Dr. Thomas Marks | Insurgency is a political campaign to mobilize the disaffected and the dispossessed into an alternative society. Until it can actually liberate areas openly, this takes the form of covert infrastructure.Governments, faced with violence directed at the system, initially go after that which they can see, insurgents with weapons, leaving the infrastructure virtually alone to grow and become ever more deadly.

Dr. Thomas Marks | Colombia has become synonymous in the popular mind with an intractable war waged against narco-terrorists. Not as understood is the strategic setting, wherein the illegal drug trade is not just linked to terrorism but rather is an integral part of a leftwing insurgency that continues to talk the language of the Cold War. This insurgency is the greatest threat to Bogota and to Washington’s interests in the region.