When Republican Congressional leaders introduced a $2.6 billion drug-war proposal July this year, including $300 million for the construction of a tl.S. military base at a yet-to-be-selected site in Latin America, they laid claim to a tradition that goes back to 1971. In that year, Richard Nixon militarized drug control by proclaiming narcotics trafficking a threat to "national security." Ever since, protecting national security has been the rallying cry of those who have advocated more money and firepower for a military war on drugs.

The militarization of drug-control strategy has been nourished by a propensity to blame social ills on exogenous influences and to "call in the Marines" whenever a national threat is perceived. The first propensity has led to an effort to control the foreign supply of drugs, rather than the domestic demand. The second has made the use of military force not only acceptable but the expected manner of carrying out this strategy.

The strategy has grown and developed over the past 28 years. A decade after Nixon's proclamation, Ronald Reagan launched a rapid expansion of anti-drug efforts, linking drug trafficking to leftist guerrillas and the revolutionary governments of Cuba and Nicaragua. Eight years later, in December 1989, President Bush spurred dramatic growth in the anti-drug roles of both the U.S. military and its counterparts in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia when he announced his Andean Initiative, a five-year, $2.2 billion plan to stop Cocaine "at its source. "

Early in the Clinton presidency, the source-country strategy was refined to focus military efforts on the dismantling of the "air bridge" that connects coca growers with Cocaine paste producers, refiners and distributors. Drug traffickers responded by abandoning air routes in favor of local waterways, a move that required the Pentagon to train local military forces in riverine patrol and interdiction tactics, and to provide them with the equipment necessary to carry out the new mission. This past March, a group of 30 U.S. military instructors initiated specialized training at a new base near Iquitos, Peru, as part of a five-year program that is expected to cost $60 million.'

The alleged guerrilla-trafficker link facilitated the shift from a Cold-War to a drug-war military posture, bringing many old foes into the ranks of the new enemy. Washington's ongoing effort to strengthen Colombia's military, for example, has created jobs for many veterans of the 1980s counterinsurgency campaigns in Central America. And, mirroring its 1980s Central America posture, the Pentagon continues to cite the regional threat posed by Colombian "narcoguerrillas" to justify its expanded operations in neighboring countries thus far free of hostilities-in this case Ecuador and Venezuela.

Because anti-drug activities are commonly just one component of a complex web of troop deployment, training and assistance programs, the exact number of U.S. military personnel involved in counternarcotics work in Latin America is difficult to ascertain, as is the full extent and nature of Washington's assistance to host-nation security forces. The Washington-based Latin American Working Group (LAWG) estimates that 56,000 U.S. troops saw service in Latin America in 1997, while grant assistance to the region's militaries and police exceeded $250 million.?

U.S. troops operate ground-based radar, fly monitoring missions, provide operation and intelligence support, and train host-nation security forces. While U.S. troops play this supporting role, host-country armed forces are increasingly relied upon as the front-line troops in the drug war. In a July 1998 report, LAWG notes that counternarcotics is the rationale used for most U.S. troop deployments and aid, both of which are increasingly being provided under Pentagon programs-like the Joint Combined Exchange Training exercises run by Green Beret and other special forces units-that are exempt from civilian oversight and human rights restrictions. 3

Even when programs are subject to oversight and restrictions, there is evidence that training and equipment have been used for military purposes other than counternarcotics. In Mexico, for example, helicopters earmarked for anti-drug missions were used to ferry troops to carry out anti-Zapatista operations in Chiapas, and Mexican opposition leaders have demanded an investigation into whether troops sent to the United States for anti-drug training are applying the tactics they learned to quell the indigenous uprising. Mexico, incidentally, after rejecting all U.S. drug assistance between 1993 and 1995, accepted $75 million in training and equipment from the Pentagon in 1996 and 1997.4

Meanwhile, many of the militaries the United States has recruited as its allies have fallen victim to drugrelated corruption, and the militarization of drug control has done little, if anything, to stem the northward flow of narcotics. Washington, however, does not seem ready to break its costly addiction to a military solution.