When Republican Congressional leaders intro-
duced a S2.6 billion drug-war proposal July this
year, including S300 million for the construction of a
U.S. military base at a yet-to-be-selected site in Latin
America, they laid claim to a tradition that goes back
to 1971. In that year, Richard Nixon militarized drug
control by proclaiming narcotics trafficking a threat to
“national security.” Ever since, protecting national
security has been the rallying cry of those who have
advocated more money and firepower for a military
war on drugs.
The militarization of drug-control strategy has been
nourished by a propensity to blame social ills on exoge-
nous influences and to “call in the Marines” whenever
a national threat is perceived. The first propensity has
led to an effort to control the foreign supply of drugs,
rather than the domestic demand. The second has
made the use of military force not only acceptable but
the expected manner of carrying out this strategy.
The strategy has grown and developed over the past
28 years. A decade after Nixon’s proclamation, Ronald
Reagan launched a rapid expansion of anti-drug
efforts, linking drug trafficking to leftist guerrillas and
the revolutionary governments of Cuba and Nicaragua.
Eight years later, in December 1989, President Bush
spurred dramatic growth in the anti-drug roles of both
the U.S. military and its counterparts in Peru, Bolivia
and Colombia when he announced his Andean Initia-
tive, a five-year, S2.2 billion plan to stop cocaine “at its
source.”
Early in the Clinton presidency, the source-country
strategy was refined to focus military efforts on the dis-
mantling of the “air bridge” that connects coca grow-
ers with cocaine paste producers, refiners and distribu-
tors. Drug traffickers responded by abandoning air
routes in favor of local waterways, a move that
required the Pentagon to train local military forces in
riverine patrol and interdiction tactics, and to provide
them with the equipment necessary to carry out the
new mission. This past March, a group of 30 U.S. mili-
tary instructors initiated specialized training at a new
base near Iquitos, Peru, as part of a five-year program
that is expected to cost S60 million. 1
The alleged guerrilla-trafficker link facilitated the
shift from a Cold-War to a drug-war military posture,
bringing many old foes into the ranks of the new
enemy. Washington’s ongoing effort to strengthen
Colombia’s military, for example, has created jobs for
Peter Zirnite is a freelance writer and policy analyst based in
Washington, D.C.
BY PETER ZIRNITE
many veterans of the 1980s counterinsurgency cam-
paigns in Central America. And, mirroring its 1980s
Central America posture, the Pentagon continues to
cite the regional threat posed by Colombian “narco-
guerrillas” to justify its expanded operations in neigh-
boring countries thus far free of hostilities-in this case
Ecuador and Venezuela.
Because anti-drug activities are commonly just one
component of a complex web of troop deployment,
training and assistance programs, the exact number of
U.S. military personnel involved in counternarcotics
work in Latin America is difficult to ascertain, as is the
full extent and nature of Washington’s assistance to
host-nation security forces. The Washington-based
Latin American Working Group (LAWG) estimates that
56,000 U.S. troops saw service in Latin America in
1997, while grant assistance to the region’s militaries
and police exceeded S250 million. 2
U.S. troops operate ground-based radar, fly monitor-
ing missions, provide operation and intelligence sup-
port, and train host-nation security forces. While U.S.
troops play this supporting role, host-country armed
forces are increasingly relied upon as the front-line
troops in the drug war. In a July 1998 report, LAWG
notes that counternarcotics is the rationale used for
most U.S. troop deployments and aid, both of which
are increasingly being provided under Pentagon pro-
grams-like the Joint Combined Exchange Training
exercises run by Green Beret and other special forces
units-that are exempt from civilian oversight and
human rights restrictions. 3
Even when programs are subject to oversight and
restrictions, there is evidence that training and equip-
ment have been used for military purposes other than
counternarcotics. In Mexico, for example, helicopters
earmarked for anti-drug missions were used to ferry
troops to carry out anti-Zapatista operations in Chia-
pas, and Mexican opposition leaders have demanded
“an investigation into whether troops sent to the Unit-
ed States for anti-drug training are applying the tactics
they learned to quell the indigenous uprising. Mexico,
incidentally, after rejecting all U.S. drug assistance
between 1993 and 1995, accepted S75 million in
training and equipment from the Pentagon in 1996
and 1997.4
Meanwhile, many of the militaries the United States
has recruited as its allies have fallen victim to drug-
related corruption, and the militarization of drug con-
trol has done little, if anything, to stem the northward
flow of narcotics. Washington, however, does not
seem ready to break its costly addiction to a military
solution.
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