Small Wars Journal

Joint Interagency Task Force--South

Thu, 07/14/2011 - 10:02am
Joint Interagency Task Force--South: The Best Known, Least Understood Interagency Success by Evan Munsing and Christopher J. Lamb, Center for Strategic Research, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University. From the annoucement e-mail:

A new study from the Center for Strategic Research finally reveals how the highly regarded but widely misunderstood Joint Interagency Task Force-South (JIATF-South) accomplishes its mission to disrupt illicit trafficking.

JIATF-South is widely applauded within the national security establishment for its amazing productivity. For example, it has accounted for more than 80 percent of all cocaine disruption by local, state and federal government entities in recent years, and it has done so using a wide array of interagency and international partners. With such a record it is not surprising that the organization is often cited as an inter-agency model to be emulated.

What is surprising, however-indeed stunning-is how poorly understood JIATF-South is. Despite all the plaudits, the organization has only received superficial analysis-until now.

Joint Interagency Task Force--South: The Best Known, Least Understood Interagency Success.