Vanda Felbab-Brown, Tower Center Associate, was a guest on the Diane Rehm Show today. The program focused on the Obama administration’s new strategy to fight illegal drug use.
Dr. Felbab-Brown is a Foreign Policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, adjunct professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Tower Center Associate, and frequent guest speaker in Dallas. Her work focuses on the national security implications of illicit economies and strategies for managing them. Her recent book is Shooting Up: Counterinsurgency and the War on Drugs.
Read Vanda Felbab-Brown’s recent research and commentary:
Vanda Felbab-Brown discusses the transactional relationship between the US and Afghanistan. She argues that structure of this relationship is ultimately unproductive.
The Design and Resourcing of Supply-Side Counternarcotics Policies
In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Vanda Felbab-Brown assesses the Obama administration’s counternarcotics strategy, focusing on the role and design of supply-side programs within the strategy. Felbab-Brown’s statement highlights country-specific challenges and opportunities in Afghanistan, Colombia and Mexico.
In an interview with China Radio International, Vanda Felbab-Brown offers her insights on the current status of Mexico’s powerful drug trafficking organizations and the scope of narcotics traffic in the region.
How to Win Mexico’s War on Drugs
In a Daily Beast OpEd, Vanda Felbab-Brown discusses the new policy of Mexico’s government toward the drug trafficking organizations, Beyond Merida, and the challenges and opportunities of this new approach.
The Political Economy of Illegal Domains in India and China
Vanda Felbab-Brown’s article explores: How illicit economies arise and how are organized? What are the regulatory requirements for their functioning? And what threats do illicit economies pose to countries? The articles examines these dynamics primarily with respect to India and China both contemporarily and historically, but also draws on other countries for comparisons, such as Hong Kong Triads, piracy in South China Sea, insurgencies in India’s Northeast and drug smuggling and illegal trade in wildlife there, poppy cultivation in India, and Chiang Kai-Shek’s, Mao’s, and the Green Gang’s counternarcotics policies and participation in the drug trade.