The issue- You have thousands of miles of coast to secure and limited man power and resources. What should a country do? This issue has become a problem on our southern coast line. What are the issues that we face? Drug runners have left from their traditional tactics of using high powered speed boats to drop loads of drugs along our border to switch to much more thoughtfully tactic of using disposable submarines. The idea is that these submarines called Narco Submarines are to cross international water and bring large amount of drug in one shipment undetected by radar and near impossible to see from the coast line. This is accomplished due to the boats ability to sit low in the water so that only the top is visible. This enables the ship to carry 100 kilos of drugs per shipment.
These Narco submarines are created to make a single voyage to American soil then proceed to abandon the craft so that crew and Capitan can enter America. After a successful trip the crew would fly back to their port of origin to do the route all over again. The cost of the sub is minor to the cost of a successful deployment that reaches the coast. The drug money will far out weight the cost of an abandon sub. The subs that are discovered are rarely captured due to the actions of the sub crews to flood the ships and then abandon them with authorities with no way to recover the ships. The ships are made of Kevlar to prevent the detection that a steel hull would create. These versions of the submarines can be viewed easily for above by aircraft.
As time passes more ships are found with increased capabilities. Authorities are finding ships with infrared cameras, air compressors for submersion, computers to navigate, and even the addition of toilets and air conditionings. The Colombia government has discovered the first fully submersible submarine that was confiscated. It was capable of submersing up to 9 meters deep. This increases the success that these ships can have in penetrating our border.
The added technology of the subs requires the increase of our border security to be increased. This means that our personnel and technology must be improved but at what cost? Other factors that may bring concern are the methods of combating this issue. An effective manner that has been implemented is that of using P-3 sub hunters. These are aircraft with capabilities to observe and gather signs of submarine activity. The question is how often and how many are there to secure our borders? Should there be more of them and other methods implemented to combat this? An increase in efforts to prevent further actions of this sort from occurring should be imperative due to not only cause of drug movement but the potential of weapons of mass destruction crossing into our borders. How should our security be administered? What laws should be administered to combat such? One that has been administered is a new U.S. law allows for prosecution of those arrested on the stateless, unflagged drug-subs, they will be treated like pirate ships and boarded in international waters. What type of methods, equipment, and personnel be implaced and how much?
This 5 part video gives the overview of the Narco subs and the fight against them-
http://youtu.be/LrZpMRDxZZo Part 1
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