BOOKS

In South America, the intersection of citizen security and governance faces an unprecedented crisis. Criminal armed groups (CAGs) have established parallel power structures, leveraging violence, sophisticated propaganda, and corruption to rival government authority. This volume explores a highly debated frontier: Are these volatile environments simply instances of high-intensity crime, or do they represent a new form of gray-area warfare?

States of Exception: Criminal Armed Groups and the Evolution of South American Policing provides an authoritative, comparative assessment of state strategies across the region. From the structural decay of public safety in Ecuador and state-sponsored vigilantism in Venezuela, to the complex dynamics of transnational crime in Bolivia and illicit associations in Argentina, this book analyzes the efficacy and limitations of contemporary security frameworks.

John P. Sullivan is a retired Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department lieutenant with extensive expertise in transnational organized crime, urban warfare, and counter-terrorism. He is an instructor at the University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy, a Senior El Centro Fellow at Small Wars Journal, and a Research Fellow at Arizona State University's Future Security Initiative. A member of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) expert network, he received a lifetime achievement award from the National Fusion Center Association in 2018. He holds a PhD from the Open University of Catalonia.

Pablo Baisotti is an international scholar whose research focuses on contemporary Latin American politics, history, and international relations. He has worked across four continents, publishing and editing over 25 books alongside numerous articles. His extensive career includes roles as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex, a Visiting Academic at the University of Oxford, and guest lectureships at dozens of global universities. He currently serves as the Director of the European Branch (2025–2030) of the International Police Science Association (IPSA) and is a Fellow Researcher at SWJ-El Centro.

In sharp contrast to its utopian heyday, cyberspace is now a hotly contested domain in which nations, corporations, and individuals leverage information for strategic gain. Recent revelations and reportage on cyber espionage, manipulation, and digital disinformation campaigns underscore today’s political and technical challenges. Each day we are exposed to different types of influence operations, running the gamut from commercial efforts all the way to political disinformation campaigns that aim to subvert democratic processes and alter political outcomes. Unmasking Maskirovka details the perceptions of Russian strategic and military leaders and their thought processes for employing cyber warfare capabilities. In Unmasking Maskirovka, Daniel Bagge contrasts national strategic approaches in cyberspace to enable a better understanding of the long-term goals behind Russia’s cyber warfare campaigns. This book provides an in-depth and up-to-date examination of the importance of cyberspace operations, why such activities are so often successful, and how influence operations span the spectrum of conventional and digital statecraft.

Trust is unraveling across American institutions, affecting not only government but also news organizations, trusted sources of information and, most critically, expertise and values. The impact is not just institutional, the decay also affects individuals, families and shared norms. The very foundations of American civic culture seem increasingly at risk. All the while, technology continues to act as an accelerant, speeding up societal change and challenging our abilities to keep pace while controlling our responses. Uncovering the multivariate sources of these challenges is work that demands rigorous, ongoing investigation. As with any investigation, a solid place to start is a requirement. In American Cyberscape: Trials and the Path to Trust, Mari Eder examines the sources of decay in trust and offers solutions to lead us to firmer terrains of shared truth. By grounding the topography of cyberspace and drawing on wide-ranging expertise and experience, both scholarly and practical, American Cyberscape shows pathways to improve outcomes for everyone.

Mari K. Eder, retired U.S. Army Major General, is a renowned speaker and author, and a thought leader on strategic communication and leadership. General Eder has served as Director of Public Affairs at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies and as an adjunct professor and lecturer in communications and public diplomacy at the NATO School and Sweden’s International Training Command. She speaks and writes frequently on communication topics in universities and for international audiences and consults on communications issues.

When not writing, speaking, or traveling, she works with rescue groups and fosters dogs for adoption.