This book is the record of a case study: Chavismo and its destructive flaw in Venezuela over more than 15 years. It is about a regime that changed the country's democratic institutions. One that replaced the organization of the state to conform it to its convenience. A regime that expropriated productive agricultural, livestock and food businesses; that nationalized private land, buildings, shopping centers, warehouses, factories; that modified in their detriment the values of key institutions of society, such as the military and the oil industry. Hugo Chavez and his accomplices reversed the political and administrative decentralization of the state to focus government action on the President of the Republic. Venezuela was led to the edge of bankruptcy. Scarcity of basic staples became rampant in the country, health was taken to intensive care, and much of its industry was placed in ruins. Chavismo, as the expression of XXI Century Socialism, divided Venezuelans by promoting hatred among them. Criminality rose to unimaginable levels. Human rights were the most violated. These are the files to be used to judge Chavismo before history.

The Center for Complex Operations (CCO) has produced this edited volume, Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization, that delves deeply into everything mentioned above and more. In a time when the threat is growing, this is a timely effort. CCO has gathered an impressive cadre of authors to illuminate the important aspects of transnational crime and other illicit networks. They describe the clear and present danger and the magnitude of the challenge of converging and connecting illicit networks; the ways and means used by transnational criminal networks and how illicit networks actually operate and interact; how the proliferation, convergence, and horizontal diversification of illicit networks challenge state sovereignty; and how different national and international organizations are fighting back. A deeper understanding of the problem will allow us to then develop a more comprehensive, more effective, and more enduring solution. Other related products: YouTube War: Fighting in a World of Cameras in Every Cell Phone and Photoshop on Every Computer can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01071-4 Distinguishing Acts of War in Cyberspace: Assessment Criteria, Policy Considerations, and Response Implications can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01128-1 Confidence Building in Cyberspace: A Comparison of Territorial and Weapons-Based Regimes can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01139-7 Army Support of Military Cyberspace Operations: Joint Contexts and Global Escalation Implications can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01094-3 Legality in Cyberspace: An Adversary View can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01108-7 Cyberterrorism After Stuxnet can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01117-6 Fundamentals of War Gaming --Print Paperback format can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-046-00299-1 -- Print Hardcover format can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-046-00269-0 Policy Analysis in National Security Affairs: New Methods for a New Era can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-020-01561-0 Economic Security: Neglected Dimension of National Security --print paperback format can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-020-01617-9 --ePub format can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/999-000-44440-9 Other products produced by the U.S. Army, National Defense University can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/1078 Other products produced by the U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/1609

Hugo Chavez has recently undergone three surgeries for cancer, prompting much speculation and anxiety about the impact of his death. What will a post-Chavez future look like, not only in Venezuela but also in the region"" In Latin America in the Post-Chavez Era, Luis Fleischman examines Chavez's highly controversial Bolivarian revolution, which has expanded beyond Venezuela to other countries in South America and whose sphere of influence also extends to Central America and the Caribbean. Across Latin America, Chavez has financially supported political candidates or presidents in office dedica.

This report from the CSIS Americas Program provides a detailed look at the challenges the Colombian government confronts as it moves from providing security to developing rural areas that were previously conflict zones. In particular, the report examines such issues as remaining security needs; land tenure; needed infrastructure improvements; and better governance. In addition, the report offers recommendations on how the Colombian government can move forward in consolidating gains in its countryside—and how the United States can help.

This book examines the long, complex experience of American involvement in irregular warfare. It begins with the American Revolution in 1776 and chronicles big and small irregular wars for the next two and a half centuries. What is readily apparent in dirty wars is that failure is painfully tangible while success is often amorphous. Successfully fighting these wars often entails striking a critical balance between military victory and politics. America's status as a democracy only serves to make fighting - and, to a greater degree, winning - these irregular wars even harder. Rather than futilely insisting that Americans should not or cannot fight this kind of irregular war, Russell Crandall argues that we would be better served by considering how we can do so as cleanly and effectively as possible.

Oil makes up one-third of Venezuela's entire GDP, and the United States is far and away Venezuela's largest trading partner. Relations between Venezuela and the United States, traditionally close for most of the last two centuries, began to fray as the end of the Cold War altered the international environment. U.S.-Venezuela Relations since the 1990s explores relations between these two countries since 1999, when Hugo Chavez came to office and proceeded to change Venezuela's historical relation with the United States and other democracies. The authors analyze the reasons for rising bilateral conflict, the decision-making process in Venezuela, the role played by public and private actors in shaping foreign policy, the role of other powers such as China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia in shaping U.S.-Venezuelan relations, the role of Venezuela in Cuba and Colombia, and the impact of broader international dynamics in the bi-lateral relations.

The emergence of new hybrid (state and nonstate) transnational criminal/terrorist franchises in Latin America operating under broad state protection now pose a tier-one security threat for the United States. Similar hybrid franchise models are developing in other parts of the world, making understanding the new dynamics an important factor in a broader national security context. This threat goes well beyond the traditional nonstate theory of constraints activity such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking into the potential for trafficking related to weapons of mass destruction by designated terrorist organizations and their sponsors. These activities are carried out with the support of regional and extra regional states actors whose leadership is deeply enmeshed in criminal activity, which yields billions of dollars in illicit revenues every year. These same leaders have a publicly articulated, common doctrine of asymmetrical warfare against the United States and its allies that explicitly endorses as legitimate the use of weapons of mass destruction. The central binding element in this alliance is a hatred for the West, particularly the United States, and deep anti-Semitism, based on a shared view that the 1979 Iranian Revolution was a transformative historical event. For Islamists, it is evidence of divine favor; and for Bolivarians, a model of a successful asymmetrical strategy to defeat the "Empire." The primary architect of this theology/ideology that merges radical Islam and radical, anti-Western populism and revolutionary zeal is the convicted terrorist Ilich Sánchez Ramirez, better known as "Carlos the Jackal," whom Chávez has called a true visionary.