Security in the Americas: Neither Evolution nor Devolution--Impasse

The author identifies the strategic-political challenge of effective sovereignty and security, with a focus on nontraditional threats. He recommends that leaders rethink the problem of nontraditional threats and develop the conceptual and strategic-political multilateral responses necessary to deal effectively with them. Piecemeal tactical-operational level responses to nontraditional threats and actors must be supplemented by broader political-strategic efforts. Additionally, cooperative national and international efforts designed to inhibit and reverse the processes of state failure must supplement military and law-enforcement emphasis on the attrition of individual narco-terrorists. The author\u27s recommendations constitute no easy task. However, if the United States and the other countries of the Western Hemisphere ignore what is happening in Latin America, the expansion of terrorism, lawless areas, and general instability easily could destroy the democracy, free market economies, and prosperity that has been achieved in recent years. In turn, that would profoundly affect the health of the U.S. economy--and the concomitant power to act in the global security arena.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1771/thumbnail.jp

Venezuela\u27s Hugo Chavez, Bolivarian Socialism, and Asymmetric Warfare

¿Habla español? Military Review translated this study to Spanish. View the translated study. The author answers questions regarding Who is Hugo Chavez? How can the innumerable charges and countercharges between the Venezuelan and U.S. governments be interpreted? What are the implications for democracy and stability in Latin America? In an attempt to answer these and related questions, the analysis centers on the contemporary geopolitical conflict context of current Venezuelan Bolivarian (bolivarianismo) policy. To accomplish this, a basic understanding of the political-historical context within which Venezuelan national security policy is generated is an essential first step toward understanding the situation as a whole. The second step requires an introductory understanding of Chavez\u27s concept of 21st century socialism, and the political-psychological-military ways he envisions to achieve it. Then, a levels of analysis approach will provide a systematic understanding of the geopolitical conflict options that have a critical influence on the logic that determines how such a policy as bolivarianismo might continue to be implemented by Venezuela or any other country in the contemporary world security arena. At the same time, this analysis provides an understanding of how other countries in the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere might begin to respond to bolivarianismo\u27s possible threats. Finally, this is the point from which one can generate strategic-level recommendations for maintaining and enhancing stability in Latin America.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1732/thumbnail.jp

Internal Wars: Rethinking Problem and Response

Asymmetric guerrilla war—insurgencies, internal wars, and other small-scale contingencies (SSCs)—are the most pervasive and likely type of conflict in the post-Cold War era. It is almost certain that the United States will become involved directly or indirectly in some of these conflicts. Yet, there appears to be little or no recognition and application of the strategic-level lessons of the Vietnam War and the hundreds of other smaller conflicts that have taken place over the past several years. The author draws from the lessons of the recent past to better prepare today\u27s civilian and military leaders to meet the unconventional and asymmetric warfare challenges that face the United States and the rest of the international community. This country is in a new global security environment that involves the integration of free markets, technologies, and countries to a degree never before witnessed. It is not easy to understand and respond to the many smaller threats—and benefits—that stem from global integration. Yet, as the country that benefits most from global integration, the United States has a pressing national interest in maintaining and enhancing the new order. By coming to grips analytically with the most salient strategic lessons or rules that dominate contemporary SSCs, political and military leaders can maximize opportunities in the current and future chaos.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1831/thumbnail.jp

Nonstate Actors in Colombia: Threat and Response

Colombia\u27s deeply rooted and ambiguous warfare has reached crisis proportions in that Colombia\u27s Hobbesian Trinity of illegal drug traffickers, insurgents, and paramilitary organizations are creating a situation in which life is indeed nasty, brutish, and short. The first step in developing a macro-level vision, policy, and strategy to deal with the Colombian crisis in a global context is to be clear on what the Colombian crisis is, and what the fundamental threats implicit (and explicit) in it are. Political and military leaders can start thinking about the gravity of the terrorist strategy employed by Colombia\u27s stateless adversaries from this point. It is also the point from which leaders can begin developing responses designed to secure Colombian, Hemispheric, and global stability. The author seeks to explain the Colombian crisis in terms of nonstate threats to the state and to the region--and appropriate strategic-level responses.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1820/thumbnail.jp

Street Gangs: The New Urban Insurgency

The primary thrust of this monograph is to explain the linkage of contemporary criminal street gangs (that is, the gang phenomenon or third generation gangs) to insurgency in terms of the instability it wreaks upon government and the concomitant challenge to state sovereignty. Although there are differences between gangs and insurgents regarding motives and modes of operations, this linkage infers that gang phenomena are mutated forms of urban insurgency. In these terms, these new nonstate actors must eventually seize political power in order to guarantee the freedom of action and the commercial environment they want. The common denominator that clearly links the gang phenomenon to insurgency is that the third generation gangs\u27 and insurgents\u27 ultimate objective is to depose or control the governments of targeted countries. As a consequence, the Duck Analogy applies. Third generation gangs look like ducks, walk like ducks, and act like ducks—a peculiar breed, but ducks nevertheless! This monograph concludes with recommendations for the United States and other countries to focus security and assistance responses at the strategic level. The intent is to help leaders achieve strategic clarity and operate more effectively in the complex politically dominated, contemporary global security arena.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1752/thumbnail.jp

The Inescapable Global Security Arena

The author outlines the violent characteristics of the new security-stability environment and briefly examines the problem of terrorism and the related problem of governance. Then he analyzes the complex threat and response situation and outlines a multidimensional response to these problems. Finally, he enumerates some civil-military implications for playing effectively in the contemporary global security arena. His recommendations focus on the interagency and the military in general, and the U.S. Army in particular.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1823/thumbnail.jp

Venezuela as an Exporter of 4th Generation Warfare Instability

Almost no one seems to understand the Marxist-Leninist foundations of Hugo Chavez’s political thought. It becomes evident, however, in the general vision of his “Bolivarian Revolution.” The abbreviated concept is to destroy the old foreign-dominated (U.S. dominated) political and economic systems in the Americas, to take power, and to create a socialist, nationalistic, and “popular” (direct) democracy in Venezuela that would sooner or later extend throughout the Western Hemisphere. Despite the fact that the notion of the use of force (compulsion) is never completely separated from the Leninist concept of destroying any bourgeois opposition, Chavez’s revolutionary vision will not be achieved through a conventional military war of maneuver and attrition, or a traditional insurgency. According to Lenin and Chavez, a “new society” will only be created by a gradual, systematic, compulsory application of agitation and propaganda (i.e., agit-prop). That long-term effort is aimed at exporting instability and generating public opinion in favor of a “revolution” and against the bourgeois system. Thus, the contemporary asymmetric revolutionary warfare challenge is rooted in the concept that the North American (U.S.) “Empire” and its bourgeois political friends in Latin America are not doing what is right for the people, and that the socialist Bolivarian philosophy and leadership will. This may not be a traditional national security problem for the United States and other targeted countries, and it may not be perceived to be as lethal as conventional conflict, but that does not diminish the cruel reality of compulsion.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1533/thumbnail.jp

Strategic Effects of Conflict with Iraq: Latin America

The author has been asked to analyze four issues: the position that key states in their region are taking on U.S. military action against Iraq; the role of America in the region after the war with Iraq; the nature of security partnerships in the region after the war with Iraq; and the effect that war with Iraq will have on the war on terrorism in the region.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1803/thumbnail.jp