The Politics of Security in the Western Hemisphere

Important aspects of regional dynamics now facilitate military support for democracy and peaceful conflict resolution in the Western Hemisphere.But success will still require efforts from both civilian and military leaders.In this article I will offer and discuss ten observations that describe the current status of inter-American security relationships and that shape what might lie ahead. Conditions in the WesternHemisphere have greatly improved over the past generation.Change toward a more harmonious regional order is broadly evident.With Canada, Mexico, and the United States in NAFTA, with the anglophone Caribbean as stoutly democratic as ever, and with the end of dictatorships in South America complementing the end of internationalized conflicts in Central America, the 1994 Miami Summit credibly set forth the integration of the entire Western Hemisphere as a common goal.In sharp contrast to military rivalries in other parts of the world, Argentina and Brazil have ended their nuclear competition and accepted international safeguards.With Chile, they have banned chemical and bacteriological weapons.On the economic front, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela have followed Chile in dismantling centralized economies; giant federal Brazil is adapting well to new democratic and productive forces.Growth rates in several Latin American countries have for some years been higher than those in the United States and Canada.If the trend continues, some of today's glaring gaps in the quality of life between North and South America could slowly narrow over the next generation.But the most impressive trend is political convergence.The historic pendulum which for a century led democratic springs to be followed by grim winters of dictatorship appears to have been stopped.Since the early 1980s, democratic political systems have withstood changes in leadership, periods of severe austerity, and major adjustment pains.Democracy and economic modernization are proving compatible, and are contributing to a new awareness of the values of freedom.Dictators have proven neither necessary nor welcome.There is no guarantee that the new opportunities for regional cooperation will be fully developed.Reactions against the reformist optimism that opened the decade of the 1990s are real.But the potential for a new era of hemispheric prosperity and good neighborhood is also real

Ethnology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Western hemisphere · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law