Today's must-read article comes via Winds of Change.NET fan Brian Reilly: Russia's Rising Darkness.

The rise of the Russian kleptoklatura has received less attention than it should what with 9/11 and all, but Russia's vast stocks of poorly-secured WMDs (and serious problems with efforts to fix this) means this has to be on our long-term radar as a Class 2 strategic threat at the very least. Nor are these the only reasons Western countries should be concerned.

Books like David Satter's Darkness At Dawn, Claire Sterling's Thieves' World, and James Mills' Underground Empire do us all a service by detailing the true breadth of this issue. The astonishing reach of international criminal syndicates, their willingness to cooperate, their growing preparedness to act on the world stage, and the use of the criminal syndicate model by terrorist organizations are all trends worth serious attention. There are already several regimes and regions that are, in effect, criminal states; aside from the obvious implications for 4th Generation Warfare, the destabilizing and corrupting effect these developments have on outside polities beyond their borders should not be underestimated.

Imagine Al Capone's Chicago, operating under his rulership as a sovereign city-state within America. What would the likely consequences have been beyond Chicago's borders? More and more, that is exactly what we face today.

As presently envisoned, the EU will be a nearly-perfect playground for such entities. The Americans have enough to do elsewhere, and given Europe's proximity and its problems with organized crime Russia's kleptoklatura is exactly the kind of issue they're well-suited and well-advised to tackle. They won't, of course, which is why this threat will grow. The Islamofascists may be the first group we engage seriously in global 4th Generation Warfare; they will not be the last.