Low Intensity Conflict and the War on Drugs
by Don Mabry, 1991
The U.S. military became an instrument of drug foreign policy because civilian
government did not stop the importation and use of illicit drugs, particularly cocaine.
Instead, the use of both seemed to growing exponentially. Citizens, believing that the
rising levels of violence in the United States was caused by illicit drug usage, demanded
strong action. All levels of government and the media focused attention on the role of
Latin American drug smugglers. By deciding that the U.S. drug epidemic could only be
eliminated by reducing the supply of drugs, policy makers opened the door to military
involvement, for the U.S. military can and does operate outside the United States.(1)
Through the Omnibus Drug Act and the Defense Authorization Act in 1988, Washington
decided to convert some military personnel into policemen and spies in the hope that the
military could disrupt, if not end, this illicit enterprise. Underlying the argument of
using the military abroad was the proposition that drug trafficking in the Andes and the
violence that sometimes accompanied it were equivalent to insurgencies. Further, some
argued that the traffickers themselves or in alliance with leftist guerrillas were engaged
in "narcoterrorism." Those who accepted these propositions argued that the
military should apply its low-intensity conflict techniques to the drug problem. This
paper explores the applicability of low-intensity conflict doctrine to the drug
trafficking issue, beginning with some historical background.
Until the 1989-1990 collapse of the Soviet Empire, the military resisted involvement in
counter-narcotics efforts and only became involved to the extent required by law. As late
as October, 1989, the Pentagon argued that its traditional mission of defending the nation
against foreign militaries and their weapons was still valid and would be compromised by
using soldiers, sailors, and pilots as cops.(2) The decline
in a military threat frightened the Pentagon and its supporters, for they feared the
possible loss of budgets, power, and influence, so they became more interested in
participating in the anti-drug crusade, both its surveillance and Andean aspects.
INSIDE LATIN AMERICA NATIONS
The issue of the role of the U.S. military inside Latin American nations is limited to
the Andean region. Mexico has been able to limit the number of U.S. officials and the
scope of their activities because of its internal strengths and fierce nationalism. The
invasion of Panama in 1989 was a special case, for it is a nation whose government exists
at the sufferance of the United States and its military.
Throughout Latin America the supply-reduction foreign policy has been difficult to
achieve because Washington cannot control events abroad. Because no nation wants
foreigners eradicating crops, destroying laboratories, and arresting traffickers on its
own territory, Washington pressured producing and transit nations to use their own
personnel to accomplish these tasks. Further, DEA and other U.S. officials (including
military personnel) were sent as advisors and proctors. In the Andes, the U.S., in
conjunction with host governments, created special drug police, hired coca eradication
workers, and provided a wide range of other technical assistance. The Bureau of
International Narcotics Matters of the State Department, for example, developed its own
air wing for use in the antidrug campaigns in Bolivia and Peru. U.S. military personnel
began advising local police and military on techniques to protect field workers against
the inevitable violent reactions of those whose source of income was being destroyed.
Often, host country security forces could not or would not protect antidrug agents.
Regardless of what Washington might want, control of events rests in the hands of Andean
governments and their security forces, those growing the coca or processing it, and the
drug merchants. In Colombia and Peru, guerrilla movements sometimes control events. Nor
could Washington stop the ability of drug traffickers to corrupt police and military
officers.
Increases in physical danger to antidrug forces, both nationals and foreigners in
Colombia and Peru brought demands for stronger security measures. Some persons advocated
using the U.S. military to provide it.
DoD has had scant enthusiasm for such a task. Nor do possible host nations want to
compromise their sovereignty by giving police powers to U.S. military personnel.
To increase the personal safety of anti-drug workers, the US created Operation Snowcap
in 1987. As part of Snowcap, some DEA agents were trained in military tactics by U.S.
special operations personnel and Special Forces teams were sent to Peru (and Bolivia) to
give on-site advice and, when necessary, to protect antidrug workers. Because the number
of Special Forces personnel has intentionally been kept low, their presence has not
exacerbated nationalistic tensions. At Santa Lucia in the Upper Huallaga Valley (UHV) of
Peru, the United States built a fortified base, guarded by Special Forces, to protect
Peruvian and American anti-drug workers. U.S. personnel maintain the helicopters (loaned
to the State Department by the Department of Defense) utilized in anti-drug campaigns. But
Operation Snowcap does not work, according to the House Committee on Government
Operations.(3)
When Colombia president Virgilio Barco's August, 1989 crackdown was countered by a
large, sustained wave of violence by these Colombian criminals, President Bush responded
by sending $65 million in military equipment and other forms of aid. If the Colombian
traffickers could be beaten, then "victory" was possible in the drug war.(4)
THE ANDEAN INITIATIVE
The Colombian confrontation was fortuitous, for it lent urgency to Bush's Andean
Initiative, planned months before but announced in the September, 1989 National Drug
Control Strategy report and by Bush on national television. Specifically, the cocaine
trade from the Andean countries of Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru was the target. The
Initiative called for increased repression, much of it to be accomplished by military
personnel. About $141 million of the aid destined for Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia was
military equipment--such as helicopters, patrol boats, and ammunition--and $13.5 million
in "intelligence aid"--radar, electronic sensors, secure communications
equipment, and computers. More U.S. military advisors were sent to train Andean armies in
the use and maintenance of the American equipment. To avoid anti-American sentiment and
getting drawn into local political conflicts, Special Forces advisors were forbidden to
accompany host nation forces when the latter go on antidrug missions.
President George Bush did not start the use of the military in drug foreign policy; he
escalated it. Congress and President Reagan had cautiously introduced the U.S. military
into the ranks of the nation's "drug warriors," but neither they nor DoD showed
much enthusiasm for diverting military personnel from their traditional role. Reagan
proposed and Congress funded the massive strengthening of the military to face down or
fight the U.S.S.R., not Latin American gangsters or peasants. This was so even though
Reagan administration officials had argued that narcoterrorism was a threat to the
security of Latin American nations and, at least by extension, to the U.S. Only during the
1988 elections, as politicians vied with one another to prove how "tough on
drugs" they were, did civilians order the military to play a major role in the
antidrug crusade. Nevertheless, Bush's first National Drug Control Strategy Report of
September, 1989, marked the shift in U.S. policy.
Why Bush opted for a more military-oriented policy is not clear. Perhaps he responded
to growing American frustration with the inability to repress the drug trade in the United
States and Latin America. Neither interdiction nor eradication were working and Americans
knew it. Appointing William Bennett as the first director of the National Drug Control
Policy Office certainly signaled a harder line, for Bennett rarely spoke softly or
advocated timid methods. Perhaps Bush was trying to counter campaign charges that he was
indecisive and not a tough guy. Bush understood that the U.S. had been substituting
military muscle for diplomacy in Latin America for generations. His predecessor had done
so in Grenada, El Salvador, and Nicaragua and had sent troops to Bolivia in 1986 to aid
DEA agents and Bolivian police in destroying a number of drug labs.(5)
Thus Bush experienced firsthand the idea of a military solution to drug interdiction, crop
eradication, and Latin American domestic political problems exacerbated by drug
trafficking.
Colombia
Bush got lucky. The Colombian political crisis beginning in August, 1989, gave the Bush
administration the serendipitous opportunity to dramatically announce his antidrug policy
within the context of Colombian criminals directly and violently challenging the authority
of the Colombian state. Television networks flooded screens with images of the havoc being
wreaked in Colombia by the traffickers, shocking Americans and creating instant public
support for Bush's decision to send $65 million in military aid to Colombia. A few weeks
later, when Bush announced his antidrug policy on national television, he could do so as a
decisive national leader who was rescuing a neighboring ally and preventing a similar
occurrence in the United States.
Video images of the death and destruction wreaked by the terrorism campaign of
Colombian traffickers lent credence to the argument that Colombia was threatened by
narcoterrorism, an idea that Washington had promoted for years. The Reagan administration,
unable to obtain sufficient cooperation from Latin American governments, had begun arguing
that there were direct links between drug traffickers and leftist guerrillas and, thus,
that these countries were threatened by "narcoterrorism." Few paid much
attention to the narcoterrorism argument until Colombian events seemed to prove the Reagan
administration prophetic.
These same Colombian events opened the door to a greater U.S. military role in Latin
America, for the narcoterrorism argument provided the rationale for using military
resources to stifle the drug business. Anti-guerrilla campaigns are a military specialty.
Although guerrillas were not the protagonists in the drug terrorism campaigns of 1989-90
and counter-terrorism is a police specialty, few made these distinctions as bombs exploded
and people were shot in Colombia. Confusing matters further was the fact that the
Colombian National Police is a branch of the Colombian military and, thus, army generals
wrote the final shopping list when Bush promised the $65 million in emergency aid. By the
time the Colombian crisis began, U.S. civilian agencies had begun to realize that they
were stalemated, at best, and that only a more active DoD role might give them the
resources necessary to break the impasse. Allying with DoD would guarantee consistently
larger funding for the drug war. DoD could get whatever funding it wanted to support
soldiers in the field, whereas cops could not, and civilian agencies could piggyback on
patriotic sentiment. DoD, its role in the national budget threatened by reduced
international tensions, was finding participation in the drug war more palatable.
Colombian reality, however, did not support the U.S.'s narcoterrorism thesis.
Conservative businessmen, not leftist guerrillas, were conducting the highly-publicized
attack against the state institutions of Colombia. In spite of some isolated instances of
cooperation between one or more guerrilla movements, on the one hand, and drug gangsters,
on the other, the two are not integrally related nor has the Colombian government treated
them as such. Of the two, the Colombian government has viewed the guerrilla movements as
the more serious threat. Guerrilla movements were active for many years before
narcotrafficking and its violence became an issue. The Colombian military has fought the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the 19th of April Movement (M-19), the
National Liberation Army (ELN), and the Peoples Liberation Army (ELP) for years. Colombian
police fight criminals, be they narcotraficantes or more ordinary crooks and account for
eighty percent of drug busts. In fact, one of the most serious problems faced by the
police was the military-narcotraficante cooperation to kill their common enemy, leftist
guerrillas. Military officers sometimes compromised police raids in exchange for
trafficker information on the location of guerrilla bands.
Colombia accepted both police and military aid, for it faced danger from gangsters and
guerrillas, but refused to increase U.S. military activity. Bogotá has consistently
argued that it does not need nor want foreign troops on its soil and that its principal
need in the antidrug fight was more equipment for its police and judicial systems.
Although U.S. military personnel no doubt played a role in Colombia's crackdown on its
drug traffickers by providing intelligence information and logistical support, both
governments downplayed it. Colombian politicians understand that self-respect demands that
Colombians find a solution to Colombian problems.(6)
The power of the Colombian military vis-a-vis the civilian government is growing, which
may explain why the Colombian military received 84% of the $65 million in emergency aid in
1989 when it only accounted for twenty percent or less of antidrug efforts. Bush
administration officials have insisted that the Colombian government demanded the
equipment which many consider inappropriate for antidrug efforts. If true, it may reflect
military pressure on the Barco government to insure military and not police supremacy
inside Colombia. That the military subsequently used this equipment primarily for
anti-guerrilla campaigns would seem to support this proposition.
Although the crackdown which began in August, 1989 achieved some success, the price has
been so high that, in 1990, the Colombian government began seeking a non-violent solution
to its domestic problems. The government started serious negotiations with the traffickers
and, more important, held elections for a constitutional convention to meet in February,
1991 in hope of incorporating guerrillas into the electoral system. In the convention
elections, the former M-19 guerrilla movement became the nation's third largest political
party. The Peoples' Liberation Army agreed on January 29, 1991 to lay down its arms and
take two seats in the constituent assembly. Negotiations with the ELN and FARC have been
unsuccessful, however, and the Colombian army attacked the FARC ferociously in the fall of
1990, partly as an attempt to force FARC leaders to negotiate. Apparently, it used U.S.
equipment which had been supplied by the US for anti-drug purposes. President Gaviria,
while still threatening drug gangsters with extradition to the United States, has promised
that those who surrender will be tried in Colombian courts and imprisoned only in
Colombia. By late February, 1991, the Ochoa brothers had accepted the offer and
surrendered to Colombia police; more were expected to follow suit.(7)
PERU
Peru provides a much better argument for the use of the military, for it is both the
principal source of coca and a place where guerrillas are involved in the drug enterprise.
Crop and lab destroyers in Peru soon faced two serious problems. Farmers planted fields
and traffickers built labs in new and more isolated locations. More serious, however, was
the inability or unwillingness of Peruvian security forces to protect antidrug workers
against the violent resistance which inevitably occurred, especially that of Sendero
Luminoso. If the crop eradication and lab destruction program was to succeed, the Upper
Huallaga Valley (UHV) had to be made secure.(8)
Many UHV residents welcomed the arrival of Sendero in the Valley. When coca growing and
trafficking boomed in the lawless UHV and tensions were subsequently raised by the
antidrug campaign, Sendero Luminoso moved into the Valley and imposed order, something the
Peruvian government had not done. Colombian traffickers, who had been abusing the growers,
were disciplined and taxed; Sendero thus gained support from the growers and income with
which to pursue its political ends. In a very real sense, Sendero became the government of
the UHV. The Peruvian military could not dislodge them.
The Peruvian military failed largely because it was ordered to follow a contradictory
policy. It could fight Sendero or engage in antidrug efforts but not both. Antidrug
efforts drove people into the protective arms of Sendero while attacks on Sendero gave the
drug producers a free hand to pursue their business. Peruvian military leaders, by and
large, preferred to concentrate on Sendero, believing that Sendero was a serious threat to
national security and one that the military was trained to fight. The United States,
however, more interested in destroying drugs and protecting antidrug workers, pressured
Peru to focus on drugs.
For Peru, and thus for U.S. foreign policy there, it is important to recognize that
eliminating Peruvian drug production will not eliminate Sendero, eliminating Sendero will
not eliminate drug production, and eliminating both may not be possible.(9)
By 1990, faced with the continued threat of Sendero to Peruvian antidrug efforts and
the commensurate inability to eradicate crops, Washington unsuccessfully tried to up the
ante through a proposed $35 million military aid package. DEA had reported in late 1989
that Peru was unlikely to militarize its antidrug campaign, but the new proposal called
for the construction of a military training base near Santa Lucia to train six Peruvian
strike battalions and a second base on the Tombo and Ene rivers. The U.S. would also
supply more river patrol boats, refurbish ground-attack jets, and install more radar in
the Valley.(10) In other words, Washington thought more
force would solve the problem. Some Americans began arguing that the Peruvian situation
was low-intensity conflict (LIC), the current military euphemism for counter-insurgency
warfare.
The newly-elected government of Alberto Fujimori rejected the proposed aid in
September, 1990, arguing that Peru's problems could only be solved by political and
economic, not military, means. Peruvian officials believed that combining the antidrug
campaign and the anti-Sendero war was the road to disaster. Sendero has power in
communities whose residents believe that they have been abused by the government, so the
key to defeating Sendero lay in the Peruvian government regaining the confidence of its
people. Military campaigns, especially if directed by U.S. soldiers, would have the
opposite effect. Thwarted by Fujimori, Washington threatened the cancel all aid to Peru.
Peru stood firm against militarization, however.(11)
The Low-Intensity Conflict Argument
Some analysts advocate an even larger military role in the antidrug campaign, arguing
that it apply its low-intensity doctrine in the Andes. One argument is that the
traffickers are equivalent to guerrillas. In this view, the illicit drug trade
destabilizes these governments through bribery, intimidation, and the flaunting of
authority to the extent that the traffickers have become a "state within a
state." Further, the traffickers conduct economic warfare against these countries
when they use their illicit profits to purchase farms, factories, and business firms, for
the state is robbed of revenue and legitimate business cannot compete on even terms.
Moreover, the influx of narcodollars induces inflation and "dollarizes" local
economies. Finally, the traffickers not only often possess better weaponry than public
security forces but also have demonstrated their willingness to use it, as they have done
in Colombia. LIC proponents assert that police techniques cannot overcome the traffickers
because the police, unlike the military, do not have sufficient discipline or adequate
technology, nor a unified command and control system. These proponents point to the
operational success of Operation Blast Furnace as proof of the applicability of LIC
doctrine. Other pro-LIC writers agree but argue that the presence of leftist guerrillas
requires the use of LIC techniques because police forces cannot successfully prosecute a
counterinsurgency campaign. They argue that the traffickers and guerrillas must be
attacked simultaneously because the two are interrelated, something only the military can
do.(12)
It is within this context that the United States in 1990 sought to beef up the military
establishments of Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru and better prepare them for
counter-insurgency warfare. President Bush proposed $68.3 million for FY90 and $134.9
million in FY91 to Colombia, $66.6 million and $128.8 million, respectively to Peru, and
$96.7 million and $159 million, respectively, to Bolivia. For FY91, the majority of each
of these aid packages was to be for non-military purposes, but the increases in military
aid was to be dramatic. Between FY88 and FY91, military aid to Colombia was to go from $4
million to $60.5 million, to Peru from $0.4 million to $39.9 million, and to Bolivia from
$0.4 million to $40.9 million. The actual expenditures changed because Peru refused the
military aid.(13)
Using LIC doctrine to solve the drug trafficking problem in Latin America is more than
an intellectual exercise or something mentioned in Congressional hearings. Special
Operations units are sent to Andean countries to teach LIC techniques to local antidrug
police, DEA personnel, and some military units. Although forbidden to accompany their
pupils on raids, it is likely that some U.S. military personnel have done so. In Colombia,
the U.S. military has probably given important intelligence data and logistical aid not
only in such efforts as the killing of Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha but also for
counterinsurgency campaigns. When President Bush, through Secretary Cheney, ordered the
military into the antidrug fray on a serious basis, it turned to LIC doctrine. Panama was
invaded in December, 1989 to capture a drug trafficker, President Manuel Noriega, who, of
course, was attacked for other reasons as well. DEA, the State Department, and the Office
of National Drug Policy began advocating a more substantive military role in the Andes
instead of just the logistical help they had previously wanted from DoD and testified to
Congress in favor of the administration's 1990 proposal to increase military aid to Andean
nations. By the summer of 1990, General Maxwell Thurman, commander of the Southern Command
(SOUTHCOM) and planner of the Panamanian invasion, had begun planning a low-intensity
conflict in Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru, one in which local military forces, aided by the
U.S. military, would launch simultaneous strikes against drug traffickers.(14)
Certainly, the proposed increases in military aid in 1990, which included the training of
strike battalions, was part of this new interest in using LIC doctrine although it is
possible that the Thurman plan was just one more instance of contingency planning by the
military. Regardless, the refusal of the Fujimori government to accept military aid
delayed implementation for the present.
The most surprising element in this increased interest in LIC is that the definition of
low-intensity conflict is unclear. In 1981, the United States Army defined two types of
low-intensity conflict, both of which said it was aid to prevent efforts "aimed at
internal seizure of power." Michael T. Klare argues that the military does not agree
on the definition of low-intensity conflict doctrine and that the definition adopted by
the Joint Chiefs of Staff is so broad that it is virtually meaningless. Richard J. Barnet
argues that LIC doctrine is being redefined to give police functions to militaries and, if
actually implemented, would seriously compromise police forces. David Silverstein asserts
that the maintenance of an intimidating, large military force is LIC because it threatens
potential opponents, a definition which means that the U.S. has been engaged in
low-intensity conflict with virtually every nation in the world since each nation is a
potential opponent of the U.S. This is nonsensical. Bernard McMahon use a more workable
definition: "political-military confrontation between contending states or groups at
a level below conventional warfare but above routine peaceful competition among
states." Anti-guerrilla warfare is low-intensity conflict as were Operation Blast
Furnace and the invasions of Grenada and Panama.(15)
How LIC might be used against drug traffickers was fictionalized in the popular Tom
Clancey novel, Clear and Present Danger(16)
wherein Special Operation teams were sent into Colombia to attack drug traffickers. The
soldiers did the job they were sent to do. The glamour and suspense of the story,
involving as it does a number of issues besides a surreptitious military effort against
crooks, can prevent readers from recognizing its most fundamental message. The novel is a
very effective argument against using low-intensity conflict doctrine
against the drug trade. In spite of the effective work of the special operations teams,
subordinates quickly replaced their leaders and continued the drug business. In fact, the
military inadvertently became an ally of an ambitious criminal.
LIC does not work against drug crime for a number of reasons. Too many people have a
vested interest in the continuance of the trade. Besides the obvious examples of the
criminals and the drug consumers, there are also the numerous persons who sell all kinds
of goods or provide services to drug farmers, processors, transporters, bankers, and so
forth. One tenet of LIC is "winning the hearts and minds" of the people in order
to deny support to the opponent. Opposition to drug traffickers in Latin America emanates
primarily from their use of violence not from the fact that they are engaged in drug
trafficking. If, for example, there are 300,000 persons benefitting financially, directly
or indirectly, from the drug trade in Bolivia, then at least 30% of the
economically-active population has a vested interest in the continuance of the trade. In
Peru, at least 15% of the economically-active population benefits from the trade. The fact
that coca-chewing is part of Andean culture makes gaining popular support even more
unlikely. LIC units need other militaries to fight. The goons used by traffickers are not
armies, even guerrilla armies. Although the U.S. has the physical capability of destroying
coca fields in short order, the tactic could only be used if the U.S. also wanted mass
uprisings against it. Destroying coca-processing labs is more difficult for they are
dispersed and relatively easy to replace. If, for example, all the Colombian and Peruvian
labs were destroyed, would the U.S. then penetrate Brazil, Ecuador, and Chile, where some
labs currently exist and more would be sure to follow? Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru are not
small nations; combined, their land area equals one-third of that of the United States,
the area east of the Mississippi River. The number of troops required would be large, a
factor which would move the operation to a level higher than LIC. If the U.S. tried to use
local troops, it would inevitably find operations compromised by the influence of
nationalism, familial ties, and money.
CONCLUSIONS
The strategy of using Andean militaries to suppress the drug business in Latin America
is problematical at best. It assumes a mutuality of interest between the United States, on
the one hand, and Andean militaries, on the other, which does not exist. Further, it
incorrectly links drug traffickers and guerrillas and, by doing so, inadvertently aids
both. Finally, it threatens democracy in Latin America, a longterm foreign policy goal of
the United States.
Many Latin American military officers do not want to get involved in the antidrug
crusade.
Counter-insurgency warfare in Colombia and Peru, even with U.S. aid, will not end the
drug trade, for leftist guerrillas and rightist businessmen are natural opponents who have
only occasionally cooperated for mutual convenience. Traffickers want the guerrillas
beaten; the guerrillas raise the cost of doing business and attract too much attention
from the government, thus complicating normal business operations. The traffickers can
reach accommodations with the military. To varying degrees, the militaries of these
nations are riddled with narcocorruption. Using militaries to arrest criminals and destroy
crops and factories further institutionalizes militaries as the authority
within those states, encouraging them to marginalize or replace civilian government.
The solution of the insurgency problems in Peru and Colombia must come from those
countries, not the United States. Both the Peruvian military and Sendero Luminoso are
Peruvian, and the Peruvian government should be able to find Peruvian military leaders
smart enough to outwit fellow countrymen. There is no evidence that Sendero has received
outside aid. Although Peruvian counter-insurgency measures attack the symptoms of Peru's
problems, the civilian government has to deal with the causes of the insurgency, something
the Fujimori administration wants to do. Colombia has begun using political accommodation
as well as repression to solve its insurgency problem; it is too early to estimate its
potential success, but the entry of M-19 into electoral politics suggests that other
guerrilla movements might also be persuaded to make a similar move.
The Andean Initiative contains no inherent limits to how much the U.S. military will do
in the Andes. The United States is not going to invade Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, or Mexico;
that is not the issue in spite of the fears of some Latin Americans. Washington policy
makers understand very well the adverse consequences of such an action. Latin Americans
have made it clear that they do not want foreign troops, from the U.S. or elsewhere, on
their soil. Many barely tolerate the presence of U.S. advisors. Neither civilians nor
military personnel want to get bogged down in an unwinnable war in one or more large Latin
America nations. But if the military aid sent for FY90 and FY91 is insufficient to make a
significant dent in the drug trade, will the U.S. send more? What is the cutoff point or
the point of diminishing returns?
Militaries are killing machines; they are trained to kill people in sufficient numbers
to convince the survivors not to fight. Military personnel are not trained nor suited to
nation-building. Is there any evidence from any country that suggests that military units
are good economic entrepreneurs? Are these bureaucratic entities, dependent as they are
upon convincing governmental leaders and the public that the latter should transfer some
of their wealth into the military, people who know how to farm and market the resultant
products, to start and foster business enterprises, etc.? In real wars, the military is
unleashed like a pit bull and then rechained once the conflict is over, but the "drug
war" is not a war and will not end quickly. The evolving antidrug strategy calls for
a greatly enhanced military establishment performing a civilian function indefinitely. The
anti-smuggling screens and the maritime-aerial patrols would have to be sustained else
drug smuggling would resume if demand for foreign drugs continued or could be regenerated.
If true military emergencies occur, either even more resources would have to be devoted to
the Pentagon or the military's antidrug mission would have to be compromised.
Using the military in drug foreign policy raises a very fundamental question. Should
the personal habits of five percent of the population (or a much smaller percentage of the
population if one only counts cocaine use) be allowed to change the traditional
relationship between the military and civilians?(17) Using
the military in what promises to be a decades-long antidrug campaign shifts, even if
moderately, the balance of power away from civilians. If those who believe that the
illicit drug trade will only end when consumer demand ends are correct, then the use of
the military presents no gains but, instead, many losses.
The very fact that militaries are being used for civilian law enforcement is an
admission of the failure of civilian government. This is particularly true for the United
States with it historic tradition of keeping the military out of civilian affairs.
Civilian law enforcement agencies such as the Coast Guard did not fail; they were never
given the resources to do the job. Civilian government officials failed to resist the
seductiveness of the popular image of the military and the personal political gains which
come from supporting the military establishment. Dazzled by the glitter, glory, and gold
of a putative military solution, these leaders fail to see that illicit drug use is a
domestic, civilian problem, both in the United States and Latin America, one wherein free
enterprise capitalists are servicing the American consumer market. Public concern over the
spread of illicit drug use and the violence associated with crack prompted the United
States government to call in the military. Using the military for the police function of
illicit drug suppression emanates from anger not reason.
Not surprisingly, many Americans think that the use of military force abroad will solve
the nation's drug problem. The message that violence works permeates its films, athletic
events, novels, television programs, and music. Many citizens believe that they have lost
control of their lives and believe that the use of violence will enable them to reassert
control. They want to use the police or the military to repress those they believe are
"misbehaving." Within the United States, they have demanded and received more
monies for police action and incarceration. In foreign policy, they have sent U.S.
policemen and U.S. military advisors to Latin America to supervise the destruction of
property and the arrest of malefactors and, in the case of the military, to help suppress
leftist insurgencies in the name of drug control. Yet, illicit drug use and drug-related
street violence persists.
1. Another reason for trying to solve the U.S. drug epidemic abroad
is the historic belief that foreigners and U.S. ethnic minorities cause the epidemics; see
Douglas Clark Kinder, "Nativism, Cultural Conflict, Drug Control: United States and
Latin American Antinarcotics Diplomacy through 1965" in The Latin American
Narcotics Trade and US National Security ed. by Donald J. Mabry (Westport CT:
Greenwood Press, 1989).
2. Stephen Duncan, Testimony to hearing of Subcommittees on
Legislation and National Security and Government Information, Justice and Agriculture,
U.S. House of Representatives, October 17, 1989, 101st Congress, 1st Session. Mimeo.
3. United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government
Operations. Stopping the Flood of Cocaine With Operation Snowcap: Is It Working?
13th Report (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1990). 101st Cong., 2d Sess., HR
101-673.
4. See United States, Antidrug Abuse Act of 1988; HR 5120, Congressional
Record-House; House of Representatives, Conference Report to Accompany H.R. 4481;
and United States, National Defense Authorization Act for FY 1989.
5. On Operation Blast Furnace, see Lt. Col. Sewell H. Menzel,
"Operation Blast Furnace," Army, 39:11 (November, 1989), p. 25; and
Major Mark P. Hertling, "Narcoterrorism: The New Unconventional War," Military
Review, LXX:3 (March, 1990), pp. 16-28.
6. Colombia cracked down on the traffickers in the mid-1980s but the
public eventually tired of the effort. During the course of the crackdown, the drug
kingpins went into hiding, mounted a massive nationalistic propaganda campaign within
Colombia to portray that government as a tool of the United States, and tried to bargain
for amnesty. The Colombian government made no deal but did ease up on its attacks on the
traffickers. See Guy Gugliotta and Jeff Leen, Kings of Cocaine (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1989, 170-77, and Bruce M. Bagley, "Colombia and the War on
Drugs," Foreign Affairs, 67:1 (Fall 1988), 70-92. Fabio Ochoa made a similar
offer after the August, 1989 crackdown began; see Eugene Robinson, "Kin of
'Extraditables' Calls for Negotiations; Bombings in Medellin," The Washington
Post, August 30,1989.
7. Bruce Bagley, "Colombia and the War on Drugs," 87.
8. The two best books on the coca enterprise and U.S. drug policy in
Peru are: Rensselaer W. Lee, III, The White Labyrinth: Cocaine and Political Power
(New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1989) and Edmundo Morales, Cocaine: White Gold
Rush in Peru (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989).
9. The literature on Sendero Luminoso is growing at a rapid pace.
The best single book on the subject is Gustavo Gorriti E., Sendero: historia de la
guerra milenaria en el Perú, I (Lima: Editorial Apoyo, 1990). A summary analysis can
be found in Gustavo Gorriti, "The War of the Philosopher-King," The New
Republic (June 16, 1990), 15-22. Tina Rosenberg, "Guerrilla Tourism, " The
New Republic (June 16, 1990), 23-25 is based on her interviews with Senderistas. See
also Norberto Cesesole, comp. Peru: Sendero Luminoso, ejercito y democracia. 1a
ed. (Madrid: Prensa y Ediciones Iberoamericanas; Buenos Aires: Instituto Latinoamericano
de Cooperación Tecnológica y Relaciones Internacionales, 1987); Carlos Ivan Degregori, Sendero
Luminoso. 4a ed. (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1986); Raúl González,
"Sendero: Los Problemas del campo y de la ciudad ... Y ademas el MRTA", QueHacer,
50 (Jan-Feb, 1988), and "Trafficking, Subversion in Upper Huallaga," Quehacer,
(September-October 1987), 55-72; William A. Hazleton and Sandra Woy-Hazleton,
"Sendero Luminoso and the Future of Peruvian Democracy," Third World
Quarterly, 12:2 (April 1, 1990), pp. 21-, and "Terrorism and the Marxist Left:
Peru's Struggle against Sendero Luminoso," Terrorism: an International Journal,
11:6 (1988), pp. 471-; Rogger Mercado, El Partido Comunista del Peru: Sendero Luminoso.
3ra. ed., corr. y aum. (Lima: Librerías Studium-La Universidad, 1986); and Thomas G.
Sanders, Peru Between Democracy and the Sendero Luminoso. Hanover, NH:
Universities Field Staff International, 1984.
10. New York Times, April 22, 1990. On the DEA assessment
of Peru's priorities, see DEA Review, December 1989), 60-61, as quoted in
Government Operations. Anti-Narcotics Activities, 38.
11. Alex Emery, "Fujimori: Won't Sign U.S. Military Aid
Agreement to Combat Drugs" Associated Press Dispatch, published by
peru@ATHENA.MIT.EDU, September 13, 1990. Emery quotes U.S. Ambassador Anthony Quainton as
having said in an interview with the news magazine Caretas that if Peru ``does
not sign the agreement, the aid would go to other countries.'' See also Michael Isikoff,
"Talks Between U.S., Peru On Military Aid Collapse," Washington Post,
September 26, 1990. César Atala, Peruvian ambassador to the United States in 1989, argued
that a better solution to the coca-growing problem in his country was for the United
States to buy the entire crop; see his testimony in United States. Congress. Senate.
Committee on Governmental Affairs. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. U.S.
Government Anti-Narcotics Activities in the Andean Region of South America. Hearing before
the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs,
United States Senate, 101st Cong. 1st sess. September 26, 27, 29, 1989. S. Hrg.
101-311 (Washington: GPO, 1989), 74. Gustavo Gorriti testified in the same hearings,
arguing that mixing drug eradication and counterinsurgency was akin to pouring fuel on a
fire; see his testimony on pages 128-132.
12. Bernard McMahon, "Low-Intensity Conflict: The Pentagon's
Foible," ORBIS (Winter, 1990), p. 3-4]; Abbott, "The Army and the Drug
War, 4; Menzel, "Operation Blast Furnace,", 25; Hertling,
"Narcoterrorism," 16-28. Moreover, there has been some support in the Senate for
the military to assume this role; see Benjamin F. Schemmer, "Senate Leaders Ask
Scrowcroft for New White House Focus on Low-Intensity Conflict," Armed Forces
Journal International, 126:8 (March 1, 1989), pp. 66-.
13. United States. House. Committee on Government Operations. United
States Anti-Narcotics Activities in the Andean Region. 38th Report. (Washington: GPO,
1990), 17. Hereafter cited as Government Operations, Anti-Narcotics Activities;
and Raphael Perl, "United States International Drug Policy: Recent Developments and
Issues," Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 32:4 (1990),
123-135.
14. "Risky Business," Newsweek (July 16, 1990),
16-19.
15. United States. Department of the Army. Field Manual 100-20,
Low Intensity Conflict (Baltimore: US Army Adjutant Publications Center, 1981); U.S.
Army Training and Doctrine Command, U.S. Army Operational Concept for Low Intensity
Conflict. TRADOC Pamphlet No. 525-44 (Fort Monroe, VA, 1986). p. 2.; Michael T.
Klare,"The Interventionist Impulse: U.S. Military Doctrine for Low-Intensity
Warfare," in Low-Intensity Warfare. ed. by Michael T. Klare and Peter
Kornbluh (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987); Richard J. Barnet, "The Costs and Perils
of Intervention," in Low-Intensity Warfare. ed. by Michael T. Klare and
Peter Kornbluh (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987); and David Silverstein, "Preparing
America to Win Low-Intensity Conflicts," Backgrounder, No. 786, August 31,
1990.
16. (New York: Berkley Books, 1989).
17. See R. Harwood, R. "Hyperbole Epidemic," The
Washington Post National Weekly Edition (October 9-15, 1989) for an excellent
analysis of the misuse of drug usage statistics.