Download or read book Colombian Labyrinth written by Angel Rabasa and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2001 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: US policy toward Columbia has been driven to a large extent by counter-narcotics, but the evolving situation in that South American country confronts the US with as much of a national security as a drug policy problem. This work examines the sources of instability in the country.
Download or read book Colombian Labyrinth The Synergy of Drugs and Insurgency and Its Implications for Regional Stability written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drug trafficking and political disintegration in Colombia could confront the United States, if present trends continue, with the most serious foreign and security policy crisis in the Western Hemisphere since the Central American wars of the 1980s. The first question is why Colombia matters. U.S. policy toward Colombia has been driven to a large extent by counter-narcotics considerations, but the situation in that South American country is a national security as much as a drug policy problem. Colombia is a strategically important country. It is South America's fourth largest country in area and the second largest in population. It is the only South American country with coastlines on both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and it is contiguous to the Caribbean basin, Central America, Venezuela and its oil fields, and Panama and the Canal. Colombia also has some of the largest untapped petroleum reserves in the Western Hemisphere. Colombia's trajectory will also influence the direction of broader trends in the unstable Andean region and beyond.
Download or read book Colombia Inside the Labyrinth written by Jenny Pearce and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The General in His Labyrinth written by Gabriel García Márquez and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-10-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN eBOOK! General Simon Bolivar, “the Liberator” of five South American countries, takes a last melancholy journey down the Magdalena River, revisiting cities along its shores, and reliving the triumphs, passions, and betrayals of his life. Infinitely charming, prodigiously successful in love, war and politics, he still dances with such enthusiasm and skill that his witnesses cannot believe he is ill. Aflame with memories of the power that he commanded and the dream of continental unity that eluded him, he is a moving exemplar of how much can be won—and lost—in a life.
Download or read book Colombian Agency and the making of US Foreign Policy written by Alvaro Mendez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-06-26 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies a significant event in US relations with Latin America, shedding light on the role of dependent states and their foreign policy agency in the process by which local concerns become intertwined with the dominant state’s foreign policy. Plan Colombia was a large-scale foreign aid programme through which the US intervened in the internal affairs of Colombia, by invitation. It proved to be one of the major successes of US foreign policy, and has been credited with stemming a potentially catastrophic security failure of the Colombian state. This book discusses the strategies and practices deployed by the Colombian government to influence US foreign policy decision making at the bureaucratic, legislative and executive levels, and is a distinctive contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of small power agency. Giving a clearer insight into the decision making processes in both the US and Colombia, this book founds its argument on solid empirical analysis assembled from interviews of the major players in the events including: Andres Pastrana, President of Colombia; Thomas Pickering, US State Department; Arturo Valenzuela, Senior Director for Inter-American Affairs at the NSA; General Barry McCaffrey, the US ‘Drug Czar’; and Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Approaching the events in question from a bottom-up theoretical perspective that puts the emphasis on the facts of the case, this book will be of great interest to academics, students and policy makers in the field of foreign policy analysis, US foreign policy studies, and Latin American studies.
Download or read book The Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction LAMP written by Jonathan S. Lockwood and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-09-12 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction (LAMP) is a systematic technique for predicting short-term, unique behaviors. Using primarily qualitative empirical data, LAMP allows the analyst to predict the most likely outcomes for specific research questions across a wide range of intelligence problems, such as cyber threats in the U.S., the possibility of an Al Qaeda attack, the likelihood of Iran providing nuclear capability to terrorist groups, or the future actions of the Mexican drug cartel. LAMP offers an innovative and powerful method for organizing all available information based on the perceptions of the national actors, using it to make relevant predictions as to which alternate future is most likely to occur at a given moment in time. Its transparent structure enables anyone to see how an analyst gets from point A to point B to produce an intelligence estimate. LAMP differs from other analytical techniques in that it is based on determining the relative probability of a range of alternate futures, rather than attempting to determine the quantitative probability of their occurrence. After explaining its theoretical framework, the text leads the reader through the process of predictive analysis before providing practical case studies showing how LAMP is applied against real world problems, such as the possible responses of Israel, the U.S., and Lebanon to the behavior of Hezbollah or the competing visions of the future of Afghanistan. Evaluation of the method is provided with the case studies to show the effectiveness of the LAMP predictions over time. The book is complemented by a website with downloadable software for use by students of intelligence in conducting their own predictive analysis. It will be an essential tool for the analyst and the student, not only for national security issues but also for competitive intelligence.
Download or read book Back from the Brink written by Peter DeShazo and published by CSIS. This book was released on 2007 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Counter Terrorism and State Political Violence written by Scott Poynting and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-16 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume aims to deepen our understanding of state power through a series of case studies of political violence arising from state ‘counter-terrorism’ strategies. The book examines how state counter-terrorism strategies are invariably underpinned by terror, in the form of state political violence. It seeks to answer three key questions: To what extent can counter-terror strategies be read as a form of state terror? How fundamental is state terror to the maintenance of a neo-liberal social order? What are the features of counter-terrorism that render it so easily reducible to state terror? In order to explore these issues, and to reach an understanding of what it means to say that the ‘war on terror’ is terror , the contributing authors draw upon case studies from a range of geographical contexts including the UK and Northern Ireland, the US and Colombia, and Sri Lanka and Tamil Eelam. Analysing these case studies from a psychological-warfare and hegemonic perspective, the book also includes two chapters from Noam Chomsky and John Pilger, which provide a global and historical context. This book will be of great interest to students of critical terrorism studies, political violence, war and conflict studies, sociology, international security and IR.
Download or read book Cocaine Death Squads and the War on Terror written by Oliver Villar and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the late 1990s, the United States has funneled billions of dollars in aid to Colombia, ostensibly to combat the illicit drug trade and State Department-designated terrorist groups. The result has been a spiral of violence that continues to take lives and destabilize Colombian society. This book asks an obvious question: are the official reasons given for the wars on drugs and terror in Colombia plausible, or are there other, deeper factors at work? Scholars Villar and Cottle suggest that the answers lie in a close examination of the cocaine trade, particularly its class dimensions. Their analysis reveals that this trade has fueled extensive economic growth and led to the development of a "narco-state" under the control of a "narco-bourgeoisie" which is not interested in eradicating cocaine but in gaining a monopoly over its production. The principal target of this effort is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who challenge that monopoly as well as the very existence of the Colombian state. Meanwhile, U.S. business interests likewise gain from the cocaine trade and seek to maintain a dominant, imperialist relationship with their most important client state in Latin America. Suffering the brutal consequences, as always, are the peasants and workers of Colombia. This revelatory book punctures the official propaganda and shows the class war underpinning the politics of the Colombian cocaine trade.
Download or read book Inside Colombia written by Grace Livingstone and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is an introduction to who's who and what is really happening in Columbia. In one volume, it brings together the best material published on the war, the economy, social impact and prospects of peace in Columbia.
Download or read book Mexico s Narco insurgency and U S Counterdrug Policy written by and published by Strategic Studies Institute. This book was released on with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Uncomfortable Wars Revisited written by John T. Fishel and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the end of the Cold War, and especially since September 11, 2001, the United States has faced daunting challenges in the areas of foreign policy and national security. Threatened by failing states, insurgencies, civil wars, and terrorism, the nation has been compelled to re-evaluate its traditional responses to global conflict. In this timely book, John T. Fishel and Max G. Manwaring present a much-needed strategy for conducting unconventional warfare in an increasingly violent world. In the early 1990s, Manwaring introduced a new paradigm for addressing low-intensity conflicts, or conflicts other than major wars. Termed the Manwaring Paradigm or SWORD (Small Wars Operations Research Directorate) model, it has been tested successfully by scholars and practitioners and refined in the wake of new and significant “uncomfortable wars” around the world, most notably the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Uncomfortable Wars Revisited broadens the definition of the original paradigm and applies it to specific confrontations
Download or read book Shooting Up written by Vanda Felbab-Brown and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2009-12-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most policymakers see counterinsurgency and counternarcotics policy as two sides of the same coin. Stop the flow of drug money, the logic goes, and the insurgency will wither away. But the conventional wisdom is dangerously wrongheaded, as Vanda Felbab-Brown argues in Shooting Up. Counternarcotics campaigns, particularly those focused on eradication, typically fail to bankrupt belligerent groups that rely on the drug trade for financing. Worse, they actually strengthen insurgents by increasing their legitimacy and popular support. Felbab-Brown, a leading expert on drug interdiction efforts and counterinsurgency, draws on interviews and fieldwork in some of the world's most dangerous regions to explain how belligerent groups have become involved in drug trafficking and related activities, including kidnapping, extortion, and smuggling. Shooting Up shows vividly how powerful guerrilla and terrorist organizations — including Peru's Shining Path, the FARC and the paramilitaries in Colombia, and the Taliban in Afghanistan — have learned to exploit illicit markets. In addition, the author explores the interaction between insurgent groups and illicit economies in frequently overlooked settings, such as Northern Ireland, Turkey, and Burma. While aggressive efforts to suppress the drug trade typically backfire, Shooting Up shows that a laissez-faire policy toward illicit crop cultivation can reduce support for the belligerents and, critically, increase cooperation with government intelligence gathering. When combined with interdiction targeting major traffickers, this strategy gives policymakers a better chance of winning both the war against the insurgents and the war on drugs.
Download or read book Colombia written by Frank Safford and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2002 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colombia: Fragmented Land, Divided Society is a comprehensive history of the third most populous country of Latin America. It offers the most extensive discussion available in English of the whole of Colombian history-from pre-Columbian times to the present. The book begins with an in-depth look at the earliest years in Colombia's history, emphasizing the role geography played in shaping Colombia's economy, society, and politics and in encouraging the growth of distinctive regional cultures and identities. It includes a thorough discussion of Colombian politics that looks at the ways in which historical memory has affected political choices, particularly in the formation and development of the country's two traditional political parties. The authors explore the factors that have contributed to Colombia's economic troubles, such as the delay in its national economic integration and its relative ineffectiveness as an exporter. The three concluding chapters offer an authoritative and up-to-date examination of the impact of coffee on Colombia's economy and society, the social and political effects of urban growth, and the multiple dimensions of the violence that has plagued the country since 1946. Written in clear, vigorous prose, Colombia: Fragmented Land, Divided Society is essential for students of Latin American history and politics, and for anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the history of this fascinating and tumultuous country.
Download or read book Civil Wars of the World 2 volumes written by Karl DeRouen Jr. and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-05-10 with total page 995 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique two-volume reference is the most authoritative, up-to-date resource available for information and data on the most volatile civil wars around the globe since World War II. At a time when historians are devoting more and more research to conflicts within nations, Civil Wars of the World: Major Conflicts since World War II is an invaluable addition to the available resources. In two volumes, it ranges around the globe to cover the most volatile and deadly civil wars of the past 60 years, including the bloody impasses in the Middle East; devastating tribal warfare in Africa; Cold War–fueled conflicts in Eastern Europe and Asia; the seemingly unbreakable cycle of rebellion and repression in some regions of Latin America; and more. Civil Wars of the World moves country by country to describe the causes, course, and consequences of internal conflicts within each nation. Coverage includes the historical background of each country, geographic and economic factors, descriptions of rebel groups and governments (e.g., regime type, size of military, capacity), terrorism, foreign and/or intergovernmental organization (IGO) intervention (UN, foreign support for rebels), foreign aid, and prospects for peace.
Download or read book Guns Drugs and Development in Colombia written by Jennifer S. Holmes and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, Colombia has contended with a variety of highly publicized conflicts, including the rise of paramilitary groups in response to rebel insurgencies of the 1960s, the expansion of an illegal drug industry that has permeated politics and society since the 1970s, and a faltering economy in the 1990s. An unprecedented analysis of these struggles, Guns, Drugs, and Development in Colombia brings together leading scholars from a variety of fields, blending previously unseen quantitative data with historical analysis for an impressively comprehensive assessment. Culminating in an inspiring plan for peace, based on Four Cornerstones of Pacification, this landmark work is sure to spur new calls for change in this corner of Latin America and beyond.
Download or read book Arms Trafficking and Colombia written by Kim Cragin and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2003-10-24 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colombia has experienced significant political instability and violence over the past century due to a number of factors, including the proliferation of small-arms trafficking. The authors identify the sources and routes used by arms traffickers to acquire, buy, sell, receive, transfer, and ship weapons. They also examine the various groups and individuals who purchase and use these munitions. The authors examine Colombia's political conflict through the lens of small-arms trafficking and conclude with policy implications for the United States.
