The Program on Countering Transnational Organized Crime (CTOC) creates and empowers a global network of CTOC professionals in the fight against transnational organized crime (TOC) threats in the contemporary national and international security environment. Typical participants include government officials, practitioners, and experts engaged in policy-making, law enforcement, intelligence, and interdiction activities. Participants examine TOC actions and capabilities while discussing and sharing best practices for comprehensive whole-of-government and whole-of-society CTOC approaches. The program analyzes international security developments and their structural dynamics and examines specifically how geopolitics and TOC interact at various levels. By evaluating geopolitical factors, regime types, illicit markets, and TOC activities using international financial and trade mechanisms, the program provides an understanding of TOC's complex dynamics. The program addresses the evolving nature of TOC and the challenges it poses to the rule of law and governance while keeping in mind the traditional and emerging threats to national and international security. The program aims to equip participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to identify and assess the evolving threats posed by TOC and to develop strategies and policies to combat those threats. Participants work closely to generate common understanding while building professional networks and forming practitioner-focused intellectual interoperability that crosses national and regional borders. 

• Provide advanced knowledge of TOC threats and challenges within the context of the increasingly complex geopolitical arena, including strategic competition among major world powers and attendant changing regional and national alliances to inform the development of effective CTOC strategies and policies.
• Ensure comprehensive awareness of the current, emerging, and future threats and risks posed by TOC and the destructive impact of TOC threats on national and international security and stability including factors such as effective democratic governance, civil society, social stability, economic viability, and the possibility of state capture.
• Acquaint participants with methods and frameworks for conducting assessments and strengthening capabilities in CTOC strategies, policies, and operations, in order to understand, identify, deter, and counter TOC challenges and threats and build societal resilience to those challenges and threats.
• Enable the sharing of best practices for strategies and policies, whole-of-government approaches, public-private collaboration, information sharing, and international cooperation, to develop and implement comprehensive CTOC approaches.
• Facilitate participants building a professional network of CTOC policy makers, practitioners, and researchers from around the world to support their efforts to strengthen CTOC activities nationally, regionally, and internationally.

The CTOC course is a four-week resident course at the Marshall Center conducted once each year. It is focused at the strategic and operational levels for mid- to upper- level government officials, practitioners, and experts that are engaged in activities that mitigate the regional and transnational threats posed by TOC. The course methodology emphasizes active learning. It combines plenary presentations and panels by subject matter experts from an array of backgrounds, with discussions that allow for detailed elaboration and peer learning in small seminar groups of 10-12 participants led by Marshall Center faculty and guest seminar leaders. These activities are combined with a course-long practical exercise that focuses on developing national CTOC strategies and policies. The course consists of five modules—Geopolitics and TOC; TOC as a National and International Security Threat; TOC Challenges and Threats—Illicit Markets; TOC Challenges to Governance and Society; and Strategies and Policies to Counter TOC—to provide participants with a comprehensive understanding of TOC challenges and threats in the contemporary global geopolitical arena. By examining the interconnected nature of various factors influencing TOC, participants gain valuable insights into the complex dynamics of this multifaceted issue.