Reports

China’s Maturing Fighter Force
by Richard Fisher, Jr.

Published on October 15th, 2011
Following an intensive twenty year investment, which has included obtaining significant foreign help, the air forces of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have reached a number of milestones that point to the likelihood of an accelerating growth in capability through this decade.  Perhaps one of the most jarring indicators of this rapid maturation is that within five years of the reported retiring of its last 2nd generation fighter unit of Shenyang J-6s in 2005, the PLA started testing prototypes of its 5th generation Chengdu “J-20” in 2010.  Furthermore, less than a decade following the 2004 service entry of the “indigenous” 4th generation Chengdu J-10 fighter, a new 4+ generation variant called the “J-10B” is expected to enter production in late 2011 or 2012.  It has taken the PLA roughly 20 years to leap from production of third generation fighters to testing of its 5th generation fighter, whereas this process took 30 years for the United States.

Transnational Criminal Threats in El Salvador: New Trends and Lessons From Colombia
Published by the Western Hemisphere Security Analysis Center of Florida International University, Miami, Florida
by Douglas Farah

Published on September 7th, 2011
Since El Salvador’s civil war formally ended in 1992 the small Central American nation has undergone profound social changes and significant reforms. However, few changes have been as important or as devastating as the nation’s emergence as a central hub in the transnational criminal “pipeline” or series of recombinant, overlapping chains of routes and actors that illicit organizations use to traffic in drugs, money, weapons, human being, endangered animals and other products.

Confronting the News: The State of Independent Media in Latin America
A Report to the Center for International Media Assistance
by Douglas Farah

Published on June 28th, 2011
Freedom of expression and of the press in much of Latin America are under sustained attack by numerous authoritarian governments in the region, as well as non-state armed actors such as drug trafficking organizations and paramilitary groups. These attacks have made Latin America one of the most dangerous places in the world in which to be a journalist. Overall, the region, with the exception of the Caribbean, has suffered an almost uninterrupted deterioration of press freedoms over the past five years, reaching its lowest point since the military dictatorships of the 1980s.

Terrorist-Criminal Pipelines and Criminalized States: Emerging Alliances
Prism 2, No. 3
by Douglas Farah

Published on June 1st, 2011
On July 1, 2010, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment that outlined the rapid expansion of operations of transnational criminal organizations and their growing, often short-term strategic alliances with terrorist groups. These little-understood transcontinental alliances pose new security threats to the United States, as well as much of Latin America, West Africa, and Europe.

Organized Crime in El Salvador: The Homegrown and Transnational Dimensions
Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars
by Douglas Farah

Published on February 1st, 2011
When El Salvador's brutal civil war ended in a negotiated settlement in 1992 after 12 years and some 75,000 dead, it was widely hoped that the peace agreements would usher in a new era of democratic governance, rule of law, and economic growth. Yet today El Salvador is a crucial part of a transnational “pipeline” or series of overlapping, recombinant chains of actors and routes that transnational criminal organizations use to move illicit products, money, weapons, personnel, and goods. The results are devastating and wide-ranging in the Massachusetts-sized country, and are a key part of the crisis of governance and rule of law crippling the Central American region and Mexico.

Ecuador at Risk: Drugs, Thugs, Guerrillas and the Citizens Revolution
by Douglas Farah, Glenn R. Simpson

Published on January 24th, 2010
New Spanish language translation available.  The changing internal situation in Colombia and the expanding influence of the Mexican drug cartels have, over the past three years, helped turn Ecuador into an important and growing center of operation for transnational organized criminal gangs. This poses a significant threat not only to the Ecuadoran state but all of Latin America and the United States.

Money Laundering and Bulk Cash Smuggling: Challenges for the U.S.-Mexico Border
by Douglas Farah

Published on June 19th, 2009
Bulk cash smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border cannot be viewed in isolation. Rather, the process of illegally moving large quantities of dollars across the border must be viewed as part of the movements in a larger pipeline that flows across the northern tier of South America, through Central America and Mexico and into the United States. The pipeline, fed by many smaller feeder lines, moves products both north and south, and the a significant portion of the violence in Mexico today, as well as among the maras in Central America, revolves around disputes over control of portions of that pipeline, its plazas and branches. The primary goods flowing northward are cocaine, human traffic, gang members hired by the drug cartels as enforcers, and marijuana. The primary products moving south are large amounts of cash generated from the illicit activities, stolen cars and other goods, and weapons. It is important to understand that all of these products move through the same basic architecture and rely on many of the same facilitators to enable the flow of goods and services.

Bolivia on the Brink
by Douglas Farah

Published on June 17th, 2009
When Evo Morales won an overwhelming victory in Bolivia's December 2005 presidential elections, it signaled a historic new chapter in the nation's political history. For the first time in decades a presidential candidate won an outright electoral majority, garnering almost 54 percent of the vote. Morales, an indigenous peasant who remains the head of the cocalero (coca growers) union, inherited a country that had lived through three years of permanent crisis and the resulting deep disillusionment with the traditional political parties. Those promises of inclusive governance have been breached almost from the beginning of the MAS government, leading Bolivia to its worst political crisis since the hard-fought return to democratic rule in 1982.

Iran in Latin America: An Overview
in Iran in Latin America: Threat or Axis of Annoyance?
by Douglas Farah

Published on June 1st, 2009
There is considerable debate over the level of threat posed by Iran's expanding diplomatic, trade and military presence in Latin America, and its stated ambition to continue to broaden these ties. These new alliances are causing deep concern not only in the United States, but also in Europe and parts of Latin America. Others view the relations as an unthreatening and natural outgrowth of a rapidly changing, multi-polar world. There are points of agreement and divergence among different camps, as well as larger issues that must be addressed in order to come as close as possible to obtaining a full picture what Iran's interests and intentions imply.

“To Our Great Detriment”
Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad
by Stephen C. Coughlin, Esq.

Published on July 2nd, 2007
In comments made at the National Defense University on 1 December 2005, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace explained to his audience the importance of “understand[ing] the nature of the enemy” if we hope to defeat jihadi extremists.  Comparing our situation today, with that faced by an earlier generation who had to deal with the reality of the Nazi threat, General Pace suggested a simple solution to complying with his injunction:  “read what our enemies have said.  Remember Hitler….  He said in writing exactly what his plan was that we collectively ignored to our great detriment (emphasis added).”  Just as we ignored Hitler’s articulation of his strategic doctrine in Mein Kampf, so too are we on the verge of suffering a similar fate today, if we fail to seriously assess the extremist threat based on jihadi strategic doctrine.