Criminality as a Modality of Power in Contemporary Geopolitics

Organised crime is becoming increasingly structurally integrated within contemporary geopolitics. Magda Long argues that treating it as a marginal feature of international security rather than as a modality of power intertwined with global systems risks blindsiding strategic analysis. She examines four cases of structural embeddedness linked to Russia, China, the Western Balkans and Spain’s Costa del Sol, showing how criminal ecosystems perform critical system-level functions, sustaining sanctioned economies, rerouting capital and enabling deniable coercion.