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This paper examines the supply side of the United States
counterdrug strategy. The spotlight is on Colombia since the
success of the US counternarcotics effort is inextricably linked to
the goings on in that state a country in disrepair beleaguered by
years of revolution, human rights abuses, failing economy, and
widespread crime and corruption. Drug traffickers have found a
sanctuary and thrive in the disorder that is partially of their own
making, and partially the product of two other non-state actors:
guerrillas and paramilitaries who benefit from and perpetuate the
chaos for their own ends. This paper looks at the challenge these
actors pose on the Colombian and US governments and how each
country characterizes and prioritizes the associated threats. In
short, there is a significant difference in each country's national
objectives since Colombia is fighting a war for its survival while
the US is fighting a political war on drugs. With a myopic eye on
drug traffickers, the US has undertaken a number of hit-and-miss
economic, diplomatic and military counterdrug strategies. This
paper delves into the latter how the US has employed the military
instruments of power in a peacetime supporting role. It also
analyzes the National Security Strategy and the National Military
Strategy to reveal the factors the US must consider before engaging
drug traffickers more directly with its full military strength.
On December 2004, Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act (Public Law 108-458). Commonly known as
the Intelligence Reform Act, this legislation created the Director
of National Intelligence to (a) be the chief intelligence advisor
to the President, (b) lead the entire intelligence community (IC),
and (c) oversee and direct the purchase of intelligence collection
systems for all the IC. Touted as the most far-reaching IC
reorganization since the National Security Act of 1947, the
Intelligence Reform Act resolved to improve (fix) unity of effort
by centralizing control of budgets and collection priorities of
national-level intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR)
agencies and assets. The rationale was simple. Decentralized
control of national intelligence agencies and assets, and their
corresponding collection, analysis and reporting stovepipe
bureaucracies were cited as a major finding by the 9/11 Commission.
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