Small Wars Journal

El Centro

SWJ El Centro, or "downtown" in Spanish, is our town square for analysis and discussion of Latin America's guerilla wars and criminal insurgencies.  More about El Centro here.

Recent El Centro Journal Articles and SWJ Blog Posts:

by SWJ Editors | Thu, 09/09/2021 - 4:37pm | 2 comments
Mexico is experiencing a profound forensic crisis in terms of human identification: there are 52,000 unidentified deceased persons, according to official figures obtained by the Movement for Our Disappeared in Mexico (Movimiento por Nuestros Desaparecidos en México).
by SWJ Editors | Fri, 09/03/2021 - 6:24pm | 1 comment
Interview of SWJ-El Centro Senior Fellows Drs. Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan by InSight Crime on "Illicit Tactical Progress: Mexican Cartel Tactical Notes 2013-2020."
by SWJ Editors | Tue, 07/27/2021 - 4:07pm | 0 comments
SWJ has released a new curated collection "Illicit Tactical Progress: Mexican Cartel Tactical Notes 2013-2020" chronicling documenting the evolution of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by Mexican cartels and criminal armed groups (CAGs).
by SWJ Editors | Tue, 06/15/2021 - 8:58pm | 0 comments
Super Network of Corruption in Venezuela / Súper red de corrupción en Venezuela is a case study of corruption in Venezuela by Small Wars Journal-El Centro Fellows Eduardo Salcedo-Albarán and Luis Jorge Garay-Salamanca. The case study uses social network analysis (SNA) derived from official and media open source materials. The study compares and contrasts Venezuela's corruption networks with the Brazilian Lava Jato (Car Wash) case.
by SWJ Editors | Wed, 06/02/2021 - 4:06pm | 0 comments
Small Wars Journal-El Centro Senior Fellows Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan along with analyst David A. Kuhn, and SWJ-El Centro Associate Alma Kehavarz look at the evolving use of explosives in Mexico's criminal insurgencies and crime wars in a new article at Counter-IED Report. 
by SWJ Editors | Sat, 05/29/2021 - 11:42pm | 0 comments
This infographic expands upon the discussion of hybrid threats found in Paulina Rios Maya's paper "The Narco Hybrid-Threat" at Small Wars Journal. That paper posited that the rapid development of tactics used by Mexican narco-cartels has allowed these organisations to build a solid structure of influence. A structure that has amplified their efforts to coerce the state while increasing their capacity to dislocate social life and erode state institutions. That paper concluded that criminal cartel's posed hybridd threats.