U.S. SUPPORT OF PLAN COLOMBIA: RETHINKING THE ENDS AND MEANS Stephen E. Flynn May 2001 ***** The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This report is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited. ***** Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should be forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 122 Forbes Ave., Carlisle, PA 17013-5244. Copies of this report may be obtained from the Publications and Production Office by calling commercial (717) 245-4133, FAX (717) 245-3820, or via the Internet at [email protected]. ***** Most 1993, 1994, and all later Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) monographs are available on the SSI Homepage for electronic dissemination. SSI’s Homepage address is: http://carlisle-www.army. mil/usassi/welcome.htm ***** The Strategic Studies Institute publishes a monthly e-mail newsletter to update the national security community on the research of our analysts, recent and forthcoming publications, and upcoming conferences sponsored by the Institute. Each newsletter also provides a strategic commentary by one of our research analysts. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, please let us know by e-mail at [email protected] or by calling (717) 245-3133. ISBN 1-58487-052-4 ii FOREWORD This is one of the monographs in the series from the February 2001 conference on Plan Colombia cosponsored by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College and The Dante B. Fascell North-South Center of the University of Miami. In this short essay, Stephen E. Flynn provides an intended counterpoint to Dr. Gabriel Marcella’s lead-off monograph in which he argues that Plan Colombia is a brilliantly conceived grand strategy for democratization and national security. Dr. Flynn argues that the U.S. emphasis on drug control in its support of Plan Colombia is misguided and akin to prescribing an antibiotic regime to combat a disease not caused by bacteria or similar micro-organisms. The illegal drug industry in Colombia is not the cause of that country’s fragile socio-political system, but a symptom of and a contributor to the fragility of the Colombian state. Continuing the analogy, Flynn argues that U.S. and Colombian emphasis on combating illicit drug cultivation and trafficking leads to several undesirable side effects. The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this monograph as part of the ongoing clarification of the uncertainty and confusion that permeate the national security debate involving U.S. policy in Colombia and the implementation of Plan Colombia. DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR. Director Strategic Studies Institute iii PREFACE Stephen Flynn’s credibility on the issue of anti-drug policy is hard to match. Not only is he a respected scholar and a broad strategic thinker, but as a commander in the U.S. Coast Guard, he knows the problems directly from the front lines. For those reasons, this monograph, even more than the popular film “Traffic,” is profoundly disquieting. Flynn tells us, among another things, that the policy that this country has been pursuing in Colombia at a huge cost is largely futile. If present U.S. antidrug efforts have been sold to the American public as leading to reduced amounts of drugs available on the street, such a suggestion, he tells us, is “either naive or duplicitous . . .” What is even worse, according to Flynn, is that if the drug trade in Colombia is seriously disrupted, it will simply be pushed to Mexico. The result would be “disastrous,” with Mexico being adjacent to the United States, and with a better organized operation than presently exists in Colombia. We live in a world of porous borders in which free trade and open-market capitalism are the order of the day. Millions of people, automobiles, trucks, and maritime containers enter this country, as Flynn points out with some remarkable statistics. What is to be done? Flynn offers serious alternatives. The most important and most obvious is to deal differently with this country’s 5 million addicts and frequent users, who consume the overwhelming majority of drugs. How? Simply “invest in long-term treatment,” i.e., rehabilitation, which is not now the top priority. He also advocates a costly and ambitious program of transparency and enforcement in cross-border activities. v Add to that a program of spotlighting businesses which operate outside of established codes and attacking transnational crime more efficiently through effective international cooperation, which includes the press, judicial systems, and government officials on a broad scale. If this country is unwilling to make all these investments, Flynn concludes, it should recognize that “a failed prohibitionary approach to drug control does more harm than good for it ends up serving the interests of organized crime . . .” What is he telling us? Flynn does not go further into such issues as “lifting the prohibitions.” They will be the subject of national debate, however, as the failures of present policy are more clearly understood. There could be a number of alternatives. One might be this: do not legalize or even decriminalize illegal drug sales, but re-focus massive expenditures on education and treatment. Then deal with the 5 million addicts as public health patients, not criminals, by offering them a prescribed drug dosage with immediate treatment (voluntary) if they will accept it. If each addict spends an average of, hypothetically, $15,000 per year, then removal of the addicts from the market would remove $75 billion from it, delivering potentially a knockout blow to illegal drug sales in this country. Flynn’s monograph is a great starting point to wake this country’s leaders to realistic analysis and imaginative changes of program and policy. Let the debate begin soon. Ambler H. Moss, Jr. Director The Dante B. Fascell North-South Center University of Miami vi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR STEPHEN E. FLYNN is a senior fellow with the National Security Studies Program at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York. He is also a Commander in the U.S. Coast Guard as well as Associate Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for Advanced Studies at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Currently he directs a national study group at the Council on Foreign Relations on “Globalization and the Future of Border Control.” From 1991 to 1992, Dr. Flynn was a guest scholar in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. From 1993 to 1994, he was an Annenberg Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania. A 1982 graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, he served twice in command at sea. He served in the White House Military Office during the first Bush Administration and as Director for Global Issues on the National Security Council staff during the Clinton Administration. Dr. Flynn is author of several articles and book chapters on border control, the illicit drug trade, and organized crime. Most recently, his article “Beyond Border Control” appeared in the November/December 2000 issue of Foreign Affairs. He received an M.A.L.D. in 1990 and a Ph.D. in 1991 from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. The views expressed in this monograph are his own and do not reflect the official positions of the U.S. government or the Council on Foreign Relations. vii U.S. SUPPORT OF PLAN COLOMBIA: RETHINKING THE ENDS AND MEANS Introduction. The development of antibiotics is one of the great medical breakthroughs of the 20th century. But too often antibiotics are being prescribed for ailments they are powerless to combat, or patients are not taking their antibiotics as directed. The result has been a worrisome growth of drug-resistant micro-organisms that are proving ever more costly and, in some cases, impossible to treat. There is a lesson here—the wrong or a partial cure, no matter how well-meaning the doctor or patient who embraces it—may end up making matters worse, both for the patient and the community at large. The U.S. emphasis on drug control in its support of Plan Colombia has all the ingredients of a flawed antibiotic regime. First, it relies too heavily on a diagnosis of “narco-terrorism” as what ails Colombia when there is a far more complex and deadly virus at work. Second, as much as the patient may want to get better, Colombia lacks the means to carry out the prescribed treatment. Finally, the drug trade “infection” is already mutating and promises to be a more daunting and dangerous threat to the region than the very serious military and security crisis that currently embroils Colombia. The Colombian Disease. The production and trafficking of illicit drugs are not the cause of Colombia’s fragile socio-political system—they are symptoms of and contributors to that fragility. As such, while confronting the drug trade must be part of any strategy that aims to bolster the Colombian state, it will always be insufficient. Illicit coca cultivation thrives in 1 Colombia because this country possesses most of the optimal ingredients to attract and sustain that production. As a huge country of 439,513 square miles, split by three mountain ranges, Colombia would be a difficult nation to rule under the best of circumstances. As a nation embroiled in a half-century of violent civil war where the reach of the state’s services has rarely extended beyond the major urban centers, conditions for exercising the sovereign prerogatives of the state over this huge land mass have always been marginal at best. Throughout the countryside there is no shortage of impoverished farmers to be recruited or coerced, and no shortage of guerrillas and paramilitary groups to aid and abet them in the cultivation of coca and the production of cocaine. The Colombian civil war has persisted in no small part due to the paucity of real socio-economic reforms, particularly land reform, the lack of which fuels the widespread sense of political injustice exploited by radicals and despots. The longstanding practice of resolving conflicts through violence traces its roots in part to the lack of a competent and credible criminal justice system. Finally, the ability of drug barons to reap the rewards of their illicit labors can be credited to the robust informal economy in Colombia that makes it possible to launder billions of dollars in drug profits with virtual impunity. Any plan to bolster the Colombian state that fails to seriously address these core issues is doomed to fail. U.S. Counter-Drug Assistance: A Flawed Antibiotic. The primary drivers of the drug trade are ubiquitous: they are money, self-gratification, and addiction. Thus, the drug control mandate requires that states use their coercive powers, first, to rein in the desire by some individuals to consume mind-altering drugs; and second, to undermine the market that aims to profit by satisfying those consumers. This is a daunting challenge for even a strong state, particularly if it supports free markets and respects 2 basic civil liberties. But even the most draconian state has to reckon with the fact that the drug trade is a transnational one that promises to thrive as long as there are dark corners of the international systems where traditional sovereign controls are weak or non-existent. The illicit drug supply can be cultivated wherever local enforcement bodies are too primitive or corrupt to take the actions necessary to stop the production of drug raw materials within their borders. Moving cocaine or heroin from remote production areas to distant consumers will be possible as long as drug traffickers can count on the mounting odds against success in sifting contraband from the rising tide of legitimate goods, services, and people that now wash across national borders as a result of the explosive growth of the global economy and the twin trends of liberalization and privatization. Finally, as democratization has taken root around the planet, drug consumers in places like Russia and Eastern Europe can pursue socially-proscribed activities with less risk of arrest by police authorities whose capacity to intrude into the lives of citizens has been properly reined in.1 In short, contemporary drug control must take place against a backdrop where drugs are produced, trafficked, and consumed by individuals who find borders essentially meaningless. As long as there are gaps between de jure sovereignty and de facto sovereignty, there will be no shortage of space through which the drug trade can move. Unfortunately, there is an abundance of such locales within Colombia and among the states that border it within the Andean region. Things are little better closer to home, where despite two decades of stepped-up efforts to police the Caribbean Sea and U.S. borders, there remain ample opportunities to smuggle illicit drugs into the United States. In the year 2000 alone, 477 million people, 127 million automobiles, 11.5 million trucks, and 5.8 million maritime containers entered U.S. territory.2 The United States has nearly 100,000 miles of shoreline and almost 6,000 miles of borders with its neighbors. People and goods 3 arrive daily at more than 3,700 terminals in 301 ports of entry. Intercepting within this tidal wave of commerce the requisite equivalent of 15 40-foot containers presents law enforcement with the kind of odds one expects for winning a lottery.3 Accordingly, since access into the major markets for illicit drugs is not likely to be seriously challenged, the market will inevitably adapt to a stepped-up investment in Colombia’s counter-drug efforts. Accordingly, while those efforts may help to disrupt an important source of funding for guerrillas and paramilitary groups who rule important sections of the Colombian countryside, they hold virtually no hope for reducing the amount of cocaine or heroin available on American streets. The Clinton Administration was either naïve or duplicitous to suggest otherwise. Producing a New Virulent Strain. It is easy to predict what intensified efforts to combat drug cultivation and trafficking, particularly in Putumayo, will do to the region. Already reports are rolling in documenting the spillover of kidnappings, crime, violence, and refugees into Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil, and Panama.4 Unfortunately, none of these countries is in a position to cope with this, particularly Ecuador and Panama. Throughout this region there are few resources and little in the way of infrastructure for promoting the rule of law or advancing economic development in the areas most susceptible to the dollars and intimidation drug traffickers can bring to bear. Nowhere is there the capacity to absorb the potential for millions of refugees from Colombia’s civil war. Even if Brazilian, Venezuelan, and Ecuadorian police and soldiers are moved into the areas so as to harden the borders with southern Colombia, the costs are likely to be prohibitively high in economic and diplomatic terms. Militarizing the border regions will inevitably compromise the cross-border flow of trade and likely sour diplomatic relations among the neighboring countries. 4