Crime & Drugs

Hezbollah has long relied on foreign patrons for funding. But with Iran's economy suffering and Syria in turmoil, the group has adopted mafia tactics to fill its coffers. Western countries should shine a spotlight on Hezbollah's crime wave in order to hurt the group's reputation and undermine its support.

A recent election in Trinidad and Tobago was a hopeful sign that the country is willing to take on its powerful drug gangs. But corruption and gang violence are entrenched forces that the new government may not be able to overcome. Is the country on the verge of unraveling?

To defeat piracy in centuries past, governments pursued a more active defense at sea and a political solution on land. The current piracy epidemic off the coast of East Africa requires many of the same tactics.

For a decade, the United States has exported its gang problem, sending Central American-born criminals back to their homelands -- without warning local governments. The result has been an explosive rise of vicious, transnational gangs that now threaten the stability of the region's fragile democracies. As Washington fiddles, the gangs are growing, spreading north into Mexico and back to the United States.