Grossman 1

The United States, the OAS, and the Roots of

Multilateral Security in the Western Hemisphere
By David C. Grossman

Submitted as a BA Thesis in Political Science

University of Chicago
April 24, 2009
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Introduction
International relations in the western hemisphere have been dominated by the United

States for years. During the Cold War, the United States frequently intervened unilaterally in the

domestic affairs of Latin American and Caribbean nations in order to prevent the establishment

of pro-Soviet or leftist governments. During this period, the Organization of American States

was frequently used by the United States as a sounding board for pro-American and anti-

communist policies. The United States often sought OAS approval for its actions, but rarely

allowed the disapproval of the regional community to prevent it from intervening in countries

like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Grenada when it felt its national security was threatened. This led to a

Latin American security regime defined by ideological conflict between the United States and

groups perceived as pro-Soviet, and all other regional security issues were superseded by and

framed in relation to this conflict. Multilateral bodies like the OAS did not play a significant role

in creating regional norms or defining regional security policy. Instead the United States often

unilaterally dictated security concerns in the region and enforced its policies on its own.

A great deal has changed in the Western Hemisphere in the nearly two decades since the

fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. The ideological conflicts which defined the

security regime in the Americas for more than fifty years have given way to threats which are not

clearly defined and trans-national in character, including narcotics trafficking and terrorism. In

response to this, a new set of regional norms has begun to take hold over the past fifteen years.

Regional bodies which served only as a sounding board for United States policy during the Cold

War have evolved into important international actors, key to maintaining security in the

Americas. The growth of the role of the Organization of American States, as well as the

inception of bodies like MERCOSUR, the Caribbean Community, and the Summits of the

Americas, has resulted in an unprecedented level of economic, political, and military cooperation
 Grossman 3

throughout the Western Hemisphere. All of this has contributed to the growth of a new,

multilateral security regime in Latin America, in which the OAS plays a major role, not only as

an international forum to discuss security, but as an institution which houses many norms,

standards, and best practices with regards to security policy and development which previously

would have been created and implemented by the United States.

The United States, which continues to dominate the region economically and militarily, has

shown that it is less willing to engage in unilateral intervention into the internal affairs of its

neighbors than it was during the Cold War. Instead, we see a United States under presidents

Clinton and Bush which has encouraged greater regional cooperation and pushed for multilateral

solutions to hemispheric security concerns, allowing the OAS to take a lead role in shaping

regional security policy and resolving crises. In this paper, I will examine the causal mechanisms

behind this shift in U.S. policy and the growth in the role of the Organization of American states,

and what it means for the future of security in the Western Hemisphere. The fundamental

question I would like to answer is why the United States pursued a unilateral security regime

during the Cold War, and why it began to support a multilateral regime after the fall of the Soviet

Union, as opposed to any other regional security policy.

A myriad of theories exist to offer an explanation for the decline in unilateral U.S. action

after the Cold War and the rise of multilateral governance in regional security issues, ranging

from an analysis of the change in security concerns after the Cold War, to examination of

domestic and regional institutions and their influence. In this paper I will seek to demonstrate

that the factor which played the greatest role in the shift in the regional security regime is the fact

that the security issues prevalent in Latin America today, such as narcotics trafficking and

terrorism, cannot be effectively dealt with unilaterally. With the end of the Cold War the primary

focus of regional and U.S. security policy, the ideological conflict between pro-US and pro-
 Grossman 4

Communist forces, was removed. The tensions between the USSR and the US had defined all

security issues in the western hemisphere for decades. The absence of this geopolitical conflict

allowed new, less state-focused issues to take a central role in the regional security regime.

These threats are generally characterized as threats to the stability of democracy in the region

such as narco-trafficking, domestic insurgencies, and refugee crises. The defining crises of the

Cold War, coup attempts or insurgencies against democratic or pro-US regimes, also exist today,

but have taken a less prominent role in the regional security agenda. Even if the United States

had wished to pursue a unilateral security regime, it would have proven ineffective in controlling

threats which are not directly-related to state-based geopolitics, such as narcotics trafficking or

refugee crises. Indeed, evidence suggests that when the U.S. attempted to create unilateral

solutions to trans-national problems it was forced to switch to a multilateral strategy to achieve

its security goals.

The rise of new multi-state or non-state security concerns prompted the creation of a

multilateral or non-state security regime. The United States recognized the need for multilateral

action on these new security issues and initiated policies which gave the OAS a larger role in the

creation and implementation of regional security practices. The 1994 Summit of the Americas,

organized by the United States in Miami, was a major step by the US in signaling its intentions

to create a new, multilateral security regime which utilized the OAS to deal with post-Cold War

threats to stability and democracy in the region. The OAS has used its new authority in turn to

assert itself more into domestic security affairs of member states and establish a set of regional

norms and practices which help govern intervention and security policy in the domestic affairs of

member states.
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Literature Review

There is a good amount of existing research on multilateral governance and security policy in

the Americas. Perhaps the most obvious factor to examine when looking at post-Cold War

security policy in Latin America is the end of the Cold War itself. The ideological conflict

between the United States and the Soviet Union defined international affairs in Latin America for

over fifty years after World War II. The primary goal of United States security policy during this

period was prevention of communist expansion in the Americas. Keeping the influence of the

Soviet Union out of Latin America and the Caribbean trumped all other security concerns in the

Western Hemisphere. During this period, the United States frequently intervened unilaterally to

prevent the establishment of pro-Soviet or leftist governments in the region, including military

actions in Guatemala, Cuba, Nicaragua, and other countries throughout the hemisphere. It was

made clear that the U.S. government would not tolerate any challenge to its regional hegemony,

and would use military force to support friendly regimes in danger of falling to pro-Soviet forces.

When international organizations or regional bodies like the OAS were used, it was to gain an

audience for U.S. concerns or to push United States policy on the rest of the hemisphere. It is

understandable that the end of the Cold War would bring about a change in United States

security priorities, but why was there a shift in the way the United States dealt with Latin

America and the Caribbean with respect to unilateral action?

W. Andy Knight and Randolph B. Persaud examine the changing role of the United States

and multilateral bodies in the Caribbean in an attempt to define a new security regime for the

region. In “Subsidiarity, Regional Governance, and Caribbean Security”, they argue that the

United States plays a less direct role in internal politics of Caribbean countries today because the

region lacks the strategic importance it held during the Cold War. In order to satisfy the concerns

of the U.S. and Caribbean nations, Knight and Persaud advocate a security structure based on
 Grossman 6

subsidiarity and regional governance. The role of the United States would be limited but

engaged. Knight and Persaud believe that this type of regional structure provides the United

States with the legitimacy to intervene when necessary, but the independence Caribbean

countries seek. Under this theory, the primary change that took place in U.S. policy was a

strategic decision to become less engaged in the affairs of Caribbean countries because they were

no longer crucial to American grand strategy in a post-Cold War world. There are fewer

instances of unilateral intervention because American goals can now be accomplished with less

involvement in the Caribbean, and the absence of an external threat like the Soviet Union makes

anti-US regimes less of a threat to US goals in the region.

In “The OAS and the Summit of the Americas: Coexistence or Integration of Forces for

Multilateralism”, Robin Rosenberg fundamentally agrees with the evaluation that the end of the

Cold War forced a strategic shift for the United States due to the diminished importance of Latin

America and the Caribbean. However, rather than focus on the emerging regional system,

Rosenberg chooses to look at independent action taken by the United States to encourage the

growth of the multilateral system in the Western Hemisphere. The Summit of the Americas in

Miami, proposed by President Clinton and organized independently from the OAS, is a critical

moment for Rosenberg. He argues that it was this independent summit hosted by President

Clinton in 1994 which encouraged the OAS to play a greater role in regional affairs.1 This action

by the hegemonic power of the hemisphere signaled to other nations that the new security regime

would be a multilateral one, allowing the OAS to take the lead in establishing norms and policies

on such issues as terrorism and drug trafficking.2 Under this theory, the Summit of the Americas

in 1994 was the catalyst for a greater emphasis on multilateralism in the Western Hemisphere.

1 Rosenberg, Robin L. The OAS and the Summit of the Americas: Coexistence or Integration
of Forces for Multilateralism. Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Spring,
2001), pp.86
2 Rosenberg, pp. 90
 Grossman 7

While his interpretation focuses on the role of the United States as a catalyst for multilateral

cooperation in the Americas, Rosenberg also shares the view of Knight and Persaud that it was

brought about by the diminished strategic importance of Latin America to global U.S. security

policy.

In “International Security and Democracy: Latin America and the Caribbean in the Post-Cold

War Era”, Jorge Dominguez agrees that the end of the Cold War itself was the key factor in

bringing about the rise in multilateralism in the Western Hemisphere. Dominguez believes that

the decline in ideological conflicts after the Cold War made greater multilateral coordination

possible.3 However, without the increase in trade liberalization and democratization which

followed the fall of the Soviet Union, Dominguez and the other authors argue, multilateralism

still may not have taken hold when it did.4 While Dominguez is not arguing for democratic peace

theory, he believes that the removal of the primary ideological conflict in the hemisphere,

coupled with greater economic and political integration in the region, allowed the OAS and other

regional bodies to take a greater role in shaping the new security regime in post-Cold War Latin

America.

While each of the past three authors point to the end of the Cold War as the primary cause of

the growth of multilateral governance in Latin America, there are others who downplay this

strategic shift, instead looking at institutional or domestic factors. Carolyn Shaw offers an

argument that is rooted in the institutional constraints the OAS puts on American policy in the

region. After examining four hypotheses about the functioning of the OAS, Shaw determines that

when there is broad consensus in the region or when minimal resources are necessary to conduct

3 Dominguez, Jorge I., ed. International Security and Democracy: Latin America and the
Caribbean in the Post-Cold War Era. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998. pp. 5
4 Dominguez, pp. 11
 Grossman 8

security action, the OAS is more likely to oppose American unilateral interventions.5 However,

when the region is divided or when intervention will be costly, the OAS is more likely to defer to

the wishes of the United States.6 Shaw believes the OAS counters US action by serving as a

repository for regional norms and best practices, which will restrain the United States from

acting unilaterally. While there is certainly an argument to be made regarding institutional

pressure from the OAS on the United States to act multilaterally, Shaw devotes little time to

exploring how the OAS became a resource for regional norms and security framework when it

spent most of the Cold War as a sounding board for U.S. concerns in the hemisphere.

While institutional factors have been explored by most of these authors, others focus on

domestic factors in the United States when evaluating regional security policies. Patrick Regan

focuses his analysis on these factors, specifically on the decision-making process by the United

States when considering direct, unilateral intervention. According to Regan, the Cold War had

little effect on whether the U.S. intervened militarily in Latin America or not. Instead, Regan

attributes the decline in unilateral U.S. action to domestic forces like public opinion and media

scrutiny.7 Regan posits that in any given instance where intervention may be necessary the

United States evaluates domestic factors when deciding on a military, diplomatic, or economic

course of action.8 Using this logic to examine the post-Cold War system in Latin America, we

expect that the primary reason the United States has become less willing to intervene unilaterally

would be increasing media scrutiny and a souring of public opinion toward intervention. While

both of these factors exist today, they have come as a steady change throughout the 1990’s and

2000’s, and do not seem to imply the stark policy shift which took place during the Clinton
5 Shaw, Carolyn M. Limits to Hegemonic Influence in the Organization of American States.
Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Autumn 2003), pp.65
6 Shaw, pp. 66
7 Regan, Patrick M. Substituting Policies During U.S. Interventions in Internal Conflicts: A
Little of This, a Little of That. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 44, No. 1,
Substitutability in Foreign Policy: Applications and Advances, pp. 98
8 Regan, pp. 96
 Grossman 9

administration toward multilateral governance. While domestic factors should be examined in

any case of intervention, it cannot give us the complete picture when analyzing a regional

security regime.

When examining the recent shift in US policy toward Latin America, most scholars have

focused on the changing geopolitical situation brought on by the collapse of the Soviet Union

and the end of the Cold War. Conventional wisdom focuses on the diminished importance of

Latin America to US security policy after the fall of the Soviet Union, while other explanations

center on domestic factors which contribute to a broader anti-interventionist sentiment. What is

lacking in all of these theories is an explanation of why the United States made such a distinct

shift in its regional security policy after the Cold War. If the fall of the Soviet Union diminished

the strategic importance of Latin America, we would not necessarily expect to see a shift to a

more multilateral security regime over a continuation of unilateralism or a policy of

disengagement. My research will attempt to fill this gap in scholarship by demonstrating that the

United States recognized that a widening array of security concerns required a new multilateral

approach to regional security policy, and pushed for reforms in the OAS to make this new

regime effective.

Research Design

To examine the origins of multilateral security policy in the western hemisphere I will

first begin by examining what types of security concerns were acted on by the United States and

the OAS during the Cold War and after. Using four cases of intervention in Latin America, two

during the Cold War and two after the Cold War, I will determine what issues warranted

intervention during each period and what mechanisms were used to intervene by using
 Grossman 10

documents and speeches from the OAS and the US State Department, as well as studies

commissioned by the Clinton administration after various interventions. These cases will be

selected based on how unilateral or multilateral they are, as I will seek to track this shift from the

Cold War period to the post-Cold War period. I will seek to examine a Cold War case where

intervention was unilateral, a Cold War case where intervention was less unilateral, a post-Cold

War case that is more multilateral, and a post-Cold War case where intervention was less

multilateral. For each case, I will examine the decision-making process and causal mechanisms

which led to intervention, focusing on the specific causes cited for intervention and the methods

used during the action. I will do this by examining the domestic conflict which prompted

intervention, United States actions leading to intervention, the involvement of the international

community sought by the United States (if any), and the role of the OAS in planning and

executing the intervention (if any).

The cases I have initially chosen to examine are the 1965 U.S intervention in the

Dominican Republic (Cold War, more multilateral), the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada (Cold

War, less multilateral), the 1994 US and OAS invasion and occupation of Haiti (post-Cold War,

less multilateral), and actions taken by the OAS and the United States to combat narco-

trafficking in Colombia, notably the establishment of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control

Commission (CICAD) and Plan Colombia from 1996-1998 (Post-Cold War, highly

multilateral). I believe these cases cover a good range of international and United States

responses to domestic conflict in Latin America, both during and after the Cold War, and will

allow me to build a comprehensive model of U.S. and OAS decision-making during cases of

intervention. This will help me to characterize what the fundamental differences in U.S. policy

are now from the Cold War, as well as how those changes came about.
 Grossman 11

In order to place these interventions into the larger context of regional security policy, I

will examine what institutional changes took place in the OAS after the Cold War. I will begin

with the origins of the inter-American system and the institutional features of the OAS at its

inception in 1948. I will examine the principles and mechanisms for action in the OAS during

the Cold War period to determine the capabilities of the OAS for multilateral intervention. I will

also look specifically at what security issues were prioritized during this period and the reasoning

which was given to explain various US interventions from 1948-1991. I will do a similar

evaluation of the principles and mechanisms for action of the OAS after the Cold War, focusing

on the changes that took place after the 1994 and 1998 Summits of the Americas. In the cases of

the Dominican Republic and Grenada, I expect to observe that the institutional weakness of the

OAS combined with the hegemony of the United States made it unnecessary and impractical to

pursue multilateral intervention in these cases. I expect to find that in cases of anti-democratic

domestic coups, unilateral or de-facto unilateral interventions are the most efficient and effective

course of action. In the post-Cold War cases I expect to find that anti-democratic coups still

prompt a largely unilateral response (such as in Haiti in 1994), whereas transnational issues

demand a multilateral framework contained in the OAS and various bilateral partnerships

between the U.S. and Latin American states (such as the case of anti-narcotics action in

Colombia from the late 1990’s until the present).

The Inter-American System before the Organization of American States

At the time of its founding in 1948 the Organization of American States was designed as

a collective security system for the western hemisphere. The OAS traces its roots to the early

inter-American system which began in 1826 when Simon Bolivar convened a group of newly-

independent Latin American states at the Congress of Panama to discuss measures to guard

against the restoration of Spanish imperial power in the Americas. Throughout the 19th century
 Grossman 12

the United States did not include itself in the inter-American system, deciding that the benefits of

formally participating in such a system did not warrant the restrictions on independent US action

that it would require.9 This policy began to shift in the late 19th century, as influential politicians

like Henry Clay and Secretary of State James G. Blaine began to push for an Inter-American

Conference in Washington, DC. The goal of this conference would be to establish US diplomatic

leadership in the hemisphere and to strengthen the inter-American system against European

intervention.10 While this conference was proposed in 1881 it did not come to fruition until 1890

as the First International Conference of American States. This conference led to the permanent

establishment of the International Union of American Republics, which would become the Pan

American Union in 1910.

While the seed of the inter-American political establishment had been planted, the Pan

American Union remained largely ineffective during the early 20th century. Latin American

states were wary of granting the union true institutional power, as it was closely associated with

American foreign policy. Many Latin American leaders believed that granting the Pan American

Union concrete political functions would institutionalize US domination of the hemisphere.11

The United States was more than willing to allow the Pan American Union to remain politically

impotent in order to place fewer constraints on unilateral US action. For several decades the Pan

American Union remained as a forum for inter-American discussion, but held little relevance to

regional security.

This began to change with the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. In 1933 Roosevelt

unveiled the “Good Neighbor Policy” designed to cultivate goodwill among Latin American

states. In his first inaugural address Roosevelt stated, "In the field of world policy I would

9 Slate, Jerome, The OAS and United States Foreign Policy, Ohio State University Press, 1967
10 Samuel Guy Inman, Inter-American Conferences, 1826-1954: History and Problems. Washington: The University Press, 1965
11 Slater, 20
 Grossman 13

dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor--the neighbor who resolutely respects

himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others."12 The cornerstone of the Good

Neighbor Policy was a commitment by the US to refrain from intervention in the domestic

affairs of Latin American states. As the decade progressed the United States began to encourage

regional defense partnerships in the face of the growing threat of Nazi Germany. 13 External

threats had forced the US to embrace an institutional security role for the inter-American system

in order to ensure that European Fascism did not undermine U.S. security.

The Establishment of the OAS

At the conclusion of World War II, the United States embarked on an international effort

to institutionalize free-market democracy among Western industrial nations in an attempt to

create a stable post-war order that could resist the threat of the Soviet Union.14 This included the

creation of multilateral institutions like NATO and the United Nations designed to promote

collective security and to bind the United States to the fate of its European allies. In Latin

America, due to fear that the United Nations would absorb the largely ad-hoc inter-American

system, foreign ministers in the western hemisphere began to formalize the political principles of

the inter-American system.15

The two most significant events in the institutionalization of the inter-American system in

the 20th century were the creation of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance in 1947

and the signing of the OAS charter in Bogota, Colombia in 1948. These two documents

formalized the major principles of the inter-American system: “mutual non-intervention of

hemispheric states in one another’s domestic affairs, the ‘juridical equality’ of all states,

12 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano. "First Inaugural Address." Washington DC. 04 Mar 1933.
13 Slater, 21
14 Ikenberry, G. John, After Victory, Princeton University Press, 2001, 164
15 Slater, 22
 Grossman 14

containment of intra-hemispheric conflict, and the common defense of all hemispheric states

against external aggression”. 16 The principle on non-intervention was made the most explicit in

the original OAS charter, stating, “No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly

or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. The

foregoing principle prohibits not only armed force but also any other form of interference or

attempted threat against the personality of the State or against its political, economic, and

cultural elements”.17 This article, and indeed the entire OAS charter, reflected the strong inter-

American tradition of non-intervention and state sovereignty. These principles formed the

backbone of the OAS during the Cold War and informed all of its actions, ensuring that the

Organization would never hold the necessary mechanisms to conduct forceful interventions into

the domestic affairs of member states.

Mechanisms of Action in the OAS during the Cold War

While the OAS charter enshrined state sovereignty and non-intervention, these same

provisions prevented it from being an effective collective security agreement, as it denied the

OAS the ability to take action against hemispheric states who posed a threat to regional stability.

This is because the OAS, under the guidelines of its charter, was designed to preserve stability

and national sovereignty from external intervention, not from internal threats to stability. The

OAS charter and the Rio Treaty of 1947 both enshrine these two principles, ensuring that

hemispheric states would not subordinate their national interests to those of the hemispheric

community.18 The fact that national interests took priority over multilateral governance or

16 Slater, 22
17 OAS Charter, Article 15, 1948
18 Slater, Jerome, The OAS and the Theory of Collective Security, Ohio State University
Press, 1965, 24.
 Grossman 15

collective security established the OAS early on as a weak actor which was particularly

unequipped to intervene in regional conflicts.

Even though the Rio Treaty explicitly stated that, “an armed attack by any state shall be

considered an attack against all the American States”19, Article 7 of the OAS charter provides the

caveat that in the event of an intra-hemispheric conflict peaceful means would be used to resolve

the conflict “without prejudice to the right of self defense”20. This provision only goes as far as

to allow for sanctions against aggressor states, stopping short of allowing the OAS to take

military action against an American state. The OAS also had no mechanism for any type of

collective military planning and coordination, making it impossible for the organization to play a

large role in intervention or peace-keeping operations. This is consistent with existing norms in

the inter-American system, as Latin American states wanted to reduce the possibility of

sovereignty-violating intervention and the United States wanted to maintain a status quo where

regional bodies could not challenge its actions in the hemisphere.

The mechanisms of the OAS during the Cold War afforded it a limited set of options for

action during a crisis or conflict. Most of the power of the OAS in a conflict was derived from

the political mechanisms it was able to use to diffuse conflicts. Thanks to the tradition of the

inter-American system, there was a general expectation throughout the Americas that any

hemispheric conflict would involve consultation with the OAS council. This helped facilitate

regional dialogue during conflicts throughout the Cold War.21 The OAS was also able to serve as

an impartial fact-finder when investigating conflicts. Often the OAS would appoint a

subcommittee to visit areas of conflict and report back to the body on the situation and the

validity of charges brought before the OAS council. This can be seen in OAS investigations into

19 Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, Article III, 1947

20 OAS Charter, Article VII, 1948
21 Slater, The OAS and the Theory of Collective Security, 42
 Grossman 16

the Costa Rica-Nicaragua conflict in 1955 and in the Haitian-Dominican conflict of 1950. The

OAS was also helpful in diffusing disputes before they became hostile by facilitating dialogue

and focusing public attention on potential conflicts, such as in the border dispute between

Ecuador and Peru in 1955. The OAS council also played a valuable role in negotiating and

enforcing cease-fires in several inter-American conflicts. Constrained by its own charter and the

traditions of the inter-American system, the OAS was limited to a largely political role during the

Cold War.

US Security Policy and the OAS during the Cold War

During the Cold War, United States security policy was primarily focused on

undermining the Soviet Union and preventing the expansion of the communist sphere of

influence. In Europe, this policy took the form of the NATO security alliance and a program of

nuclear deterrence designed to thwart any attempts at Soviet expansion into Western Europe. It

was during the Truman administration that the United States first explicitly stated its willingness

to intervene to defend regimes threatened by communist takeover. The president unveiled what

would become known as the Truman Doctrine in 1947 in a speech to Congress in which he

called on the United States to, “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by

armed minorities or by outside pressures".22 Truman specifically referred to the threat of the

Soviet Union and international communism to the governments of Turkey and Greece, but his

Doctrine made the defense of democratic or pro-US governments the centerpiece of US policy

during the Cold War. This policy would inform subsequent Cold War interventions in Latin

America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

22 Truman, Harry S., “Address to a Joint Session of Congress”, Washington, DC., March 12,
1947
 Grossman 17

Throughout the Cold War the United States intervened in Latin America to restore pro-

US governments or support pro-US forces combating pro-Soviet groups. In each case of

intervention, we can see that U.S. policy was fundamentally unilateral when addressing domestic

threats to pro-US governments.

Y ear C o u n try R e a s o n fo r Inte rv e ntio n U n ila te ra l v . M u ltila te ra l

19 54G u a te m a la N e w g o v e rn m e nt n a tio na lize s U S fru it c o mUpnaila

n ietes ra l

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19 65 -6 D6 o m inic a n R e Ap ub
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19 66 -6 G7 u a te m a la C o m m u nis t in s urg e n c y U n ila te ra l

19 73C h ile E le c tio n o f M a rxis t p re s ide n t U n ila te ra l

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19 83 -8 G4 re na d a A n ti-d e m o c ra tic C o u p U n ila te ra l

19 89P a na m a R e m o v a l o f m ilita ry rule r M a n u e l N o rie g a U n ila te ra l

Each Cold War case provides a similar situation and prompts a similar U.S. response: a

unilateral intervention, covert or overt, to restore pro-US forces or undermine left-wing groups.

The Dominican Republic appears to be an exception, as the OAS played a role in the invasion

and occupation of the country after an anti-democratic coup in 1965. This apparent outlier

warrants closer examination.

Case: Dominican Republic, 1965

The 1965 U.S. invasion and subsequent OAS occupation of the Dominican Republic has

its roots in U.S. policy after the success of the Cuban revolution of 1959. After Fidel Castro

came to power in Havana, the United States turned its attention to preventing similar communist

revolutions in the Western Hemisphere. The CIA and the State Department identified the regime
 Grossman 18

of Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic as dangerously similar to pre-Castro

Cuba as early as 1958.23

Trujillo had served as the military power in the Dominican Republic since 1924 and

protected the economic interests of the United States for decades24. Despite Trujillo’s ties to the

United States, the Eisenhower administration worried that the success of the Cuban revolution

could inspire a similar uprising in the Dominican Republic, and the administration began plans to

undermine “the Goat”, as Trujillo was called. In 1960 Trujillo was implicated in a plot to

assassinate the president of Venezuela, after which the U.S. was able to convince the OAS to

impose economic sanctions on the Dominican Republic.

The Kennedy administration inherited Eisenhower’s program against Trujillo in 1961 and

took to covert action to remove the dictator. In 1961 members of the Dominican military,

supported by the CIA, shot Trujillo to death. Unfortunately the US found it difficult to install a

suitable replacement. Several incompetent leaders attempted to control the Dominican Republic

following the death of Trujillo, including his son and a former aide, but they were ousted by a

reformist junta seeking free elections. 25 In 1962 Juan Bosch was elected president by a sizable

majority, and began a modest program of land redistribution and nationalization of businesses.

President Kennedy laid out the options for the Dominican government as, “Three possibilities…a

decent democratic regime, a continuation of the Trujillo regime, or a Castro regime. We ought to

aim at the first, but we really can’t renounce the second until we are sure that we can avoid the

third”26 Bosch’s program of land redistribution and nationalization, as well as his tolerance of

communists in labor unions placed him in Kennedy’s third classification, and made him a target

23 Diederich, Bernard, Trujillo: The Death of the Goat, 1978

24 Sullivan, Michael J. American Adventures Abroad: 30 Invasions, Interventions, and
Regime Changes Since World War II, Praeger 2004
25 Sullivan, American Adventures Abroad…, 88
26 Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. A Thousand Days: John F Kennedy in the White House,
Houghton-Mifflin 1965
 Grossman 19

for removal. In 1963 Bosch was ousted by a three-man junta which was quickly recognized by

the new Johnson administration. However, in 1965 a military counter-coup challenged the new

government, leading to violence throughout Santo Domingo, the capital.

The American ambassador, W. Tapley Bennett reported that communists were

overrunning the capital and placing American lives in danger. While President Johnson later

claimed he did not believe the specifics of Bennett’s report, he felt obligated to take action and

dispatched a naval task force and 23,000 American troops to the island.27 The American forces

quickly occupied the capital and took up a position between the loyalist and rebel forces. The US

quickly pushed for the assembly of an OAS peacekeeping force to help occupy the Dominican

Republic while a settlement was negotiated and new elections were called for. The peacekeeping

force was nominally headed by a Brazilian general, though the vast majority of the occupying

troops were American and received orders from Washington.28 A new election was held in 1966

between Joaquin Balaguer, a former aide to Trujillo, and Bosch, the former president. Balaguer,

the preferred candidate of the United States, won easily, aided by the fact that Bosch, fearing for

his safety, did not leave his home during the campaign.29

We can take several lessons from the U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic in

1965. This was one of the few U.S. interventions during the Cold War that the OAS played an

active role in, making it one of the most multilateral interventions during the Cold War.

However, while the peacekeeping operation and earlier economic sanctions were all OAS

actions, they would not have been implemented without the lobbying and initial use of force by

the United States. Here, rather than being used as a consultative partner before the intervention,

27 Barnet, Richard. Intervention and Revolution: The United States in the Third World, New
American Library, 1968
28 Slater, Jerome. The OAS and United States Foreign Policy, 98-103
29 Sullivan, American Adventures Abroad, 90
 Grossman 20

the OAS was utilized after the intervention had begun to provide multilateral legitimacy to what

was largely a United States operation. While the OAS did play a role in the Dominican Republic,

it lacked institutional mechanisms which would have enabled it to affect US policy, instead of

being used after the fact to legitimize a de-facto unilateral intervention. Thus, while the

intervention in the Dominican Republic appears multilateral, U.S. policy during the crisis was

still fundamentally unilateral, with the OAS playing little role in the planning and execution of

the intervention. We can see that this intervention exhibits the fundamentally unilateral

characteristics of other U.S. interventions in response to threats to pro-US governments in the

region. The U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983 provides a typical case of unilateral U.S.

intervention to restore a pro-US government after a coup.

Case: 1983 Grenada

The 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada was the country’s first large-scale military operation

since the end of the Vietnam War. The United States began to show concern over the future of

Grenada, a tiny island and former British colony in the southeast Caribbean, in the late 1970’s

after civil unrest gripped the country following the contested 1976 election. In 1979 Eric Gairy,

who had led Grenada since independence in 1974, was ousted in a bloodless coup by the

Maurice Bishop of the New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation (JEWEL)

Movement.30 According to the official Pentagon history of the operation, Bishop began to

undermine or suspend democratic institutions and allied himself with Cuba and the Soviet Union.

The United States viewed the Bishop regime in Grenada as a strategic threat which, combined

with the Castro regime in Cuba, could allow the Soviets to threaten American shipping lanes in

the Caribbean.

30 Cole, Ronald H., Operation Urgent Fury : the planning and execution of joint operations in Grenada, 12
October-2 November 1983, Joint History Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1997
 Grossman 21

When Ronald Reagan took office he made it clear that the United States would once

again be willing to take direct action to stunt Soviet influence in the Caribbean, which he

described as, “A Communist lake” where “the United States resembles a giant, afraid to move”31.

President Reagan began to exert pressure on the Bishop regime early in his presidency by

excluding Grenada from the Caribbean Basin Initiative, a foreign aid program. He publicly

linked Grenada to Nicaragua and Cuba as part of a “red triangle” in 1983, citing Cuban-aided

construction projects on the island. The official Pentagon history of the operation observed that a

runway being constructed by Cuban workers in Grenada could enable Cuban and Soviet jets to

extend their operating range across the Caribbean and Central America32, despite the Bishop

regime’s assertions that the runway was for civilian purposes.

The crisis in Grenada came to a head in October of 1983 when Bishop was ousted and

killed by a far-left faction of his movement33. The civilian government was abolished by General

Hudson Austin, who formed a Revolutionary Military Council with himself as spokesman. The

prospect of Soviet-Cuban military activity and the presence of six hundred American medical

school students on the island were used by the Reagan administration as justification to begin

planning Operation Urgent Fury, which was ostensibly designed to evacuate American citizens

from Grenada and restore the constitutional civilian government34. According to official

Pentagon histories of the operation, “The JCS were determined that Castro and the Soviets get a

clear and early message that ‘This is a US show; hands off!’”35.

Before the beginning of the invasion, the United States succeeded in obtaining a request

for intervention from the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, a security organization

31 Dugger, Ronnie. On Reagan: The Man and His Presidency, McGraw-Hill 1983
32 Cole, Operation Urgent Fury
33 Cole, Operation Urgent Fury
34 Cole, Operation Urgent Fury
35 Cole, Operation Urgent Fury, 17
 Grossman 22

founded in 1981 under US leadership. The U.S. did not seek aid from the OAS in the conflict,

and later the organization’s Secretary General would resign over his failure to prevent the

intervention.36 The OECS had even fewer mechanisms and resources for action than the OAS,

and was widely viewed as being under U.S. influence. The request for intervention from the

OECS was released four days after the invasion of Grenada began, along with a retroactive

request from the British Governor General of Grenada, the nominal head of state.37 The invasion

was comprised of approximately 7,000 US troops and 300 from members of the OECS, who

easily defeated a force of approximately 1,500 Grenadians and Cubans.

While the OAS was not involved in the intervention in Grenada as it had been in the

Dominican Republic, we can see a similar use of multilateralism by the United States in both

cases. In Grenada, the OECS and the British Commonwealth were used to provide legitimacy to

the invasion after the fact, and had little role in its planning and execution. In both cases the

United States made the decision to intervene independently from the OAS and other multilateral

organizations due to perceived Communist threats to the region. As we have seen, the OAS

lacked the institutional mechanisms to directly intervene or stop the United States from

intervening unilaterally in each of these cases. The combination of the weakness of the OAS and

the ability of the United States to accomplish its goals relatively quickly and easily led to de-

facto unilateral intervention in the Dominican Republic and Grenada. Thus, even though the

OAS participated in peacekeeping efforts in the Dominican Republic, in both cases the U.S. was

the driving force behind intervention, and its decision-making process was hardly multilateral in

either case. In order to fully assert itself as a regional security actor, the OAS would need to

36 Connell-Smith, Gordon. The Grenada Invasion in Historical Perspective: From Monroe to

Reagan, Third World Quarterly, 6(2), April, 1984: 432-45
37 Sullivan, American Adventurism Abroad, 150
 Grossman 23

undergo institutional changes to provide it with more concrete mechanisms for action and

intervention. These changes began to take place during the Clinton administration.

The OAS: Principles and Mechanisms for Action after the Cold War

The end of the Cold War led to a redefinition of regional security in the Western

hemisphere. The OAS and the inter-American system during the Cold War were designed to

prevent inter-state disputes and to protect the states of Latin America from external threats,

notably the Soviet Union. In the 1990s the United States and the OAS came together to define a

new regional security agenda, taking several measures to significantly alter the role and

capabilities of the OAS to influence regional security. The norms of the inter-American system,

which were enshrined in the 1948 OAS charter and the 1947 Rio Treaty, remain critical to the

role of the OAS. These norms include state sovereignty, non-intervention, pacific settlement of

disputes, and consultation among states during crisis38. While these principles remain at the core

of the OAS, in the 1990s state sovereignty began to take a secondary role in cases where

democracy was threatened. This shift can be seen in the addition of several new agreements to

the OAS charter in the 1990s.

The first indication that the OAS would play a new, expanded role in regional security

was the fact that the early conversations which would re-define security in the aftermath of the

Cold War took place and were institutionalized in the OAS.39 The first step in the expanded role

of the OAS came in 1990 with the establishment by the OAS General Assembly of the Unit for

the Promotion of Democracy (UPD). The UPD provides advisory services and technical

38 Shaw, Carolyn M. Cooperation, Conflict, and Consensus in the Organization of American

States, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 153
39 Shaw, 154
 Grossman 24

assistance to member states on the functioning of democratic government, and it is designed to

aid states seeking to strengthen or modernize their political institutions.40 For the first five years

of its existence the UPD was most active as an elections observer, but its role would be expanded

after the 1994 Summit of the Americas.

In 1991 the OAS adopted another significant mechanism that would aid it in promoting

democracy with the passage of Resolution 1080 by the General Assembly. Resolution 1080

mandates that the OAS convene a Meeting of Foreign Ministers in the event of an anti-

democratic coup in any member state. 1080 gives the OAS authority to impose diplomatic and

economic sanctions on states when constitutional order is disrupted, but stops short of allowing

military action. This mechanism was strengthened by the inception of the Washington Protocol

in 1997 that allows the OAS to suspend membership of any state whose government has been

overthrown by force. 1080 not only allows the OAS to intervene in the domestic affairs of its

member states (in a shift from earlier policy), it mandates that the OAS take action during a

constitutional crisis or anti-democratic coup. The passage of Resolution 1080 marked a

monumental shift in the stance of the OAS on intervention, committing the organization to

defending democracy and sovereignty not just from external threats, but from internal disputes as

well.

The First Summit of the Americas in 1994 also served to institutionalize democracy as a

key inter-American principle. The Declaration of Principles of the First Summit of the Americas

“reaffirmed hemispheric commitment to preserve and strengthen democratic systems for the

benefit of all people of the hemisphere…to strengthen democratic institutions and promote and

defend constitutional democratic rule in accordance with the OAS charter”41. Later Summits of

40 Organization of American States – OAS, www.oas.org, April 24, 2009

41 First Summit of the Americas, Declaration of Principles, Miami 1994
 Grossman 25

the Americas in 1998 and 2001 institutionalized a broad security agenda for the OAS including

narco-trafficking, domestic insurgencies, poverty, and inequality as threats to democracy, and

thereby, threats to regional security. This expansion of the security agenda in the Americas

precipitated an expansion of OAS mechanisms to deal with issues like narco-trafficking,

domestic insurgencies, arms trade, and terrorism. While these mechanisms allowed the OAS to

play a greater role in regional security policy, they did not overcome the fundamental weakness

of the OAS to intervene in member states during instances of anti-democratic coups. We can see

this in the case of Haiti in 1994, when OAS and UN involvement proved insufficient to restore

ousted president Jean Aristide to power.

Case: Haiti 1991-1994

The 1994 U.S. intervention in Haiti which restored Jean Aristide as president after a

military coup is often held up as an example of multilateral intervention in the post-Cold War

world. Aristide was elected in 1990 as a reformer with 2/3 of the popular vote, but his

government was undermined from the beginning of his term, as he had few allies in the Haitian

legislature, and did not enjoy explicit support from the United States42. Aristide fled to

Venezuela and later the United States after being ousted by a military coup led by Gen. Raoul

Cedras shortly after taking office in 1991. On the day Aristide was overthrown the OAS met and

invoked Resolution 1080 and called on member states to place economic sanction on the Cedras

government. While the United States, other OAS members, and the United Nations all placed

sanctions on petroleum and arms sales to Haiti, they met with little success43. The sanctions

42 “Interagency and Political-Military Dimensions of Peace Operations: Haiti – A Case Study”,

Ed. Margaret Daly Hayes and Gary F. Wheatley, National Defense University Institute,
Washington DC, 1996, pp. 10
43 “Interagency and Political-Military Dimensions of Peace Operations: Haiti – A Case Study”,
Ed. Margaret Daly Hayes and Gary F. Wheatley, National Defense University Institute,
 Grossman 26

harshly affected Haiti’s poor while doing little harm to the ruling elites, who were able to

smuggle petroleum and other goods across the border with the Dominican Republic with ease.

The sanctions were also undermined by several European and Latin American countries who did

not participate in the embargo44. The sanctions only compounded a growing refugee crisis as

30,000 Haitians attempted to enter the United States during the period of the embargo.

With domestic political pressure mounting, President Clinton, working with the OAS and

the UN, began a series of negotiations between Aristide and the Haitian military leaders to

restore democratic government to the island. To aid him in his attempt to broker a diplomatic

solution, President Clinton brought in former Ambassador Lawrence Pezzullo as Special Advisor

to the Secretary of State on Haiti. Pezzullo was a career diplomat, having served as ambassador

to several Latin American states and as director of the Council on Foreign Relations. In a

meeting with outgoing Bush administration officials, Pezzullo and Bernard Aronson, an assistant

Secretary of State under Bush, each expressed doubts that the OAS and the United Nations

would be able to resolve the crisis diplomatically45. Despite the lack of confidence exhibited by

some members of his administration, Clinton attempted to broker a compromise between

Aristide and the military during a summit at Governor’s Island in New York.

The negotiations on Governor’s Island were sponsored by the United Nations and the

OAS, who sent Dante Caputo, the former Argentinean foreign affairs minister, to moderate the

talks. Mr. Caputo worked closely with Ambassador Pezzullo and Secretary of State Waen

Christopher credited the two of them with brokering an agreement between Aristide and the

Washington DC, 1996, pp. 10

44 Rotberg, Robert I., Haiti’s Turmoil: Politics and Policy Under Aristide and Clinton. WPF
Program on Interstate Conflict and Conflict Resolution, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Massachusetts 2003. Pp. 6
45 Pezzullo, Ralph. Plunging into Haiti: Clinton, Aristide, and the Defeat of Diplomacy.
University Press of Mississippi, Jackson 2006. pp. 6
 Grossman 27

military and parliamentary leaders to make a transition back to democratic rule46. Under the

Governor’s Island Accord, the military leaders would step aside and return Aristide to power and

economic sanctions would be immediately lifted. The agreement also contained provisions for a

multilateral peacekeeping force to oversee the transition from military junta to democracy.

Unfortunately, neither side believed the other would hold up its end of the deal, and the Accord

also faced opposition from within the Clinton administration. Nancy Soderberg, a member of

Clinton’s National Security Council, expressed doubts that the proposed United Nations force

would be able to maintain order in Haiti, and several other officials at the White House, CIA, and

Department of Defense expressed doubts about the Accord, creating a rift in the Clinton

administration.47

The fragility of the Governor’s Island Accord was made clear in the fall of 1993,

when the U.S. sent a group of 218 American and Canadian troops to Haiti in preparation for

implementing the agreement. This group was intended to be a precursor to the 1267-troop UN

military mission which was agreed upon at the Governor’s Island talks, but immediately met

with resistance upon arriving in Port-au-Prince. Angry crowds of Haitian denied the USS Harlan

County access to the dock, and after a day the ship was ordered to depart from Haiti. Haitians

took the pullback as a demonstration of weakness in the resolve of the U.S. to implement the

Governor’s Island accord, and violence intensified throughout the capital. It was at this point that

the Clinton administration began to seriously consider military options to restore Aristide to

power48.

46 Christopher, Warren. “The Governor’s Island Accord: A Victory for Diplomacy and
Democracy in Haiti”. Transcript: U.S. Department of State, 1993
47 Pezzullo, pp. 121
48 “Interagency and Political-Military Dimensions of Peace Operations: Haiti – A Case Study”,
Ed. Margaret Daly Hayes and Gary F. Wheatley, National Defense University Institute,
Washington DC, 1996, pp. 11
 Grossman 28

Even as the Governor’s Island agreement faltered, the Department of Defense continued

to oppose the use of US military forces in Haiti due to a reluctance to engage in nation-building

and doubts that military action could solve the underlying political problems in Haiti49. However,

seeing that President Clinton was beginning to consider military options, Secretary of Defense

William Perry instructed the DoD to begin interagency planning for a potential military

intervention into Haiti. In the Spring of 1994 Clinton pledged a more aggressive stance on Haiti,

and sanctions were reinstated after the failure of Cedras to abide by the terms of the Governor’s

Island accord. As the UN and the OAS continued to attempt to implement the terms of the

accord, it became increasingly clear to Clinton administration officials that Aristide and the

military would not be able to come to an agreement on issues regarding the role of the coup

leaders and Aristide in the new government. As negotiations continued to break down, the

Pentagon began to prepare plans for a military action to restore Aristide in Haiti, and by

September U.S. forces began to deploy for an invasion of the island50. On September 15, when

questioned by the press about the continued viability of a diplomatic solution, President Clinton

responded by saying that, “The Message of the United States to the Haitian dictators is clead:

Your time is up. Leave now or we will force you from power”51. Even Dante Caputo, the

UN/OAS envoy on Haiti, declared that, “I knew it was all over. There was absolutely no

dialogue with Aristide. It was just a matter of time before the United States invaded”52. In a last-

ditch effort to avoid conflict, a diplomatic mission consisting of former President Jimmy Carter,

Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), and General Colin Powell travelled to Haiti to meet with General

49 “Interagency and Political-Military Dimensions of Peace Operations: Haiti – A Case Study”,

Ed. Margaret Daly Hayes and Gary F.
Washington DC, 1996, pp. 12
50 “Interagency and Political-Military
Ed. Margaret Daly Hayes and Gary F.
Washington DC, 1996, pp. 14-16
Wheatley, National Defense University Institute,
Dimensions of Peace Operations: Haiti – A Case Study”,
Wheatley, National Defense University Institute,

51 Pezzullo, pp. 263

52 Pezzullo, pp. 260
 Grossman 29

Cedras. Faced with a force of 20,000 American troops traveling toward Haiti, the military agreed

to step down and allow Aristide to return. For the next year the United States occupied Haiti until

turning the peace-keeping operation over to the United Nations.

There are several lessons we can take from the U.S. experience in Haiti. At first glance,

the Haitian intervention appears highly multilateral. Both the OAS and the United Nations were

consulted to broker a peaceful solution to the crisis, and both organizations actively participated

in placing sanctions on Haiti’s military leaders. While the U.S. did occupy Haiti for a year, it did

so without having to use force to overthrow the Cedras junta. However, when one examines the

internal debates within the Clinton administration, one can see that the decision to invade came

as a result of several years of failures of multilateral diplomacy. Despite a Department of

Defense which was extremely wary of nation-building and opposed to intervention, President

Clinton realized that the crisis could only be resolved with a unilateral show of military force.

Several of Clinton’s key advisors were never confident in the abilities of the UN and OAS to

broker a settlement to the crisis, and were pushed toward military action by the ineffectiveness of

diplomacy and economic sanctions. Even though the Cedras junta stepped down willingly after

diplomatic efforts by the Colin Powell, Jimmy Carter, and Sam Nunn, negotiations only proved

effective when the threat of unilateral action was imminent. We can see that even though the

United Nations and the OAS were active in the crisis and used most of their mechanisms for

action to intervene in the conflict, it was ultimately unilateral military action by the United States

that resolved the conflict. Thus, even though the Haitian intervention contained many features of

multilateralism, the coup ultimately had to be resolved in the same way that the United States

had dealt with coups against friendly governments throughout the Cold War: with a unilateral

display of military force.

 Grossman 30

Case: Colombia 1988 - 1998

The most striking example of the expansion of regional security framework in the

Americas is the advent of narco-trafficking as a security priority. In 1989 President Virgilio

Barco of Colombia delivered a speech in Washington, DC in which he proclaimed drugs and

related violence “the single greatest threat to democracy in our hemisphere”53, and declared that,

“Drug production, consumption, and traffic is not a problem of one nation, not even of a group of

nations; it is a universal scourge. If we don’t develop effective and strong international

cooperation to fight against all the different phases of the problem, there will be no final

victory”54. Virigilio was one of the first heads of state to characterize drug trafficking as a

regional threat to democratic order.

Narco-trafficking was seen as a law enforcement issue in the U.S. during the Reagan and

Bush administrations of the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Secretaries of Defense Frank Carlucci and

Caspar Weinberger each argued against the use of the U.S. military to combat the drug trade in

198855. It was only after lobbying by Congress that President Bush began to utilize the

Department of Defense in anti-narcotics policy to monitor aerial and maritime drug smuggling.

With this in mind the United States pursued a policy of interdiction throughout the 1980’s,

attempting to cut off the flow of drugs at the source. This policy did little to curb drug use in the

United States. In 1990, seeking to pursue a new strategy, the U.S. introduced the Andean

Initiative, which emphasized working to strengthen the capabilities of Andean countries such as

Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru to eliminate drugs and drug traffickers. While the plan still focused

on interdiction and law enforcement, it included provisions for military assistance, training, and

53 Barco, Virgilio, “Drugs and Violence: A Threat to Democracy”, Remarks to the American
Society of Newspaper Editors. Washington, DC. April 14, 1989
54 Ibid
55 Menzall, Sewall H. Cocaine Quagmire: Implementing the U.S. Anti-Drug Policy in the
North Andes – Colombia. University Press of America, 1997, pp. 57
 Grossman 31

equipment to local armies and law enforcement to increase their effectiveness56. While many of

the major Colombian drug cartels were broken-up or disrupted during the period of the Andean

Initiative, little progress was made in curbing the flow of drugs into the United States.

When Bill Clinton entered office in 1992 he moved quickly to implement a new anti-drug

policy recommended by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) in its National

Drug Control Strategy. The new strategy had four main goals: strengthen the institutional

capabilities of Colombia to combat the drug trade, increase effectiveness of law enforcement

operations through international cooperation and coordination, disrupt or damage operations of

drug-trafficking organizations, and strengthen and diversify legitimate economies of Andean

countries57. The emphasis on institutional aid to Colombia was brought on by a GAO review,

which reported that US anti-drug efforts would not be successful unless factors such as

corruption, political instability, and weak economy were overcome58. The new emphasis on

development as a key component of anti-narcotics strategy signaled an acknowledgement by the

Clinton administration that unilateral U.S. response was inadequate in combating the flow of

drugs into the United States. To combat the trans-national nature of narco-trafficking Colombia

began to coordinate intelligence, surveillance and military operations with its neighbors with the

assistance of SOUTHCOM, the U.S. southern military command. Both the U.S. and Colombia

attempted to incorporate various states in the region, including Venezuela and Brazil, into anti-

narcotics agreements from 1992-93, though agreements with Venezuela never proved effective.59

In 1993 the Clinton administration began a shift from a policy of interdiction to a policy of

increased cooperation with the Colombian government. This strategy would place goals of

56 Ibid, pp. 71-72

57 Office of National Drug Control Policy, National Drug Control Strategy: A Nation Responds
to Drug Use. Washington, DC.: US Government Printing Office, 1992
58 Menzall, 1997, pp. 111
59 Ibid, pp. 119
 Grossman 32

democratic institution building, economic stability, and human rights in priority positions equal

to interdiction60. The new anti-drug program would focus on strengthening political will of the

Colombian government and its institutions, with law enforcement and military measures

becoming secondary and tertiary objectives61. Clinton utilized the new system of Summits of the

Americas to institutionalize U.S. anti-drug policy regionally by pushing for new regional

agreements on anti-narcotics policy, with a special emphasis on the OAS Inter-American Drug

Abuse Control Commission.

The OAS Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) began to play a key

role in U.S. anti-narcotics policy in the mid-1990s. While the OAS established the Inter-

American Drug Abuse Control Commission in 1986, it did not become involved in the regional

security establishment until 1996 and 1997 with the publishing and adoption of its “Anti-Drug

Strategy in the Hemisphere”, a set of principles which the member states agreed would govern

anti-narcotics policy throughout the hemisphere. The CICAD was founded to combat the

epidemic of drug abuse and trafficking in the Americas at a 1986 conference in Rio de Janeiro,

where the OAS first cast narco-trafficking as a regional security issue62. The representatives at

the conference agreed that narco-trafficking and drug abuse posed a grave threat to regional

security, and established CICAD as a standing body to combat drug abuse and trafficking

throughout the Americas. The CICAD was originally made up of representatives from 11

countries elected every three years by the OAS General Assembly, but over the years more

countries requested to join the commission until it was expanded to include all 34 OAS member

states in 1996. The expansion of CICAD coincided with the adoption of the Anti-Drug Strategy

60 Perl, Raphael Francis. Clinton’s Foreign Drug Policy. Journal of Interamerican Studies. Vol
35, Spring 1994. pp 144-145
61 Menzall, 1997, pp. 141
62 “CICAD History”, www.cicad.oas.org, 2009
 Grossman 33

in the Hemisphere at the 1996 Summit of the Americas, making this a watershed year for

multilateral anti-narcotics policy in the Americas.

The expansion of the CICAD and the adoption of the new Anti-Drug Strategy signaled

that narco-trafficking was now a full regional security issue that affected all member states. The

expansion gave the commission far more legitimacy as a policy-making body, as all of the

region’s states would now have a say in developing the hemispheric anti-drug policy. In a letter

to Carlos Portales Cifuentes, former Chilean ambassador to the OAS, David Bell, the Executive

Secretary of CICAD, outlines the significance of the Anti-Drug Strategy in the Hemisphere,

saying, “The strategy is regionally and internationally significant and important in that for the

first time in the history of the region a document drafted by consensus consolidates the

parameters used by the countries in the Hemisphere to frame and implement their national efforts

to control drug abuse and related crimes.”63 The CICAD Anti-Drug Strategy puts forward a set

of standard anti-drug practices which member states agree to implement, creates regional norms

for the reduction of both narcotics demand and supply, and recommends multilateral measures to

control narco-trafficking. In its “Action Plan for the Implementation of the Anti-Drug Strategy in

the Hemisphere” CICAD further clarifies its specific mechanisms for combating narco-

trafficking. The Action Plan focuses on information gathering and best practice sharing,

facilitating coordination between law enforcement agencies of member states, and promoting

standard institutions and practices to combat narcotics trafficking.64In subsequent years, the OAS

and CICAD have placed greater emphasis on the formation of bilateral and multilateral

partnerships between states to share information and provide technical assistance in combating
63 Permanent Council of the Organization of American States Special Commission on Inter-
American Summit Management, “OAS/CICAD: ACTIVITIES FOR MONITORING THE TERMS OF
THE DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES AND THE PLAN OF ACTION EMANATING FROM THE
SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS HELD IN MIAMI IN DECEMBER 1996”. www.summit-americas.org,
1997
64 OAS/CICAD, “Action Plan for the Implementation of the Anti-Drug Strategy in the
Hemisphere”. www.cicad.oas.org, 1996
 Grossman 34

drugs, as stated in the “Final Declaration and the Plan of Action” published by the OAS and

CICAD after the 2001 Summit of the Americas in Quebec City.65 The CICAD Anti-Drug

strategy represents the first true attempt to consolidate anti-narcotics policy into a multilateral

security framework, and made the OAS a primary actor in implemented anti-narcotics policies

throughout the region.

By the end of the 1990’s the United States had embraced this multilateral approach to

confronting narcotics trafficking, especially as it related to the deteriorating security situation in

Colombia. The Clinton administration had already begun a shift toward a multilateral policy on

Colombia which focused resources on development of democratic institutions to combat drug-

related violence. Until 1998 the Andean Initiative, initiated under the first President Bush, was

the primary tool for combating narco-trafficking in Colombia. While President Clinton shifted

the Initiative’s focus to encourage more cooperation with the Colombian government, it was still

a plan that primarily focused on eradication and interdiction of narcotics. According to a 2001

report by the Hoover Institution, “The war – focusing on interdiction and eradication – has not

significantly changed the consumption, quality, availability, or price of drugs in the United

States”66. Anti-narcotics measures during the period from 1994-1998 were marked by a policy of

“decertification”, which sought to punish Colombia for not focusing enough attention on

eradicating drug supplies. Under this program, the U.S. Congress and President Clinton would

re-evaluate Colombia’s progress in the drug war each year and recommend whether aid would be

re-certified. Congress and President Clinton determined that Colombia’s actions were not

sufficient several times during this period, and subsequently “decertified” the Andean Initiative,

slashing funds for programs that were not directly related to interdiction and eradication of drug

65 OAS/CICAD, “Extract of the Declaration of Quebec City and the Plan of Action”
www.cicad.oas.org, 2001
66 “Buscaglia, Edgardo and William Ratliff, “War and Lack of Governance in Colombia”,
Hoover Institute on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford University, 2001, pp. 12
 Grossman 35

supplies. According to the Hoover Institute, this policy had severe negative effects in Colombia.

The Institute reported that, “National institutions were weakened, criminal elements from abroad

sought refuge there (in Colombia), and what had been one of Latin America’s most successful

economies dived into its worst recession in a century”67. In 1998, with the failures of the Andean

Initiative in mind, the Clinton administration worked with new Colombian President Andrés

Pastrana to create Plan Colombia, new initiative designed to, “fight the illicit drug trade, to

increase the rule of law, to protect human rights, to expand economic development, to institute

judicial reform, and to foster peace”68. Plan Colombia allocated significant funds for nonmilitary

programs designed to provide technical assistance in areas of human rights, judicial reform,

assisting displaced persons, and strengthening local government. While the plan did include a

significant military component, it was markedly different from the previous anti-narcotics

initiatives proposed by the United States. $390.5 million was allocated to provide military

assistance to Colombian armed forces and police, providing significant goods and services to aid

Colombia’s anti-drug efforts while explicitly denying the use of United States military forces to

implement any aspect of the plan.

The case of U.S. anti-narcotics action in Colombia demonstrates how the nature of new

security priorities forced the United States toward a multilateral security policy. We can see

through the series of failed interdiction and eradication policies in the late 1980’s and early

1990’s that the U.S. initially pursued a unilateral strategy to combat the drug trade. As law

enforcement-focused policies proved ineffective, the Clinton administration was forced to re-

evaluate its stance on Colombia, and embraced a multilateral framework centered on bilateral

agreements with key states and the creation of regional norms and standards by the OAS and

CICAD. An analysis of the Clinton administration’s decision-making process shows that a

67 Buscaglia and Ratliff, pp. 12

68 Fact Sheet, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. State Department, 19 July 1999
 Grossman 36

unilateral response was simply deemed inadequate to confront the trans-national problem of

narco-trafficking and the instability associated with it. On trans-national issues which have only

recently been added to the regional security agenda, the United States simply could not create an

effective unilateral policy, and supported a multilateral security regime in response.

Conclusions

During the Cold War, the United States used its role as a hegemonic regional power to

unilaterally intervene in neighboring states when a friendly regime was in danger of falling into

the communist sphere of influence. Even when the United States pursued multilateralism, it was

used after-the-fact to provide legitimacy to actions that were primarily undertaken by the U.S.

without true consultation with the OAS. We can see that cases of direct U.S. military

intervention, both before and after the fall of the Soviet Union, came primarily in response to

anti-democratic coups against governments friendly to the United States. Even in Haiti, where

the OAS and UN played a major role in the planning of the intervention and the post-intervention

peacekeeping operation, the United States was the primary initiator of the action and provided

the bulk of the military force used. Indeed, multilateral solutions proved inadequate to resolve

the crisis without the impending threat of unilateral U.S. military action.

When we examine cases after the Cold War, we see a much more varied and multilateral

U.S. approach. During crises in Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela, the U.S. supported multilateral

solutions involving diplomacy, development aid and programs, and the establishment of regional

norms and best practices by the OAS. In all of these cases of multilateral intervention, the U.S.

has allowed the OAS to play a key role in establishing institutions and best practices for

stabilizing the state in question. Reports commissioned by the U.S. government in the early to

mid-90s confirm that the Clinton administration believed unilateral military action could not stop
 Grossman 37

narco-trafficking or the stability problems associated with it.69 While issues like drug and

weapons trafficking pose as grave a threat to regional stability as anti-democratic coups, U.S.

policy since the Cold War has been to form bilateral partnerships to combat these issues while

allowing the OAS to develop institutions, norms, and best-practices to ameliorate the conflicts

caused by illegal drugs and weapons.

While the OAS has developed bodies and mechanisms to strengthen democratic

governance in the region, including the establishment of the Department of State Modernization

and Good Governance, it still has few mechanisms in place to deal with anti-democratic coups.

Resolution 1080 allows the OAS to intervene in the domestic affairs of a member state, but still

does not provide standing mechanisms to coordinate and execute a military intervention to

restore a deposed government. This task is still largely left to the United States, as we can see in

the role the US played in the 1994 Haitian intervention. While the OAS has developed a number

of mechanisms to foster regional stability and deal with security crises, it still has no effective

means for intervention when diplomacy fails to resolve anti-democratic coups. Because of this,

not all US policy in the region is multilateral. In cases of anti-democratic coups we still see de-

facto unilateral responses by the United States, though the OAS is now able to play a larger role

in shaping these interventions.

During the Cold War, the United States was primarily concerned with the prevention of

coups or insurgencies which could topple friendly governments. The institutional weakness of

the OAS in these types of crises led the U.S. to pursue a policy of unilateral intervention to

prevent pro-Soviet or communist regimes from gaining power in Latin America. While the end

of the Cold War did not reduce the strategic importance of Latin America, it did add a host of

69 Rydell, C. Peter; Susan S. Everingham, "Controlling Cocaine: Supply Versus Demand Programs". Rand Drug
Policy Research Center. 1994
 Grossman 38

new issues to the regional security agenda, including human rights, illegal weapons, and narco-

trafficking. These issues were officially incorporated into the regional security agenda in the mid

- 1990s during the Summits of the Americas and subsequent OAS summits. The expanded

security agenda (promoted by the United States during the first 1994 Summit of the Americas)

led to an expansion of the OAS, creating numerous bodies and commissions to foster regional

stability, support development of democratic institutions, and combat regional security issues.

We have seen that in the post-Cold War security regime, the United States has remained

willing to intervene militarily in cases of anti-democratic coups, just as it did during the Cold

War. In post-Cold War cases involving the anti-democratic overthrow of a friendly government,

the United States has embraced traditional mechanisms of unilateral intervention while allowing

the OAS to play a role in legitimizing and coordinating action. While the OAS has played a

larger role in these interventions than it did during similar Cold War interventions, we can

attribute this increased involvement to the creation of new permanent mechanisms and

institutions created after the end of the Cold War, not to a change in U.S. policy toward the OAS

as it relates to intervention. During the Cold War, the U.S. often used the OAS and other

multilateral bodies, such as the Organization of East Caribbean States, to bring multilateral

legitimacy, and, when possible, participate in interventions. While the mechanisms by which the

OAS involves itself in interventions has changed since the fall of the Soviet Union, its primary

role in U.S. interventions has not.

If the OAS plays a similar role in military interventions today as it did during the Cold

War, to what can we attribute the overall shift in regional security policy toward multilateral

governance and institutions? The new security regime has become multilateral not because of a

shift in US policy toward intervention, but due to the nature of the new issues on the regional

security agenda. In issues of drug-trafficking, refugees, and terrorism the United States has
 Grossman 39

pursued a course of multilateral institution-building and bilateral partnerships with Latin

American states to foster regional stability. The rise of these issues to the top of the hemispheric

security agenda accounts for the overall rise of multilateral security policy throughout the

Americas. As new issues became prominent on the regional security agenda, new multilateral

institutions and practices were created to address them, strengthening the ability of the OAS to

shape regional security policy in a way that it could not during the Cold War. However, during

cases of anti-democratic coups we do not see a measurable shift in U.S. intervention strategies,

only a shift in the ability of the OAS to participate and respond to these interventions. These

factors make it apparent that the growth in multilateral governance in the Americas has come as

a response to unique issues that do not have clear cut unilateral solutions, and not as a broader

shift in U.S. attitudes toward intervention. It is reasonable to expect that the United States will

continue its policy of dealing with regional security threats multilaterally while still reserving the

right to intervene unilaterally in cases of anti-democratic coups or insurgencies threatening the

stability of individual states.

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