No. 228, September 2007 Strategic Forum    

The countries of the Western Hemisphere 

are more integrated than ever, with both each 

other and countries elsewhere, but critical 

aspects of their relationships remain hampered 

by outdated patterns and stereotypes. As the 

United States has focused on terrorism in the 

Middle East and Asia, its neighbors are developing more assertive roles on the world stage.

While traditional national security concerns have diminished, new issues are coming 

to the fore. Criminal gangs operating in urban 

areas throughout the hemisphere threaten security and engage in transnational criminal activities across borders. This situation seriously 

affects the quality of life of millions. Worse, 

it challenges basic aspects of sovereignty by 

eroding governmental control.

The need to seriously rethink hemispheric 

cooperation is becoming increasingly obvious. 

Instances of successful security cooperation—the Brazilian-led United Nations mission 

in Haiti, Caribbean cooperation on providing 

security for the 2007 Cricket World Cup, U.S. 

support for Colombia’s Democratic Security 

policy—are numerous but piecemeal.

Intensified security dialogues within 

Central and South America are taking place 

bilaterally and subregionally. The Organization 

of American States has facilitated new security 

frameworks to supplement traditional dispute 

settlement and confidence-building measures. 

Region-wide treaties have been negotiated to 

fight illegal narcotics trafficking, contraband in 

small arms and munitions, and terrorism. Unfortunately, implementation has lagged considerably.

The United States can contribute to the 

renewal of trans-American security cooperation 

by supporting more robust implementation of 

inter-American laws that U.S. representatives 

have already signed; by facilitating initiatives to 

help build civilian institutions that are critical 

to stability; by helping to develop professional 

civilian and military skills and key institutional 

relationships, including intelligence-sharing; 

and by improving policy dialogues and continuing interministerial consultations needed to 

bridge different interests and perspectives.

Strategic Foundations

World politics are at once globalizing and fragmenting.1

 The world’s only 

superpower, the United States, is focused so 

intensely on Iraq that its attention elsewhere 

sometimes wanders. The other major powers—China, the European Union, India, 

Japan, and Russia—are deeply immersed in 

domestic concerns, international economic 

competition, and their immediate neighborhoods. Latin America and the Caribbean continue to seek their place on the world stage 

but are torn internally over how to overcome 

the injustices and social exclusion that hamper their progress.

In the face of these enormous problems, 

it is not insignificant that the Western Hemisphere is a strikingly peaceful part of the world. 

This fact alone should give trans-American 

cooperation great potential.2 The Americas 

share many common experiences. Their colonial legacies include unjust treatment of indigenous people and the practice of slavery, but 

they also include the frontier senses of freedom 

and future. And if many contemporary failings 

are painful, it is also true that some of the pain 

comes from the region’s steady democratization 

and modernization.

Regional cooperation has had continuous 

organizational form since 1889, with the Organization of American States (OAS) at its center today. The oldest international defense and 

security organization in the world is the InterAmerican Defense Board (IADB), founded in 

1942. The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal 

Assistance, also known as the Rio Treaty, signed 

in 1947, provided that an armed attack by any 

state against any other state would be considered an attack against all the states, thus creating the model for collective action against 

aggression later adopted by the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO).

More recently, Latin America and the 

Caribbean have become a nuclear-free zone 

and, along with Canada, are well on their 

way to becoming totally free of antipersonnel 

land mines. Argentina, Brazil, and Chile have 

renounced chemical and biological weapons.

As on the world stage, power remains 

concentrated asymmetrically in the United 

States, yet the hemisphere’s other countries 

are narrowing the gaps in some critical areas. 

The United States depends on its neighbors 

for more than half of its energy imports and 

nearly 40 percent of its iron and steel imports, 

as well as many other resources and commodities. Mass movements of people in the form of 

both legal and illegal migration have become 

controversial and need to be brought under 

Strategic Forum

No. 228

September 2007

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University

http://www.ndu.edu/inss

Key Points

Trans-American Security: 

What’s Missing?

by Luigi R. Einaudi
    Strategic Forum	 No. 228, September 2007

control (although they generally take place 

peacefully, driven by the search for opportunity rather than by the despair of war, disease, 

or famine). Migration to the United States and 

Canada has been widely publicized, but significant subregional migration is taking place in 

South and Central America and has long been 

a distinctive reality of the Caribbean. The 

Americas are still extraordinarily diverse, yet 

they are also closer to being a New World than 

ever before in history.

These cultural, political, and economic 

assets suggest that the countries of the hemisphere could be a secure strategic anchor and a 

mutually supportive foundation for each other 

in this uncertain world. Just as energy and steel 

were the foundations of the European Coal and 

Steel Community in the 1950s that evolved into 

today’s European Union, the growing economic 

interdependence of the Americas could become a 

major strategic asset for all concerned. The latest 

World Trade Organization (WTO) statistics indicate that, in 2005, the hemispheric neighbors of 

the United States—Argentina, Brazil, Canada, 

Chile, Mexico, as well as the Central American 

Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) group and Caribbean Community (CARICOM)—bought 45 percent of all U.S. merchandise exports. In the same 

period, China bought 4.6 percent.3 A hemispherewide free trade agreement would strengthen the 

competitive position of all its countries—including the United States.

What’s Missing?

However, the proposed Free Trade Area 

of the Americas (FTAA) lies stalled, paralyzed by fears of globalization, genuine trade 

differences, and frustration created by unfulfilled expectations for the long-term development from the “Washington Consensus” 

reforms. Moreover, most of our neighbors, 

long sensitive to threats to their sovereignty, 

have experienced genuine malaise over the 

implications of U.S. unilateralism in Iraq.4

In short, the promise of the New World is 

saddled with the weight of unmet expectations, 

diverging interests, and mutual distrust, and it 

remains largely unfulfilled by all concerned.5

Opposition to outside intervention in internal 

affairs, and particularly resistance to the possibility of U.S. military intervention, led the writers of the OAS Charter in 1948 to ignore the 

existence of the IADB, reflecting a schizophrenia that to some extent persists today. The OAS 

has not legitimized military intervention since 

the Dominican Republic in 1965, twice punting 

to the United Nations (UN) on Haiti and opposing all other uses of military force, whether in 

the Malvinas/Falklands War or the U.S. actions 

in Grenada and Panama.

Several other developments from the 

1960s through the 1980s raised questions 

about both the desirability and reliability of 

military cooperation. Guerrilla warfare, fratricidal conflicts, disappearances, and human 

rights violations stigmatized security institutions and relations. At times, there appeared 

to be two separate universes, one military and one civilian, and communication 

between them sometimes seemed lost. The 

whole region became tarred with negative stereotypes. The United States and Anglophone 

Caribbean tended to view Latin America as a 

home for dictators and human rights violators, while the United States was seen by its 

neighbors as fluctuating between indifference 

and interventionism.

In 1982, the United States, which had 

accepted the Rio Treaty’s obligations against 

communist threats, denied military assistance to Argentina in its conflict with the 

United Kingdom over the Malvinas/Falkland 

Islands. This dealt a fatal blow to the mandatory collective security system. By the time 

Mexico withdrew from the Rio Treaty 20 

years later, its denunciation seemed almost a 

formal afterthought.

Responding to terrorism has also 

been a problem. Terrorism has been experienced in the Americas in many different guises, not just as the unadulterated 

exercise of sheer terror against the United 

States as occurred on September 11, 2001. 

Political violence, state repression, criminal gang warfare linked to the narcotics 

trade, and the rise of private armies and 

personal security companies in the absence 

of an effective state monopoly of force are 

hard to put into the same policy basket. 

(The critical issues raised for public security and national defense are explored further below.)

Suffice it to say for now that differences in 

history, interests, concepts, and capacities are 

so great that, despite interlinked cultural and 

political traditions, the countries of the Americas sometimes seem to inhabit different universes and to be incapable of understanding 

and adjusting to each other well enough to 

realize the benefits of increased cooperation.

Colonial Legacies 

Overcome

By the end of the 20th century, three positive underlying trends were combining to 

improve the regional environment.

The first was the end of colonialism. 

All of the English-speaking Caribbean countries had become independent by 1981, and 

by 1990, all had been accepted into the OAS 

(despite, in the cases of Guyana and Belize, 

the continued existence of territorial differences with Latin American neighbors). Except 

for Grenada in 1982, these countries have all 

resisted the totalitarian temptation; indeed, 

Barbados has one of the oldest parliamentary 

traditions in the world, dating to 1639.

The second big change was the end of 

traditional dictatorships, de facto regimes, and 

military governments. A democratizing spurt 

after World War II ran afoul of the Cold War, 

but by 1991, all 33 governments represented at 

the OAS General Assembly in Chile had some 

claim to democratic legitimacy. In a dramatic 

shift, they pledged to meet immediately “in 

the event of any occurrences giving rise to the 

Luigi R. Einaudi is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at 

the National Defense University. Comments may be addressed to Mr. Einaudi at einaudil@ndu.edu. 

the countries of the 

hemisphere could be a 

secure strategic anchor 

and a mutually supportive 

foundation for each other 

in this uncertain world
No. 228, September 2007 Strategic Forum    

sudden or irregular interruption of the democratic political institutional process or of the 

legitimate exercise of power by the democratically elected government in any of the Organization’s member states.”6

 The 16 years since 

have witnessed many growing pains for the 

new democracies, including constitutional 

conflicts and authoritarian experiments, but 

the commitment to greater accountability and 

popular participation should be seen as irreversible at the regional level.

A third positive trend has been the 

gradual dampening of territorial disputes 

rooted in pre-independence colonial conflicts. Although the 1982 Malvinas/Falklands War between Argentina and the 

United Kingdom ended with no settlement 

and the restoration of the status quo ante, 

major differences between Argentina and 

Chile were resolved with the help of Papal 

mediation. In 1995, the Upper Cenepa war 

pitted Ecuador against Peru in sudden violence with explosive regional danger, only 

to end nearly 4 years later with a settlement that promoted integration and development. Four countries—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and the United States—acting 

as guarantors of the 1942 Rio Protocol created the Military Observer Mission, Ecuador-Peru (MOMEP).7

 MOMEP’s forces were 

coordinated by a Brazilian general and succeeded first in separating 5,000 intertwined 

combatant forces without fresh casualties 

in extraordinarily difficult terrain. MOMEP 

then added Ecuadorian and Peruvian forces 

into its peacekeeping operations to enable 

guarantor diplomats to help the two governments negotiate a lasting peace in the 

interests of both countries. The 1998 peace 

between Ecuador and Peru definitively 

tilted the strategic balance in South America away from interstate conflict. Before the 

settlement of their dispute, Ecuador and 

Peru had regularly purchased military jet 

aircraft, often stimulating concerns among 

neighbors who felt pressured to keep up in 

what some called an arms race.

Coming as it did on the heels of the end 

of the global Cold War and Central American hot wars, the Peru-Ecuador peace confirmed a new strategic reality in which military expenditures could safely be reduced to 

promote development.

Pains of Transition

If many traditional relationships and 

problems have broken down, eroded, or 

simply changed, the transition to a more 

modern and democratic order has not 

been easy. As often happens, change breeds 

change and the results are not always 

immediately understandable or positive.

Popular demands and rising expectations were stimulated by democratic values and accommodated by desires to avoid 

repression. The pressures on governments to 

show results were immediate. Calls for public services—health, sanitation, education, 

transportation—overwhelmed government 

institutions. The stress of years of high population growth accompanied by the communications and democratic revolutions virtually 

invited social rupture. Poverty and inequality that might have been tolerable when there 

seemed to be no alternative suddenly became 

unbearable in the presence of wealth, arrogance, and the absence of the rule of law. 

And when misery occurs in oil-rich Venezuela 

or once tin-rich and now gas-rich Bolivia, the 

man in the potholed street concludes that he 

is a “beggar sitting on a throne of gold” stolen from him by corrupt oligarchs, traitorous 

governments, and scheming foreigners. Much 

of the time, the daily reality is more likely to 

be weak institutions, a public bureaucracy 

without support from either the rich or the 

poor, and a justice system unaccustomed to 

seeking justice for all. But change requires 

time, and patience is not a characteristic of 

the television age.

And then there is the drug trade. One 

estimate is that drug trafficking generates 

more than $300 billion annually—more 

than the gross domestic product of all but a 

handful of countries.8 Drug money, weapons, 

and social dislocation in the midst of poverty 

and weak institutions are similar to sparks in 

a coal mine filled with gases.

Lawlessness is also spurred by the impact 

of deportations. Between 1998 and 2005, the 

United States “removed” more than 610,000 persons with either a criminal conviction or a criminal charge—an average of more than 76,000 

a year.9 Ninety-six percent of all these deportations were to Latin America, the overwhelming majority to Mexico and the Caribbean Basin. 

When street-wise law-breakers are deported, they 

become potential recruits for criminal groups 

and add to the pressures on undermanned local 

security forces in receiving countries.10

The explosions resulting from this mix of 

pressures affect all aspects of life, private and 

public. Anyone exposed to the havoc wreaked 

by the maras in Central America, criminal 

gangs in Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, and several other major urban centers and sometimes 

ungoverned rural areas knows governmental authorities are not only stretched thin in 

services, but also frequently overmatched in 

force. Private armies and security forces have 

in some cases become a survival necessity for 

the few who can afford them and a return to 

the law of the jungle for those who cannot. 

Incantations of the miracles of democracy 

and free markets become obscene insults to 

those caught up in the turbulence.

The continuing expansion of organized 

crime, notes the Director of the OAS Department of Public Security, “is having a multiplier effect on all other forms of violence, on 

the economy of the affected countries, on the 

quality of life of citizens, on the privatization of 

security, on the militarization of law enforcement, and on the corruption it generates.”11

The consequences for security are abundant and sometimes disturbing. Military 

institutions were in many cases the most 

developed institutions of government and 

in some remote areas the only representatives of the state. In the 1960s, military leaders intervened in national politics, often 

with disastrous consequences for themselves, 

their institutions, and their countries. By the 

1990s, under the twin impact of peace and 

democracy (to which a new generation of 

military leaders had often given critical support), military institutions lost both political 

status and resources. In the 21st century, how 

drug money, weapons, 

and social dislocation 

in the midst of poverty 

and weak institutions are 

similar to sparks in a coal 

mine filled with gases
    Strategic Forum	 No. 228, September 2007

the balance is struck between public security 

and national defense on the one hand, and 

equitable development on the other, could 

determine the course of stability in more 

than one country.

The New Regional Pattern

The end of the Cold War and the acceleration of globalization underscored the need 

for everyone to look at the neighborhood with 

different eyes. The once hallowed nostrums of 

the Monroe Doctrine, Fortress America, and 

their more recent cousin, a new U.S. Maginot line against drugs, terrorists, or migrants, 

still occasionally produce screams of frustration, but are simply unworkable when it 

comes to implementation. Ideas of closed 

regionalism are dead everywhere. Openings 

to Europe, South Africa, India, or China are 

eagerly sought everywhere. If regionalism is 

to prosper in the years to come, it must be 

open to the world, not a retreat from competition. National interests differ, and interdependence is often uncomfortable. But cooperation that is neither mandatory nor imposed, 

but is voluntary and negotiated is also 

increasingly necessary for all concerned.

Several points characterize the new 

regional environment.

First, with a few marked exceptions in the 

Andes, cooperation is most dynamic among 

immediate neighbors. CARICOM, the Central 

American Integration System (Sistema de la 

Integración Centroamericana [SICA]), and 

the common market in the Southern Cone 

(MERCOSUR) are the most obvious examples. But the trend is also evident on a South 

America–wide basis and to some extent in 

North America. An unfortunate exception has 

been the willingness of Colombia’s immediate neighbors to stand apart from the conflict 

there and do little to control their adjoining 

border areas. Even so, it seems increasingly 

clear that subregional cooperation and integration are becoming building blocks for 

regional and ultimately global progress.

Second, most discussions of security issues in the hemisphere reflect a new 

focus on social development. In 2003, Mexico convened a region-wide Special Conference on Security. Ministers from all corners 

of the hemisphere agreed that threats had 

become “multidimensional.” The priorities 

of the largest countries, such as the United 

States, were included (cyber security, weapons 

of mass destruction, terrorism, drugs, and 

related matters), but so were the concerns of 

the subregions: in the Caribbean and Central 

America, nuclear waste and natural disasters; 

in Central and South America, extreme poverty and social exclusion.

Third, a direct link between democracy 

and security has become an accepted principle, and this in turn requires that security 

cooperation meet standards of democratic 

legitimacy. The 2003 Special Conference on 

Security declared that “representative democracy is an indispensable condition for the 

stability, peace, and development of the states 

of the Hemisphere” and explicitly reaffirmed 

the Inter-American Democratic Charter.12

The dormant Rio Treaty has not been 

replaced, but a new security system is gradually emerging on a case-by-case, issue-byissue basis. It is less unified and binding than 

the Rio Treaty’s collective security system, 

but perhaps better tailored to today’s realities. 

If the security architecture of the past was 

developed top-down through foreign ministries acting in the immediate post–World War 

II period of U.S. predominance, the security architecture of the future seems likely to 

evolve bottom-up, on a subregional basis, and 

with broader interministerial participation.

The emerging system is made up of traditional confidence-building measures such 

as the Inter-American Convention on Transparency in Conventional Weapons Acquisitions plus several new legal instruments that 

address specific transnational security concerns. Buoyed by Canada’s entry and a new 

openness to the Caribbean Basin, the IADB 

has been decoupled from the Rio Treaty, 

developed new roles in disaster relief, facilitated impressive progress in demining, and 

received a cautious political blessing from 

the OAS.

In 1992, the OAS Permanent Council 

created a Committee on Hemispheric Security 

that has met regularly ever since. The 2000 

OAS General Assembly, spurred by Honduras and other Central American governments 

inspired by the settlement of the conflict 

between Ecuador and Peru, created a Fund 

for Peace. This enabled the General Secretariat, with the support of the United States, 

to provide the services of a technical expert 

from the then National Imagery and Mapping 

Agency working under the auspices of the Pan 

American Institute of Geography and History to resolve technical demarcation problems encountered by El Salvador and Honduras. The final marker was erected in 2006. An 

OAS team, which included Argentine and Brazilian military officers, verified the absence 

of troop movements near the border between 

Honduras and Nicaragua. The fund is making possible confidence-building measures 

in the territorial differendum between Belize 

and Guatemala.

Following the attacks of September 11, 

the countries of the Americas negotiated, 

signed, and brought into force an Inter-American Convention against Terrorism that provides a legal framework for counterterrorism cooperation and capacity-building. The 

convention recognizes that no one country 

has all of the answers for improving security 

against the threats posed by terrorists, who 

seek to exploit the rules of civilized society. Its 

answer, however, is not to abandon the law, 

or to wink at abuses of the rights of suspects. 

The Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (Comité Interamericano Contra el 

Terrorismo [CICTE]) provides a legal framework enabling counterterrorism cooperation 

and capacity-building.

The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (Comisión Interamericana para el Control del Abuso de Drogas [CICAD]), established in 1989, has 

a direct link between 

democracy and security 

has become an accepted 

principle, and this 

in turn requires that 

security cooperation 

meet standards of 

democratic legitimacy
No. 228, September 2007 Strategic Forum    

helped strengthen professional ties and 

developed a Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism to facilitate antidrug cooperation 

on the basis of expert plans drawn up by 

national authorities, thus making it easier to identify areas for cooperation and to 

avoid interruptions and tensions resulting 

from unilateral conditionality.

The Inter-American Convention against 

the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking 

in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and 

Other Related Materials (Convención Interamericana Contra la Fabricación y el Tráfico Ilícitos de Armas de Fuego, Municiones, 

Explosivos y Otros Materiales Relacionados [CIFTA]), proposed initially by Mexico 

in the Rio Group, achieved regional consensus through the OAS, was signed in 1997, and 

entered into force the next year.

In 2004, overcoming the traditional reluctance of its political bodies to become involved 

in security matters, the OAS General Secretariat 

moved for the first time to assign professional 

staffing to coordinate among these new security understandings. Today, the OAS Secretariat 

for Multidimensional Security brings together 

CICTE, CICAD, and CIFTA, as well as multilateral efforts against transnational crime.13

Lagging Implementation

It is an open secret that even critically 

important principles agreed to in formal treaties 

often fail to become operational realities. In Central America, small firearms and light weapons 

have proliferated since the end of the armed conflicts in the early 1990s and facilitated the spread 

of violent youth gangs. According to the National 

Police of Colombia, 85 percent of murders in that 

country are committed with small arms, many 

of which have been smuggled into Colombia by 

drug traffickers, insurgents, and members of 

paramilitary groups and criminal gangs.

In Haiti, small arms threaten governance, democracy, and the population as a 

whole. They are easy to come by. Everyone 

is armed: politicians and criminals, businessmen and paupers, legal and illegal militias, not to mention drug traffickers and former members of the armed forces. Everyone 

is armed, that is, except for the state, which 

has no army and only 3,000 policemen. The 

United Nations Stabilization Mission for 

Haiti (Mission des Nations Unies pour la 

Stabilisation en Haïti [MINUSTAH]) has 

8,000 military and police personnel to assist 

Haiti’s 8 million inhabitants. New York City, 

with its 8 million inhabitants, has 60,000 

police officers. That MINUSTAH has helped 

move Haiti toward a more stable future is 

a real tribute to the troops from Brazil and 

other South American countries at its core.14

MINUSTAH’s success is closely linked to 

the political progress achieved through Haiti’s first elections in which voters were issued 

permanent identity cards. This critical step 

gave many ordinary Haitians their first 

legal proof of existence and ability to claim 

their individual rights as citizens. Even so, 

MINUSTAH’s leaders are the first to say that 

this relative success will evaporate without 

better social and economic progress.

What Is to Be Done?

In addition to the Latin American role 

in MINUSTAH, specific examples for the 

road ahead include the cooperation among 

nine CARICOM states to provide security for 

the 2007 Cricket World Cup, ongoing security consultations among neighboring countries of Central and South America, and the 

important and successful bilateral cooperation between the United States and Colombia. 

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza 

has stressed the need to build mechanisms 

of mutual trust and not to assume that one 

model fits all.15 U.S. security expert John 

Cope put it well when he observed that the 

way ahead is to work together to address specific shared concerns in a low-key manner, 

starting on a subregional basis.16

Some of what has been missing is simply modesty. For much of our history—

whether the United States was being the Good 

Neighbor, opposing communism, running 

the Alliance for Progress, or more recently 

fighting terrorism—U.S. opinion leaders 

assumed that they knew what needed to be 

done and how to do it better than anyone 

else. That approach no longer works. More 

than ever before, we must understand and 

respect the space and dignity of those with 

whom we must cooperate. But the reflex in 

Washington and in public opinion at large is 

still often to be patronizing.

These attitudes will handicap the 

United States and its friends until everyone 

understands the fundamental reality that 

this New World requires an honest give-andtake. U.S. State and Defense officials often 

know less than we think we know. We know 

this is a very diverse and domestically turbulent hemisphere. We know there is a history of conflicts between some countries. But 

we are less appreciative of different national 

histories, of recent progress in resolving 

conflicts, and of the unease and even tensions that still persist. It is understandable 

that we should talk little about differences 

in national interests and concerns, but it 

is a mistake to assume that everyone has 

the same interests. It is also understandable that we should talk little about institutional weaknesses and incapacities. However, 

thinking that the consensus emerging at a 

regional level on the new security challenges 

is matched by a corresponding increase in 

capacity would be an error.17

Dialogue and cooperation require, in 

addition to political will, the existence of 

effective state institutions, with the capacity to do what is needed in ways that work. 

Instead of simply asserting a litany of 

shared values and common interests, we 

should insist on listening first and planning second—and then acting only on 

jointly developed and agreed-upon plans for 

humanitarian as well as security projects. 

Competence must be learned, trust must be 

earned, both sides must be reliable, and all 

must benefit in order to work together effectively. Long-term cooperation can be based 

only on activities that serve the interests of 

others as well as ours.

the way ahead is 

to work together to 

address specific shared 

concerns in a low-key 

manner, starting on a 

subregional basis
    Strategic Forum	 No. 228, September 2007

The Declaration on Security in the Americas and the Inter-American Democratic Charter 

both call for “the constitutional subordination 

of all state institutions to the legally constituted civilian authority and respect for the rule 

of law on the part of all institutions and sectors 

of society.”22 In defending the law and equal 

opportunity rather than social privilege, military and other security forces must take care 

neither to undermine political leaders nor to 

abandon their own professionalism. How this 

should best be done will differ from country to 

country, as determined by appropriate constitutional authorities and interministerial or interagency consultation of that country, but a failure to find the right balance could endanger 

both stability and development.23

Third, professionalism must be developed, not assumed. Operational interoperability and coordination among public security forces and between them and legitimate 

civilian authorities depend on mutual trust 

and professional skills that cannot be developed overnight. A culture of civil-military 

cooperation is indispensable. And that in turn 

depends on shared professional training and 

experiences that cannot be improvised. All 

countries should reserve some billets in military academies and advanced civilian and 

military schools for cadets, officers, and public officials from neighboring countries. The 

United States should increase openings for 

exchanges of officers and encourage the posting of liaison officers.24 So, too, should other 

countries to the full extent of their abilities.

The United States should assign resources 

to the OAS to develop an Inter-American Academy of Public Administration. This academy 

might function along the lines of the InterAmerican Defense College, with students nominated by the member states. Additional junior 

and senior exchange and training opportunities could also be channeled subregionally as well as regionally. CARICOM, SICA, 

the Andean Pact, and MERCOSUR, for example, could put to excellent use training activities in whose design they participate. Professional training and education should be seen 

less as assistance than as the steps necessary 

to build the capacity needed to create sustainable cooperation regionally and internationally. Such institutional ties can provide both 

Aside from learning to listen to each 

other better, there are four points on which 

the United States in particular can improve 

the environment for trans-American dialogue 

and cooperation.18

First, legal frameworks are essential 

and must be strengthened and supported.

A legal order must be backed by force, but the 

use of force without a basis in law starts with 

a strike against it. We do not need a new Rio 

Treaty. But the war against terror and the 

invasion of Iraq have reawakened in Latin 

America memories of past U.S. military interventions. The United States should make clear 

its commitment that laws, not might, must 

frame what can be done and how.

An excellent beginning would be to ratify two treaties already signed by the United 

States. Both have also been ratified by a great 

majority in the hemisphere. They are the 

American Convention on Human Rights, and 

the Inter-American Convention against the 

Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in 

Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other 

Related Materials.19 The fundamental significance of having a multilateral legal framework is that it makes possible cooperation, 

including bilateral cooperation, undertaken 

according to its provisions. 

Legitimacy, while essential, is not 

enough. The United States should also support 

the operational implementation of these and 

all other Inter-American juridical instruments 

that have developed in recent years to address 

specific security concerns. This will require 

regional capacity-building. The U.S. Government already deserves much credit for the 

financial and technical support that it gives to 

demining activities by the OAS and IADB. The 

United States (and all other member states) 

could do much more to help the OAS facilitate training and information exchanges. This 

support could range from such simple matters 

as ensuring that the United States fills both of 

its slots in the month-long Course in International Law for mid-career lawyers, run since 

1973 by the Inter-American Juridical Committee, to helping the OAS establish similar 

courses for both junior and senior experts in 

drug control, terrorism, transnational crime, 

human rights, and the mitigation of natural disasters. The objective would be to create 

mutually respectful and informed cadres of 

professionals knowledgeable of the precedents 

and potential for cooperation on all the many 

problems that affect the multidimensional 

security of the hemisphere’s countries.20

Second, social and economic progress 

is critical to stability. If democracy is the 

Americas’ pride and glory, social injustice, 

poverty, and exclusion are its Achilles’ heel. 

In the years ahead, in addition to the maintenance of public order, the biggest challenges to accelerate Latin America’s development and improve its lagging international 

competitiveness have to do with building 

regional infrastructure and investing in public education and science at home. Such 

initiatives do not require more weapons; if 

anything, they may require some diversion 

of capital resources from defense to civilian purposes. But the maintenance of public order is too important for military and 

other security institutions to remain victims 

of an unwillingness to get beyond the past. 

For example, a recent case study of criminal deportations to Jamaica from the United 

States, United Kingdom, and Canada concludes that “assisting in reintegration efforts 

for deported offenders could be a cost-effective way for deportee-sending countries to 

promote development and weaken international crime networks.”21 Carefully designed 

and managed programs of military support 

for civilian institutions could be an important part of strengthening the state to provide the security and services needed for 

democratic development.

the biggest challenges 

to accelerate Latin 

America’s development 

and improve its 

lagging international 

competitiveness have 

to do with building 

regional infrastructure 

and investing in public 

education and science
No. 228, September 2007 Strategic Forum    

perhaps command post or field exercises will 

be essential to ensure adequate preparation.”26

These concerns should be taken seriously by 

everyone interested in improving the practice 

of security cooperation.

On the U.S. side, we should not allow 

our distaste for bureaucracy and distrust of 

foreigners to prevent the increased cooperation with foreign governments and institutions needed to advance U.S. interests. Multilateral institutions have the great advantage 

of blunting concerns over unilateralism that 

often is manifested in our tendency to impose 

“good ideas” without consultation.

There are many things we can do 

together as partners that are mutually 

respectful (if sometimes unequal) to deal 

with security and social problems that we 

cannot deal with alone. This time of global 

difficulties may be just the time to quietly 

strengthen regional capacity and cooperation.

Notes

1

 This paper is adapted from remarks at the 2007 Western Hemisphere Security Colloquium in Miami, FL, May 3–

4, 2007, sponsored by the Strategic Studies Institute at the 

U.S. Army War College, Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the National Defense University, U.S. Southern 

Command, and Applied Research Center at Florida International University. It also reflects remarks made at the INSS 

Workshop of Mexico’s National Security, May 31, 2007, at the 

National Defense University. I want to thank particularly Dr. 

James A. Schear, Director of Research, and COL John A. Cope, 

USA (Ret.), Senior Research Fellow for Western Hemisphere 

Affairs, both of INSS, for their support. 2

 The term trans-American is intended to convey the 

sense of dialogue among equals, much like the meaning 

implicit in trans-Atlantic. 3

 World Trade Organization, International Trade Statistics 2006, table III.16, “Merchandise trade of the United 

States by region and economy, 2005,” available at <www.wto.

org/english/res_e/statis_e/its2006_e/its2006_e.pdf>. 4

 The Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, and 

Nicaragua are the only Western Hemisphere countries that 

sent troops to Iraq. Only El Salvador is there to this day after 

9 battalion deployments (roughly 380 soldiers each). The 

other countries stayed about 6 months. 5

 The hemisphere’s promise was recently evoked in a Posture Statement by Admiral James G. Stavridis, USN, Commander, 

early warning and containment of issues that 

might otherwise escalate into problems—in 

effect, a valuable insurance policy for peace in 

the neighborhood.

Fourth, there is a clear need for a 

“Permanent Consultation.” Even if we succeed in being legal, careful, and professional, 

neighbors still need the ability to understand 

one another across and beyond their borders. Even if we organize our respective interagency systems, we still need to find ways 

to link them more effectively. There are at 

least three specific attributes that should help 

define our continuing conversation.

One concerns the geographical scope 

of the topics. We all operate globally. Thus, 

consultations should be global as well as 

regional. Brazil played a key role in East 

Timor, is a leader in world trade negotiations, 

and has an exceptional scientific capacity 

that includes space satellite technology that 

it has shared with other countries. We share 

NATO ties with Canada but are perhaps less 

aware of Canada’s role in both the Francophonie and British Commonwealth, which also 

includes states from CARICOM. Argentina, 

Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay, like Brazil, 

have long participated in out-of-area peacekeeping operations.

Beyond geographic scope, consultations 

should be as multidimensional as the problems. Some years ago, the Department of State 

held consultations between its policy planning staff and its counterparts in several 

South American countries. Regular consultations on a joint basis, with the United States 

represented by its Ambassador to the country in question supported by an integrated 

State-Defense team from Washington and 

U.S. Southern Command, could develop better communication and understanding that 

would help tailor cooperation to particular 

problems and situations. Existing talks should 

grow beyond Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico to include subregional groups 

of states and the OAS Secretariat. Thus, bilateral consultations should be paralleled multilaterally by a strengthened U.S. Mission to 

the OAS working closely with the U.S. Delegation to the IADB. And it is important that the 

Defense Ministerials be brought into the Summit of the Americas process. Trinidad and 

Tobago, which is to host the next summit, is a 

member of the IADB as well as the OAS.

U.S. policymakers and government agencies need to do a better job identifying their foreign counterparts and working with them. This 

is less a problem for the Departments of State 

and Defense than it is for development agencies. 

The U.S. Agency for International Development, 

for example, relies instinctively on U.S.-based 

nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and 

consultants to implement programs abroad—

only to be surprised to find that our programs 

are seen as more in the U.S. interest than as 

of mutual benefit.25 Sometimes, funding U.S. 

NGOs as opposed to local organizations can 

weaken or even undermine the very state institutions the country we wish to help needs for its 

development and stability. Leaders of the U.S. 

executive branch should work closely with the 

U.S. Congress to find ways to strengthen implementation of overseas cooperation activities and 

foreign aid while guarding against corruption.

Afterword

The burden of adjustment should not 

fall solely upon the United States. It must also 

be said that our Latin American and Caribbean neighbors sometimes give up too easily on Washington. Common understandings 

require dialogue and constant communication initiated by each side. Mechanisms are 

needed to encourage and reward cooperation and information-sharing at every level. 

Shared knowledge multiplies, and when it is 

shared among partners, it increases trust and 

the common good.

Our friends from Latin America and the 

Caribbean should remember that the 2006 

Quadrennial Defense Review made very clear 

that the senior leadership of the U.S. Department of Defense wants improved alliance and 

coalition partnerships and is prepared to consider “building partner capabilities.” In 2006, 

the Assistant Director of the Defense Department Office of Force Transformation argued 

that “the capabilities gap [with] many allied 

and coalition partners is widening” and 

referred among other things to the costs of 

keeping pace with technological change. He 

continued, “Some level of intelligence-sharing, operational and tactical planning, and 

shared knowledge 

multiplies, and when it is 

shared among partners, 

it increases trust and the 

common good
    Strategic Forum	 No. 228, September 2007

2007), notes that Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Mexico are 

among the affected. 21 Crime, Violence, and Development: Trends, Costs, 

and Policy Options in the Caribbean, Report 37820, Joint 

Report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and 

the Latin America and Caribbean Region of the World Bank, 

March 2007, 81, available at <www.unodc.org/pdf/research/

Cr_and_Vio_Car_E.pdf>. 22 Article 4 of both the Charter and the Declaration. 

Both documents are available at <www.oas.org>. 23 Jose Miguel Insulza points out that two common 

mistakes in this regard are to militarize threats unnecessarily and to confuse public security with national defense—

and vice versa. For the sake of stability, he argues, the balance in each case must be struck domestically by civilian 

democratic authorities. 24 At the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, there have been over the years a 

handful of students and instructors from Latin America. This 

is less typical at the war college level of professional education. But at planning and doctrinal development levels, such 

as the Training and Doctrine Command and similar U.S. 

commands, liaison officers are more common from Europe 

and Asia than from this hemisphere. 25 One study has suggested 77 percent of all U.S. foreign aid is actually spent in the United States. See Stewart 

Patrick, Nancy Birdsall, and Milan Vaishnav, “Freedom from 

Want: American Exceptionalism and Global Development,” 

Center for Global Development, 2007.

26 Walter P. Fairbanks, “Implementing the Transformation Vision,” Joint Force Quarterly 42 (3d

 Quarter, 2006), 42.

U.S. Southern Command, before the House Armed Services Committee, March 21, 2007.

6

 Resolutory Paragraph 1, AG/RES. 1080 (XXI–O/91), 

adopted by the Twenty-First General Assembly of the OAS, 

Santiago, Chile, June 5, 1991, available at <http://www.oas.

org/juridico/english/agres1080.htm>. 7

 U.S. Special Operations Command, Operation Safe Border Multinational Observer Mission, Ecuador-Peru, History 

and Research Office, September 1995; Glenn R. Weidner, “Operation Safe Border: The Ecuador-Peru Crisis,” Joint Force Quarterly 11 (Spring 1996), 52–58; Luigi R. Einaudi, “The EcuadorPeru Peace Process,” in Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation 

in a Complex World, ed. Chester A. Crocker et al. (Washington, 

DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1999), 405–429. 8

 Arlene B. Tickner, “Latin America and the Caribbean: 

Domestic and Transnational Insecurity,” International Peace 

Academy Working Paper Series, February 2007, 4 (cited by 

Christopher Hernandez-Roy, Director of the OAS Department 

of Public Security).

9

 U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of 

Immigration Statistics, 2005 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, November 2006, table 41, “Aliens Formally Removed by 

Criminal Status and Region and Country of Nationality: Fiscal Years 1998 to 2005,” available at <www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/

assets/statistics/yearbook/2005/OIS_2005_Yearbook.pdf>. 10 Specialists note that refugees from the civil war in 

El Salvador in the 1980s met resistance in south central Los 

Angeles from the previously established Mexican-American 

“18th Street” gangs. Veterans of the resulting gang wars were 

deported to El Salvador and Guatemala in the early 1990s 

and founded the salvatruchas and related gangs in those 

countries (interview with Caesar Sereseres of the University of 

California and Guatemalan urban planner Alfonso Yurrita). 

Ironically, a recent study reported the arrest of some 1,374 

members just of the MS–13 mara salvatrucha gang “in cities across the United States.” Clare M. Ribando, Gangs in 

Central America (Washington, DC: Congressional Research 

Service, updated August 2, 2007). 11 Christopher Hernandez-Roy, remarks in Quebec City, 

May 25, 2007. 12 The consensus that security must be democratic 

may even be stronger than the definition of what constitutes democracy. 13 This long-needed step was originally the result of 

reforms introduced by Miguel Angel Rodriguez during his 

brief tenure as Secretary General. I continued them as Acting Secretary General, and the advance was consolidated by 

Jose Miguel Insulza after his election as Secretary General 

in 2005. 14 General Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira, “O Componente Militar da Missao das Nacoes Unidas para a Estabilizacao do Haiti,” Military Review (January-February 

2007), 2–13.

15 Speech at the Seventh Conference of Ministers of 

Defense of the Americas, October 2, 2006, in Managua, 

Nicaragua.

16 John A. Cope, “A Prescription for Protecting the 

Southern Approach,” Joint Force Quarterly 42 (3d Quarter, 

2006), 17–21. 17 This formulation comes from a personal communication from Gabriel Marcella, May 17, 2007. 18 A remarkably similar set of points is made by the 

former commander of the Chilean army, General Juan Emilio 

Cheyre, in “Seguridad hemisferica: ‘un desafio de integración pendiente,’” Foreign Affairs en Español, OctoberDecember 2005.

19 See the March 2004 study by the Federation of American Scientists, Small Arms, Terrorism and the OAS Firearms Convention, in which Matthew Schroeder argues that 

U.S. ratification and full implementation of CIFTA would help 

to stem the flow of weapons to the Colombian illegal groups 

and prevent the diversion of arms to international terrorists. 20 This apparently straightforward prescription faces 

some major obstacles. For example, the American ServiceMembers’ Protection Act of 2002 provides that “no United 

States military assistance may be provided to the government of a country that is a party to the International Criminal Court.” Although this ban is subject to certain exceptions, 

including NATO membership, over half of the countries in the 

world under sanctions are in this hemisphere and have been 

denied such items as counterterrorism equipment and 

training. Clare M. Ribando, Article 98 Agreements and 

Sanctions on U.S. Foreign Aid to Latin America (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, updated March 22, 

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