Drug Abuse and Drug Trafficking: Non-Traditional Security Threats in Post-Soviet Central Asia

Abstract

The post-cold war world has become susceptible to multiple non-traditional security threats that are no less formidable than the traditional security threats. Drug trafficking poses one such serious non-traditional security threat and drug abuse provides its fuel. Not only do the drugs destroy the very fabric of human resource in a region where trafficking operates and thereby reduces communities to hollow card-boxes, but such trafficking also generates loads of dirty money which fosters the growth of non-State actors engaged in subversive activities. This article argues that following the fall of the erstwhile Soviet empire, the entire Central Asia region has become a hotbed of such non-traditional security threats which is being nourished by an enormous demand for drug abuse in Russia and the scenario spells trouble for India as well. The article also contemplates a constructive role for Russia in this regard.