Intelligence in Peru and Colombia: Impact on the U.S. of Two Andean Alternatives

摘要

As the influence the United States wields over its fellow nations in the Western Hemisphere seems to have waned over time, especially in terms of quantifiable military aid and other forms of security assistance, qualitative cooperation in other sectors such as intelligence support has risen in importance. The Cold War having come to an end a quarter century ago, and the long-standing struggle against international Communism ceasing to be a rational justification for dedicated U.S. efforts for remaining close to its allies in the region, other motives gradually emerged, to include cooperation in counterterrorism and counternarcotics. This is precisely the milieu I stepped into in 1993 when, as a U.S. Army intelligence officer serving in the Foreign Area Officer program for Latin America, I volunteered for back-to-back voluntary assignments in the two biggest "hot spots" in the region—Peru and Colombia. At the time they were the only two countries designated as "critical threat" postings for Department of Defense (DoD) personnel, one step above "high threat." Those two levels of threat assessment merited hostile fire pay that, for some, was an incentive to serve and receive additional compensation for their troubles.