European Perceptions of Plan Colombia: A Virtual Contribution to A Virtual War and Peace Plan?

This is another in the special series of monographs emanating from the February 2001 conference on Plan Colombia co-sponsored by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College and The Dante B. Fascell North-South Center of the University of Miami. In this monograph, Joaquin Roy provides a European view of Plan Colombia. Professor Roy, a Spaniard with valuable sources throughout Europe, notes that Europeans apparently do not approve of the seeming U.S. emphasis on providing military equipment and training to Colombia for a counternarcotics effort in what they see as a larger strategic political conflict. At the same time, he reports that Europeans are not only concerned with the counternarcotics violence in Colombia, but also with the economic, security, and political spillover effects for neighboring countries. Finally and logically, Roy reflects the European concern that whatever contribution might be made to Plan Colombia will likely be lost in the violence of a U.S.-led counternarcotics...