Minerva-funded researcher, Mariya Omelicheva's new article "When Does the Crime-Terror Nexus Fail to Materialize? Drug Trafficking, Militants, and the State in Russia". What are the conditions that obstruct the formation of a crime-terror nexus? To answer this question we carry out a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Russia's North Caucasus (2008–2016) where no durable crime-terror nexus materialized despite the presence of conditions conducive to the emergence of linkages between criminals and militants. We demonstrate how the sheer diversity and fluidity of violent actors, with some deeply immersed in the political, economic, and security institutions of the Russian state, fragmented the elements of a crime-terror nexus to such a degree that collaboration among them proved too difficult and costly. Our argument makes several contributions to analyses of the crime-terror nexus.
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Associated Minerva Project:
Trafficking/terrorism Nexus in Eurasia