Getting Good Brains into Latin America

Table of Contents

Fragility and poor leadershipor Socialist leadership in Latin America and elsewhere as an impediment to Western Hemisphere growth and strong economies and strong economic relations of strong countries.

Thorkil Kristensen was elected to the Danish Parliament 1945 and became finance minister under Knud Kristiansen (1945–1947) and Erik Eriksen (1950–1953). Throughout his life he worked with difficult economic problems. Among people of his own party and opposing parties, he enjoyed great respect because of his broad knowledge of economics.

He came to disagree on economic policy with his party, Venstre, and left the party in 1960.

After his exit from politics, he was secretary general of the OECD from 1960-1969. He was the founder of the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (CIFS), making it one of the first futures research institutes on the European continent. He was managing director at CIFS from 1970–1988.

He participated in the Club of Rome which attracted considerable public attention with its report, Limits to Growth, which has sold 30 million copies in more than 30 translations, making it the best selling environmental book in world history.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

INTRODUCTION 

SECTION 1:  STRATEGIC CHALLENGE    

SECTION 2:  STRATEGIC APPROACH and GOALS 

Goals and Objectives of the Strategy  

1. Prevention – Anticipate and Prevent Violent Conflict and Large-Scale Violence 
2. Stabilization – Achieve Locally-Driven Political Solutions to Violent Conflicts and Large-Scale Violence 
3. Partnership – Promote Burden-Sharing, Coordination, and Mutual Accountability 
4. Management – Enable an Effective, Integrated United States Government Response  

SECTION 3:  ADVANCING THE STRATEGY 

• Department and Agency Roles and Responsibilities  
• Department and Agency Decision-Making and Coordination  
• Country and Regional Priorities 
• Compact-Style Country and Regional Partnerships 
• International Cooperation and Public-Private Partnerships 
• Authorities, Staffing, and Resources  

SECTION 4:  STRATEGIC INTEGRATION OF UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TOOLS and POLICY INITIATIVES     

Tools   

1. Diplomacy 
2. Foreign Assistance   
3. Defense Support and Security Cooperation  
4. Trade, Investment, and Commercial Diplomacy  
5. Sanctions and Other Financial Pressure Tools 
6. Intelligence and Analysis 
7. Strategic Communications 

Laws and Initiatives  

• Women, Peace, and Security 
• Atrocity Early Warning Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocity Prevention Act of 2018 
• Stabilization Assistance Review 
• National Strategy for Counterterrorism 

SECTION 5:  MEASURING SUCCESS 

• Monitoring and Evaluation  
• Consultation, Learning, and Adaptation  

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) affirms that the United States will work to strengthen fragile states “where state weakness or failure would magnify threats to the American homeland” and “empower reform-minded governments, people, and civil society” in these places.  The President affirmed this commitment when he signed the Global Fragility Act of 2019 (Title V of Div. J, P.L. 116-94) (GFA) into law in December 2019.  This Strategy meets the law’s requirement for a “Global Fragility Strategy.”

The United States Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability seeks to break the costly cycle of fragility and promote peaceful, self-reliant nations that become United States economic and security partners.  The United States will pursue a new approach that addresses the political drivers of fragility and supports locally driven solutions. The United States will engage selectively based on defined metrics, host country political will, respect for democracy and human rights, defined cost-sharing, and mechanisms that promote mutual accountability with national and local actors.

This Strategy outlines four goals to guide United States efforts across priority countries and regions:

1. Prevention:  The United States will establish and support capabilities to engage in peacebuilding and anticipate and prevent violent conflict before it erupts;
2. Stabilization:  The United States will support inclusive political processes to resolve ongoing violent conflicts, emphasizing meaningful participation of youth, women, and members of faith-based communities and marginalized groups, respect for human rights and environmental sustainability;
3. Partnerships:  The United States will promote burden-sharing and encourage and work with partners to create conditions for long-term regional stability and foster private sector-led growth; and
4. Management:  The United States will maximize United States taxpayer dollars and realize more effective outcomes through better prioritization, integration, and focus on efficiency across the United States Government and with partners.

The United States will achieve these goals by aligning United States Government operations, setting clear priorities and integrating all tools of United States foreign policy: diplomacy; foreign assistance; defense support and security cooperation; trade and investment; sanctions and other financial pressure tools; intelligence and analysis; and strategic communications.  The United States will recruit and train staff to work more effectively in fragile environments.  The United States cannot and should not pursue these efforts alone.  Accordingly, this Strategy outlines a commitment to forge new partnerships with civil society, the private sector, regional partners, and bilateral and multilateral contributors who can provide expertise and share the financial burden.

This Strategy prioritizes learning, data-driven analysis, diplomacy, and information-sharing to understand local dynamics, target interventions, and hold actors accountable.  It lays out a clear process to systematically monitor policy outcomes, not just program outputs.  If changing dynamics require alterations in approach, if programs are not showing results, or if partners are not living up to their commitments, the United States will change course.  The success of this Strategy will require discipline and commitment by the whole United States Government and our partner governments, the creation of dynamic and forward-leaning country-level strategies, and flexibly and timely resources to power change.  Through this new approach, the United States will seek to avoid past mistakes and better advance America’s national security interests in fragile environments.

INTRODUCTION

This Strategy aims to strengthen United States efforts to break the costly cycle of fragility1 and promote peaceful, self-reliant nations that become United States economic and security partners.  It advances the aims of the 2017 National Security Strategy, which affirms that the United States will work to strengthen fragile states “where state weakness or failure would magnify threats to the American homeland” and “empower reform-minded governments, people, and civil society” in these places.

The President affirmed this commitment when he signed the Global Fragility Act of 2019 (Title V of Div. J, P.L. 116-94) (GFA) into law in December 2019.  The GFA calls for the United States Government to create a unified United States strategy that is intentional, cross-cutting, and measurable, and harnesses the full spectrum of United States diplomacy, assistance, and engagement over a 10-year horizon to help countries move from fragility to stability and from conflict to peace.  This Strategy builds upon reforms initiated by the 2018 Stabilization Assistance Review, 2018 Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, 2018 National Strategy for Counterterrorism, and 2019 United States Strategy on Women, Peace, and Security.

Through this Strategy, the United States will pursue a different approach from previous efforts.  Rather than externally driven nation-building, the United States will support locally driven political solutions that align with United States’ national security interests.  Rather than fragmented and broad-based efforts, the United States will target the political factors that drive fragility.  Rather than diffuse and open-ended efforts, the United States will engage selectively based on national interests, host-nation political progress, and defined metrics.  Rather than implementing a disparate set of activities, the United States will strategically integrate its policy, diplomatic, and programmatic response.

The United States Government will pursue reforms to use taxpayer dollars judiciously and achieve measurable results.  This Strategy prioritizes data-driven analysis, diplomacy, and information-sharing to understand local dynamics, target interventions, and hold actors accountable.  It requires rigorous monitoring and evaluation and periodic reviews to assess policy outcomes, not just program outputs.  The Strategy also requires greater insistence on host-nation political will, defining burden-sharing, leveraging a broader range of financing tools, and holding actors accountable.  The United States will modify or end programs that are not producing sufficient results or where partners are not fulfilling their commitments.

The United States should not address these challenges alone.  The United States is committed to partnerships and burden-sharing with other nations and partners, including civil society and the private sector, to support local ownership and deliver cost-effective outcomes.  In developing this Strategy, the United States Government has consulted with more than 200 civil society experts, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and bilateral partners and multilateral organizations to date.  The United States Government will continue to consult stakeholders, including the Congress, as it implements this Strategy.

SECTION 1:  STRATEGIC CHALLENGE

The world faces growing risks from conflict, violence, and instability.  International armed conflict and state instability, in particular, pose threats to the American people, United States interests at home and abroad, and United States allies and partners.  Amid this instability, adversaries and malign actors can prey on weak governments, exploit their populations, build influence, and advance their own narrow interests or extremist ideologies.

For decades, the United States has helped partner countries – including those recovering from or at risk of conflict – become more self-reliant and democratic.  Many of those countries now rank among the most prosperous economies in the world and are important economic and security partners for the United States.  They are essential in helping to address shared challenges.

Many other countries experiencing high levels of fragility have not achieved these gains.  Highly fragile countries and regions struggle with a combination of ineffective and unaccountable governance, weak social cohesion, and/or corrupt institutions or leaders who lack respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, such as due process and freedom of religion or belief.  Fragile countries and regions are vulnerable to armed conflicts, large-scale violence, or other instability, including an inability to manage transnational threats or other significant shocks.

Fragility poses threats to the United States and United States interests, and allies, and partners.  Specifically:

• Fragility provides fertile ground for violent extremists and criminal organizations that threaten the security of Americans and United States allies.  Terrorists continue to operate and find safe havens in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere, despite reductions in global deaths from terrorism.  Transnational organized criminals use fragility to advance their operations, including illicit drug trading, environmental exploitation, and human and wildlife trafficking.
• Fragility undermines economic prosperity and trade.  Fragile countries and regions have the potential to become sizable future markets and future trading partners for the United States, but trade and investment are stymied by violence and corruption.  In 2017, the estimated economic impact of violence was $14.76 trillion, the equivalent to 12.4 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) lost.  Further, research shows that investment in highly corrupt countries is substantially less than in countries that are relatively corruption-free.
• Fragility erodes international peace and destabilizes partner countries and regions.  A rising number of countries are experiencing protracted violent conflict and/or high levels of organized violence, including violence against civilians and civilian infrastructure.  The average internal armed conflict now lasts more than 20 years.  More than one-half of armed conflicts that achieve peace lapse back into violence within seven years and too often result in costly long-term peacekeeping operations.  Humanitarian needs, driven primarily by more complex and longer-lasting conflicts, have reached historic levels, outpacing available resources by billions of dollars annually.  At the same time, armed conflict obstructs humanitarian assistance and directly harms humanitarian personnel.  In addition, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are further stressing global humanitarian assistance.
• Fragility can enable authoritarianism, external exploitation, and increase the influence of the United States’ competitors in both physical and digital realms.  Weak states are much more susceptible to Russian and Chinese coercion.  Through its Belt and Road Initiative, China has saddled many states with unsustainable debt, environmental degradation, increased long-term dependencies, and perpetuated fragility.  China concertedly markets and promotes surveillance technology to client states and undermines democratic values of privacy, freedom, and equality.

Fragile countries typically struggle to assure basic security, territorial sovereignty, and the rule of law, lacking a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.  Fragility may manifest in the state’s relative inability to control violence, and/or the illegitimate or excessive use of force against civilians.  Weak institutions may instead serve the narrow political ends of elite coalitions and factions, whose interests are served by structural weaknesses in governance, oversight, and accountability.

Fragility increases when citizen-responsive governance breaks down.  It is exacerbated by institutions that are unable or unwilling to respond to periodic stresses or crises and protect their populations in a legitimate, inclusive, and effective manner.  Over the long-run, fragile countries tend to see slower, uneven, and unsustainable development. They may become reliant on external actors to prop up governance systems, provide security, and deliver essential services to their population.

The United States and other international contributors have allocated substantial assistance to conflict-affected and fragile countries and regions, achieving mixed results.  Health, education, food security, humanitarian, and justice and security sector assistance save lives and disrupt threats.  United States support, however, has not sufficiently addressed the political causes of fragility or ended costly cycles of recurrent crisis.  Externally driven nation-building undermines local responsibility and distorts local economies.  In some conflict areas, corrupt officials exploit external assistance to gain advantage and exacerbate conflicts.

SECTION 2:  STRATEGIC APPROACH AND GOALS

This Strategy outlines a new framework for the United States response to global fragility.  It elevates prevention, addresses the political drivers of fragility, and supports locally driven solutions.  The United States, through this Strategy, will focus on the most vulnerable countries and regions that meet a clear set of conditions, consistent with the National Security Strategy.  Namely, this Strategy applies to those states and regions in which fragility poses or magnifies a threat to the United States, United States interests, and United States allies and partners.  The United States will focus efforts and resources at a sufficient scale to achieve the Strategy’s goals and avoid dissipating effort across too many countries.

The Strategy emphasizes selective United States engagement based on defined outcomes, host country political will, respect for democratic norms and human rights, mutual accountability, and cost-sharing, including through compact-style partnerships with key stakeholders.  The United States will create windows of opportunity, where possible and if needed, and engage with credible local partners committed to inclusive political solutions, meaningful reforms, and lasting peace.

To implement this new approach, the United States will recognize the complexity of each fragile environment, be nimble and adaptive, and prioritize building resilience,2 and ultimately building toward peace, across interventions.  Patterns of conflict, large-scale violence, and instability are often cyclical; they fluctuate geographically and over time; and each has a unique context.

Given this complexity, the United States will adopt a multi-pronged, multi-sectoral approach to strengthen the resilience of partner nations.  Fragile countries face an array of often compounding shocks and stresses that can include civil unrest, complex humanitarian emergencies, natural disasters, and economic volatility.  The United States will align diplomacy (including public engagement), assistance, investment, defense engagement, and other tools to help partners end protracted or recurrent crises and absorb, adapt to, and recover from such shocks and stresses.

The United States will also incorporate peacebuilding approaches to address the drivers of conflict, violence, and instability, such as, inter alia, exclusionary politics, entrenched corruption, impunity, or capacity deficits.  The United States will support partners to build durable mechanisms to resolve conflicts, undertake difficult reforms where needed, enhance social cohesion, build critical institutions, deliver crucial services such as energy, create inclusive political coalitions, and mobilize domestic resources that can enable lasting peace, stability, and ultimately prosperity.  This support will include advancing women’s leadership and participation in all aspects of conflict prevention, stabilization, and peacebuilding.

Ultimately, U.S. interventions to address fragility will not be successful without the active engagement of critical local partners.  Breaking the costly cycle of fragility and promoting peaceful self-reliant nations must be secured through the action and agency of host-country leaders, organizations, and communities.  This effort cannot be imposed from the outside.  The United States’ role is to support those local partners committed to positive change.

Goals and Objectives of the Strategy

This Strategy has the following goals and subordinate objectives, which will inform subsequent country and regional implementation plans.

Goal 1:  Prevention3 – Anticipate and Prevent Violent Conflict and Large-Scale Violence

Strategic investments in prevention can save billions of United States dollars and achieve better outcomes over the long run.  United States efforts will establish and support capabilities to anticipate and prevent instability and large-scale violence before it erupts, and engage in peacebuilding.  The United States will invest in both short-term efforts to mitigate escalating conflict risks and longer-term efforts to address underlying vulnerabilities of violent conflict and other large-scale violence.  The United States will ensure its assistance is sensitive to conflict dynamics and reinforces inclusive, participatory, and legitimate governance.  This may include critical efforts to improve the protection and promotion of human rights; mitigate health, education, economic, and environmental, and food security dimensions of conflict; strengthen oversight, accountability, and administration in the security and justice sectors; and monitor and mitigate the impacts of disinformation, propaganda, and incitement to violence.

Objectives:

• Develop and/or reinforce local, national, and regional early warning systems and early action plans, backed by preventative diplomacy.
• Address vulnerabilities and structural risk factors that fuel violence and conflict and undermine civilian security by enhancing partner nation prevention, peacebuilding, and related counterterrorism efforts.
• Promote meaningful reforms of governance, essential services, natural resources management, and security and justice sector institutions to increase legitimacy and reduce corruption and meaningfully engage women and youth in decision-making.
• Protect and promote the rights of members of marginalized groups, including women and girls, religious and ethnic minority groups, and other communities at risk, including by increasing their participation in public life and protection.
• Strengthen local civil society and private sector networks, inclusive of women, youth and members of faith-based communities and marginalized groups, in order to meaningfully participate in conflict prevention, governmental reform, and peacebuilding efforts.
• Bolster the capacities of public and private organizations and institutions monitoring, countering and mitigating the impact of disinformation and propaganda by actors who threaten peace and stability.

Goal 2:  Stabilization4 – Achieve Locally-Driven Political Solutions to Violent Conflicts and Large-Scale Violence

Stabilizing conflict-affected areas is an inherently political endeavor.  The United States will support inclusive political processes to resolve ongoing violent conflicts, emphasizing meaningful participation of women, youth, and members of faith-based and marginalized groups, respect for democracy and human rights; compliance with international law, including humanitarian law and principles;  institutional transparency and accountability; and environmental sustainability.  The United States will integrate and sequence diplomatic, development, and military-related efforts, understanding their potential political impact.  The United States will support efforts by legitimate local authorities to reduce violence, establish stability, and peaceably manage conflict.

Objectives:

• Assist national and local actors, including, inter alia, civil society and women leaders, to broker and implement durable and inclusive peace agreements or ceasefires and related transitional justice and accountability provisions.
• Secure support from local, national, and regional partners to bolster peace processes and stabilize conflict-affected areas.
• Expand civilian security in conflict- and violence-affected areas by building legitimate, rights-respecting justice and security institutions capable of countering the full range of threats to stability (e.g., terrorist groups).
• Promote the meaningful inclusion of women and girls in brokering and implementing peace agreements.
• Augment media, communications, and outreach efforts to engender public support for peace and stabilization processes.
• Promote inclusive post-conflict economic recovery and reforms, including equitable management of natural resources, to reinforce stabilization and peace.
• Reduce the destabilizing impact of non-state armed actors.

Goal 3:  Partnership – Promote Burden-Sharing, Coordination, and Mutual Accountability

National and regional leadership are essential to achieve sustainable solutions to fragility and conflict.  The United States will encourage and assist partners to create conditions for long-term regional stability and foster private sector-led growth.  The United States can achieve better outcomes by marshalling contributions from other public and private donors.

Objectives:

• Establish compact-style partnerships with national and local partner governments that promote mutual accountability and advance agreed-upon reforms to reduce fragility.
• Secure commitments from regional, bilateral, and multilateral partners to advance necessary governance, essential services, security, justice, humanitarian, and economic reforms and build resilience to shocks.
• Mobilize private sector activity in high-risk areas to help improve the investment climate, advance transparency, build capacity to manage natural resources effectively, and combat corruption.
• Enlist the international private sector to promote conflict-sensitive and environmentally sustainable investments in fragile states and increase the number of beneficial public-private partnerships.
• Address cross-border security threats, disinformation and propaganda efforts by malign actors, and regional challenges by developing and/or enhancing regional mechanisms for economic, security, information transparency, humanitarian, and/or justice cooperation.

Goal 4:  Management — Enable an Effective, Integrated U.S Government Response

Creating alignment within and across United States departments and agencies to tackle global fragility is a difficult task, but one that will be crucial to the success of this Strategy.  Working with Congress, the executive branch will achieve better results in fragile states and regions by improving how the United States Government conducts operations.  The United States will improve prioritization, integration, and efficiency in all planning, diplomatic, foreign assistance, defense engagement, and other operations in fragile states and regions, both across the interagency and with partners.  The United States will pursue integrated civil-military resourcing and planning to advance shared objectives, collaboration, and information-sharing.  The United States will create and pursue a learning agenda, capitalize on lessons learned in implementing adaptive management techniques, and assure that analysis and reporting are linked to desired policy outcomes.

Objectives:

• Institutionalize joint United States interagency research, analysis, planning, messaging, prioritization of funding, and execution of activities toward prevention and stabilization.
• Streamline and expedite funding processes to enable more adaptive, integrated, and agile implementation and informed risk management in fragile environments.
• Recruit, train, and retain diverse staff, including United States military veterans, with relevant skills for fragile environments, and deploy diplomats and development professionals alongside United States military operational and tactical elements where needed and where security conditions permit.
• Improve field-level rigorous monitoring and evaluation, risk assessments, and feedback loops to assess progress, adapt strategic approaches, or shift diplomatic, security, and assistance efforts where appropriate and consistent with Secretary of State and Chief of Mission authorities and responsibilities.
• Strengthen coherence among humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding activities to meet emergency needs while breaking cycles of crisis.
• Mainstream conflict-sensitivity standards for all United States diplomatic engagement and foreign assistance to fragile areas to reinforce political and social cohesion, while upholding humanitarian principles.
• Align and continuously adapt development, security, and justice sector assistance to stabilization and peace process implementation by using data driven analysis and adaptive strategic approaches.

SECTION 3:  ADVANCING THE STRATEGY

The United States will realize better outcomes by improving the ways in which departments and agencies address fragility, in line with the above management goal.  This Strategy defines roles and responsibilities, department and agency integration and coordination mechanisms, and priority-setting processes.  The United States will also review and pursue additional or different authorities, staff, and resources as needed to achieve this Strategy’s goals and objectives.

Department and Agency Roles and Responsibilities

The executive branch has established clear roles and responsibilities for advancing this Strategy, specifically:

• The Department of State (State) is the lead Federal agency for executing this Strategy and overseeing and implementing United States foreign policy under direction of the President to advance diplomatic and political efforts with local partners, relevant bilateral parties, and multilateral bodies.  State oversees the planning and implementation of targeted justice sector, law enforcement, and other security sector assistance to stabilize conflict-affected areas, and prevent violence and fragility globally.
• The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) serves as the lead implementing agency for international development, disaster, and non-security prevention and stabilization assistance and program policy in support of U.S. policy objectives under this Strategy.  USAID works to strengthen coherence among development, humanitarian, and other non-security assistance in fragile countries and regions.
• The Department of Defense (DoD) serves in a supporting role to manage and prevent conflict and address global fragility through specialized activities including Civil Affairs, psychological operations, information operations engagements, institutional capacity-building, and security cooperation.  DoD utilizes the defense support to stabilization (DSS) process to identify defense stabilization objectives in concert with other United States departments and agencies; convey them through strategic documents; organize to achieve them; and prioritize requisite defense resources.  DoD also provides requisite security and reinforces civilian efforts, where appropriate and consistent with available authorities.

Other Federal departments and agencies, including the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), Department of Justice, Department of Commerce (DOC), Department of Energy, and the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), support United States efforts to prevent violence and fragility globally and stabilize conflict-affected areas, as appropriate and authorized, based on their unique mandates, capabilities, and relationships.

One of the problems the state department had at strategic thinkers had really throat history was the problem of certain countries ethnic crimes or simply so psychotically out of control they began extremely violent war is trying to contain one another whether it be religious fights racial fights economic fights particularly rational religious fights often were violently genocidal and insane compulsive. Trying to find any between the countries other than Mass rays and fire pits never seem to work.

In other words I made a huge mistake when I moved to Corpus Christi and leopard street.