Preserving Hegemony: National Security Doctrine in the Post-Cold War Era
McSherry, J. Patrice
The U.S. government is no longer supporting military subversion, coups and dictatorships in the name of anti-Communism in Latin America. But it continues to strengthen military and security forces...
...The volatile Andean region, which includes a major U.S...
...Clearly, Washington's overriding priorities are to halt the insurgency in Colombia while securing access to the region's oil fields and other strategic resources...
...outlined in "A Strategy of Flexible and Selective Engagement...
...The same means, in collaboration with AID and CIA, will be employed to develop a similar capability in indigenous paramilitary forces...
...pol- e world" icy as "discouraging the advanced tion of it...
...Meanwhile, the U.S...
...interests...
...Army War College, Summer 1996), p. 1 7. Richard Barnet, "Reflections: The Uses of Force," New Yorker (April 29, 1991), p. 90...
...2 5 Washington did little when Fujimori claimed an illegal third term, putting continued counterdrug cooperation with his militarized regime above commitment to democratic principles...
...Elites with government connections have been the primary beneficiaries of the sweeping economic transformations carried out by fiat, while millions of people have become marginalized and social unrest has erupted through the region...
...objectives, and prevent outcomes seen as inimical to U.S...
...Chilean President Eduardo Frei greeting President Bill Clinton during his 1998 visit to Santiago for the Summit of the Americas...
...There is no longer a rival superpower that challenges the United States ideologically, militarily and economically...
...Stability" is not a neutral concept in this context...
...Darrin Wood, "Mexico Practices What School of the Americas Teaches," CovertAction Quarterly, No...
...5 Clear from this document was the U.S...
...Important steps have been taken in some countries to increase civilian control...
...model today is procedural democracy, with some civil and political rights (but limited economic and social rights for the majority), tightly bound by the restraints of the global market economy and monitored by military-security forces still ready to combat the "threat from below...
...Yet it is equally important to note the continuities in U.S...
...POLICY civilians...
...stability...
...officer noted, "There's not much difference between counterdrug and counterinsurgency...
...government's promotion of expansive roles for Latin American security forces contradicts its stated commitments to democracy and human rights...
...The threat of instability, that is the major threat...
...strategic objectives by "protecting, consolidating, and enlarging the community of free-market democracies" through active, if selective, U.S...
...Military units in Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Colombia carried out summary executions, disappearances and torture in the 1990s...
...forces at the air base there in mid-summer, and the ue to Confederation of Indigenous rize U.S...
...In the post-Cold War era, Washington's earlier practices of promoting coups, contra-style forces or dictatorships were at last left behind...
...Priest noted that even "where armed domestic opposition is negligible or nonexistent (as in Argentina), U.S...
...interests in the underdeveloped world are as follows: 1) A political and ideological interest in assuring that developing nations evolve in a way that affords a congenial world environment for international cooperation and the growth of free institutions...
...Direct U.S...
...There is growing popular resistance to the neoliberal world order and to U.S...
...Only after media coverage spotlighted the role of JCETs did Congress stipulate human rights criteria in Defense Department appropriations legislation...
...Significant expansion of U.S...
...9. See John Gannon, "An Intelligence Perspective on Latin America's Renewal," October 26, 1996, CIA web site http:/www.cia.gov/cia/public affairs/speeches/archives/1996/ddispeech 102696.html 10...
...POLICY Venezuela in 1992, Paraguay in 1996 and Peru today...
...Anibal Laifio, "Desaflos al estado naci6n," Military Review, HispanoAmerican edition (July-Aug 1996), pp...
...19...
...The Pentagon named an army general with a background in counterinsurgency-a former advisor in El Salvadorto oversee Plan Colombia...
...well as the neoliberal restructuring of the economy...
...Hugo Chdivez rode to the Venezuelan presidency by defying neoliberal economics and U.S...
...Kora Lumpe, Federation of American Scientists, "The New U.S...
...Seals, Army Green Berets, and the covert Delta Force, increased in size while the rest of the military downsized (in 1998 Special Operations had 47,000 personnel...
...The 1997 U.S...
...2 2 The Latin American militaries are not simple instruments of neoliberal power or of the United States, however...
...One U.S...
...Finally, Washington continued to strengthen military and security forces in Latin America and worldwide: "The military shield" was still an inseparable component of the emerging neoliberal order...
...3 In practice, the new paradigm strengthens the military, security and intelligence forces that have been the greatest danger to democracy for decades, and weakens civilian and democratic institutions...
...But as one U.S...
...Military Trains Foreign Troops...
...Conservative members of Congress called openly for U.S...
...2 3 Yet Washington began sharing high-tech intelligence directly with the Colombian armed forces in March 1999 and built radar and electronic surveillance stations in Colombia, staffed by U.S...
...Meanwhile, Washington continues to tolerate autocrats and protect notorious human rights abusers (notably Alberto Fujimori and Vladimiro Montesinos in Peru) and to bolster military, security, and intelligence forces, to secure their loyalty and to guarantee U.S...
...1991 Law Waives Many Restrictions on Aid," Washington Post, July 12, 1998...
...economic and security interests still outrank promotion of democracy and human rights...
...Clearly, the collapse of the Soviet bloc transformed the international system...
...security doctrine...
...When Montesinos finally lost CIA support in September (he was apparently involved in gun-running to the Colombian guerrillas), Washington helped arrange his passage to Panama and heavily pressured the Panamanian government to give him safe haven...
...strategic, political and economic interests in Latin America endured, and the U.S...
...leadership or to the seamless functioning of globalized market capitalism...
...2. The figure is from John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, at the UN Millennium Summit, September 2000...
...personnel...
...32-34...
...But U.S...
...301, 304...
...In 1994, the Clinton Administration's first national security strategy document called for defending U.S...
...2) A military interest in assuring that strategic areas and the manpower and natural resources of developing nations do not fall under communist control...
...2 4 In Peru, U.S...
...Senate, Committee on Armed Services, "Statement of General Barry McCaffrey, Hearing to Receive Testimony from the Unified Commanders on the Military Strategy and Operational Requirements and the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 1995," March 2, 1994...
...In some cases, the units trained by U.S...
...This article draws from her paper "The Argentine Military-Security Forces in the Era of Globalization: Changes and Continuities," presented at the International Congress of the Canadian Association for Latin American and Caribbean Studies/Canadian Association for Mexican Studies, Vancouver...
...Andrew J. Bacevich, "Policing Utopia: The Military Imperatives of Globalization," The National Interest (Summer 1999), p. 5. 13...
...National Security Council Paper No...
...Washington consolidated a sort of political trusteeship over Latin America by bolstering counterinsurgency militaries...
...It described engagement as including military-to-military contacts, security assistance, and counterdrug and counterterrorism operations...
...Field Manual 31-20 of 1990 defined "foreign internal defense" exercises as training military forces to combat "subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency...
...Savage paramilitary forces linked to the military continue to commit widely reported massacres of Vol XXXIV, No 3 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2000 0 0 5 0 0 33REPORT ON U.S...
...Juan O. Tamayo, "Attacks in Colombia spur call for U.S...
...A secret State Department document of September 1962 entitled "United States Overseas Internal Defense Policy" made clear these economic-security linkages: "The broad U.S...
...Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas had lobbied heavily for lifting the ban...
...In Colombia, U.S...
...retired army colonels William W. Mendel and Murl D. Munger, "The Drug Threat: Getting Priorities Straight," Parameters (U.S...
...The new U.S...
...Nevertheless, U.S...
...military mission and policy priority in Latin America...
...BY J. PATRICE MCSHERRY Has U.S...
...Because he defeated an insurgent threat, promoted foreign investment and cooperated with U.S...
...officials deny this...
...penetration was still a military mission...
...Civilian governments have used authoritarian means to enforce austerity and to meet the demands of the international markets and financial institutions, leaving citizens impoverished, frustrated and desperate...
...The transformation of the Latin American military mission from national defense to internal security had fateful consequences in the 1960s and 1970s...
...policy has subtly shifted from defense of the "free world" to domination of it...
...But most of the region's militaries retain significant political and coercive power...
...government during the 1970s...
...In 1995, the complementary military strategy was More than 500 SOA graduates have been cited as some of the worst human rights abusers in the hemisphere...
...aid can only be used for counter-narcotics purposes...
...Internal factions with populist or nationalist tendencies exist, and military leaderships have their own national security and strategic interests...
...9 Other significant elements of U.S...
...The Pentagon sees as its current tasks "to encourage all nations to recognize and address domestic problems that have transnational security implications"--a sort of tutelary function-and "to shape the strategic environJ. Patrice McSherry is Associate Professor of Political Science at Long Island University-Brooklyn and author of Incomplete Transition: Military Power and Democracy in Argentina (St...
...strategy to build up military-security forces as a proactive measure, to control populations, secure allegiance to U.S...
...28, No...
...Explaining his concept of dissuasion, Argentine General-and second in command of the army--Anibal Laifio wrote in 1996 that: "[A]ny potentially critical situation...might require military action to prevent, dissuade, or confront threats to the vital interests of the nation...
...Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) criticized the U.S...
...While Latin Americans can now vote, many analysts note that political and civil rights in these systems are tenuous...
...Priest, "Free of Oversight...
...Special Operations Forces, but their main function in practice is to train other militaries in foreign internal defense...
...The anti-Communist crusade became the primary strategic mission, and it combined military, economic, and political interests...
...The system rested institutionally upon the powerful supranational lending organizations, transnational corporations and banks, and governmental and non-governmental bodies that administered and perpetuated the system, with little or no democratic input...
...0 "Dissuasion" implies an intrusive military strategy U.S...
...forces in 1998, and over half of all training was in counterdrug operations...
...The United States has assumed the post-Cold War role of hegemonic stabilizer of the "new world order...
...We just don't use the [latter] word anymore because it is politiVol XXXIV, No 3 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 200027 Vol XXXIV, No3 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2000 27REPORT ON U.S...
...The collapse of the Communist bloc afforded vast new opportunities for U.S...
...training continued, recalling Cold War practices...
...Despite the homage paid by U.S...
...Many resent the U.S...
...Jim Lobe, "U.S...
...military officers became the de facto political agents of U.S...
...security training and funding throughout the region has been to augment the guardian capabilities of military-security forces...
...New organizations and broad social groups throughout the region are demanding greater social, political and economic rights, and an end to militarization...
...The new mission also provides a means for continued U.S...
...government extended its network of bases in the region, justified by the war on drugs, and established new "Forward Operating Locations" in Ecuador, Honduras, the Dutch Antilles and Puerto Rico...
...foreign policy dramatically changed with the end of the Cold War...
...Instability is seemingly defined as challenges to U.S...
...POLICY Like the national security doctrine of the Cold War, the new paradigm blurs the line between internal security and national defense...
...units...
...The core Cold War military missions of "containment of Communism" and counterinsurgency have been superseded by a new security paradigm that gives militarysecurity forces a leading role in confronting diffuse "non-state threats" in a globalized world: drug trafficking, terrorism, illegal immigration, social unrest, threats to democracy and others...
...policy to block "instability" before it shifted frc begins...
...security doctrine today is primarily designed to secure and advance the global economic and political predominance of the United States, the main beneficiary of the "new world order" of corporate-driven globalization...
...But Washington continues to work closely with military forces in the region and to train them in counterdrug and counterterrorism operations and in "foreign internal defense," missions virtually indistinguishable from Cold War counterinsurgency operations that targeted domestic opposition...
...It means preserving a global system in which the assets of the world's three richest individuals are larger than the combined national income of 48 less-developed countries...
...Cold War doctrine persist in the new security paradigm: the use of "civilmilitary operations," the concept of "dissuasion" of unrest, the targeting of "terrorism" or "instability," and the build-up of intelligence capabilities...
...interests in preserving stability and securing the uninterrupted functioning of capital flows and market economics in Latin America...
...economic interests and military presence throughout the world occurred during World War II, contributing to a redefinition (and globalization) of U.S...
...power, will again block the ascendancy of new social forces and opposition political organizations struggling for social justice, participation and political independence...
...Mark Lobel, "Gorbachev Condemns Unchecked Globalization," September 6, 2000 [globalinfo.org...
...Heath and Co., 1989): pp...
...In effect, Washington sought to secure its informal economic empire and its sphere of influence...
...military assistance, as well as equipment and training for Latin America more than tripled from FY 1996 to 1997.19 In 1997, the Administration lifted its ban on sales of advanced weaponry and heavy arms to Latin America, in a clear case of complementary military and economic interests...
...15 Since the end of the Cold War, U.S...
...The President ordered government departments The U.S...
...strategic and business interests outweighed concerns for democracy and human rights in several cases, reproducing Cold War patterns...
...They] must be continually monitored...
...Special Forces have sometimes worked at cross purposes to stated U.S...
...Structures, ideologies, and personnel from the days of the military dictatorships remain entrenched in military, security and intelligence forces, and many officers remain unrepentant about the human rights violations of the recent past...
...Carlos Noriega, "Un aval a dos tipos audaces," Pagina/12 (Argentina), August 27, 1999...
...security policy in the region, at times reproducing Cold War patterns...
...exports to the region nearly equalled exports to Europe, and drugs were a new threat to U.S...
...President Bill Clinton opposed military coups in Guatemala in 1993, when President Jorge Serrano attempted to stage one, and in 26 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 0 0 v 26 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON U.S...
...The new doctrine inserts the military within strategic areas of state and society and enlarges its role in civilian institutions and functions, enhancing military capacities for guardianship and social control-but within the framework of electoral democracy...
...access to Third World economies and raw materials, goals that predated the Cold War...
...Today the SOA survives, despite repeated efforts to close it by a broad citizen movement and by members of Congress...
...WOLA, "Fighting the War on Drugs," January 5, 1998 [www.wola.org/drugs.htm...
...This general formerly headed the 101st Airborne army division, where he directed G-5, the unit charged with winning the "hearts and minds" of foreign populations...
...6 Despite the change in emphasis and terminology, long-standing geopolitical and economic interests underlay the new doctrine...
...1 4 In short, the new paradigm created a central role for the military in combating major national social, economic and security problems, at the expense of civilian control and preeminence in new democracies...
...Key elements of U.S...
...As General Alfred M. Gray, commandant of the Marines, wrote in 1991, the U.S...
...America continues to garrison much of the )I e a Vol XXXIV, No 3 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2000 world and to look for ways of keeping troops in foreign countries...
...dictates...
...The school's Command Brief of August 1998 stated that its curriculum had "evolved" in line with the new post-Cold War paradigm, with the elimination of some tactical courses and the addition of others such as "Civil Military Operations," "Peace Operations," "Counterdrug Operations," and "Democratic Sustainment...
...Army School of the Americas (SOA) was a key Cold War-era center where Latin American militaries were trained in counterinsurgency techniques...
...68 (NSC-68) of 1950 precounterinsurgency...
...interests...
...This section draws on Dana Priest, "Free of Oversight, U.S...
...military intervention...
...The new security paradigm sponsored by the Pentagon inserts the Latin American militaries in strategic roles in state and society and bolsters their guardian capabilities...
...foreign policy, eclipsing civilian diplomats...
...counterdrug operations, Washington tolerated Fujimori's dismantling of constitutional democracy, again recalling Cold War priorities...
...officials to "market democracy," neoliberal economic models imposed on much of the region have undermined democratic struggles by citizens to make their voices heard and fight for their rights...
...The doctrine also included special operations capabilities such as internal defense, intelligence, psychological operations (PSYOPS), and unconventional warfare...
...and agencies to declassify all documents on the violence in Chile and the role of the U.S...
...n This expansive vision of the military role reflected concepts of Cold War national security doctrine and suggested that the Argentine military, despite its denials, still conducted political intelligence and targeted internal enemies-an unsettling thought, given the thousands of people who were disappeared by Argentine security forces in the 1970s...
...8 The CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence argued in 1996 that Latin America remained a central focus for the agency because U.S...
...1, Joint Report to Congress, March 1, 2000...
...3 Such presumptions of permanent global economic and military domination have a marked imperial quality...
...But along with affluence for a few, globalization has generated massive social dislocations, increased inequality, and sharpened social tensions in Latin America and elsewhere...
...In short, Cold War mentalities endured...
...The current form of globalization was not inevitable, however...
...But most of the military commands seemingly have calculated that their interests lie in support of the new paradigm and an alliance with the United States, with its attendant U.S...
...3. Douglas Farah, "A Tutor to Every Army in Latin America: U.S...
...See Center for International Policy and Latin American Working Group, "Just the Facts: A Civilian's Guide to U.S...
...Martin's Press, 1997...
...officials looked the other way as President Fujimori incrementally eliminated key civil and political rights during the 1990s...
...March 1998...
...This change in Cold War policy-a policy that led to terror, suffering, torture and death for millions of Latin Americans-should not be minimized or dismissed...
...Expands Latin American Training Role," Washington Post, July 13, 1998...
...46-48, quoted in Brian Loveman, For la Patria: Politics and the Armed Forces in Latin America (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1999), Vol...
...4. NSC-68 (1950) in Thomas G. Paterson, ed., Major Problems in American Foreign Policy Volume I1: Since 1914, 3rd ed...
...Stability was the ultimate goal of U.S...
...security was seen as inextricably linked to promotion of the private enterprise system and to unobstructed U.S...
...In 1987-before the end of the Cold War-U.S...
...In this context, U.S...
...10-28...
...The preferred U.S...
...The "war on drugs" has replaced the war against Communism as the primary U.S...
...policy since the Cold War and before...
...ment to prevent conflict and promote regional stability...
...Expands Latin American Training Role," Washington Post, July 13, 1998...
...helicopters," Miami Herald, July 25, 2000 and "U.S...
...See Alan Nairn, "Our Men in Jakarta," The Nation, June 15-22, 1998...
...It is hard to imagine these steps occurring under a right-wing Republican administration...
...Clinton proclaimed a policy of supporting human rights, peace processes, and "market democracy" (free elections and free trade...
...The difficulty of defining the operational environment in which action might be necessary makes necessary a Military Instrument designed with the capability to dissuade any threat to the vital interests of the Nation and not in regard to any particular enemy...
...aid, training and weapons sales...
...The State Department's International Narcotics Control program (which channels most of the military aid to Latin America) rose from $180 million in 1998 to $430 million in 1999.21 According to one report, some 10,000 military men and police were trained by U.S...
...The question is whether the military-security forces, backed by U.S...
...Larry Rohter, "Pentagon Shifts its Caribbean Command to Aid in Drug Fight," New York Times, June 8, 1997...
...involvement in military and political institutions throughout Latin America...
...officer told Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, "We are setting the conditions for stability by insuring security...
...She is a member of NACLA's editorial board...
...Hegemonic presumptions and power politics continued to characterize U.S...
...5. U.S...
...The rationale for that domination is no longer couched in terms of the Communist threat in the hemisphere, but by official warnings of "narcosubversion" and terrorism, warnings used to justify large budgets and a newly expanded military role...
...Moreover, in the 1990s, U.S...
...wo examples demonstrate the U.S...
...2 0 Most U.S...
...This document called for the creation of counterinsurgency forces even if there were .no insurgents: "Where subversive insurgency is virtually non-existent or incipient (PHASE I), the objective is to support the development of an adequate counterinsurgency capability in indigenous military forces through the Military Assistance Program, and to complement the nation-building programs of AID"-the U.S...
...In 1998 Human Rights Watch noted that more murders of human rights advocates took place in Colombia than in any other country in the hemisphere...
...it rests on ideology, institutions and military force...
...4 (Winter 1998), pp...
...Essentially, Washington now accepts pluralist, if narrow, democracies...
...Special Operations Command, created in 1987 to consolidate all the Special Operations Forces such as the Navy Following Vladimiro Montesinos' return to Peru after being denied political asylum in Panama, a man at an October 30 protest in Lima calls for him to be tried for treason...
...aid to the military was terminated in 1994 when human rights organizations and government studies indicated that money earmarked for counterdrug operations was actually used by the armed forces for counterinsurgency, marked by human rights violations...
...Agency for International Development--"with military civic action...
...In effect, Washington has assumed the role of hegemonic stabilizer of the system...
...7 Similarly, the former commander of SOUTHCOM and later Drug Czar General Barry McCaffrey said in 1994 that SOUTHCOM's headquarters "looks NorthSouth...where it can pay attention to what I would suggest are permanent and increasingly important economic, military, and security interests in Latin America...
...Along with training militaries in foreign internal defense, a key mission of the Command is to combat "instability...
...investment and political domination worldwide...
...Special Forces deployments in Latin America have actually increased from 147 in 1995 to some 200 today...
...Special Operations Forces from many executive and legislative restrictions, including human rights criteria, freeing them to train brutal foreign militaries in counterdrug and counterterror operations, urban warfare, intelligence, and lethal tactics...
...strategists sought to develop counterinsurgency forces in Latin America and worldwide to monitor restive populations and "dissuade" political or social opposition-an approach that led to repression...
...has subtly He cites the 1992 draft of the nm defense Pentagon's Defense Planning Guidance, which described U.S...
...2 In Latin America, the U.S...
...POLICY cally too sensitive...
...In the 1995 Conference, officers added other major challenges for nation-states and their armies: poverty and lack of social development, massive migration flows, environment, structural inequalities within states, narcotrafficking, terrorism, subversion, tensions caused by economic competition, and territorial disputes...
...Army War College, Summer 1997), pp...
...government is no longer encouraging or supporting military subversion, coups and dictatorships in the name of anti-Communism...
...Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in the region, emphasizes domestic intelligence and internal security capabilities for the militaries, functions that strengthen their most anti-democratic sectors...
...Counterdrug and counterterror operations draw on Cold War counterinsurgency doctrine and are a form of low-intensity warfare (a type of unconventional warfare that blends political, psychological, social and economic strategies of coercion...
...Essentially, Washington continues to pursue hegemony in Latin America, but through use of different instruments and strategies...
...59 (Winter 1996-97), p. 43 . 11...
...The elite-based democracies in place in Latin America facilitate neoliberal restructuring and global economic integration because popular participation is limited, political opposition is weak, and constitutional institutions are often ineffective...
...attitude has deterred potential coups and provided an environment in which democratic movements and governments-with all their limitations and weaknesses-have opened new political spaces in the region...
...presence as icas...
...forces are teaching armies how to track down opponents, surprise them in helicopter attacks, kill them with more proficiency or, in some cases, how to lead house-to-house raids in 'close quarters combat' designed for cities...
...A 1991 law exempted U.S...
...Military Influence Growing in Latin America," InterPress Third World News Agency, December 16, 1999...
...Under Clinton, U.S...
...In some countries, armed and security forces have used dirty war methods and repression to control insurgencies, popular unrest and political opposition...
...drug war...
...Human Rights Watch news release, "HRW condena asesinato de defensor de DDHH," March 3, 1998...
...Carol Rosenberg, "Southcom general will join antidrug operation," Miami Herald, August 30, 2000...
...While reaping the economic benefits of the globalized stage of free-market capitalism, Washington continues to pursue stability, order and social control in Latin America, through its bases and intelligence networks and through the local military-security forces it trains and finances...
...Additionally, the Pentagon has reportedly attempted to create a multinational intervention force for Colombia, though U.S...
...policy in Peru...
...Clinton escalated U.S...
...31REPORT ON U.S...
...Policy on Arms Exports to Latin America: A Market Opportunity for U.S...
...and Douglas Farah, "A Tutor to Every Army in Latin America: U.S...
...Analyst Andrew J. Bacevich argues that Clinton routinely used bombing raids, cruise missiles, and other bellicose acts "to convey disapproval, change attitudes, and dictate behavior...
...During a visit there in August 1999, McCaffrey eulogized Fujimori's counterdrug efforts as "an example for other countries to follow," and made a point of visiting Vladimiro Montesinos-the shadowy intelligence chief who was the CIA's main liaison, and who directed Peru's National Intelligence Service (SIN), the base of operations for death squads that carried out torture and murder in the early 1990s, and later covert operations to crush dissent...
...intervention-as in the Dominican Republic in 1965, Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989-was a last resort, considered too costly both economically and politically...
...engagement worldwide...
...He apologized for the U.S...
...In Manta, :ions and Ecuador, protesters denounced the politics stationing of U.S...
...Cfrculo Militar, "XXI Conferencia de los ejercitos americanos," Revista Militar [Argentina] (October-December 1995): pp...
...counterdrug equipment and funds to be used against the insurgency...
...needed "unimpeded access" to "established and developing economic markets throughout the world," implying that opening foreign markets to U.S...
...The language of counterterrorism and "instability" is not new in Latin America...
...Thomas Cardamone, "Foreign Policy in Focus: Arms Sales to Latin America," Washington, D.C.: Council for a Livable World, December 1997...
...This function has disturbing implications in countries where, not of the "fr long ago, ruthless military forces to domin 1 presided over repressive dictatorships...
...After the meeting, McCaffrey said he wanted to "state my public admiration for the work developed by the intelligence service...
...role in Guatemala (to the outrage of former Reagan officials), and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made a similar statement about the U.S...
...Preserving Hegemony 1. Foreign Military Training and DOD Engagement Activities of Interest, Vol...
...officers pressured their counterparts in the Conference of American Armies to make "narcosubversion" a key military mission, and in 1991, the Conference confirmed it as a primary mission for all the region's armies...
...arms sales to Latin America in the 1990s were used for counterdrug operations and paid for with counterdrug-related military aid...
...source of oil (Venezuela), provides stark evidence that in crisis situations, U.S...
...See, for example, John Gannon, "An Intelligence Perspective...
...involvement in Colombia's civil war this past July when he waived human Heger presumpt power conti n characte security po Amer rights conditions as he approved Congress' massive $1.3 billion aid package mainly aimed at strengthening the Colombian military...
...dictates, as evidenced, for example, by the refusal of Latin American presidents to subscribe to Plan Colombia at their August 2000 summit...
...drug certification process...
...Defense and Security Assistance to Latin American and the Caribbean," 1998 [www.ciponline.org.facts/ home.htm...
...But it continues to strengthen military and security forces to buttress the neoliberal order...
...It was used by previous military dictatorships to justify repression of unions, journalists, opposition party leaders, social organizations and dissidents, and the dismembering of the constitutional apparatus of democratic government...
...POLICY area of operations for combat forces, if they are required...
...In Colombia, for example, JCETs continued even after Clinton decertified the country for military assistance in 1996 and 1997 because of the country's alleged failure to cooperate in the U.S...
...1 7 U.S...
...But the new paradigm reconstitutes the role of the military forces that wielded state power during the Cold War...
...The expansive new missions were seen with alarm by Latin American democracy advocates struggling to narrow the powerful military role and strengthen civilian institutions...
...counterinsurgency doctrine were military civicaction programs, aimed to capture the "hearts and minds" of the people (and develop infrastructure useful for military operations, such as roads and bridges...
...Nationalities collected one million signatures to demand a national 'licy in the referendum on the U.S...
...Embassy in Colombia for maintaining "the absurd fiction that U.S...
...Kenneth N. Waltz, "Globalization and Governance," Political Science, December 1999, p. 699...
...The expansive new security paradigm, forcefully promoted by U.S...
...foreign policy...
...26, No...
...Lexington: D.C...
...forces were committing human rights atrocities, as in Colombia and Indonesia...
...Army Command and General Staff College Field Manual 100-20 stated, for example: "Civil-military operations (CMO) include all military efforts to support host nation development, co-opt insurgent issues, gain support for the national government, and attain national objectives without combat...They also help prepare the NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS r a s 2 ,= 30REPORT ON U.S...
...3) An economic interest in assuring that the resources and markets of the less developed world remain available to us and to other Free World countries...
...Washington continues to interpret events in Latin America in light of its own geopolitical an'd economic interests and still assumes the right to monitor the region, supervise its development, and intervene in serious cases of instability (as in Colombia today...
...1 8 The combined impact of U.S...
...The coups of that era left nearly the entire Latin American region under military dictatorship...
...Ideologically, the Clinton Administration posited that U.S.-style laissez-faire capitalism and electoral democracy were inevitable and universally beneficial...
...To better understand the continuities between today's security doctrine and that of the Cold War, a brief discussion of the earlier period is helpful...
...role in the Southern Cone...
...8. U.S...
...As a series of popular struggles for political and socioeconomic change swept the region, the militaries targeted large sectors of their populations as subversive enemies...
...12 Political scientist Kenneth Waltz also notes the irony that in the post-Cold War era, Washington has further militarized international affairs: "To an increasing extent, American foreign policy relies on military means...
...110-124...
...These] are any psychological-cultural, political, religious, economic, and military situation that may affect...a nation-state...
...government's promotion of expansive roles for Latin American military, security and intelligence forces contradicts its stated commitments to democracy and human rights and reveals its enduring objective: to decisively influence or control outcomes in the region...
...State Department, "United States Overseas Internal Defense Policy," (SECRET), September 1962, pp...
...Firms Risks Democratic Gains," LASA Forum Vol...
...anti-drug helicopters aid Colombia's army against rebels," Miami Herald, July 29, 2000...
...unconventional forces have again begun working with every army in the hemisphere but Cuba's (and with those of 110 countries worldwide), conducting specialized training exercises called Joint Combined Exchange Training, or JCET, without significant civilian oversight.16 JCETs are officially justified as training missions for U.S...
...6. See Robert H. Dorff, "Democratization and Failed States: The Challenge of Ungovernability," Parameters (U.S...
...Meanwhile, military force was frequently used by the Clinton Administration for "operations other than war," and in some areas of the world, U.S...
...Now that the region's governments have embraced market capitalism, opened their economies to foreign investment, and generally acquiesced to other demands of the United States and global capital, there is little need for direct or indirect U.S...
...government's commitment to democracy seemed dangerously thin...
...Special Forces trained a new army counternarcotics battalion of 1,500 elite Colombian soldiers and is now training a second, supported logistically and technologically by specialized U.S...
...In Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile, Paraguay and Brazil, military and security forces used force to quell social discontent and political movements protesting the wrenching consequences of free-market restructuring...
...industrialized nations from...even aspiring to a larger global or regional role...
Vol. 34 • November 2000 • No. 3
