Pentagon Seeks Expanded Counterdrug Role

Pentagon Seeks Expanded Counterdrug Role
InsideDefense.com NewsStand | Jason Sherman | May 11, 2006
Aiming to contain the threat of narcoterrorism and widen U.S. military influence over areas of strategic importance to the United States, the Defense Department is seeking permission to expand its counternarcotics partnerships with more than a dozen governments across Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America and Central Asia.

Today's military counterdrug efforts are largely trained on Colombia, Afghanistan and a handful of nations neighboring those two major narcotics exporters. The Pentagon, however, wants congressional approval to provide a wider array of non-lethal forms of assistance to governments situated along key international drug-smuggling routes.

If that authority is granted, top brass at U.S. European Command, U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Central Command -- in concert with U.S. diplomats -- will have important new tools at their disposal to assist governments that are looking to fight narcotics trafficking within their borders, according to Pentagon officials.

�What we're doing is expanding the options,� said Richard Douglas, deputy assistant secretary of defense for counternarcotics, in a May 2 interview with InsideDefense.com.

Specifically, the Pentagon is seeking $80 million that can be spent on providing general-purpose equipment and select maintenance activities directly in support of counterdrug activities. This would be twice as much as the $40 million Congress has previously authorized for this activity, which was begun in 1998. Its goal was to provide boats to interrupt the drug trade on rivers in Peru and Colombia. Other equipment provided under this provision includes personal protective gear, navigation equipment, radios, cameras and night-vision devices.

The Defense Department, in a set of legislative proposals submitted to lawmakers last month, is seeking permission to use these funds to buy more than boats, including vehicles and aircraft as well as detection, interception, monitoring and testing equipment.

Under the existing authority, the Pentagon can provide non-lethal assistance to some South American nations -- Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador -- and select Central Asian countries -- Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Combatant commanders have asked the Defense Department to request the list be expanded by 14 nations in a proposal that would open up U.S. military counternarcotics missions in new regions of the world. In Central Asia, anti-heroin efforts would be expanded to include Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. In Africa, U.S. European Command would seek to deny South American narcotraffickers from funneling their goods into Europe through ancient smuggling routes across the Pan Sahel region, which includes Niger, Mauritania, Mali and Chad.

U.S. Pacific Command would work with the governments of Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand to disrupt the flow of methamphetamines across the region, while U.S. Southern Command would explore ways to work with the governments of Panama, Guatemala and Belize to disrupt the flow of cocaine from Colombia.

Douglas said the list is in part the product of attempts to anticipate where major drug traffickers will shift their routes -- �to prevent the balloon effect from happening,� he said -- as gains are achieved in disrupting traditional supply lines.

�These countries are situated either along key drug-smuggling routes, or are facing an increasing threat of narcoterrorism,� according to a DOD analysis of why the new Legislation is required. �Enhanced interdiction capabilities for the countries listed in this legislation are critical to U.S. efforts to stem the flow of illicit drugs and to reduce the threat of narcoterrorism to struggling democracies.�

The military's effort to expand non-lethal support is dwarfed by the roughly $1 billion a year the Pentagon spends on counterdrug activities in Colombia and Afghanistan. The aggressive program to fight the cocaine scourge in Colombia includes U.S.-provided helicopters and intelligence to support military operations against both drug smugglers as well as guerrillas financed by the narcotics trade.

Douglas oversees the Pentagon's counternarcotics office in the office of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, which sustains 1,400 civilians in positions around the world working full time on fighting drugs.

A relatively small part of their focus concerns the expanded authority being sought to offer more countries a wider array of non-lethal assistance. Still, this effort could provide important dividends, analysts say.

�It's a way of expanding American influence in areas where we are concerned that we may see activity that is damaging to the United States or the stability of a country which is important to us,� Raphael Perl, a senior policy analyst specializing in international terrorism and counternarcotics activity at the Congressional Research Service, said in an interview.

The House Armed Services Committee, in its version of the fiscal year 2007 defense-spending bill released yesterday, provided only $60 million of the $80 million the Pentagon is seeking for this non-lethal counterdrug assistance. Further, the House committee bill does not allow the Defense Department to apply the new authority to nations in Southeast Asia or Africa. At press time, the Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the defense authorization bill was not available.

The House committee also directed the Pentagon, in consultation with the State Department, to prepare a counterdrug plan for the governments that are provided support under the authority the Pentagon wishes to expand.