MHE505 Module 3 SLP Assignment: Tactical/Capability Assessment of Terrorists - Essay Example

Capability Assessment of Terrorists The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was initially created in 1964, as military wing of the Colombian Communist Party; “the FARC grew from a movement of only about 500 people to a small army of 3,000”(Molano 2000, p.24). The FARC has since been recognized as “Colombia’s oldest, largest, most capable, and best-equipped Marxist insurgency” (Global Security 2014). For a long time now, the FARC insurgency has been responsible for numerous bloody civil wars that have led to the deaths of many people; it has also been responsible for numerous political kidnappings and atrocious assaults on security forces.

FARC’s “new and preferred tactic is to lay thousands of landmines to slow pursuing soldiers as well as intimidate police officers who manually eradicate the guerrillas’ coca fields” (Crandall 2011, p.234). To date, the insurgency has “left tens of thousands dead, seeded vast rural and mountainous areas with landmines and left scores of villages and towns economically isolated” (Global Security, 2014). The government’s military and police operations have greatly reduced the insurgency from about 16,000 insurgents in 2001 to only about 8,000 in 2010, especially because “the military has adopted a strategy that has sought the total annihilation of the insurgents” (Ricardo 1998, p.23). The FARC remains to be a formidable insurgency with incredible capability to instill fear and cause havoc to the economic structure of the country, despite the 10-year old military offensive that has forced the rebels to retract deeper into territories that are least hospitable (Leech, 2004).

Both the United States and Europe recognize the FARC as a terrorist group with the capability of threatening global peace and security; the FARC is unquestionably Latin America’s largest rebel group and it is largely funded by money from drug trafficking (Peceny & Durnan, 2006). FARC raises part of its funds from extortion of both legal and illegal businesses such as the drug trade; for instance, the insurgents offer protection to laboratory operations in exchange for cash and weapons. The insurgents also receive their weapons and ammunition from numerous sources such as “regional black market dealers, capture or theft from government troops, and- in at least one case in 1999 - the international gray arms market” (Global Security, 2014).

The implications of the information retrieved above are that FARC is still a formidable insurgency and it still poses a serious threat to not only the peace and security of Colombia, but also to the peace and security of the entire Latin America and the rest of the world. The insurgency is not only well equipped but also capable of paralyzing the country’s economy and must be fought with firmness to avert the threat they pose to peace and security of the Latin America. The FARC have a clear offensive mission, tactic, and capability like most terror groups; the persistence of the group over the years, despite the government forces’ offensive attacks, is indicative of their zealousness.

The government forces need to rethink their intelligence and indiscriminate use of violence on the insurgents to win local support and eliminate the threat posed by the FARC. Given the high stakes involved in the anti-FARC war, there is need for the global society to collaborate with the Colombian government forces to avert FARC’s potential threat to global peace and security.ReferencesCrandall, R. (2011). Requiem for the FARC? Survival (00396338), 53(4), 233-240Global Security. (2014). Military: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Retrieved from: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/farc.htmLeech, G. (2004). The War on Terror in Colombia. Colombia journal. Retrieved from: http://colombiajournal.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2004/05/The_War_on_Terror_in_Colombia_-_Garry_Leech.pdfPeceny, M., & Durnan, M. (2006). The FARCs best friend: U.S. antidrug policies and the deepening of colombias civil war in the 1990s. Latin American Politics and Society, 48(2), 95-IV. Molano, A. (2000). The evolution of the FARC: A guerrilla groups long history.

 NACLA Report on the Americas, 34(2), 23-31. Ricardo, V. M. (1998). The FARC, the war and the crisis of the state. NACLA Report on the Americas, 31(5), 22-27.