldn't be surprised if we also see this deepening
of ties between Russian illicit financial networks and criminal organizations
(47:32):
and Chinese networks. No doubt those connections are already there.
But as we think about the access of aggressors and
how the connectivity across economies and political actors and and
and black markets, you know, continue to grow, I think
we're You're right, we're facing another order of magnitude of challenge.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Absolutely and again, these this access of progressors, these states
have been able to fortify one another. They don't always
act in unison, and they have their own interests. In
China's much more tied to the global economy than Russia,
North Korea, in Iran, so they have much more to lose.
But nonetheless they have something to gain by attenuating the
(48:20):
reach of the United States and our NATO allies. So
I'm certain that they're cooperating on criminal activities and that
will expand in the future. But I do want to
go back to your point about the resilience of society
in Ukraine. I've traveled all across the country, to Harkiv
in the east, to Odessa in the south, to Leviv
(48:40):
in the west, and all around Kiev in the center.
This population is incredibly strong, resilient, proud capable and eager
for partnership with the United States and with Europe. I
just came from a meeting with the Polish embassy and
talking about their perspective on Ukraine. We have incredible partners
(49:02):
in Poland, in Finland, in the Baltic States, in Romania
to help us fortify Ukraine so that they are not
a victim of Russian aggression again. And on top of
that are a huge contributor to the global economy and
too the global talent base. And I'll just point out
one example of an individual, a Supreme Court justice that
(49:25):
I know and I've published about him. The Wall Street
Journal has published about him. He's a Supreme Court justice who,
among many other justices in the country, they operate World
War two era Maxim machine guns on the rooftops of
Ukrainian buildings that try to shoot down Irani and Shahad
drones that fly into the city. They are Supreme Court
(49:49):
justices by day, and then they have formed a local
militia essentially that goes onto these rooftops and they get
information from the National Defense is that a drone is
coming in from a particular angle, and they get on
these machine guns and I have put my hands on
these guns seeing what they do. Look at the cots
(50:10):
that they sleep on at the top of these buildings
overnight during these four hundred and five hundred missile and
drone attacks by the Russians, and I mean four hundred
to five hundred a night coming in from the Russian side.
And this is a Supreme Court justice who's operating a
machine gun trying to shoot down a shah Head drone.
(50:32):
It is really remarkable how we have citizen soldiers in
that country that just go from day job to night job.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
Tom, thanks for those stories and for shining a light
on what it means to be resilient. I think there's
a lot we can learn from the Ukrainians and should learn,
and we should be bringing those stories to more people
in this country. I'd like to now turn to Taiwan,
where I know you've also been spending some of your
(51:03):
bright and power and trying to think through some of
the risks and what China may or may not do
in the near future. So curious about your thoughts on
the Taiwan challenge. And then maybe as a final question,
are there regions of the world that really haven't been
on the radar for US policy makers that you think
(51:24):
we need to bring to the four.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Let me take China Taiwan first and put out a
few important facts. Chijin Paining told the People's Liberation Army
that you need to be capable of a full scale
assault of Taiwan by twenty twenty seven, the date at
which the CIA and the Pentagon have also estimated the
PLA would have the capability to do this. Whether or
(51:47):
not they would execute that is a different thing. And
there's the debate whether China will seize or squeeze Taiwan.
And of course we know that ninety one percent of
the world's Tier one semiconductors are made in Taiwan. We
have exceptional talent there, exceptional exposure and risk in Taiwan.
The world is highly dependent on Taiwan for what it
(52:07):
does for the global economy and the supply chain. There's
a direct tie in here with Russia Ukraine. There is
no doubt that China and Taiwan both have been looking
at Russia Ukraine, looking at the parallels to the potential
for a battle there and preparing themselves or not preparing themselves.
Certainly the Chinese have looked at Russia's debacle in Ukraine
(52:31):
and have learned some lessons from it. Move fast, don't
let the international community gather steam. Do everything as quickly
as you can. Make sure you have enough artillery shells
or enough of whatever you need drones to be able
to execute this kind of attack and not fail in
the many ways that the Russians have failed in Ukraine.
(52:52):
They obviously have twenty percent of the country, but they
thought they would take the country in three to five days.
So one thing I'm looking at is how are the
Taiwanese looking at this. Are they preparing their militarying their
people to act the way that these Supreme Court justices
in Ukraine have done, you know, who have become part
of the defense of the country. When I went there
(53:15):
just two years ago in service of a client, I
asked people there, you know, are citizens prepared to do
what the Ukrainians are doing? And definitely not. They are
not prepared. They expect the military to do it. They
hope the United States will come in to defend them,
but they are not certain about that. There's certainly an
implicit commitment, but not an explicit one by design. So
(53:40):
there I came out of that visit with a lot
of concern over Taiwan's ability to defend itself in the
face of that kind of threat. But they have since
increased their readiness, but there's a long way to go,
and we need to deliver the weapons that they have
bought from the United States. I am concerned about that,
(54:01):
and we've seen with the Nancy Pelosi visit to Taiwan,
the visits between Taiwan leadership and Kevin McCarthy and other
statements by Americans. The Chinese respond by surrounding the island,
conducting missile exercises in interrupting the supply chain, and we
see the ripple effects and they are massive. Now some
Taiwanese think that they have this emerald, I'm sorry, this
(54:24):
silicon shield, that the world will protect them because they
do produce these ninety tier one semiconductors, and that the
Chinese wouldn't want to destroy those. Nothing is guaranteed in
the Chinese have said by the one hundredth anniversary of
the founding of the People's Republic of China the establishment
(54:46):
in nineteen forty nine. In twenty forty nine, Taiwan must
be reintegrated into the country for the full rejuvenation of
the nation. They are going to attempt it, whether again
it's caese or squeeze, they are going to try. So
that's that's a great concern to me.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
So maybe onto our final question, Tom, is there a
region that you think policymakers need to be spending more
time thinking about where maybe the risks are underrepresented, are
not well understood, or maybe even not politically palatable right now,
but where you see some clear warning signs.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
There's a long list to choose from. I do think
that policy makers, the intelligence community and others aren't aware
of the wide array of risk. It's whether we're actually
putting resources against them. So I wouldn't say there's any
great surprise out there that could hit us, though there's
always the potential for a technological surprise. But in terms
(55:43):
of a region, we know, we understand that, you know,
so many areas are susceptible to these pressures. We definitely
have to look at what climate change is doing to
prompt emergencies and conflict and risks. And you don't have
to agree or on what causes climate change. You just
have to recognize that it is underway, that it is
(56:05):
forcing people to move. It is generating hardships, and we
have to look at areas that are going to be
especially hard hit by climate change that will push people
into different areas, cause conflicts, etc. Let me bring us
back to the Sahal region, as Isis and al kada
Jnim and ISSP move southward into Togo, Benin in Koti Voir,
(56:30):
they're getting closer to the coastline. This would give them
greater access to other parts of the continent, and just
their ability to demonstrate that they are at the vanguard
of these worldwide movements would give them a sense of
empowerment and maybe move on to impact areas that are
of great interest to the United States, whether that's critical
(56:52):
minerals concentrations in Africa or hitting embassies or going again
to the Red Sea, whether Huthis are are making a
big impact. So the Sahel is out of control. I mean,
it is remarkable how unstable that area is becoming an
increasing just this week, and then I returned to two
(57:14):
areas that again are not surprises, but places that we
know the Middle East, but Eastern Europe with the Russians
and how the Russians react to whatever agreement is struck
here and what they will go on to do next.
I think that will always remain an area of exceptional
risk and opportunity, and that's going to drive people to
(57:35):
take chances to do business there. But Russia should be
at the top of our list. But the Sahel is
also an absolutely critical region to focus on. But it
is a tier three interest of the administration right now.
It has never been a tier one interest of any
administration I would I would suggest, And there's an incredible
(57:56):
amount of business. This is where incredible high growth in
telecom adoption is taking place, where all sorts of extractive
industries are increasing. There's a lot of business to do
across Africa and we should be making a much greater
commitment there to reduce the sources of instability. Tom.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
Thank you so much for joining us. It's been a
fantastic conversation. We'd love to have you back. You can
keep us updated on your travels, but stay safe out
there and hope to see you again soon.
Speaker 2 (58:31):
Thank you, Elane, much appreciated.
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