Colloquium Brief

U.S. Army War College,

Institute for National Strategic Studies, 

 National Defense University 

A NEW CHAPTER IN TRANS-AMERICAN 

ENGAGEMENT

Dr. Max G. Manwaring

Strategic Studies Institute

Ms. Eva Silkwood Baker

Institute for National Strategic Studies

KEY INSIGHTS:

	 •	 The need to advance regional understanding of the contemporary security partnership situation in

the Hemisphere: An educational and conceptual requirement;

	 •	 The need to foster a broader partnership focus on the disaster relief issue: An educational, conceptual, and organizational requirement; and

	 •	 The need to build multilateral mechanisms and processes to address the contemporary security

partnership situation: An educational and organizational requirement.

	 •	 Recommendation: USSOUTHCOM take the lead in developing a multilateral regional security action plan to begin a viable long-term regional partnership effort in the Hemisphere.

INTRODUCTION

	 General Fraser and the conference dialogue stressed the critical need to develop a serious hemispheric partnership

for opening “A new Chapter in Trans-American Engagement.” In that connection, over 20 major issues and recommendations were put forward (some of which were redundant) at the 2010 Western Hemisphere Security Colloquium,

held on May 25-26, 2010, in Miami, Florida. In one way or another, virtually every issue and recommendation stresses

that building a viable regional security partnership in the Hemisphere is not a strictly short-term, or unilateral, or

even bilateral defense effort. Regional security will result only from long-term, multilateral, civil-military partnering

efforts. Thus, the generalized results of the colloquium emphasize three highly interrelated needs and an associated

recommendation.

ISSUES AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Issue A: The Need to Advance Regional Understanding of the Contemporary Security Partnership Situation in the 

Hemisphere. 

	 This is primarily an educational and conceptual requirement that centers on the major unconventional contemporary transnational threats to effective sovereignty, peace, democracy, socio-economic development, and individual

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and collective security. Recommendations include, but

are not necessarily limited to the following:

	 1. Western Hemisphere countries should reevaluate traditional understandings of state sovereignty and

defense. The purpose is to reconceptualize concepts of

sovereignty, defense, and security to meet 21st century

requirements, and to generate truly transnational responses to transnational problems.

2. Western Hemisphere countries need to develop

whole-of-society solutions to achieve individual and collective security, and to achieve effective sovereignty.

	 3. There is a corresponding need to improve education, training, knowledge transfer, and support to public

security administrative officials (civilian, military, and

police). As one example, the intent is to better use police,

military, and civilian capabilities in a cohesive manner—

fusing information into actionable intelligence—and

helping them to work together operationally.

	 4. Civil-military relationships need public debate,

and new Rules of Engagement (ROE) must be developed.

	 5. U.S. policymakers and their Latin American partners need to better coordinate their separate, subregional counternarcotics and security programs (e.g., Plan

Colombia, Merida Initiative, Caribbean Basin Security

Initiative, and the Central American Regional Security

Initiative) in order to be more effective in meeting the

transnational challenges posed by organized criminal

networks, and avoid simply perpetuating “the balloon

effect.”

6. As a corollary, NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM

must work together in a more cooperative manner

in the Southern Triangle areas of Mexico, Belize, and

Guatemala to combat illicit activities such as drug, arms,

and human trafficking.

	 7. U.S. policymakers should readjust their metrics of

success. U.S. assistance programs should no longer be

gauged on the amount of money or military equipment

doled out, or illegal drugs seized, hectares eradicated, or

on domestic consumption rates. Instead the focus should

be on qualitative measures such as provision of citizen

security and political stability. Most importantly, the

focus needs to be pragmatic, with the more reasonable

goal of management of the situation, not complete victory in a so-called “war on drugs.”

8. Government-to-Government collaboration is best

enabled through people-to-people diplomacy. For example, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence personnel should work on cultivating personal relationships

with their counterparts in Latin America to build trust

and to facilitate better sharing of information. The U.S.

Government should also support measures that employ

partner national level special and vetted units that work

with U.S. agencies and a program that encourages U.S.

law enforcement agents to work with their partner nation equivalents. This is a “force multiplier.”

	 9. The U.S. Government should promote peopleto-people diplomacy in collaboration with NGOs and

PVOs through such initiatives as the medical missions of

the USNS Comfort in partnership with Project Hope. The

U.S. Government should also work to engage the private

sector and civil society through “intersections of interest” to mobilize volunteers and obtain funding for socioeconomic development projects in the region.

	 10. Finally, Western Hemisphere countries must be

encouraged to be proactive in providing their own security in partnership with their neighbors. This will require

meaningful participation in decisionmaking and meaningful roles in implementation.

Discussion. 

In the context outlined above, it is helpful to understand how sovereignty, security, stability and defense

issues have changed over the past several years. The

traditional legal concept of threats to national security

and sovereignty involve the protection of national territory and the population against recognizable external

military aggression. Thus, the traditional level of security analysis tends to define national security and sovereignty in narrow nation-state and military terms. The

main current in the Latin American threat environment

is not a traditional security (i.e., defense against external

nation-state aggression) problem. Rather, a dynamic and

complex mix of nonstate actors (e.g., populists and neopopulists, new socialists, political insurgents, transnational criminal organizations, drug cartels, small private

military organizations, enforcer gangs, mercenaries, other paramilitary “self defense” organizations, etc.) are actively involved in internal disruption and destabilization

efforts that violate the effective sovereignty and stability

of virtually every nation-state in the region, every day of

the year. The primary objective of these “new” players in

the hemispheric security arena is to attain a level of freedom of movement and action that allows their achievement of radical political, commercial, and/or other motives. Additionally, other potentially destabilizing issues

have emerged or reemerged in the hemisphere, such as

energy resources, missile defense, nuclear power, demarcation of boundaries, and informal economics.

	 The objectives of the players, nonstate and statesupported, define insurgency as: coercing fundamental

change of a given political-economic-social system to

neutralize, control, or depose it. These objectives also

define war: compelling an adversary to accede to an aggressor’s policy objectives. All this requires more than

law enforcement or military solutions. The ability to

effectively deal with contemporary insurgency or war
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threats engendered by nonstate actors is multilevel and

multilateral, and requires political, psychological, moral,

informational, economic, and social efforts—as well as

police and military efforts. Thus, the full human and

physical resources of a nation-state, its society, and its

international partners are required to achieve the individual and collective well-being that leads to effective

sovereignty, stability, and societal peace with justice.

Finally, it must be emphasized that the concept of security now includes—first and foremost—the imperative

of addressing the root causes (i.e., poverty, inequality,

and the lack of law and order) of instability and violence.

Issue B: The Need to Foster a Broader Partnership 

Focus on the Disaster Relief Issue.

	 This is a conceptual, educational, and organizational

requirement that focuses on the need for strategic clarity.

Strategic clarity is derived primarily from conceptual,

educational, and organizational mechanisms for achieving unity of effort. Recommendations include, but are

not necessarily limited to the following:

	 1. Disaster response and relief should focus on partnerships and relationships that look beyond traditional

command and control boundaries and instead allow for

coordination, collaboration, communication, and flexibility.

	 2. The UN Security Council should be encouraged to

reexamine its MINUSTAH mission to allow for the expansion of its mandate to include combating drug trafficking around Hispanola, and trans-national criminal

organizations and gangs on the island.

	 3. It is time to investigate why JIATF South is such a

successful model of inter-agency cooperation and how it

can best be optimized in other arenas of whole-of government and multi-lateral cooperation.

	 4. There is a need to work on building trust, confidence, transparency, and accountability in disaster relief

and related activities.

	 5. Same as recommendations 1 and 10 from Issue A

outlined above.

Discussion. 

	 In the past, small-scale peace enforcement and stability operations tended to be unrealistically viewed as providing military solutions for civil violence and instability

problems. Presently, the complex realities of these types

of missions must be understood as a holistic process that

relies on various civilian and military agencies and contingents working together in an integrated fashion. The

intent is to establish and achieve a common political end.

A former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe

and former SOUTHCOM Commander, General John

R. Galvin, USA (Ret.), argues that continuous and cooperative planning among and between national and

international civilian and military organizations, beginning with a strategic assessment of a given situation, can

establish a mechanism for developing a common vision

for ultimate political success (i.e., strategic clarity). Then,

shared goals and objectives, a broad understanding of

what must be done, or not done or changed, and a common understanding of possibilities and constraints will

generate an overarching campaign plan that becomes

the basis for developing subordinate plans making direct contributions to the achievement of the desired end

state. Thus, the roles and missions of the various national and international civilian and military elements

evolve deliberately—rather than as an ad hoc response

to the crisis of the moment. All these integrative efforts

ultimately ensure the conditions that will allow a host

nation to develop or renew its political solvency and legitimacy—and that a given mandate for peace and stability will, in fact, be achieved. 

Issue C: The Need to Build Multilateral Mechanisms 

and Processes to Address the Contemporary Partnership 

Security Situation in Latin America.

Logically, Issues A and B take us to this issue. Before

rushing to create an architecture that will deal with security and stability threats that have an impact on us all,

the primary parties must be in general agreement regarding a strategic end state. Although an agreement on

the end state is a necessary condition for effective partnership, it is not sufficient. The agreement must be supported by an organizational structure that can identify,

plan, and implement a plan of action. Recommendations

include all those listed above, and more. First, there are

educational/conceptual requirements necessary to develop leader judgment that is needed to effectively deal

with complex, politically dominated, multi-dimensional,

multi-organization, multi-national, and multi-cultural

contingencies. In these terms, there is a need to:

	 1. Facilitate ways and means to help civil-military

leaders cope with the many ways that political and psychological considerations affect the use and the nonuse

of force.

	 2. Facilitate ways and means to help leaders to understand that the number of battlefield victories, the

number of enemies arrested or killed, or the number of

hectares or kilos destroyed has meaning only to the extent that such actions directly contribute to the legitimate

strengthening of the state.

	 3. Teach leaders at all levels how to communicate

with a diversity of national and external civil-military

cultures.
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	 4. Teach leaders how to cooperatively and to collegially plan and implement an operation employing a full

universe of diverse organizations—internal government

agencies, international organizations, nongovernmental

organizations, private voluntary organizations, and coalition/partnership civil-military organizations.

	 5. Teach leaders a thinking process (i.e., logic path)

and an understanding of grand strategy that will allow

them to be clear on what the situation is and what it is

not.

6. Since in a conflict situation, nonstate actors are

likely to have at their disposal an awesome array of conventional and unconventional weaponry, there is a need

to teach leaders, soldiers, and police involved in peace

enforcement and stability operations to be effective

warfighters.

7. Revitalization of the Inter-American Defense

Board might be a step in the right direction to work toward achieving the ends outlined above, to enhance civilian oversight of the armed forces in the region, to become a school of public administration instead of just a

training school for officers, and to help restore trust and

confidence in the armed forces and Ministries of Defense

in the region.

Organizationally, there is a need to:

1. Develop an executive-level management structure

which can and will ensure continuous cooperative planning and execution of policy among and between the

primary internal players. The Organization of American

States (OAS) could provide such a structure.

	 2. That structure must also be capable of continuous

cooperative planning and execution of policy among

and between primary external actors (i.e., primary external ally, other coalition partners, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations.

	 3. That same structure must also ensure that all political-economic-military action at the operational and

tactical levels directly contributes to the achievement

of the mutually agreed strategic political end state. This

requirement reflects a need to develop an effective end

state planning mechanism within the executive-level

management structure.

Discussion. 

	 The United States shares with its hemispheric neighbors an increasingly and vitally important financial,

commercial, and security/stability stake in the political

and socio-economic growth of the region. Any kind of

political-economic-social-security deterioration in the

area will profoundly degrade the health of the U.S. economy—and therefore, the concomitant power to act in the

global security arena. Thus, the continuing U.S. responsibility to the region goes well beyond the narrow purview

of unilateral military training and equipping to that of

a broader multilateral strategy and civil-military leader

development effort.

FINAL ISSUE: The Need to Continue the Momentum 

from the Colloquium and to Build on the Range of 

Partnership-related Issues Outlined in this Conference 

Brief.

Sub-Issue: None of the requirements and recommendations outlined above allow for quick and easy solutions.

They demand a carefully staffed and phased multilateral

security action plan, with short and long-term milestones

and metrics to validate planning and implementation.

Recommendation: That the U.S. Southern Command

takes the lead in establishing a multi-organizational and

multilateral “Tiger Team” to develop a phased regional

action plan that will begin a viable long-term regional

partnership effort in the Hemisphere.

ENDNOTE

1. Manwaring interview with General John R. Galvin,

USA (Ret.), on August 6, 1997, in Boston, MA.

*****

	 The views expressed in this brief are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or

position of the Department of the Army, the Department

of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

*****

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