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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 01/04
The United States and Colombia: The Journey from Ambiguity to Strategic Clarity
Gabriel Marcella
North South Center
University of Miami
Agenda Paper #13
March 2003
President Bush’s sweeping support for Colombia underlines a remarkable turnaround in U.S. policy. Driven for years by the ambiguity of a counternarcotics-only approach, the United States has now adopted a more comprehensive recognition of Colombia’s deeply rooted and complex security problem. Indeed, Colombia is a revealing paradigm for twenty-first century conflict. It is a surprisingly weak state under assault by a powerful combination of ungoverned national territory, insurgent terrorism of the left and right, international crime organized around drug trafficking, a deeply rooted counterculture of violence and impunity, ecological damage, and institutional corruption. Unlike the Cold War military and ideological confrontation between two superpowers, a country’s debilities, rather than its strengths, breed the viruses that threaten the international community and the United States.
State weakness is one of a number of forces battering away at the Westphalian state system that has prevailed since 1648. That system raised respect for sovereignty as the basic organizing principle of international order. Accordingly, all states, whatever their internal differences and religious makeup, are beneficiaries of international order and are obligated to reciprocate by upholding the same principles.
