The armed conflict playing out in Haiti could spread to other Caribbean islands

On November 11, 2024 two US passenger aircraft, Spirit Airlines and JetBlue, were hit by gunfire in the air as they approached or took off from Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport. In the case of Spirit Airlines, four of the seven bullets hitting the plane passed through the fuselage into the cabin (see picture). One of the bullets grazed the head of a crew member. American Airlines also reported being hit by bullets while in Haitian airspace the day before. The US Federal Aviation Administration banned all US aircraft flights to Port-au-Prince for 30 days as they assess the security situation.

One might dismiss these recent incidents as unique to Haiti which has been facing intense gang violence in the Port-au-Prince area for the last three years. But that would be a mistake. The ability of a gang (or any non-state group) with high-powered rifles to shut down the country’s main airport, as well as effectively control the capital, quickly changes the power dynamics. Indeed, this kind of outsized power in the hands of criminal gangs, I would argue, foreshadows an ominous development in the Caribbean that could also redefine notions of national security and national sovereignty well outside the region.

In Washington D.C. threat analysts study how an adversary, state or non-state, could compensate for its inability to match American military might by employing cheap ordnance to achieve outsized results. Sometimes referred to as unconventional or guerrilla warfare, such tactics can serve to equalize the power disparity, often without direct confrontation. Of course, this is nothing new. Battlefields through history are strewn with the wreckage of large forces losing to smaller, nimbler foes that are able to leverage an advantage or exploit a weakness. What is different today is that smaller and smaller groups need fewer and fewer resources to acquire more and more formidable weapons that can challenge existing governmental authority and power.

The term that I coin for this modern phenomena is the “Democratization of Destruction.” That phrase doesn’t roll easily off the tongue. But it does convey the point succinctly–that the ability to cause great harm is no longer confined to just national governments that have traditionally held a monopoly on devastating firepower. In fact, the concentration of firepower largely defined the nation-state and thus who was in charge. However, that corner on destructive power has been eroding and diffusing for decades in countries with under-resourced national and even international security forces precisely because destructive might is affordable and readily available. In parts of the Caribbean, that downward flow of power to gangs is a variation of the Democratization of Destruction concept that makes possible the emergence of gangocracies or rule by gangs.

We see this playing out most dramatically in Haiti as gangs in Port-au-Prince further entrench themselves with powerful weapons that can match what the Haitian National Police (PNH) has at its disposal. Indeed, even though the PNH has bravely confronted gangs head-on in pitched battles, the gangs remain intact and dominate huge swaths of the capital, some 85% according the UN estimates. Gang alliances have strengthened too as they have in some cases become the de facto governing entities. The addition of some 400 Kenyan troops (also well-armed) earlier this year does not seem to have made any difference.

While the breakdown of national authority in much of Port-au-Prince represents a worse-case scenario, the emergence of gangocracies in other vulnerable Caribbean island nations needs to be anticipated and gamed out. It takes little more than a few ruthless groups with AR-15s or AK-47s who can safely hide out in vulnerable neighborhoods. A charismatic leader helps. If the gangs can also keep the residents around them fearful of cooperating with law enforcement, and thus deny the police intelligence about the criminals, the chances of taking control increases.

A national security force can still prevail, but they will need more than augmented manpower and arms to ferret out the gangs. It’s likely going to take a well-equipped army that treats confrontation with gangs as a combat mission. In addition to projecting big power, government authorities must win over local support, if they are to have any legitimacy. Primarily, that means addressing and resolving the sense of despair among the people living on the fringes of society. They are most vulnerable to gang recruitment, as I have noted in other postings.

Without money and legitimacy, however, none of these initiatives can happen. That’s when the gangs secure their footing and generate their own income streams through extortion, kidnapping, and the trafficking of drugs, people, and more weapons. And that in turn can lead to cooperation with big cartels.

Though my assessment may appear rather dystopian, gangocracies are not inevitable. The alarming threat gangs pose can be confronted, but it will take a massive financial and social policy commitment to root them out. From my perspective, that can only happen with increased aid and assistance from the US, Canada, UK and other European countries working in direct concert with Caribbean island nations as equal partners. It’s in everyone’s interest, and there is no alternative.