Militarisation of the Drug War in Latin America: A Policy Cycle Set to Continue?

Abstract

Military deployment and coups were a constant in Latin America during the Cold War. The military have played an outsize role in the regional drug war, with often impulsive deployments of soldiers against drug cartels. There is perhaps no better part of the world to study the ‘war on drugs’, which will be discussed throughout this section, along with its dramatic failures.