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2. Dominican Republic’s Neofascist Paramilitaries Double Down on Right-Wing Repression
- Author:
- Amarilys Estrella
- Publication Date:
- 04-2024
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
- Abstract:
- New expressions of ultranationalist violence censoring Black women and migrants harken back to the Trujillo dictatorship. Anyone deemed a threat to Dominican values is a potential target.
- Topic:
- Migration, Race, Violence, Radical Right, Paramilitary, Neofascism, and Ultranationalism
- Political Geography:
- Latin America and Dominican Republic
3. Potential Russian Uses of Paramilitaries in Eurasia
- Author:
- Kimberly Marten, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Carisa Nietsche, Nicholas Lokker, and Kristen Taylor
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
- Abstract:
- While much remains uncertain following the June 2023 mutiny of Russia’s Wagner Group and the August death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russia will likely continue to work with semi-state armed formations. Russia’s degraded military capacity and constrained economic resources, especially as sanctions persist, will increase the attractiveness of these organizations as low-cost tools for advancing Russian objectives and competing against the West, including to a greater extent in Eurasia where Russia likely perceives the competition as most intense. Prigozhin and his Wagner Group created a model that other opportunistic Russian actors will likely seek to replicate. Fewer financial resources available to Russia’s military and elite could increase the incentive to establish such groups, especially if these organizations can increase opportunities to improve Russia’s reputation as a reliable security provider or access new sources of wealth for the regime. Newly created organizations would likely face high barriers to entry in areas where Wagner already operates, including Africa. Therefore, if such semi-state paramilitary organizations proliferate—a prospect that has grown more likely after Prigozhin’s death—they could focus on new regions such as Eurasia. Given Russia’s declining influence in Eurasia, a region of long-standing historical importance to Russia, such groups could undertake new actions there to curry favor with Putin and the Kremlin. There are several ways the Kremlin could use semi-state security formations to advance its interests in Eurasia, including by waging political influence and disinformation campaigns, physically protecting friendly governments, sustaining Russia’s influence as a key security provider, destabilizing unfriendly governments, and limiting any threats that Russia’s diaspora population might pose to the stability of the Putin regime from abroad. Although Russian paramilitary and semi-state organizations are in many ways an extension of the malign activities carried out by the Russian state, the proliferation and increased activity of these groups would make it more difficult for the United States and its allies to attribute such actions to the Kremlin, complicating Western response options. These groups and the opportunistic individuals who lead them could, for example, stake out positions independent of the Kremlin or even at odds with it, especially in the case of extreme ethnic nationalists who have criticized Putin for not going far enough in his actions. The proliferation of these groups would also make it difficult to discern when and under what circumstances the Kremlin might be willing to escalate on these groups’ behalf.
- Topic:
- Armed Forces, Wagner Group, Paramilitary, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia and Eurasia
4. Book Talk. Architectures of Violence by Kate Ferguson
- Publication Date:
- 01-2022
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- The Harriman Institute
- Abstract:
- Paramilitary or irregular units have been involved in practically every case of identity-based mass violence in the modern world, but detailed analysis of these dynamics is rare. Through exploring the case of former Yugoslavia, Kate Ferguson exposes the relationships between paramilitaries, state commands, local communities, and organised crime present in modern mass atrocities, from Rwanda and Darfur to Syria and Myanmar. Visible paramilitary participation masks the continued dominance of the state in violent crises. Political elites benefit from using unconventional forces to fulfil ambitions that violate international law—and international policy responses are hindered when responsibility for violence is ambiguous. Ferguson’s inquiry into these overlooked dynamics of mass violence unveils substantial loopholes in current atrocity prevention architecture.
- Topic:
- Crime, Governance, Conflict, Violence, and Paramilitary
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus