Written from the perspective of a former active participant in the U.S. anti-drug policy formulation and implementation efforts, Cocaine Quagmire is an in-depth analysis of why the U.S. drug war in Colombia is failing. While frequent anti-drug battles are won, dynamic socioeconomic and political factors have created a quagmire of countervailing obstacles leading to strategic foreign policy defeat in the North Andes. The Clinton Administration focused on combating narcotrafficking and yet misunderstood how a strong international demand and immense profits provide the basic incentives that keep the Colombian cocaine traffickers in business. This book is important in that it fills a significant gap in our knowledge of U.S. foreign policy and its application in the drug wars of the South American country of Colombia.

The post-Cold War world has seen the emergence of new kinds of security threats. Whilst traditionally security threats were perceived of in terms of military threats against a state, non-traditional security threats are those that pose a threat to various internal competencies of the state and its identity both home and abroad. The European Union and the United States have identified Latin American cocaine trafficking as a security threat, but their policy responses to it have differed. This book examines the ways in which the EU and the US have conceptualized this threat. Furthermore, it explores the impact of cocaine trafficking on four state functions - economic, political, public order and diplomatic - in order to explain why it has become 'securitized'. Appealing to a variety of university courses, this book is especially relevant to security studies and European and US policy analysis, as well as criminology and sociology.

Crandall (political science, Davidson College) examines the evolution of US policy towards Columbia, largely driven by factors relating to the US's "war on drugs," as well as the roots of violence in Colombia. He then focuses on US policy towards the country during two key periods: the Samper administration (1994-1998) and the Pastrana administration (1998-2002). He concludes by assessing current US policy toward Colombia and suggesting directions for future policy. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Latin American cocaine trafficking organizations comprise an indigenous, globally competitive, multinational industry. Their business operations are deeply ingrained within the economic and political systems of countries throughout the region. While criminal enterprises operate in a more complex and uncertain setting than licit firms, their competitive success is determined in fundamentally similar ways. Models developed by geographers to explain the spatial behavior of licit multinational firms are profitably applied here to the operations of drug trafficking operations.

This book examines the geographic displacement of the illicit drug industry as a side effect of United States foreign policy. To reduce the supply of cocaine and heroin from abroad, the US has relied on coercion against farmers, traffickers and governments, but this has only exacerbated the world's drugs problems. US Foreign Policy and the War on Drugs develops and applies a causal mechanism to explain the displacement, analyzing US anti-drug initiatives at different times and in various regions. The findings clearly show that American foreign policy has been a major driving force behind the global spread of the illicit drug industry, calling for urgent revision. This book will be of interest to students of US foreign policy, security studies and international relations in general.

This history of Colombia's illegal drug trade--and of the extreme violence it created--describes how in the late 1960s narcotics traffickers from the United States convinced Colombians who had no previous involvement in the drug trade to grow marijuana for export to America. By the early '70s, foreign (mostly American) traffickers began requesting cocaine. This book focuses on the decades of crime and violence the illegal drug trade brought to Colombia and how this social upset was ended in the early 2000s. Six chapters detail the Medellin and Cali cartels' war against the Colombian government, the revolutionary guerrillas' war against the government, the war that paramilitary groups conducted against the guerrillas, and the way in which the government finally put a stop to the cartel-financed bloodshed. In conclusion, the author assesses Colombia's progress and prospects since the end of the violence claimed the lives of some 300,000 between 1975 and 2008.

The study of Latin American and Caribbean international relations has a long evolution both within the development of international relations as a general academic undertaking and in terms of the particular characteristics that distinguish the approaches taken by scholars in the field. This handbook provides a thorough multidisciplinary reference guide to the literature on the various elements of the international relations of Latin America and the Caribbean. Citing over 1600 sources that date from the nineteenth century to the present, with emphasis on recent decades, the volume's analytic essays trace the evolution of research in terms of concepts, issues, and themes. The Handbook is a companion volume to Atkins' Latin America and the Caribbean in the International System, Fourth Edition, but also serves as an invaluable stand-alone reference volume for students, scholars, researchers, journalists, and practitioners, both official and private.