U.S. Army War College, and the

 Latin American and Caribbean Center,

 Florida International University 

HEMISPHERIC STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES FOR THE NEXT DECADE

Compiled by

Dr. Max G. Manwaring

Key Points and Recommendations:

• Various actors and instruments are exerting power on the global community from many directions, with lethal political, economic, social and security effects. This changing and integrating world has lead to new directions toward a viable security concept for the Western Hemisphere.

• Hemisphere and world leaders are considering an aggregate security concept through the Organization of American States (OAS). The debate includes how military power can address “nonmilitary” issues, and how “nonmilitary” economic or other types of power can be applied in a 

security context.

• The aggregate solution embraces legitimate and strong nation-states. Any effort that does not 

strengthen the state can deteriorate existing democracy, free market economies. and prosperity. These have been achieved over several years and profoundly affect the health of the U.S. 

economy and its ability act in the global security arena.

- In this context, as one example, the U.S. military responsibility goes well beyond the narrow purview on unilateral training and equipping of tactical units to broader multilateral 

professional military education and leader development.

The OAS should:

• Seek binding international agreements that generate a management structure for multilateral 

harmony, accountability, transparency, and a means to impose effective sanctions.

• Establish a multilateral, comprehensive, and phased policy and strategy to implement its 

vision.

• Provide good offi ces to help states move toward aggregate national security strategies.

• Provide good offi ces to generate national level management structures to strengthen the state; 

to guarantee unifi ed civil-military efforts; and to oversee, professionalize, and modernize the 

military-police component.

• Establish programs to exchange expertise, intelligence, and other resources, and to develop 

further confi dence-building and cooperation measures against threats to security and stability.
2

The Latin American and Caribbean Center 

of Florida International University, the U.S. 

Southern Command, and the Strategic Studies 

Institute of the U.S. Army War College held the 

seventh in a series of major annual conferences 

dealing with security matters in the Western 

Hemisphere, in Miami, Florida, on March 17-19, 

2004. The conference focused on “Hemispheric 

Strategic Objectives for the Next Decade.” 

This event brought together over 190 leading 

representatives of government, the military, 

academia, and the private sector from the United 

States, Canada, Latin America, and the European 

Union (EU). Attendees participated in a program 

of “on-the-record” panels and discussions to 

exchange perspectives with fellow experts on 

the region. The principal objectives were to 

evaluate the evolving defi nitions of hemispheric 

security, review the debate surrounding the 

institutional structures that will support it, and 

examine the concepts required to strengthen 

security cooperation in the Western Hemisphere. 

The dialogue centered on a complex geopolitical 

situation that might be called “Wizard’s Chess.” 

After the horrifi c events of 9/11 and before 

the sobering terrorist bombings on Madrid’s 

commuter railway system on March 11, 2004, it 

acted as a catalyst that moved leaders toward 

the idea of a “New Security” in the international 

security arena.

The Deadly Game of “Wizard’s Chess.”

The global security arena may be characterized 

as a game of chess. In it, pieces move silently and 

subtly wherever they are directed. Each piece 

on the game board represents a different type 

of devastating power, and may simultaneously 

conduct its lethal attacks from differing directions. 

Each piece shows no mercy against its foe, and 

is prepared to sacrifi ce itself in order to allow 

another piece the opportunity to destroy a more 

important adversary―or checkmate the king.

Similarly, every player in the international 

community from pawns to bishops to the queen 

must cope simultaneously with three separate 

and potentially grave types of contemporary 

threat. These threats include, fi rst, traditional 

and lingering boundary and territorial disputes 

and balance of power concerns. Second, each 

player must deal with the very real nontraditional 

possibilities of cheap and available nuclear arms, 

other weapons of mass destruction (WMD), 

biological agents, and electronic (or cyber) 

warfare―any one of which could render a country 

or part of it unable to function. Third, additional 

destabilizing nontraditional public security 

threats can be seen all over the world in “lawless” 

territories, urban criminal gangs involved in 

“coups d’ streets,” and more conventional, transnational terrorism.

Accordingly, all the above threats can be 

seen as methods of choice of globally connected 

commercial and ideological movements―dedicated to self-enrichment at the expense of 

others, to the destruction of the contemporary 

international system of cooperation and progress, 

or both. Thus, hemispheric and transatlantic 

cohesion is beginning to regain its geopolitical 

premium. In these terms, it is absolutely essential 

that the entire global community organize itself 

to combat this extraordinary set of threats by 

conceptualizing a long-term game plan, setting 

appropriate priorities, and determining what 

sacrifi ces must be made. Over the long term, 

this ongoing game is not a question of national 

security or sovereignty. Ultimately, it is a 

question of survival. Failure in “Wizard’s Chess” 

is not an option.

Turbulence in Hemispheric Politics: Continuity 

and Change.

Hemispheric and world leaders have been 

struggling with security and sovereignty 

problems for a long time, and the nature of the 

contemporary dilemma is still not completely 

understood. Unilateral and singular “hard” 

military security efforts and “soft” developmental 

efforts have been generally ineffective. As a result, 

national security expanded to broader concepts 

of “well-being” and “effective sovereignty.” 

These notions, however, threatened to make the 

ideas of security and sovereignty so elastic and 
3

all-inclusive as to make them all but useless as 

analytical and practical political tools. 

Leaders were left with the uncomfortable 

reality that there is a circular linkage between 

and among four major dimensions―military/

law enforcement, political, socio-economic/

developmental, and environmental. Moreover, 

given the interdependence of the global system, 

discussions of one nation’s security and effective 

sovereignty cannot be isolated from the security 

and sovereignty of neighboring states. In this 

perspective, as diffi cult as it may be, individual 

nation-states and the international community 

are beginning to approach security and effective 

sovereignty as an aggregate synergistic whole. 

In that regard, it is interesting and important 

to note that the keynote speaker, General James 

T. Hill, and several other conference participants, 

prioritized poverty and corruption as the most 

basic security/sovereignty problem facing most 

of the nations of the Western Hemisphere today. 

Issues such as these do not easily respond to 

military solutions. Thus, the debate on aggregate 

power has begun to address how military power 

can be brought to bear on “nonmilitary” issues. 

That debate must, then, turn the problem around 

and address how “nonmilitary” economic or 

other types of power may be used in a military or 

law enforcement context. Extending the debate 

to its logical conclusion, the aggregate solution 

takes us to the need to legitimize and strengthen 

the nation-state.

Conclusions and Recommendations: Moving 

Toward a Viable New Security.

A viable new security reality begins with the 

provision of personal security for the individual 

members of a polity. It extends to protection of 

the citizenry from violent internal nonstate actors 

(including organized criminals, self-appointed 

vigilante groups, and private armies), and 

external enemies―and, perhaps in some cases, 

from repressive internal (local and regional) 

governments. The security problem ends with the 

establishment of fi rm but fair control of the entire 

national territory and the people in it. That takes 

us back to the concept of effective sovereignty. 

Without complete control of the national territory, 

a government cannot provide the elements that 

defi ne meaningful national security―an effective 

judicial system under the rule of law; longterm socioeconomic development; responsible 

democratic processes; and durable peace. In 

turn, all that requires a relatively strong and 

legitimate state that can exert a synergistic effort 

involving all the instruments of national power. It 

also requires a state that can cooperate effectively 

with other states and regional and international 

organizations against transnational threats. 

Most of the conference participants agreed 

that the most viable approach to the transnational 

threat to security and stability in the Western 

Hemisphere is to devolve responsibility to the 

Organization of American States (OAS). Once 

the OAS has created an aggregate strategic vision 

regarding exactly where it is going and how it is 

going to get there, it can initiate several ancillary 

efforts. They would include: 

• Binding international agreements that provide for a reconceptualization of security 

and sovereignty, and generate a management 

structure for multilateral harmony, accountability, transparency, and means to impose 

effective sanctions. 

• A multilateral, comprehensive, and phased 

policy and strategy to implement the OAS 

vision.

• Providing good offi ces to help states move 

from individual Defense White Papers to 

aggregate national security strategies.

• Providing good offi ces to generate management structures at the national level designed 

to strengthen and legitimize the state, and to 

guarantee unifi ed civil-military efforts.

• Providing mechanisms for oversight, canalization, professionalization, and modernization of the military-police component of an 

aggregate civil-military effort.

• Plans and programs to enhance the exchange 

of expertise, intelligence, and other resources, 
4

and to continue the development of confi dencebuilding measures and multilateral models 

for cooperation against traditional and nontraditional threats to security and stability. 

Afterword.

Contemporary security and stability remain 

fragile in the Western Hemisphere. Long-existing 

paradigms are no longer completely reliable 

bases for dealing with contemporary threats to 

national security and effective sovereignty. It 

is now becoming clear that there is an organic 

connection between national, regional, and 

global security and stability. New directions are 

becoming apparent in an integrating world in 

which differing forms of power are being exerted 

simultaneously on the global community by 

differing actors, by differing instruments, from 

differing directions, and with lethal political, 

economic, social, and security effects. 

This situation is extremely volatile and 

dangerous, and requires careful attention. In 

these terms, the international community, the 

United States, the OAS, and the individual states 

of the hemisphere must understand and cope 

with the threats imposed by those actors engaged 

in destabilizing and devastating violence that is 

often labeled “terrorism.” If the United States and 

its transatlantic and hemispheric friends and allies 

ignore what is happening in Latin America and 

do not implement strategic state-strengthening 

reforms, the expansion of terrorism, the expansion 

of “lawless areas,” and the expansion of general 

instability could easily destroy the democracy, 

free market economies, and prosperity that have 

been achieved in the hemisphere since the ending 

of the Cold War. 

*****

The views expressed in this brief are those 

of the author and do not necessarily refl ect the 

offi cial policy or position of the Department of 

the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. 

Government. This conference brief is cleared for 

public release; distribution is unlimited.

*****

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