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 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 Dr

Covers the entire range of the history of U.S. foreign relations from the colonial period to the beginning of the 21st century. A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations is an authoritative guide to past and present scholarship on the history of American diplomacy and foreign relations from its seventeenth century origins to the modern day. This two-volume reference work presents a collection of historiographical essays by prominent scholars. The essays explore three centuries of America’s global interactions and the ways U.S. foreign policies have been analyzed and interpreted over time. Scholars offer fresh perspectives on the history of U.S. foreign relations; analyze the causes, influences, and consequences of major foreign policy decisions; and address contemporary debates surrounding the practice of American power. The Companion covers a wide variety of methodologies, integrating political, military, economic, social and cultural history to explore the ideas and events that shaped U.S. diplomacy and foreign relations and continue to influence national identity. The essays discuss topics such as the links between U.S. foreign relations and the study of ideology, race, gender, and religion; Native American history, expansion, and imperialism; industrialization and modernization; domestic and international politics; and the United States’ role in decolonization, globalization, and the Cold War. A comprehensive approach to understanding the history, influences, and drivers of U.S. foreign relation, this indispensable resource: Examines significant foreign policy events and their subsequent interpretations Places key figures and policies in their historical, national, and international contexts Provides background on recent and current debates in U.S. foreign policy Explores the historiography and primary sources for each topic Covers the development of diverse themes and methodologies in histories of U.S. foreign policy Offering scholars, teachers, and students unmatched chronological breadth and analytical depth, A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to the Present is an important contribution to scholarship on the history of America’s interactions with the world.

This book examines the U.S. war on drugs at home and abroad. It provides a brief history of the war on drugs. In addition, it analyzes drug trafficking and organized crime in Colombia and Mexico, and the role of the United States government in counternarcotics policies. This work also examines the opioid epidemic, addiction, and alternative policies.

If illicit drug trafficking is a global problem, why won't other nations comply with the drug control agenda of the United States? NarcoDiplomacy departs from traditional responses to this question, which have held that compliance with the American agenda has been beyond the capacity of key countries. By focusing on Germany and Japan, touted as two of the strongest allies of the United States in drug control efforts, H. Richard Friman exposes the flaws in capacity arguments and the policies based on them. Drawing on sources ranging from previously unknown Imperial German archives to interviews with policy makers and law enforcement officials, Friman offers a thorough analysis of bilateral and multilateral relations. He traces their evolution from international opium control efforts of the early 1900s through disputes over cocaine and money laundering during the Reagan and Bush antidrug campaigns. His work reveals that, although the internal logic of the U.S. posture was sound, American policy makers failed to recognize the nature of German and Japanese cooperation and defection, or to identify which aspects of capacity were at issue. The resulting policy, Friman contends, actually undermined German and Japanese compliance with the American agenda. Extending this analysis to Latin America, NarcoDiplomacy explores the ramifications of Friman's findings for the future of U.S. drug control policy.

"An important and timely book. The authors capture the dynamics of drug debate with uncanny accuracy. Too often, treatment and prevention get the short end of the stick in Congress, and this book explains why. Drug War Politics makes a compelling case for bringing public health principles to bear on the drug epidemic, and is essential reading for serious students of the drug issue."—Senator Edward M. Kennedy "A thoughtful analysis of the most fundamental and troublesome social problem in America. It reaches behind rhetoric and starts making sense about how we can go about saving ourselves from two addictions: the terrible affliction of drugs and the easy talk that makes the rest of us feel good but does not deal with the problem."—Kurt Schmoke, Mayor, City of Baltimore "This well-informed book shows how political expediency and a punitive conventional wisdom have combined over the past decades to support a national drug policy that fills our prisons, depletes our budget, and destroys our poor. This is a wonderfully sane analysis of what has become a major form of national insanity."—Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York "We've needed a new way of thinking about the drug problem for a long time. Now we have it. Drug War Politics is one of the best efforts to reconceptualize a major aspect of crime, especially victimless crime, that I have seen since Morris and Hawkins' The Honest Politician's Guide to Crime Control of nearly 30 years ago."—Theodore J. Lowi, Cornell University "A compelling analysis of our failure. The provocative public health solutions it proposes to the drug-related crime, violence, and despair that ravage many of our inner cities show that we can give people a chance—a chance to fight addiction and build better lives."—Congressman John Lewis "We will never be able to arrest, prosecute, or jail our way out of the drug problem. To understand why, read this book. The evidence is overwhelming: we need a radical change in the mission and mandate of drug control."—Nicholas Pastore, Chief of Police, New Haven "This is the smart citizens' guide to the drug policy debate—to why we spend so much time and money on things that don't work, and to where we can look for guidance for things that do."—Barbara Geller, Director, Fighting Back, New Haven

From the time that President Ronald Reagan declared war on drugs in 1982 through today, the United States increased the military's role in interdiction and made illegal drugs a central component of U.S. foreign policy. Despite these actions, international drug trafficking has become the world's largest criminal enterprise and the United States is far and away the number one market for illegal drugs. This book sees the so-called war on drugs as a failure that has actually contributed to a growth in the drug trade. An overview of the U.S. antidrug policy is first provided, followed by an in-depth examination of the major criminal organizations that have been involved in trafficking, focusing on how these so-called hard targets got started, their organizational structure, their operations and how law enforcement worldwide has responded to their growth. The social, political and economic effects of drug trafficking are then explored. A concluding section assesses the impact of U.S. policy on the worldwide drug trade and puts forth what has been learned from this failed agenda.