Since its creation in 1963, United States Southern Command has been led by 30 senior officers representing all four of the armed forces. None has undertaken his leadership responsibilities with the cultural sensitivity and creativity demonstrated by Admiral Jim Stavridis during his tenure in command. Breaking with tradition, Admiral Stavridis discarded the customary military model as he organized the Southern Command Headquarters. In its place he created an organization designed not to subdue adversaries, but instead to build durable and enduring partnerships with friends. His observation that it is the business of Southern Command to launch "ideas not missiles" into the command's area of responsibility gained strategic resonance throughout the Caribbean and Central and South America, and at the highest levels in Washington, DC.

Admiral James G. Stavridis, USN, reflects on his tenure as Commander of United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM). The first Admiral to command Southern Command, Admiral Stavridis broke with tradition from day one, discarding the customary military staff model and creating an innovative organization designed not solely to subdue adversaries, but ... to build durable and lasting partnerships. From his unique perspective as commander, Stavridis uses his personal style to describe his vision for the command's role in the Americas, making most of limited resources to create goodwill and mutual respect, while countering illegal drug trafficking, overcoming a dangerous insurgency in Colombia, and responding to humanitarian crises. He devotes chapters to USSOUTHCOM's role in nurturing institutional respect for human rights among military and security forces of the region, advancing health security, and supporting a new regional strategy to counter the increasing challenge of urban and transnational gang violence. Citing the hemisphere's common geography, culture, economy, and history, Stavridis makes a case for a common approach and strategy for defending our "shared home of the Americas" through an international, interagency, and private-public approach, all connected through coherent effective strategic communication--Publisher's description.

The Power of Partnership is an oral history archive commemorating Partners of the Americas' five decades of volunteerism and service by documenting the histories of its chapters, partnerships, and networks in more than 100 interviews with volunteers, staff members, and project participants across the Western Hemisphere. Founded in 1964 under the people-to-people component of President John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, Partners' 50-year legacy presents the opportunity to highlight the significance of this people-to-people diplomacy in the 20th-century U.S. - Latin American relations.

Can democracy develop in Latin America without United States assistance? Why should the United States care? Why is Latin America relevant to U.S. economic growth in global competition? In Greater America: A New Partnership for the Americas in the 21st Century L. Ronald Scheman argues that our future lies not in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East but right here in our own backyard—the Western Hemisphere. He shows how the political and cultural legacy of colonization, immigration, assimilation and pluralism binds North, Central and South America, and how the trends in market growth and resources make the Americas a rich prize in global trade. Despite the tendency of many northerners to underestimate our ties, we are closer to our southern cousins than to any other societies. That relationship will be increasingly stronger given the growing and irrepressible influence of Latino and Caribbean populations in the U.S. For Latin America, the linkage to the U.S. is essential for attracting investment and creating the jobs necessary to overcome its oppressive heritage of poverty and to provide opportunity for a young population that will increasingly expect a better standard of living. Most important, Greater America demonstrates how closer ties with Latin America will help build a stronger U.S. economy while reducing illegal immigration and drug trafficking. He argues that only a NATO-like coalition in the Americas will defeat the drug traffickers, and that a major program to build infrastructure is essential to make trade agreements work. This book celebrates the contribution of the Americas as one of the more important factors in the spread of human freedom in the last half millennium. It makes the case for the unlimited potential of the Americas and shows how it can be unleashed through greater political and economic integration.

This open access book presents an innovative study of the rise of unmarried cohabitation in the Americas, from Canada to Argentina. Using an extensive sample of individual census data for nearly all countries on the continent, it offers a cross-national, comparative view of this recent demographic trend and its impact on the family. The book offers a tour of the historical legacies and regional heterogeneity in unmarried cohabitation, covering: Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, Colombia, the Andean region, Brazil, and the Southern Cone. It also explores the diverse meanings of cohabitation from a cross-national perspective and examines the theoretical implications of recent developments on family change in the Americas. The book uses data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, International (IPUMS), a project dedicated to collecting and distributing census data from around the world. This large sample size enables an empirical testing of one of the currently most powerful explanatory frameworks for changes in family formation around the world, the theory of the Second Demographic Transition. With its unique geographical scope, this book will provide researchers with a new understanding into the spectacular rise in premarital cohabitation in the Americas, which has become one of the most salient trends in partnership formation in the region.