The general availability of conventional and more sophisticated weaponry and the attendant intimidation and corruption allow ITOC to survive the efforts of national law enforcement organizations and encourage expansion. The efficient and tightly controlled ITOC organizations use the structural features best designed to generate unity of effort, aid growth, and promote expansion of influence and power. The relative weakness and disorganization of law enforcement agencies allow terrorists and criminals a relatively unconstrained level of freedom to expand and become more effective. The effective management of an adequate effort to confront ITOC requires internal and external cooperation. Internal cooperation requires the coordination of ways and means in interagency processes.
External cooperation requires the synchronization of ways and means in international processes.
Working together, the nation-states of the Hemisphere and the world must organize and work toward a unity of effort against the transnational ITOC threat. That organization provides a moral position and structural framework from which to generate an effective, unified anti-ITOC effort. Once the OAS leadership has created a strategic political anti-ITOC vision regarding exactly where it is going and how it is going to get there, it can initiate an action plan with a series of treaties and conventions. A comprehensive OAS action plan must also address the ITOC phenomenon with three different functional strategic-level programs. Activities in these areas must constantly demonstrate strict respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.