Benchmarking the Power of Terrorist Organizations in Latin America:

This study introduces the Assessment of Combatants and Threats in Organized Resistance index, a system developed to measure the power and behavior of armed nonstate actors, specifically foreign terrorist organizations. Built on the U.S. Government's instruments of national power model, and it applies structured indicators to evaluate how these organizations organize, act, and project influence within their environments. Through a systematic methodology, it defines key dimensions that generate comparative metrics among these actors and in relation to state counterparts, assigning a descriptive resistance typology to each entity to enable direct comparative analysis. The study underscores the complexity of transnational criminal organizations and their significant impact on regional stability, while also contributing to the broader understanding of nonstate power dynamics in a global context. Finally, this paper provides policy recommendations to counter the influence of Latin American FTOs and provide regional stabilization.