Inhaltsangabe
Professor Max Manwaring, in this persuasive essay, reminds us that security issues in the Western Hemisphere demand more attention from Washington than they often get and, importantly, a different kind of attention. Indeed, he invites collective Washington to stretch its mind, broaden its horizons, and accept a more holistic view (realistic, he would contend) of what national security really means in 2004. The stakes, he argues, are high. Preoccupied as the United States is with the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), often treating “terrorism” as if it were a single enemy rather than a means to an end, this country loses sight of the overall risk of cross-border instability caused by failing states. Some of them are in the Western Hemisphere. That is too close to home, a threat we can ill afford. An important circle of linkages which Manwaring wants us to consider is the interdependence among security, stability, development, democracy, and sovereignty (the last term including the notion of legitimacy). That linkage is not lost in our hemisphere, of course. This monograph was written looking forward to the “Special Summit of the Americas” in Monterrey, Mexico, in mid-January 2004. The agenda responds to major Latin American concerns, and to Manwaring’s invitation to planners to look beyond the present levels of analysis of Western Hemisphere security issues. Nevertheless, as he warns us, some “sticking points” keep North-South relations from being harmonious. Latin Americans, despite recognizing their own security and fi nancial problems, are loath to take directions from Washington. On the eve of the Special Summit, certain leaders (Kirchner, Fox, and Chavez, among others) had publicly bristled at various comments from Washington about such matters as their relations with Fidel Castro and their fi nancial restructuring. Moreover, Washington is still perceived as focused principally on drug traffi cking and “narco-terrorism,” while Latins want to discuss its fault lines of security and stability which are mainly economic and social. Not all the news from Latin America is bad, of course. In January, dramatic gains by Colombia’s government against the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) included the capture of Ricardo Palmera (aka Simón Trinidad), considered the fourth-ranking man in that organization. Such a move will reinforce the will of the U.S. Congress to continue its aid to Colombia and to support President Alvaro Uribe. The gains are also evidence of increasing regional cooperation with Colombia, acccording to Professor Manwaring’s War College colleague, Colonel Joseph R. Núñez. Denying the FARC the ability to hide in “ungoverned spaces,” says Núñez, is essential; yet cooperation is still not good with Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. Such gains, however, certainly do not contradict Manwaring’s warning that Colombia is the “paradigm of a failing state.” In fact, a recent study released by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York criticizes the U.S. policy on “Drugs and Thugs” in the Andean region, saying that it cannot possibly achieve the stated U.S. goals of democracy, prosperity and security. The report, as does Manwaring, argues for a far broader approach. The “ultimate threat” of state failure, Manwaring tells us, is a Pandora’s box of instability, criminality, insurgency, regional confl ict, and terrorism, a spectrum of ills which fl ow well beyond the failed state’s borders. But, he points out, we don’t have to wait for the state to fail. The process itself, which we can already see in many instances, profoundly is destabilizing. Until there is common agreement on the threat, though, he says, things will be at an impasse. What is called for is “the highest level of strategic-political thought.” If Manwaring is right, we had better not wait too long for it.
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