The national security implications of pandemic influenza have immeasurable social costs, but also important are the quantifiable economic costs. We estimated the possible macroeconomic effects of the next influenza pandemic on the Jamaican economy and analyzed the economic impact of vaccine-based interventions. The estimated economic impact would be approximately JA$2.6B, excluding disruptions to commerce and society. Loss in man hours is estimated over a two (2) week work period at approximately 15M hours using an estimated average attack rate of 17% across the leading economic sectors. With vaccination cost per patient ranging between US$18 to as high as US$59, the overall cost of vaccinating members of the estimated labour force who might be exposed to an attack is as high as JA$917M. We therefore project a net savings to the society if persons within the labour force are vaccinated. Critical among the labour force are public and corporate security. Public safety and public order are paramount during an outbreak of pandemic influenza.
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This essay analyzes the relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Colombia in the strategic context of the region. It begins with an analysis of why growing relations between China and the region are a key security and defense issue, despite the mainly economic nature of the relationship. It continues with an analysis of China's strategic interests in Colombia within the framework of general interests in the region, which include access to primary products, access to markets, isolating Taiwan, and fostering a secure environment for China's rise in the world. He concludes that relations between Colombia and the People's Republic of China in recent years have been primarily commercial in nature, with multiple strategic implications for Colombia, including the evolution of its trade structure, the increase in human trafficking, and the indirect empowerment of irregular forces and external threats in its neighborhood, and that China-Colombia-US relations should be understood as a triangle in which the development of one party impacts the others, but with opportunities to collaborate, including defense and criminality issues that involve the entire region.
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The new guerrilla group known as the Paraguayan People's Army, or EPP, is unique as a Marxist insurgency against a Marxist-sympathetic populist government. Although still small they appear to be growing. The evidence indicates that EPP is a serious group that has been in development for more than twenty years. They have an ideology and a strategic plan that they are systematically carrying out. They are anything but amateurs. They have acquired training and assistance from the Colombian FARC, if not others. They have built up funds through bank robberies and kidnappings, and gradually they are expanding their operations. While sometimes referred to as a "foquista" movement, the comparison falls short. What distinguishes EPP is the significant support base they have systematically built up among the radical elements of the Paraguayan rural peasantry, particularly in the north of the country. So far the state has responded by sending contingents of policemen and soldiers to cordon off and search rural areas in San Pedro and Concepcion. These operations appear to have produced little result. This article discusses the EPP's history and dynamics.
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The article analyzes interdependency levels in security affairs, pointing out that the best accomplishments have been carried out in South America, such as multinational cooperation in the UN mission in Haiti. It is also pointed out that, regarding security and defense in North America, there are plenty of obstacles meant to be overcome by means of implementing the Merida Initiative for México and Central America. In the case of Andean countries-at present, the most conflictive region in the hemisphere-actual steps backwards have occurred, increasing geopolitical and border tensions among its members. The paper concludes that at present, the paradigm between security and integration must not be mutually exclusive. It faces growing challenges which demand the creation of institutions that are able to deal with them.
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The provision of private security services challenges conventional wisdom about the role of the State as the guarantor of public security. Taking into account the weakness or absence of effective legal structures and regulating entities, such non-state activities pose serious questions about lawfulness, legitimacy, and responsibility in the security area. If the security provided by police forces is not reliable, citizens will tend to resort to private security services (PSS) or to supply themselves with arms in order to protect themselves, speeding up the decline of state monopoly on the legitimate use of force. In El Salvador, PSS monitoring and control focus on this area. By means of systematically analyzing the phenomenon, its main elements and the dynamic interrelationship among them are presented as a means of determining whether the system provides the required levals of transparency and the democratic standards regarding the operations and behavior of the PSS. The research presented is aimed at bringing Salvadoran expertise in these matters into the debate on PSS monitoring and control, a useful exercise in part because it shows, from the vantage point of primary sources, the Salvadoran experience with systems of monitoring and control.
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Analysis of the emergency in Nicaragua caused by Hurricane Felix offers key insights into a risk management experience in Central America. The attention given to a natural disaster yields in retrospect hands-on lessons learned about the role of international cooperation role in development and public policymaking, and the effective agreement among national entities, citizen organizations, and defense and security forces. The article states that risk prevention systems for natural disasters must be focused comprehensively, in this way allowing the armed forces to supply their knowledge and expertise to civil institutions in charge of planning, non-governmental organizations and international cooperation entities. Such initiative, according to the author should become a common practice in the medium term, offering the chance to strengthen civilian-military relationships.
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In Latin America, where limited probabilities of international conflict are envisioned, the Armed Forces in democratic countries perform multiple tasks. This paper analyzes four of these tasks, leaving aside the traditional mobilization in the event of natural catastrophes: the fight against drug trafficking; the fight against insurgent organizations and terrorism; control of land conflicts; and the protection of government property. When we understand this multiplicity of tasks, we understand that it is essential to keep in mind the complexity of factors that impact on, and interact in, each particular national case. These factors are of a political, historical, geographical and cultural nature, and can be both structural and situational. Ignoring this heterogeneity and adopting positions in standard terms of what "should be" in this area would mean relying on erroneous assumptions and standards.
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