Latin America continues to be a breeding ground for violent groups, as exemplified by the rise of drug cartels in Mexico and narcoterrorist organizations such as the Colombian FARC and the Peruvian Shining Path. A question that has not yet been properly addressed, however, is whether there is the possibility that ideologically oriented violent groups, like the Paraguayan EPP or the Mexican EPR, will rise again. This article provides a general review of the security situation in the region, focusing on violent armed groups and discussing to what extent they may have a political ideology.
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This presentation analyzes the subject of secession, establishing its characteristics and proposing, as a hypothesis, that these theoretical considerations could be taking shape in the Bolivian reality of today. The author makes a qualitative assessment of the country's most serious problems as a function of the aforementioned hypothesis. The presentation seeks to identify the underground forces undermining territorial cohesion in Latin America today, and emphasizes ethnoindigenism as an explanatory variable. The author utilizes historical examples of secessions in other parts of Latin America, and in Bolivia itself, with the idea of establishing similarities and differences with the case under study. The objective is to demonstrate that centrifugal dynamics have already taken shape, which are currently having repercussions on the stability and governability of this regional space and which, put into a comparative perspective with empirical evidence, could be irreversible in nature.
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We note that an increase in transnational drug trafficking activity, through the Mexican cartels, is threatening, to varying degrees, the national security of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. As a result of this, in Andean subregional security policy, with the support of the United States, a new multilateral antidrug strategy must be formulated that can successfully confront the new levels of drug trafficking and criminal violence practiced by stateless transnational players, such as the Mexican cartels in the Andean region.
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The attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001 changed dramatically the dynamic and nature of North American relations, igniting interest in closer cooperation among the three countries, especially on issues relating to security, border patrol and immigration. This renewed interest in strengthening collaboration in North America has crystallized into a call for the establishment of a "North American Security Perimeter." The three North American countries have taken several significant steps to strengthen collaboration on security matters. In effect, security cooperation within the continent has never been as strong, and it has in fact been institutionalized between Mexico and the US on some levels. Nonetheless, despite this new level of continental security cooperation, this article advances the argument that we are still far from the establishment of an international regime that would resemble anything close to a security perimeter. Instead, it is argued that what we are witnessing is the emergence of an informal North American security system that has unfolded along the two traditional axes that have historically characterized North American relations: the US-Canada relationship and the US-Mexico relationship.
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The paper reviews the challenges of achieving a hemispheric-level consensus regarding security and defense. The authors detect two main difficulties: (a) the importance awarded by the different countries to their national security as a priority, and (b) the preeminence of the global security designs. In 2002 and 2003, the OAS discussed the notion of "Hemispheric Security." The 34 countries forming the organization drafted the "Declaration of Security in the Americas" as a result of Mexico's conference on October 27-28, 2003. Two notions of security were discussed during the negotiations: one of them mostly related to social, economic and governability problems, supported by many Caribbean and Latin American governments, called "multidimensional security;" and the other notion confined to issues such a cooperation against terrorism, drug trafficking, organized crime and the so-called "emerging threats," supported mainly by the United States. In addition, countries such as Canada have developed notions such as "human security." These problems result in a complex security and defense agenda, or a North-South agenda: the North worried about the new threats led by terrorism and the South concerned about development problems. Finally, the article reviews Mexico's contradictory position, trying to state its foreign policy principles in the hemispheric security debate, while being part of North America, and therefore, a neighbor of the United States.
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This article considers the advances of a research project about Comparative Defense Systems, sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities University Center of the University of Guadalajara, Mexico. The first section discusses different understandings of the concept of security, because of its ambiguity and complexity, and the missions of the Armed Forces. The second section takes on the role of the Mexican military, based on its missions and functions. In particular, special treatment in given to the direct participation of the military in police and security forces functions (a tendency called militarization of public security); efforts to combat narcotics trafficking and the counter-insurgency war, which allows the Mexican Armed Forces acquire arms training and combat experience, which is considered an important qualitative factor. Finally, the third section questions the future of national defense and its military instrument in Mexico through analysis of the lack of correspondence between national defense and foreign policy; the operational organization, struture and deployment of the Armed Forces; the human factor; the lack of a joint doctrine; the defense system and internal security, among other topics. The paper ends with some unanswered questions in the subject, in hopes of generating public debate about the role of the Armed Forces and a clear definition of National Security.
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