the Agency for International Development, will be needed create these alternatives. This level of strategy is the responsibility of the United States Department of State. According to William M. Leary, a University of Georgia historian who analyzed Laotian operations in a study backed by the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA-led covert action in Laos was the largest paramilitary operation in the history of the Agency. Although a large body of evidence exists claiming that the CIA was knowingly complicit in opium smuggling operations, Leary takes a position which claims that the CIA, which funded his work, was not complicit in the drug trade. Southwest Asia While the CIA reports on the flow of opium, and its derivative, heroin, in Southwest Asia, US government researchers also observe that the indirect effects of the United States Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as the Afghan Northern Alliance, have increased the flow."Afghanistan and Pakistan produced an estimated 41 percent of the world's opium in 1998. Europe remains the primary market for Southwest Asian heroin, but the drug is also consumed in Africa, the United States, and Canada." According to the CIA flow study, Most Southwest Asian heroin flows overland through Iran and Turkey to Europe via the Balkans. Although regional conflicts have forced traffickers to modify delivery routes, the Balkans remain the primary passageway for Southwest Asian heroin bound for Western Europe. Heroin and opium shipments are smuggled from Turkey in bonded trucks, buses, or personal vehicles to Western Europe for distribution. An undetermined amount of Southwest Asian heroin flows directly from Pakistan to overseas markets concealed in maritime containers, or carried by couriers on commercial air flights to the Middle East, Europe, Africa, the US, and Canada. The Central Asian states, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have emerged as important smuggling routes for Southwest Asian heroin moving to or through Russia and Eastern Europe. Loose border controls, lack of regional counternarcotics resources, and a growing Russian heroin market facilitate the movement of drugs through Central Asia by vehicle, train, and commercial air means. LTC John Glaze, USAF, Deputy Commander of the 353rd Special Operations Group at Kadena Air Base, Japan, writing for the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, Opium production in Afghanistan has skyrocketed since the U.S. military teamed with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Afghanistan's Northern Alliance in