South America in the post-cold war era

The end of Cold War apparently put the South America region out of the main concerns of the US security agenda. After 9/11, such perception has gained importance in literature, when US global strategy focused on an otherness whose geographic position was nothing but distant from the southern territo...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Duarte Villa, Rafael, Rodrigues, Thiago, Chagas Bastos, Fabrício
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2023
Country:Brasil
Institution:Escola de Guerra Naval (EGN)
Repository:Revista da Escola de Guerra Naval (Ed. Português. Online)
Language:Portuguese
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs3.localhost:article/4533
Online Access:https://www.portaldeperiodicos.marinha.mil.br/index.php/revistadaegn/article/view/4533
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:South America
U.S. War on Drugs
Post-Cold War
Description
Summary:The end of Cold War apparently put the South America region out of the main concerns of the US security agenda. After 9/11, such perception has gained importance in literature, when US global strategy focused on an otherness whose geographic position was nothing but distant from the southern territories of the Americas. Otherwise, this article general aim is to discuss the space occupied by South America in the US current security concerns and goals through the analyses of the US war on drugs. We argue that the US counter-narcotics policy is a local variation of its global security strategy. Through a historical perspective, we present a transition from an approach that associates the war on drugs with a Cold War enemy, particularly the communist guerrillas, toward another one that recognises the fight against illegal drugs as itself a threat to the US national security and a justification for the US intelligence and military presence in South America.