Illicit Outsourcing: Domain, Politics and the Limits of Operational Responses in State–Crime Relationships

States are increasingly outsourcing clandestine and covert tasks to organised criminal actors. In this RUSI Journal article, these relationships are mapped and a state-domain matrix for analysing them offered. Drawing on lessons from stabilisation and counterinsurgency, Heather Marquette and Matthew Redhead contend that purely operational responses are insufficient without engagement with the political economy that sustains these relationships, and propose dedicated cross-government cells to integrate the response.

Prof Heather Marquette (University of Birmingham)

Matthew Redhead (RUSI)

June 2026