​​The Relaunch of the War on Drugs: A Risk to Democracy in Latin America

Column published in Brecha (Uruguay) and El País (Spain)

The launch of the “Shield of the Americas” initiative on March 7 signals a renewed push to reinstate the war on drugs in Latin America—now reframed as the cornerstone of U.S. policy toward the region.

The first step was to designate various criminal organizations as terrorist groups. This designation enables the U.S. government to deploy resources (including military intelligence) and exercise powers (such as interventions in foreign countries, expanded discretion, and no accountability) that domestic law reserves for counterterrorism. It was followed by the bombing of vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific, involving U.S. military forces in extrajudicial killings of Latin American nationals portrayed—without evidence—as members of criminal organizations. This was followed by a military operation in Caracas and the abduction of Nicolás Maduro, framed as a law enforcement action to capture a drug trafficking leader. In the weeks surrounding these events, two key documents set out this approach: the new U.S. national security and defense policies. After many years, Latin America has once again become central to U.S. strategic interest—but for deeply troubling reasons. It is explicitly framed as Washington’s “backyard.”

By convening the military leadership of 12 countries governed by right-wing and far-right administrations, the United States has secured the commitment of much of the region to an initiative that elevates the militarization of responses to organized crime into a hemispheric policy. This entails relaunching and intensifying a failed strategy—the war on drugs—now repurposed as a platform for regional alignment and political discipline. Available evidence suggests that dismantling illicit markets and criminal organizations is not the primary objective. Rather, the aim appears to be aligning countries across the region to submissively accept the “Donroe Doctrine,” structured around the notion of a “narco-terrorist” threat and the idea that the hemisphere should serve as a reserved space for U.S. access to energy and critical minerals. This marks the beginning of a phase in which there is a serious risk of turning the “backyard” into a war zone.

Since the 1980s, when Washington promoted it across the region, the war on drugs has been the dominant framework for drug control policies. In many respects, it replaced and extended earlier national security doctrines that culminated in genocides in several countries. This approach has entailed the systematic involvement of the military in addressing criminal issues, alongside the militarization of police forces, harsher criminal policies, and a dramatic expansion of incarceration. It has driven a severe escalation in human rights violations, both by criminal organizations and by the state: rising homicide rates, enforced disappearances, forced displacement, and arbitrary detention. At the same time, it has fueled the growth and consolidation of criminal organizations, which have adapted, diversified, and acquired greater resources to operate in a “war” context. Over the past 15 years, these outcomes have prompted sustained criticism from civil society, international human rights mechanisms, and political leaders across the region, many of whom have called for alternative and more complex approaches.

“Narco-terrorism” as a Pretext

More recently, the region has witnessed a resurgence of the war on drugs. This revival coincides with the rise of far-right governments and growing authoritarian tendencies, which have turned to the concept of “narco-terrorism” to justify reinstating a militarized approach and expanding exceptional measures that limit oversight and accountability. These exceptional frameworks became globally available after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and began to spread in Latin America as political conditions shifted—first with the election of right-wing governments, and now through their elevation to a hemispheric strategy by the United States.

Latin America’s role in challenging the war on drugs is now weakened by a divide that is also geopolitical. Countries such as Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil have implemented—and continue to implement, with poor results—their own versions of the war on drugs, yet they resist adopting a counterterrorism framework. They recognize the risks it entails, particularly its potential to justify foreign military intervention. Moreover, countries where the presence of terrorism is admitted expose themselves to heightened financial scrutiny and even sanctions.

There is little indication that this continental military deployment constitutes a genuine effort to dismantle illicit markets or criminal organizations. Bombing vessels does not disrupt drug trafficking routes. Maduro was captured as the alleged leader of the “Cartel of the Suns”—an organization that either does not exist or remains unaffected. The clearest example, however, is Donald Trump’s decision to pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, whose involvement in large-scale drug trafficking to the United States was established in court and led to his conviction. Hernández is politically aligned with Trump, raising serious concerns that the so-called “war on narco-terrorism” functions less as a strategy to combat organized crime than as a tool for political discipline across the region.

Discipline as the Objective

This strategy of regional discipline is mirrored within individual countries. Those that have most strongly embraced the rhetoric and legal framework of counterterrorism to address organized crime—such as El Salvador, Ecuador, Argentina, Paraguay, and the United States—are also those that already use, or seek to use, this same framework to criminalize social protest and target political dissent.

Civil society organizations and social movements committed to defending democracy and human rights in the region face two challenges they need to address simultaneously . First, they must organize, strengthen networks, and use all available advocacy tools to counter the deliberate conflation of organized crime and terrorism, given the serious risks this poses. This must take place in a context of weakening multilateralism, undermined by initiatives such as the “Shield of the Americas.” At the same time, they must develop and advance democratic responses to the serious human rights concerns and evolving challenges posed by criminal organizations in the region.

The core issue in Latin America is criminal governance, not terrorism. A counterterrorism framework cannot address this problem because it obscures two key dynamics of criminal governance: its symbiotic relationship with the state and with the economic and financial system. Bombs do not resolve these dynamics. When the smoke clears, criminal governance remains intact.