The U.S. government has launched a strategy to restore “American preeminence” in the Western Hemisphere through largely military means, “identifying drug and human trafficking” as a primary threat to U.S. security. Since September 2025, the U.S. military has conducted dozens of airstrikes against suspected drug boats, carried out an operation to arrest the president of Venezuela, and deployed Special Forces to support counternarcotics operations in Ecuador. And on March 7, President Trump announced a new coalition of 17 Latin American leaders, dubbed the “Shield of the Americas,” committed to using lethal military force against drug cartels and terrorist networks.
How should the peacebuilding field – in the United States and across the Americas – respond to the intensification of militarized security operations within the hemisphere? We must continue to insist that security forces protect human rights and uphold the laws of war. We can also point to the lessons learned from decades of relying primarily on force to combat trafficking: History shows that military operations alone won’t work.
Military force can kill traffickers, disrupt supply chains, and dismantle criminal networks. A carefully planned and fully resourced operation can also – as in the case of the Operation Absolute Resolve to arrest President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela – take out an unpopular, brutal and corrupt dictator.
Military strikes alone cannot sustain these gains, however, especially against a vast illicit industry that is deeply embedded not only in local communities but also in politics and government institutions. Rather, a sustained effort to build peace from the ground up, one that restores citizen faith in democratic governance, is what is required. It means not only combating crime but also holding governments accountable through elections. It means supporting institutions that provide basic public services – such as education and health care – that catalyze licit economic opportunities.
Fighting against drug trafficking necessitates eliminating foreign supplies and reducing the demand for drugs through treatment and prevention, both among consumers in the United States and Europe and in the emerging markets of Africa and Asia.
The use of military force against Latin American drug traffickers is not new. Over the past five decades, the United States has helped fund multiple military operations against traffickers in the Caribbean, the Andes, Central America, and Mexico to prevent the flow of illicit drugs into the United States. If lethal force were sufficient, illicit drug trafficking would have been eliminated long ago. Instead, organized crime takes root in fragile, conflict-affected states where formal authorities are unable to protect public safety or provide other basic services. It thrives in what U.S. Army War College Professor Evan Ellis has called “malgoverned spaces,” where formal authorities are ineffective and corrupt. Citizens fail to report crimes or cooperate with police and judicial officials, reinforcing the impunity that fuels more violence.
Military force is at best a temporary fix. Evidence from decades of militarized counternarcotics crackdowns shows that criminal groups quickly adapt by reconfiguring transit routes and regrouping into new networks. Meanwhile, the criminal landscape throughout the region has grown increasingly complex as traffickers develop new products – such as synthetic opioids – and branch out into new rackets, such as illegal mining, migrant smuggling, and wildlife trafficking.
Countries once considered relatively immune to organized crime, such as Costa Rica in Central America or Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina in the Southern Cone, now face rising homicide rates despite increasing arrests and expanding prison populations.
A growing body of research suggests that empowering communities can both reduce crime and promote a sense of belonging or “rootedness” so that citizens can envision a safer, more prosperous future at home. Research on procedural justice emphasizes how perceptions of fairness increase the legitimacy of law enforcement, strengthening and sustaining improvements in public safety over time.
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP), where I worked until 2025, was collaborating with local partners to identify the grievances and divisions that fuel local conflict. It provided officials at national and municipal levels with the tools needed to engage with communities, especially in localities where criminal groups drive conflict and contribute to internal displacement and international migration.
The USIP was replicating its justice and security dialogue model, used to build trust and encourage collaboration in communities threatened by violent extremists, in Colombian municipalities recovering from decades of armed conflict, as well as in Central American communities where criminal gangs both drive displacement and profit from it by smuggling migrants to Mexico and the United States.
The United States has demonstrated its military preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, but history suggests that “amazing weaponry” alone will not curb the criminal organizations that have for too long fueled violence and corruption throughout Latin America. Nor can the United States do it alone. There is no substitute for the long, painstaking work of building peace through local and national partnerships in our own hemisphere and beyond.
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About the Author
Mary Speck is an affiliated scholar of the Keough School of Global Affairs and a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue. She served previously as a senior advisor to the Latin America Program at the United States Institute of Peace.
Recommended Citation
Speck, Mary. “Military Might Without Security: Why Force is Not Enough to Address Hemispheric Challenges.” Peace Policy: Solutions to Violent Conflict, No. 63, (March 2026). https://doi.org/10.7274/31843000
