ABOUT THE BOOK

Most policymakers see counterinsurgency and counternarcotics policy as two sides of the same coin. Stop the flow of drug money, the logic goes, and the insurgency will wither away. But the conventional wisdom is dangerously wrongheaded, as Vanda Felbab-Brown argues in Shooting Up.

Counternarcotics campaigns, particularly those focused on eradication, typically fail to bankrupt belligerent groups that rely on the drug trade for financing. Worse, they actually strengthen insurgents by increasing their legitimacy and popular support.

ABOUT Author

VANDA FELBAB-BROWN is a fellow in the Foreign Policy Program and a member of the 21^st Century Defence Initiative at the Brookings Institution. She also teaches in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. An expert on international and internal colfict issues, including counterinsurgency, she has published widely on the interaction between illicit economies and military conflict and has testified before congress about her work.