Examining Latin American security in the post-Cold War era, policymakers and analysts from across the Americas assess the security threats and agendas of different sub-regions—such as the Caribbean Basin, the Andean nations, and the Southern Cone—and evaluate the potential for wider hemispheric cooperation.
Since the end of the Cold War, security concerns in the Caribbean have changed from containment of communism to transnational threats such as drugs, illegal migration and natural disasters. This text analyzes the situation and puts forward a framework for a cooperative regional security system.
Governing the military combines the study of governance, democratisation, and policymaking to explore how military politics have unfolded since the return to democracy in Chile. The book offers timely research to understand the rocky road to overcome the civil-military tension of the 1990s and the challenges presented by novel security demands in the twenty-first century, including the militarisation of urban crime and pandemics, and its consequences on human rights. The book will also introduce the reader to failed policies, lack of attention to governance, and decaying democratic practices. The volume examines eight themes considered fundamental to understand the modern governance of the armed forces: the state of civil-military relations, political transition and military subordination, roles and missions, military effectiveness, fiscal spending, inter-agency challenges, international engagements, and transparency and corruption.
Although the 1995 Cenepa War between Ecuador and Peru was the first military conflict in South America in over 50 years, the Ecuador-Peru relationship has been one of enduring rivalry. This text analyzes the mediation process that followed the 1995 war.
Sicker examines the role of the United States within the Western Hemisphere and the geopolitical and geostrategic factors that have helped shape its policies in the region. He demonstrates that such factors have contributed heavily to establishing the patterns of state development and interstate relations in the Western Hemisphere throughout its modern history. The prevailing geopolitical environment has been conditioned to a large extent by the emergence of the United States as the unquestionably dominant power in the extensive region. However, that status did not exist at the time it achieved its independence. It was brought about through almost incessant conflict with, and expansion at the expense of, other states, nations, and peoples over more than a century. As a result, the concerns and interests of the dominant power became and remain, of necessity, factors that states beyond the borders of the United States must take into consideration when pursuing their own national interests and policies. As Sicker amply demonstrates, failure to do so will often produce undesirable consequences for the offending state. As is clear, however, the states of the hemisphere have their own geopolitical interests and concerns independent of, and sometimes conflicting with, those of the United States. As Sicker shows throughout the volume, and especially in his analysis of inter-American conflicts, many of the nations of Latin America have unresolved territorial controversies with their neighbors that date to their origins as independent states. Because of this troubled geopolitical legacy, there have been numerous conflicts among the states of Latin America, some of which the United States has attempted to mediate or arbitrate, and some that seem impervious to a permanent negotiated settlement. This is a provocative analysis that will be of interest to scholars, students, researchers, and policymakers involved with inter-American relations and U.S. diplomacy.
