Trafficking permeates economyBy Russ Juskalian, Special for USA TODAY"Governments are changed more often by bullets than votes," declares an arms dealer in the recently released film Lord of War. Hollywood is a land of exaggerations, but such hyperbole is often wrapped in truth.

Moisés Naím, author of the new book Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy, would like to add that it's not solely bullets that are shaping the world.

To that charge we should include all illegally trafficked goods: drugs, weapons of every sort and size, laundered money, intellectual property, natural resources and even people and their organs.

Naím is not alone in his assertion that trafficking is pervasive enough to threaten world stability and play a major role in the bulk of our domestic and international struggles. Backing him is an elite list of dignitaries, from the former president of Colombia to a former director of the CIA to a United States senator and officials trying to bring the rise in illicit trafficking under control.

To readers unaware of how prevalent trafficking and its effects are, Naím is quick to explain. In 1998, the head of the International Monetary Fund "estimated the global flow of dirty money at 2 to 5% of the global economy."

According to the Small Arms Survey, 100,000 Manpads -"missile-launching weapons that can be fired by one or two persons and can shoot down a low-flying airplane" — are unaccounted for. And it doesn't stop with rocket-launchers: Small arms, helicopters, nuclear material, nuclear-enriching devices and millions of rounds of ammunition are smuggled to the world's hot spots each year.

What has changed in the last 15 years, says Naím, is the raw volume of trafficking that takes place, fueled by adaptations in how illicit traders organize and distribute their wares.

Why simply smuggle immigrants over a border, when demoralized and powerless people can be coerced into swallowing condoms filled with heroin or cocaine? Why stop at making money with the delivery of human property, if you can sell your cargo into sexual slavery or an indentured servitude?

Instead, they are more like the large logistics and shipping companies: "Illicit traders move in and out of product lines as economic incentives dictate and practical considerations permit."

For Naím, the first step has as much to do with ideas as with action. "Illicit trafficking is an economic phenomenon, not a moral one. And the tools of economics do better at making sense of it than do the insights offered by the study of ethics and morals."

His approach, therefore, is to take action that makes trafficking more difficult and less profitable. Naím isn't an optimist when it comes to most enforcement-based approaches to quelling illicit trade: "In the long run, market forces tend to prevail over those of governments."

Some of his suggestions might seem radical, such as legalizing or decriminalizing certain drugs, regulating the sex industry and spending fewer resources on policing counterfeits.

It is, admittedly, a pragmatic approach: "Decisions to decriminalize are difficult, controversial, imperfect, and not without risk. But so is continuing with the pretense that the current approach is taking us to a superior social situation. It is not."

Of note is a sequence near the end, where Naím discuses different approaches of political realism, liberalism, and idealism (or constructivism).

Explaining the world of illicit trafficking through each of these systems sheds light on how we ended up where we are. Even those new to these terms will find this section intellectually invigorating and accessible.

Illicit is an easy book to read and, for the most part, keeps a reader new to the subject of trafficking interested. But the novelty of the content starts to run dry with a lack of primary reporting and pavement pounding.

Much to Naím's credit, however, is his candid discussion of the future and his strict consistency when it comes to whether we can turn the tide on trafficking.

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