Lisa Anderson was quoted in Overt Operator: “China is Israel’s number two trading partner, and so there will be a significant impact to that trading relationship during the war. There will be disruptions due to labor shortages as business workers are called up as army reservists, and as disruptions occur due to the war (business interruption, material shortages, import/export disruption etc.). Since Israel has advanced computer chip capabilities, it is important as an alternative to Taiwan,” Lisa Anderson with LMA Consulting Group explained to Overt Operator.
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Executive Summary
Our analysis finds that conflicts have shaped the trajectory of Central Asia’s unique position as the “Silk Road” of world weapon’s trafficking, but that recent major law enforcement events such as the killing of a major Kyrgyzstan thief-in-law mob boss and the crackdown by the Taliban on the Afghanistan opium trade has caused potentially trajectory changing disruptions in the illegal trade.
In recent years, based on data taken from U.S. naval interdictions and other legal busts, observation highlights a growing rise in state sanctioned illicit weapons trade and national terror organization solicitation and supply of major weapons payloads.
Proliferation and Non-proliferation
Arms trafficking has made headlines as reports of North Korea’s supply to both Russia and the Islamic terror organization Hamas elevated public awareness of Asia-Pacific-originating arms trafficking. Overt Operator dives deeper into the network of arms sales and transportation that falls outside of the law, or within gray areas of policy, to clarify illegal arms operations for the casual observer.
Pipelines of arms trafficking are complex, and entangled, and can correspond with changes in legal supply chain logistics, totalitarian regime control of resource flow, and the activity of organized crime networks in various spheres of influence. The distribution and transportation of arms, be they small arms or the loosely defined category of Weapons of Mass Destruction, is called “proliferation” in legal policy. Efforts to curb this illegal, or legal loophole operating arms distribution are referred to as “non-proliferation.”
With Regards to the Asia Pacific
The Asia Pacific has been the general location of geopolitical tensions, escalations, and rapid changes in geopolitical frameworks in a consistently traceable manner since the latter half of the 20th century.
As these changes were tracked after the end of World War II, the signers of non-proliferation treaties began to archive hostile activities from major regional players and assess what the risk these players’ role might be in challenging the Western alliances and American hegemony in weapons’ manufacture and testing.
Originally published on Overt Operator, November 6, 2023