The Americas Archive

Increased U.S. funding to fight drugs and organized crime in Mexico and Central America has attracted a good deal of attention in recent years. But flying largely under the radar is the growing role being played in that effort by the U.S. military, most notably now in Honduras, where U.S. Marines are engaged in a joint training exercise with Honduran troops and the Pentagon is financing a new naval base. “There’s been a noticeable uptick in U.S. military aid and cooperation in Honduras during the past year,” says Adam Isacson, senior associate for regional security policy at the Washington Office […]

With huge hydrocarbon finds being unearthed in both conventional and unconventional sectors across the Americas, energy independence is being hyped to epic proportions in the United States. The scorecard now shows 6.5 trillion unconventional barrels of oil in the Americas, running from Canada all the way to Argentina, versus 1.2 trillion conventional barrels in the Middle East and North Africa. The U.S. and Brazil sit comfortably in the middle of the expected windfall, and even Mexico, long lost to the annals of hydrocarbon blunders, boasts major new unconventional reserves. Given the awesome scale of these figures, it is hardly surprising […]

A man held hostage by Colombian rebels for nearly 12 years escapes and recovers in hospital.

Brazil’s government has slapped U.S. oil giant Chevron with a $28 million dollar fine for causing an offshore oil spill.

In July, a group of prisoners in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) of California’s Pelican Bay State Prison went on a hunger strike to protest their conditions of confinement. Central to the prisoners’ complaints was the fact that for years and, in some cases, for decades, they have been held in prolonged and indeterminate solitary confinement with few privileges and opportunities to engage in productive programming and activities. Importantly, as one prisoner put it in a letter to the informational website Solitary Watch, they were asking for “human justice, . . . fairness, compassion, positive reform, dignity . . . […]

Thanks to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and the two wars they spawned, it seemed like the near entirety of President George W. Bush’s two terms in office were characterized by efforts to define, harness and exploit fear. Despite living in the most peaceful, prosperous and predictable period in world history, Americans became convinced that they faced an unending era of war, impoverishment and chaos. That muddled mindset put us painfully out of touch with the rest of the planet. Enter then-Sen. Barack Obama, whose masterful presidential campaign in 2008 spoke openly and honestly about healing that growing rift. […]

Police in Brazil recently purchased several unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor environmental crimes such as deforestation and illegal fishing. In an email interview, Tyler Wall, a professor of criminal justice at Eastern Kentucky University, discussed the nonmilitary uses of drones. WPR: What are some of the potential nonmilitary applications of drones? Tyler Wall: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVS) are being deployed in a variety of nonmilitary spheres, albeit in limited capacities. Examples include the use of drones for domestic policing and border patrol; natural-disaster assistance; and monitoring wildlife, crops and the weather. WPR: To what degree are these potential uses being […]

The successful launch this week of a Russian spacecraft carrying an American and two Russians to the International Space Station may have eased anxieties about the future of U.S. and Russian space programs. But the reprieve is likely temporary, since it followed two recent Russian space failures — the August crash of an unmanned cargo ship and the malfunction last week of an unmanned Mars probe — as well as a string of failed satellite launches. The failures are attracting mounting scrutiny, since the U.S., which scrapped its Space Shuttle program earlier this year, now depends on Russia to ferry […]

U.S. President Barack Obama is turning up the heat on America’s biggest economic rival, calling on China to play by the same rules as everyone else.

For many, Veterans Day will bring parades honoring those who have served as well as a chance to pause and reflect upon those who are willing to pay, and have paid, the ultimate cost of service to the nation. This year, however, a disturbing trend should also be noted: For the second year in a row, however, more U.S. troops were lost to suicide throughout the force than to combat in Afghanistan or Iraq. A new report (.pdf) by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) highlights the severity of this troubling problem: – An active service member takes […]

During a time of turmoil in many of the world’s regions, one corner of the globe is receiving little attention — a sign that things are going rather well there despite the audible commotion elsewhere. South America, a continent that for decades made unwelcome news, has settled into a steady, if not exactly sedate pace of progress. To be sure, the Southern Cone is not free of problems — far from it. But compared to the atmosphere of crisis stalking the developed West, or the political upheaval battering the Middle East, it looks downright placid and, dare we say, promisingly […]

The need to bring order to America’s finances has made defense budget cuts unavoidable, with the question now turning to where and how much to cut. A recent CNAS report offered some granular — and alarming at the high end — details in terms of how various levels of cuts would impact U.S. military capabilities. Now two articles in Foreign Affairs bring into focus a more reassuring view of both defense austerity, which Benjamin J. Friedman likens to “the best possible auditor,” and retrenchment, which Joseph Parent and Paul MacDonald deem to be the most promising way for an overextended […]

In the border town of Nuevo Laredo, a stronghold of the powerful Los Zetas cartel, the body of a Mexican blogger who had reported on the activities of drug cartels was found decapitated next to a monument in the center of town. The execution was apparently meant as a stark warning to those who would use the Internet to fight back against the crime and violence perpetuated by the cartels.

The recent revelation that the Drug Enforcement Administration is operating several militarized commando squads in Latin America signals an apparent U.S. eagerness to begin using covert counternarcotics strategies honed in Afghanistan over the past decade in the Western Hemisphere. The DEA’s so-called FAST team program — Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Teams — was reportedly created during the Bush administration to investigate Taliban-linked drug traffickers in Afghanistan. While their deployment now to Honduras, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Haiti and Belize signals a new development, in some ways it actually represents a return to the program’s historical roots, which can be traced back to […]

A hostage situation at Venezuela’s Tocuyito prison ended last month when authorities agreed to transfer hundreds of prisoners to another facility. In an email interview, Chris Birkbeck, a specialist in criminal justice in Latin America at the University of Salford, discussed South America’s prison systems. WPR: Broadly speaking, what are the major problems facing the prison systems in South America? Chris Birkbeck: The biggest problem is the lack of control over inmates inside each establishment. Internal, often coercive, control is in the hands of prisoners, in some cases with the tacit recognition of the administration, but it is often contested […]

To many observers, with its agonizing lurch toward default accompanied by crippling street protests, Greece in 2011 begs comparison to Argentina in 2001. Facing insolvency and 20 percent unemployment a decade ago, Argentina has mounted a strong recovery since defaulting on its international loans, leading some to think it can offer lessons for Greece’s turnaround. The comparison is misleading, however, for a variety of reasons. More importantly, prescribing policy based on Argentina’s recovery would be disastrous for Greece. Argentina’s economy rebounded from its 2001 collapse primarily thanks to demand for goods that were devalued by 70 percent when Argentina was […]

In the wake of last week’s G-20 Summit in Cannes, France, a number of commentators have weighed in on the U.S. response — or lack thereof — to Europe’s ongoing financial crisis. Most notably, articles in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times suggested that the lack of a U.S. contribution to Europe’s bailout fund is a clear sign of American decline. As further support for the “decline narrative,” both trot out examples from the 1990s, when the U.S. led the way in bailing out Mexico and East Asian countries as financial crises gripped their economies. Yet, on […]