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Preface Ten years ago, while researching this book in Colombia, I met Joaquin Buitrago, a young officer with the Colombian National Police. While it had been years since the U.S. government transformed Colombia into a central front in the war on drugs, cocaine production was increasingly dramatically. Contrary to popular misperception, the failure of Colombian and American authorities to substantially reduce, let alone eliminate , the cocaine trade was not due to a lack of effort. In the two years preceding our meeting, Buitrago’s agency, with substantial support from Washington, spearheaded an intensive law enforcement crackdown , targeting the leaders of Colombia’s drug ‘‘cartels.’’ In spite of capturing many cocaine ‘‘kingpins’’ and disrupting their smuggling networks, the illicit drug trade in Colombia continued to flourish, and I was hoping the good captain could help me understand why. Following a hackneyed Power Point presentation, designed for American policymakers making their obligatory tour stop on the front lines of Colombia’s war on drugs, we turned to the questions that brought me to Buitrago. As we talked, rehearsed formality giving way to candid expression, it became increasingly clear how troubled Buitrago was by the precarious situation in which he and his countrymen found themselves. When I asked him why he risked his life for such dangerous and seemingly futile work, he paraphrased a sentiment expressed by Colombia’s most notorious drug traffickers, the so-called ‘‘Extraditables,’’ who famously declared their preference for a tomb in Colombia to a jail cell in the United States. ‘‘I would rather my son see me dead in a tomb,’’ he said, his voice rising, ‘‘than say that I was corrupt, or that I turned my country over to the traffickers!’’1 It was a dramatic moment, a spontaneous admission by a foot soldier in the war on drugs that, while things were not going particularly well, he was determined to continue the fight. I encountered Captain Buitrago’s dedication, if not always his eloquence, repeatedly among the dozens of U.S. and Colombian law enforcers I interviewed in subsequent years. Three years after meeting Buitrago, I sat down with ‘‘Homero,’’ a former drug courier from Colombia who had worked his way up his viii j Preface illicit network’s ‘‘queer ladder’’ to become a wholesale cocaine distributor in the United States, prior to his arrest and incarceration for drugrelated offenses. ‘‘It’s a war on drugs,’’ he conceded in our prison interview in central Florida. ‘‘I’m not saying that we’re prisoners due to an injustice. No. We were, the majority of us, involved in drug trafficking. . . . But I tell you sincerely that this business will not end, because when you close one door, the drug traffickers open three or four more.’’2 If Captain Buitrago gives passionate expression to his and, by symbolic extension, his government’s determination to continue the struggle , Homero provides an important clue as to why Colombia and the United States are not likely to win the war on drugs through supplycontrol strategies that privilege law enforcement, drug interdiction, and crop eradication. Acknowledging the insight in Homero’s comment, this book sets out to explain it. I argue that the persistence of Colombia ’s drug trade comes in part from the ability of people like Homero, and the criminal enterprises they work for, to create multiple entryways for every path blocked by their government adversaries. What facilitates this metaphorical revolving door are the organizational learning capacities of drug traffickers and law enforcers, who change their activities in response to information and experience, store their knowledge in practices and institutional memories, and select routines that produce satisfactory results. Five years after my encounter with Homero, I traveled to Israel with a group of American scholars to learn more about the counterterrorism challenges facing Israeli authorities. It was an intense and sobering experience. One day we visited Gilboa Security Prison, a maximumsecurity facility for political prisoners near Armageddon. Gilboa con- fines 852 of Palestine’s toughest militants, including fighters from Hamas, the Palestine Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. ‘‘There are no stone throwers here,’’ we were told. Following another Power Point presentation, this one apparently designed for American journalists, policymakers, and academics making their obligatory tour stop on the frontlines of Israel’s war on terror, the prison commander entertained our questions. As he listened to my question about information sharing and learning among detainees, the colonel gave a knowing smile. He...

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