U.S. Security Policy toward Latin America in the Obama administration: hegemony and tactical adjustments
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5380/cg.v10i2.80173Abstract
This paper aims to understand the direction of U.S. security policy toward Latin America during Barack Obama's administration. The hypothesis proposed here is that, during this period, the security policy suffered “tactical” adjustments with the objective of maintaining the hegemonic relations with the countries of the region in the security dimension. Specifically, it is understood that these adjustments consisted of: less militarized relations; implementation of socioeconomic development projects, and less utilization of the anti-terrorist discourse. To conduct this work, there was analysis of quantitative data collected from international databases; documentary analysis of U.S. government security reports and policies, and literature review about US-Latin American relations. The results obtained show that there has indeed been a reduction in the degree of militarization of the USA security cooperation initiatives with countries in the region, at the same time that the emphasis has been put more on anti-drug agenda in opposition to the anti-terrorist agenda. Therefore, the conclusion of this work is that there is evidence of occasional adjustments in USA security policy for Latin America in order to maintain its hegemonic position in a new international context.
Keywords: United States; Obama Government; Latin America; Security Policy.
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