DoD security aid to Latin America and the Caribbean: 2008-2012
We recently obtained reports from the Defense Department that detail the department’s allocations and spending on foreign-assistance related programs in Latin America in 2011 and 2012. The programs included in the report were Section 1033 Counter-Drug Assistance, Section 1004 Counter-Drug Assistance and the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program (also known as Counter-Terrorism Fellowship Program). The DoD funds a couple other security assistance programs in Latin America and the Caribbean, but the majority goes to counternarcotics assistance through these programs.
Based on these new numbers and other available DoD data, here's some of what we know about DoD security assistance to the region:
The top five recipients of Department of Defense military and police aid to Latin America and the Caribbean in 2012:
1. Mexico: $71,608,748
2. Colombia: $60,353,979
3. Western Hemisphere Regional: $16,425,000
4. Guatemala: $12,525,080
5. Honduras: $ 8,473,271
Everywhere else: $54,146,129
Total:$223,674,189, or about 31 percent of total U.S. military assistance to the region in 2011 ($719,903,342)
The top five recipients in 2011:
1. Colombia: $112,436,613
2. Caribbean Regional: $93,022,000
3. Mexico:$85,543,892
4. Western Hemisphere Regional: $66,844,000
5. Netherlands Antilles (Curaçao): $22,603,000
Everywhere else: $101,331,939
Total:$481,781,444, or about 46 percent of total U.S. military assistance to the region in 2011 ($1,041,075,954)
In 2012, Pentagon foreign-assistance spending in the region was cut in half. The biggest drops were seen in assistance to Colombia, which was cut by almost half, from just over $112 million to just over $60 million, the Caribbean, which was reduced from $93 million to $7 million, and the Western Hemisphere regional account, which dropped from almost $69 million to $16 million. Mexico only lost about $15 million in funding and overtook Colombia as the region’s top recipient of Pentagon foreign assistance.
The "Netherlands Antilles" has received heightened DoD funding since about 2004 for counternarcotics assistance. The Dutch territory was dissolved in 2010 and its constituent islands -- Curaçao, Aruba, Bonaire, Dutch St. Martin, Saba and St. Eustatius -- now have varying legal statuses within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, however the Dutch government is still responsible for the islands' defense. In 2011, the Pentagon gave just over $20 million to the island of Curaçao, right off Venezuela's coast, where the Dutch maintain a naval base and the United States maintains an airbase. The Dutch have been a key partner to the United States in antidrug operations in the Caribbean and participate in Operation Martillo, the United States' counternarcotics surge operation in Central and South America's coastal waters. The islands received no funding in 2012.
Because of the enormous drop in spending in the Caribbean and the Netherlands Antilles after 2011, Guatemala and Honduras slid up into the top spots for Pentagon foreign assistance in 2012, although both countries received greater sums in 2011 than in 2012.
Guatemala received just over $20 million in assistance from the Pentagon in 2011 and just over $12 million in 2012. Much of this went to the Guatemalan Army, which until this year was banned from receiving any funds from State Department-managed programs due to human rights concerns. Because these human rights conditions do not apply to Defense Department spending, the United States was able to get around this ban. For 2014, aid to the Guatemalan Army through the State Department is technically allowed, but has strong human rights conditions attached that Secretary of State Kerry must first certify Guatemala is meeting before any funding is released.
Among the several initiatives the Defense Department is funding in Guatemala is the Joint Task Force Tecún Umán, along the Mexican border, Joint Task Force Chortí, currently being set up along the Honduran border, a planned joint task force near the El Salvadoran border, and a Naval Special Forces unit operating in coastal areas. Guatemala is also a participant in Operation Martillo.
The top five recipients from 2008-2012 and the total amount each country received in those five years were:
1. Colombia: $601,529,271
2. Caribbean Regional: $445,380,000
3. Mexico: $310,692,603
4. Western Hemisphere Regional: $294,199,000
5. Netherlands Antilles: $93,290,000
Everywhere else: $450,534,672
Total: $2,202,225,546 or about 36 percent of total U.S. military assistance to the region over those five years ($6,043,212,995)
As the above and below charts show, spending to the region overall is in decline. As this Mother Jones article from January of this year highlighted, although big spending in the region for the Pentagon is down, there may be no similar decline in the number of Special Operations Forces in the region performing counternarcotics operations and “building partner capacity.”
However, according to this year’s Quadrennial Defense Review, which broadly outlines DOD strategy and priorities, “If sequestration continues, there would be fewer U.S. military forces in other regions, such as the Western Hemisphere and Africa, than there are today.”
With the exception of 2011, the Pentagon has tended to spend a little over half of what the State Department has allocated. In 2011, the budgets for both were close, but this had more to do with a large drop in counternarcotics funding to Haiti and the large allocation of Mérida funds to Mexico in 2010 ($416,139,000) than it did with a change in Pentagon spending levels. For the most part, the State Department allocates more funding than the Defense Department, with notable exceptions in regional-specific spending and countries where, for either political reasons (Ecuador) or human rights reasons (Honduras and Guatemala), State Department funding is low.
