US Defense Policy in Latin America

Jorge Heine critically analyzes the speech given by Under Secretary of Defense/War for Policy Elbridge Colby at the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas in Cusco. Heine's basic take is that the Latin American audience wasn't buying it. I read the speech and it's logically incoherent and often untrue.

Hard-left regimes that enable narco-terrorists multiplied across our Hemisphere from Maduro's Venezuela to Ortega's Nicaragua to Evo's Bolivia.  These same governments and their allies in the region enabled unchecked mass migration by failing in their own countries and then exporting that failure to our country. 

Neither Ortega or Evo have had anything to do with mass migration. Maduro certainly did but the effects were felt primarily in neighboring countries, not the U.S. There is much more migration from Mexico and other parts of Central America, none of which are "hard left."

We will not treat the ISIS, the al Qaeda of this Hemisphere, who menaces American lives with kid gloves rather than the forcefulness the threat requires simply because they are in the Western Hemisphere rather than the Eastern.

This is what Heine focused on in his essay. Latin American official don't view drug traffickers like Middle Eastern terrorist groups. They're different animals with different goals and tactics.

As an aside, the grammarian in me couldn't stand that sentence, which makes it sound like terrorists "menace American lives with kid gloves." Those kid gloves are scary.

This is why, historically, Latin countries frequently understood America's role to be the enabler not the suppressor of their independence. 

This is nuts. The Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions happened only--only--because the U.S. made it clear that it suppressed independence.

Well, to be very candid, the fact is that America doesn't need your assets or your dependency.

This even more nuts. The Financial Times, which is no liberal mouthpiece, had a headline just yesterday that read "The US Has Collected About $13bn of Venezuela's Oil Money. Where Is It?" Trump talks endlessly about Venezuela's oil. It's not even hidden.

Our people are dying in large numbers because of the drugs that come into our country and the crime that accompanies them.

As is often the case, he looks only at supply and not demand. This is a fundamental disconnect. Latin Americans see a huge rich country with an insatiable appetite for illegal drugs. Stop buying the drugs and the problem goes away.

Third and finally, it is critical that you invest more in your own defense.  There is no reason why any country, particularly those facing significant narco-terrorist threats, should spend so little on defense...This is possible here, too. Take Peru, for example, which just made one of the largest purchases of F-16's in the world. 

Also nutty. After strongly emphasizing that Latin America's primary defense challenge is drug trafficking, he says the way to solve it is by buying F-16s. He does not explain how F-16s address drug trafficking. If you read all the press releases about the purchase it's clear that the main goal is to remain close to the U.S. military. Having F-16s is both symbolic (hey, we're a prosperious and strong country with new military gadgets!) and practical (we will be sending soldiers to the U.S. and buying U.S. parts).