The Geopolitics of Plan Colombia

Monthly Review, May, 2001 by James Petras

Introduction

Plan Colombia, to be understood properly, should be located in a historical perspective both in relation to Colombia and the recent conflicts in Central America. Plan Colombia is both "new" policy and a continuation of past U.S. involvement. Beginning in the early 1960s, under President Kennedy, Washington launched its counter insurgency program, forming special forces, designed to attack "internal enemies." The targets were Colombian self-defense communities, particularly in Marquetalia. Subsequently, the Pentagon continued its counter-insurgency presence in Colombia. Thus, Plan Colombia is President Clinton's extension and deepening of President Kennedy's internal war. The differences between the earlier version of the internal war doctrine and its current reincarnation are found in the ideological justifications for U.S. intervention, the scale and scope of U.S. involvement and the regional context of the intervention. Under Kennedy counter-insurgency was based on the threat of international communism, today the justification is based on the drug threat. In both instances there is total denial of the historical-sociological basis of the conflict.

The second major difference between Clinton's Plan Colombia and Kennedy's counter-insurgency program is the scale and scope of intervention. Plan Colombia is a long-term billion-dollar program involving large-scale modern arms shipments. Kennedy's counter-insurgency agenda was much smaller. The difference in the scale of military operation is not because of any strategic or political difference; the cause is found in the different political context in Colombia and the world: in the 1960s the guerrillas were a small isolated group, today they are a formidable army operating on a national scale. Kennedy was concentrating militarily on Indo-China, today Washington has a relatively free hand. Plan Colombia is thus both a continuation and an escalation of U.S. politico-military policy-based on similar strategic goals, adapted to new global realities.

Another historical factor that needs to be taken into account in discussing Plan Colombia is the recent growth of regional conflicts, namely the U.S. intervention in Central America. Plan Colombia is heavily influenced by Washington's successful reassertion of hegemony in Central America following the so-called "peace accords." Washington's success was based on the use of state terror, mass displacement of population, large-scale and long-term military spending, military advisors, and the offer of a political settlement involving the reincorporation of the guerrilla commanders into electoral politics. Washington's Plan Colombia is based on its success in Central America and its belief that it can replicate the same outcome in Colombia. Washington believes it can repeat the terror for peace formula of Central America via Plan Colombia in the Andean country.

What follows is an analysis of the geopolitical interests and ideological concerns that guide Plan Colombia, the consequences of U.S. military escalation and a critique of Washington's misdiagnosis of the "Colombian question." The essay will conclude with a discussion of some of the adverse unanticipated consequences that Washington may incur in pursuing its military policy in Colombia.

Plan Colombia and the Radical Triangle

Its critics describe plan Colombia as a U.S. authored and promoted policy directed toward militarily eliminating the guerrilla forces in Colombia and repressing the rural peasant communities that support them. U.S. policymakers describe Plan Colombia as an effort to eradicate drug production and trade by attacking the sources of production that are located in areas of guerrilla influence or control. Since the guerrillas are associated with the coca producing regions, this line of argument proceeds, Washington has directed its military advisory teams and military aid to destroying what they dub the "narco guerrillas." More recently, particularly with the political and military successes of the two major guerrilla movements-the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN)--Washington has increasingly acknowledged the fact that its war is directed against what is now dubbed the guerrilla insurgency. While the economic stakes are substantial in Colombia, for both Washington and the ruling oligarchy in Bogota, the larger and more important issue is the rapid and massive build-up. U.S. military involvement in Colombia is geopolitical. Strategists in Washington are concerned with several key geopolitical issues that could adversely affect U.S. imperial power in the region and beyond.

The Colombian insurgency question is thus part of a geopolitical matrix that is in the process of challenging and modifying U.S. hegemony in northern South America and in the Panama Canal Zone. Secondly, oil production, supply, and prices are linked to the challenge in the region and beyond (in OPEC, Mexico, etc.). Thirdly, the core conflicts with the empire are found in Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador (the radical triangle) but there is growing leftist and nationalist discontent in key adjoining countries, particularly in Brazil and Peru. Fourthly, the example of successful resistance in the radical triangle countries is already resonating with countries further south--Paraguay and Bolivia, on the basis of the successful political struggles by the peasant-Indian movements in the Ecuadorian highlands and the "Bolivarian appeals" of Venezuela's President Hugo Chaves, along with the ever-present national-populist consciousness in Argentina. Fifthly, the strength of the radical triangle, particularly the oil diplomacy and independent policy of President Chaves, has shattered the U.S. strategy of isolating the Cuban revolution and has further integrated Cuba into the regional economy. Beyond that, President Chaves' favorable oil deals (trade at subsidized prices) have strengthened the resolve of the Caribbean and Central American regimes to resist Washington's efforts to turn the Caribbean into an exclusive U.S. lake. While the guerrillas and popular movements represent a serious political and social challenge to U.S. supremacy in the region, Venezuela represents a diplomatic and political economic challenge in the Caribbean basin and beyond, via its leadership in OPEC and its non-aligned foreign policy. In more general terms, the radical triangle can contribute to undermining the mystique surrounding the invincibility of U.S. hegemony and the notion of the inevitability of free market ideology.