More than two decades after Oliver North's role in the Iran-Contra affair exploded into public view as part of one of the most important political scandals in the United States in the latter half of the twentieth century, the imbroglio continues to offer critical insights into contemporary debates about foreign policy mechanisms and the role of the military. North's responsibility as an individual, combined with certain institutional enablers that flourished within the Reagan Administration's conduct of foreign policy, resulted in an inexorable bifurcation between the traditional ethos of the U.S. armed forces and the foreign policy aims and practices of a conservative administration, despite their sometimes conflation in the popular mind. This paper will explore the tensions between institutional versus political conservatism, as well as those institutional practices, that facilitated North's shift away from the instincts and training of the military sphere to that of a lone-wolf activism.
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This presentation by the Secretary General for Defense Policy of the Spanish Ministry of Defense was given at the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS) on January 14, 2011.
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The types of violent conflicts occurring more frequently today encompass solutions from different areas, making participation in peacebuilding from a broad range of backgrounds and specializations essential to its success. In order to reinforce the internal structure of fragile or destroyed states, it is necessary to achieve a stronger integration and coordination not only among the States but also among the international organizations. Peacekeeping must become Peacebuilding to accomplish this end. Integral security has long been a basic concept for all the participating countries. International experience demonstrates that States who cooperate in a specific country for humanitarian reasons and under UN mandate should afterwards complement the peace operations carried out by military forces with actions designed to settle that country's basic needs. As a concept, peace operations is broader, representing much more than sending troops. Along with the mission of enforcing peace and security, it also has a wider and more integral multidisciplinary character, throwing down a gauntlet to both civilian and military people to act jointly and in coordination in various multiple and complex tasks. This is necessary so that the new operations achieve their final goal of securing peace and socio economic development. In this article the case of Chile's evolution is presented inside the peace operations under the UN mandate. The future participation of civilians as a whole, altogether with military and police, is presented as another topic of the Foreign Policy under the framework of the Chilean International Cooperation Agenda for Haiti. Also, the Parliament's involvement in the generation of national strategic planning capabilities for peacebuilding is highlighted.
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As Chinese trade and investment with Latin America expand, the People's Republic of China (PRC) is accumulating interests in the region. Whatever Chinese intentions toward Latin America may be, the dilemma of when and how to defend these interests is likely to occupy a significant part of the PRC agenda in the region in the coming decades, and to affect China's relationship with the United States as well. This article identifies six emerging Chinese interests in Latin America, and discusses why, and how the PRC may struggle to defend them. These interests are: (1) Access to markets and the fight against protectionism, (2) Protection of investments and contracts, (3) Repayment of loans, (4) Protection of resource flows, (5) Protection of Chinese nationals and operations in the region, and the (6) Isolation of Taiwan.
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This paper was presented at the Fundación CiudadanÃa y Valores (FUNCIVA) in Madrid, Spain, February 11, 2010.
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