Welcome to the Wynn. See a podcast. This is Jack. Today, we have a special treat from The Irregular Warfare podcast. The episode is called the Columbia plan, then Jeb and call at well interview. Dr. David Spencer from the National Defense University and Alberta Jose. Maria Ferraro the former commander of the military forces of Colombia a discuss, how the u.s. and Colombia work together to end the Insurgency and bring stability to the region. Ian. It's a really terrific episode.
I think you're going to like it. So enjoy. At the very beginning because of force protection measures most of the Americans, they could only be and very safe locations and they couldn't really be in forward locations in a more difficult environment. But after a couple of years, the US government allowed them to go there. And in my opinion that really transform the relationship. Cuz now the picture is were owned by the two sides. Any people kill or injure in action, we the two sides were
suffering. So I think what really makes a difference is when you have a partner that is really determined to win their own War, then the United States and come in and we can help them or enhance their ability to win their own. And I think that's fundamental and I think it's often missed when we discuss you know, Insurgency and irregular warfare. Welcome to episode 54 of the irregular warfare podcast. I am Kyle at well and I am your host today.
Along with Ben. Jeb, today's episode is on the topic of plan Colombia which was a United States initiative to assist the Colombian government in its fight against drug cartels. And insurgents plan Colombia has been described as a model of successful counterinsurgency at a time when large Footprints in Iraq.
And Afghanistan have had mixed results, our guests reflect on their extensive first-hand, experience to outline, the key components of plan Colombia, Mia and more broadly to discuss its successes and shortcomings. As a model for counterinsurgency in the future, Alberto Jose Mejia, Pharaoh served as the general commander of the military forces of Colombia, the senior military officer in the country.
He also served as the commander of the Colombian Army and as the Colombian ambassador to Australia, General Mejia has worked closely with American forces throughout the duration of his career, and he provides a unique perspective on foreign internal defense and Military advising from the perspective of the supported country. Dr. David Spencer is a professor at the William James Perry Center for hemispheric defense studies at the National Defense University.
He has worked for think tanks, and in government as a policy expert on South America, in 2016, he co-authored a great, perhaps Columbia conflict, and Divergence which Chronicles, the evolution of plan, Colombia, and serves as the basis. For today's conversation, you are listening to The Irregular
Warfare podcast. Joint production of the Princeton empirical studies of conflict project and the Modern War Institute, at West Point, Dental, Dedicated to Bridging, the Gap between Scholars and practitioners to support the community of irregular warfare professionals. Here's our conversation with General Mejia and Professor Spencer, General Mejia. Dr. David Spencer. Welcome to The Irregular Warfare podcast. We're excited to have you here today.
Thanks, it's going to be here. Thank you very much, Kyle. It's an honor to be here. So today we're going to discuss what lessons for the future of irregular. Warfare. We can take from plan Colombia. This is particularly relevant as plan. Colombia has generally been viewed as its put in your book David as a quote shining success story for both Columbia but also for how the u.s. can build partner capacity.
And conduct foreign internal defense before we get into the meat of analyzing what work and did not work during plan Colombia, it'll be helpful to provide a quick overview of what plan Colombia was. And why it's a topic worth knowing about David. You've written extensively and lived plan Colombia, can you outline the very broad Strokes of, you know what it was to help frame the conversation?
Plan Colombia was originally the dress Pastrana government strategy, to deal with both narcotics and gorillas under that plan, the United States had a solely counter-narcotics focus. In fact, we did a lot of things to separate our involvement in Colombia, in counter-narcotics from the war, against the farc and the other Insurgent groups, what time period is that we started focusing on kind of Narcotics, 1999, is when plan Colombia started.
And I think some people Think the plan Colombia is kind of still going, but I would say 2016 when the peace agreement was signed with farc although you know residuals I think keep on going, it kind of started as a Counter Narcotics Focus even though there was this Insurgency going on in the background, correct. In fact, we were very determined not to get involved with the Insurgency right to focus on counter-narcotics and our justification for doing without.
It was the, you know, the Cold War had ended. We were no longer in the business of counterinsurgency, obviously this Pre Iraq. And also we rationalized it by saying that we knew that farc was receiving, a lot of funding through narcotics and actually all of the enemies of the state and Columbia. We're getting a lot of money
from counter-narcotics. And so we rationalize it by saying if we focus on doing counter-narcotics then this will contribute to Bringing General piece across the country and of course that evolved over time then by the end of plan Colombia, really was more of a whole-of-government approach to look at all of corn. Be has problems too. To include narcotics and insurgents and that's what it
ended up being. And so most people usually when they think plan Colombia the think of what it ended up being and not what it started out as so if I understood correctly you're saying that plan Colombia started out as an effort to Counter Narcotics and then kind of morphed into more of a counterinsurgency fight which is fascinating in its own, right.
But I was wondering if you could break it down a little further, did it involve sending a transferring military equipment or actually deploying US troops to trans curity forces and enhance the Colombian military Doctrine or It was some combination of, you know, cross-section of approaches, these comprehensive plan. It was really a mix of different approaches different strategies. It did have an economic approach, a fiscal and financial strategy.
Also it intended to support the peace process approach. But at the same time, it really had a big impact over the military force and the National Police restructuring, our forces and also help it anymore. Modernization programs. One piece that it was very, very important was the judicial piece, which was very, very strong on human rights. Of course, content Architects, alternative development, which in my view is still one of the most difficult pieces of content
narcotics. And we're still struggling are not being very successful in trying to replace illegal crops by legal agriculture, also strong social strategy. Which in my view, brought our basic Civic action Doctrine into a higher level, what we call integral action, which is very important and finally human development strategy, which also tended to help, education, and health.
And finally, the tenth piece of these comprehensive approach is international strategy, Columbia, try to reach other partners in Europe, other countries in the region to help. But at the very end, We were left with our greatest and only Ally in these, the US. So overall, the plan was supposed to be a 7.5 billion dollar plan. I think over three or five years. I can't remember the exact number of years.
And the only part of that plan that got fully funded, was the United States part was focused on counter-narcotics. But I think one of the most important elements of that plan, was the helicopter program we put in, I think about 900 million dollars worth of hardware, and then another 200 million worth of other things to support the air component. And the reason that's important is all of that air power was designed to go after narcotics, but it ended up being a very
important plank. Once the plan was expanded Beyond counter-narcotics to a more holistic counterinsurgency and National development type of program. So yes, the plan was holistic, it was ambitious, but in the end plan Colombia, least the initial plan under President under this plus Donna didn't get off the ground in the comprehensive way that generally he just described and that came later Or that came later under prison president. When he, he was a mommy? No. Such difficulties for the
country. Let's go back a little bit to the whole region. Having a static look at what was happening after the railing. What went down most institutions in Latin America disappear and the only Insurgency that continues to present a challenge against democracy was farc and Columbia near Lane especially and perhaps all Because of the economic support and financial support of narco-trafficking. So it was a big challenge for the US are the production narcotics was increasing because of these.
And, of course, you can imagine the impact of this production. In Central America, the Caribbean Venezuela, and of course, the u.s. So South come in my view in my military perspective. Play a vital role in reading. This is static environment. Aunt and the Colombian relationship with Socom is really, really very tight.
Of course, they are not part of our military organizations, but this partnership, it goes from planning processes from exchanges from constant exchange of intelligence, and almond other aspects. So, these relationship between South command, the Colombian military helps in a way to, to have a better understanding of the problem and politically speaking. Pastrana a Henry Way the two of them they were very close to the US government.
The two of them have a strong tights with very important senators and politicians in the US. So the whole environment in my view was you know perfectly organized to serve these comprehensive study. Don't forget David. One thing that you mentioned in your papers is Colombia also invested three billion dollars of his own body. Budget in support of all these strategies. There are two things that I think are fundamental to understanding Columbia.
Number one, this is really kind of the first major Insurgency in Latin America, maybe in the world as well. It's kind of the transition between the Cold War Dynamic to this post Cold War, where your Insurgency is being funded by illicit economies, right? Because prior to that it was really the Soviets and their allies that were funding and funneling money to a lot of these organizations. So this is a real important transition from kind of the
classic Model, two things. That we're more familiar with day. The second thing that I think is really important to emphasize and it can't be overstated. Is the Synergy that existed between the Colombians and the Americans? I started going down there really getting involved in this conflict in 1996 and I just always felt like I was part of the Colombian team.
I never felt like I was a foreigner working with another Army. I just always felt like I was the way, they would say it in Spanish, is they say, but obviously Tapas which means own forces you're one of us.
And I always felt that That way. And I've had multiple friends in the US Military and the other us Services, it was just very easy to walk into a Colombian headquarters or, you know, Colombian unit and just start working with them because they immediately accepted you and the development of Doctrine and processes since the 1950s had been so synergistic with us, that it was very easy, just to fit in. And I think, almost anybody at work down, there would say the
same thing. It was really extraordinary more. So than El Salvador, which is where I was before. David when considering lessons for the future of a regular Warfare from playing Columbia, how relevant of a comparison is, is to Iraq and Afghanistan. Some have argued that in the Middle East, large Footprints of US troops, was a huge mistake compared to the kind of lighter approach to using Columbia. You think that's a fair assessment of US policy and intervention.
I think that's the wrong element to focus on. I think every war has its own requirements. I think the real difference between Colombia El Salvador, Iraq and Afghanistan. Is National will in Colombia. We had a partner that wanted to win and they were going to do it with or without us in some ways and obviously with us, it was better. And so large Footprints. I think sometimes are indicative of the lack of Will on the locals to solve their own problem.
So I think what really makes a difference is when you have a partner that is really determined to win their own War, then the United States can come in and we can help them or enhance their ability to win their own war and I think that's fundamental Oh, and I think it's often missed when we discuss Insurgency and irregular warfare. They do conflict, even though the two of them, they could be called irregular. Conflicts are, of course, very very different. In the case of Columbia.
You have here. Not only an army and all services of the different name, military forces but you have Democratic institutions already establish. Remember that our relationship, really, really changed since the Korea War. When we were part of two different Army divisions During that conflict. After that, our relationship, the level of exchanges between the two countries was really, really very high.
One thing that we never mentioned today was the impact of the Panama Canal Zone. You know, all our military for decades, we used to send their units and individuals and ncos officers. Many people, we all went to three times their to train to learn and to really build perhaps The same kind of doxing between Colombia and the US. So in my opinion, these DNA serve at the end, the purpose of being able to work together and to share a common goal, of
course, political will. It was really, really very important. Our presidents. Our society and the Armed Forces, at this point in which our democracy was completely challenge because of the presence of The park, we were able to get together and to design a policy that will confront this Challenge. And of course, at the same time, we were able to find the perfect
partner to do this. Because during four decades, especially before President Uribe, our politicians, our governments in order to invest, in Social aspects, such as Education Health among others, invest in security investment. On the Armed Forces was the last priority plant:. India in a way help to change this presently. We came into Power by offering. Colombians look, if we want better health better roads, better infrastructure, more tourism, etc, etc, etc. We need to have a stronger
security. So that is why the nature of what was happening was completely different of what you have to confront in Iraq or Afghanistan. The reason we're kind of pushing on this is that there have been comparisons of Columbia and Iraq and Afghanistan and One of the kind of Assessments that came out of it, it's highlighted, but
what you said? Albert, those, that Columbia was essentially an easier case of foreign internal defense or counterinsurgency because it was a pre-existing democracy, because the foundation's were there for good governance.
And yet, it wasn't easy from a counter Insurgent perspective because if I understand correctly, the farc was surrounding the capital city of Columbia at the time when the kind of u.s. ramp up its support, I guess that's one of the questions is, was this kind of an easier case of counter Insurgency? Or is it just that it Every fight is unique. Well, I think there's a bit of both, right? I think.
Yes, it was easier and I think Alberto, you know, highlighted some of the reasons why I think another reason that really distinguishes Colombia from Iraq and Afghanistan, we've said it. But I want to make it explicit is that we had a long-standing relationship with Colombia and with their the institutions that had to carry out the counterinsurgency, a lot of books that talk about plan Colombia start with 1999, which is kind of, when the whole thing started.
But my book starts in 1982, The reason I started in 1982 is that's really when the United States started, providing counter-narcotics assistance to Columbia and getting involved in their internal struggle. That just shows there's a whole history there prior to 1999, which made it an ideal platform. Then build on to, then do this counterinsurgency effort.
That didn't exist in Afghanistan and Iraq, gentlemen, I'd be interested to know how we measure success in plan Colombia. What objectives did we actually accomplished and where and how did the US and Colombia come up, short? Short. I'm going to start by mentioning that in these kinds of or irregular worst. There are some really key aspects in which, the government really should focus.
One of them, is what we call in Colombia territorial control in Colombia. If you want to know in the past and present where these illegal activities are happening, you just have to build the map and find out where the Coca crops are located. Where is illicit extraction of minerals is happening and at the same time, especially in the borders were these Contraband, for example, Contraband of fuel between Venezuela and Colombia is happening.
Yes, to mention one thing. So, there are these criminal economists that growth in these very, very far away locations. It was very difficult, especially for policy makers. And for Colombian citizens, in general, to really see. Uh, the dangers of what? All these cancers because normally in the series people wasn't seeing that. Their life was kind of normal. They had go to theater to movies to restaurants Etc while very far from them.
We have like small bit Noms burning so that was very, very difficult. So to measure success for somebody's how you take control of these areas and in there, not only that you go there to destroy Coca crops to destroy collapse but by two are doing that with your own population. So you have to be very careful. When we talk about human rights at the end, we do struggle between how many hectares of
Coca, we destroy per year. How many laps we seized and burn, how many tons of cocaine we seized per year and we still confronting these challenges. Because every year we want to have higher numbers than the year before but at the same time I hear numbers represents that this strategy is not moving forward and sometimes you feel like you are in an ecstatic bike just paddling and paddling and paddling and no major changes are occurring in the field. So measuring success is very,
very difficult, more difficult. Of course if you go into the body count has Barrel. Which in my opinion, there's many examples in history, that can bring military institutions to the other SIM and today, most difficult situations. But in general we tended to build combined measures with the United States in order to please our partners to, please US Congress and at the same time to please, of course, our own institutions. Yeah, let me just add to that. 100% agree with what Alberto said.
I think that militarily. And in terms of the police that Columbia was a great success. We're able to first stop the offensive, actions of the illicit groups and in that sense, we are able to stop their offensive, push them back. And in many ways defeat them militarily or at least make them so that they're only impact on the country was tactical versus strategic. I think that was a total success. The plan Colombia goals were to Troy 50% of the Coca crops in Colombia that was achieved.
But the thing that we were never able to do was to get the civilians to step into the spaces that have been created. So militaries can open doors, they can open space so that the rest of the government can come in and establish governance and that has been much less successful in Colombia.
The same place is where we were fighting the farc from 1999 to 2000. 16 are the places where there is Coca and illicit groups Today, so governance was never established adequately, but the military was highly successful and because governance was never established adequately. The plan Colombia, successes were very fragile. So, I think the lesson is we know how to fight insurgencies. We know how to militarily defeat our enemies. We know how to find them, you
know, how to kill them. We know how to stop them. I think we get wrong everywhere. Not just in Colombia, was we haven't figured out the non-military. Terry peace yet. We made some efforts towards it and we made some progress but I think we're not there yet because as soon as you stop the military effort as soon as you stop these massive amounts of AIDS as soon as the military withdraws, the enemies come right back.
So earlier you mentioned that the u.s. address critical gaps by providing aerial reconnaissance platforms helicopters in the like and some other means to help track these ungoverned spaces. But in your opinion, what were some of the other key components that the u.s. provided to the Colombian government and Military? Help combat the ongoing Insurgency? They help us, are they operational levels? I mean Army Headquarters and Division and Joint Task forces level. They help us in.
What to me is very dear to my heart which is planning campaign planning processes. In order to really, you know, have a broader perspective in order to be able to have a stronger interagency approach for example, in order to work with other services before plan Colombia are Every single service was fighting its War individually, but I'm Colombia in my opinion will help as a glue to bring together.
Not only Army Air Force Navy. But also our national police which today is very, very dear to our heart and also the judicial Authority within the Army plan Colombia. And the u.s. approach in general was very strong in what you call in your Doctrine capabilities based planning. So you help us In areas, such as intelligence Special Operations, divining engineer's Civic action, among other areas user of fires. For example, in general not only
are. But artillery fires, you help us to strengthen first, our Doctrine second, help us to change and transform organizations to have better technology and new material and Equipment personal training. In my opinion, was vital in all of these For example, today we have I don't know perhaps more than 1,000 2,000, black of Pilots all of them. They're used to go to training the u.s. to recertify in u.s. simulators and things like that.
I did the same in a special forces and other areas and finally its strong impact of these capabilities on Military leadership, military Education and Training. And finally, one thing that for years, we really We're not very good at all. Was how to maintain all of these so capabilities based planning was like, other need. All of these plan Colombia and US efforts David. He mentioned a lot of important things, encouraging jointness specific capabilities that were effective, like, Special
Operations forces. Rotary-wing a whole bunch of important things, I'd like to get your take on. What were the most important components from what the u.s. provided to Colombia. But also, what were some things that were not? Effective that the u.s. pursued. Probably for me, the biggest difficulty in Colombia has really been getting the services to act jointly at more than the Tactical and operational level certainly, they did improve a great deal, you know, particularly air-to-ground
support. I remember in the early days, when I first went down there in the late 1990s, 1998 to 2002, get air support the troops, couldn't talk directly to the aircraft, basically, the aircraft and the troops were talking to the bird. Eight commander, who was then trying to coordinate the Tactical employment of an
aircraft over. A specific piece of terrain by relying on secondhand information, he was receiving from the different forces and all the difficulties that that implied I remember one time there is a wounded man. It took 17 hours to get evacuated because of this lack of coordination. All of that stuff was solved through plan Colombia. So at the Tactical level and even at the operational level, there was very good joint coordination and even interagency coordination, but at
higher A levels. We've never been able to implement that. And Kyle to compliment what David is saying. I agree with everything he mentioned. Remember we in Colombia we have ever developed a law like the Gulf Waters and Nichols act. That brought us forces to really work together that created opportunities in every chain of command. In order to be joint certify, I had the opportunity to go to Leavenworth and to the US Army war college. And they're disjoint part was really, really vital.
And I was very Proud to be in a way like joint certify, I try and our institutions. They continue to try to work joint. We are trying to create the necessary adjustments, and especially the incentives for people to go from, for example, Army Navy Air Force Headquarters into a joint headquarters. So, I will say yes, we have a struggle, we have sometimes. For example, I remember when President Santos, he was the minister of defense and
procedure. You was in charge of government Meant when they proposed for the first time to go. Very, very strong on jointness. I remember journals for example, resigning during those times because of that, imagine losing great people. Yes, because they don't get it, they don't understand that. We need to work together. All of that has really changed. I remember days in which we in
the Army for something. We were shocked and amazed to see the police making an operation with bombing missions with Air Force support. And the Army not going about it. Of course, you want to be part of winning, you are who you want to be part of this Victory, against criminal organizations and service organizations. But then when you take that as a listener, and you study what happened, you come to realize that within your chain of command within your own
organization. There were people, not helping not facilitated, not pushing in the same direction because at the end, everything is around. Run by humans. You know, that said. So even though I've mentioned that Gap, I think particularly the Tactical and lower operational level Colombians actually did some pretty amazing
things. So, for example, one of the issues that they had in Colombia was constant accusations of Human Rights abuses and a lot of it was because of the Gap that existed every combat operation in Colombia is a potential crime scene. They don't have a law of War so you have to stop and you have to secure the area and you have to bring in the judicial investigators to Eight, the scene, and make sure that procedures and processes were followed. But, you know, you're in combat.
So securing those scenes isn't always the easiest thing to do, and there's things that happen and then that opens up room for accusations of Human Rights abuses. And so, they'd actually did some very creative things where there were embedded police and investigative and Technical investigators that because they were embedded with the unit could immediately get to the scene and process it before, it can be changed or things could be moved.
And human rights accusations against the Colombian military, which were already low went down to essentially, zero a common through line of irregular warfare for the u.s. is working by with him through partner forces. And a lot of ink has been spilled discussing the challenges and opportunities working with partner forces and proxies from the lens of the donor, basically the u.s. lens,
right? We'd like to take this opportunity with you, both here to discuss the lessons of working with partner forces from the perspective of the recipient of military assistance. So General Mejia, what were the Opportunities challenges and frustrations of working with Americans from a partner Force lens. The professional change between your officers and also your
civilians working together. Not only in training areas but in operational areas was really, really, very important at the very beginning because of force protection measures most of the Americans. They could only be in very safe locations and they couldn't really be in forward locations
in a more difficult environment. But after a couple of years, the US when we allow them to go there and in my opinion, that really transform the relationship because now the picture is were owned by the two sides, any people kill or injure in action, the two sides were suffering to me tactically. Speaking World, very important. Can I put you on that one? A little bit because this is a really big point.
We see with US forces all over the world, is this balance between, you know, the risk of putting US forces forward with Partners first, keeping them back and safer. Occasions. And it's a huge question. On the US side of, you know, what is the benefit of pushing
these troops forward. So you're saying that there were benefits to that if you could explain that a little bit more but also be curious from the Colombian perspective where your subordinate commanders in Colombia, always willing to have American partners with them forward, where they seen as kind of a nuisance or a burden sometimes. No, we were always very, very often in some places.
For example that are safer. They could go to civilian hotels or civilian places to stay or to leave their. That approach was not seen very well by the truth because the idea is chairing, the same difficulties the same restrictions and the same struggle, but the US was smart enough to change this very rapidly at the same time. We also invested Colombian resources and US resources to build infrastructure in this forward. Arias infrastructure with Force protection measures in order to
save lives. There was chemistry, we love Americans. We like America's we always pray for them to be there with us but now the relationship was transforming and that person there was my friend my buddy and we were fighting against the same problem and he was P me to change my own operational or tactical capabilities. For example, we were not seeing the enemy movements. Completely our intelligence was partial these American officers
and ncos. They were able to call the Embassy to call South, come to call other commands and to bring the for example, satellite information. That at the end, save hundreds of lives. So his relationship was very, very important. You argue that holding US troops back to Safe locations. Was suboptimal would have been other difficulties. You have experience working with Americans over the past decades or things that the US has done with its forces. That you felt were less effective.
One of the things that affected this relationship was, of course, constant rotation. Every time we have a rotation after the couple of months bringing a new Tina bringing you leaders on it's starting again all over was kind of difficult. It was so, especially because all these special forces are very, very flexible about very smart. So they have the ability to adapt to those organization but
it was difficult. And the other thing is that I confronted them and push them very hard especially when talking about training because some teams that came back from Iraq and Afghanistan. They they try to undercover for son was to train our troops again in the basics but they were training. Professional Soldiers with 5070 combines with missions and professional Soldiers with eight ten years of experience and our people didn't want it to continue to train only the basics.
So when we push them very hard, that was with the support of course of your own chain of And that was in my opinion, tactically speaking, it turning point because they started to really train as in how to do long range, reconnaissance Patrol, how to do better direct action operations, how to really use in a better way intelligence and how to do, for example, intelligence planning of the battlefield in a better way. So, by pushing these things a little bit hard, we really Went
from one level to the order. And in my opinion today, for example, Colombian Special Operation Forces are really hot at a very, very high level. Thanks to this incredible partnership with the US. El Salvador is another case study that I've looked into myself and there was a case where we sent small teams of us advisors out to partner with Salvador and brigades often the advisors felt like they had to prove value to their Salvador and partner forces because there
was a perspective that the u.s. was just there to essentially spy and see if they were conducting human rights violations. Was there kind of this concern in Colombia that were the Americans here to actually support us or are they really just kind of like spies to report and track? Human rights violations? No, I never saw that. Never, they were our family, our
partners, our bodies. They were never there to report or tasks and to tell you the truth on the contrary, I saw, I'm sorry what I'm going to say, but I saw many Americans going a little bit further from their own restrictions. For example, the farc attack, one of my Black Hawk helicopters, and they landed in the middle of a river. / between
Ecuador and Colombia and around. Then we have a very, very big fight confronting like 200 Guerrilla Fighters, the helicopter was very, very badly damaged and I saw for example, American civilian mechanics. Call me mean, we're on Columbia mechanics and on their fire, they record that helicoptering. So when you see that and you realize that this People are really, really same block. Yes, I'm going back to El Salvador. Lot of the US Personnel.
El Salvador did the same things. It would violate the rules but to show their work so that the Brigade commanders would respect them. Now, don't think we had that much of an issue in Colombia. I think there was a better relationship but if I can on back, do shows a Rosy picture which is mostly true. Mostly true.
But I think Americans that came in and try to impose their knowledge and their experience on the Colombians Didn't do so well, the ones that did really well with the ones that came in and would Reserve judgment and would listen, you know, because as I'm about to said, a lot of the soldiers that the Americans were trying to train where men with up to 20 years, experience of combat, a constant combat that new tricks in the jungle or
ways of doing things because it was the best way to solve the problem. And so those Americans that were able to kind of hold back watch and listen and then offer, you know, Solutions, A lot better than those that would come in and say oh I was in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was in the real war. Let me show you how it's done based on what you just said David.
There seems to have been characteristics of some good advisers and then characteristics of less competent advisors Alberto from your perspective, what were the characteristics that made the best American Partners? Kind of an individual personality level or skills that level and what are some characteristics where you saw? It just didn't work out for that advisor that partner as you can imagine of course. Speaking, the language is really
very, very important. Even though all of them are trained in how to speak Spanish, not all of them really have the ability to do it. So we tend to have more confidence with that Sergeant, their captor, that major, that really have the ability to express himself in Spanish. We have also English speakers, officers, or an ncos helping in their relationship. But in my opinion, and perhaps, because Such a difficult job temple in Iraq and Afghanistan.
You have some teams that were looking to approach. Their course of action was to rest have a good time and accomplish the mission. And some of them that they have a higher dedication to the mission and less dedication to have a good time in different places of Columbia. I saw that I need really depends on leadership. And the character of Colombian and American leaders, a mature relationship in which you can come to the leader and tell him.
Look, I don't like this. I think by breaking security and you going out you are exposing the troops Etc. So even the pens on that, but I saw that as you have many and many tours in Iraq and Afghanistan Colombia, anyway, became like a third priority. If I can say like that.
So Gentlemen, We Touch on a lot of subjects today and what I'd really like to know is what are the implications from both your research and policy experience David and from your career in the military, General Mejia. What lesson should we take away from plan Colombia? Moving forward. From a policy point of view. I think the importance of the partner is key. You know, I was in the initial kind of counterinsurgency discussions in Iraq.
I've been working in Colombia for five years and I said something that wasn't very popular at the time, but I think it holds true and that is I said, the United States cannot go in and win a counterinsurgency in a foreign country. The best we can do is help a host nation when their own war. And so the quality of the partner, Is vital. And I don't think that that means that any time. We have a low-quality partner that we can't go in and help them.
I just think we need to understand that we're going to have to build up that quality in our partner at the same time that we're trying to fight the war. So I think the example of Columbia is the benefits or the positive impact that are really high quality partner has both in terms of political will in terms of their military quality. Because Columbia was a high-quality military, even if they were not Source button and other characteristics as well.
I think the second thing that really sticks out to me in terms of Columbia and particularly when illicit economies drug trafficking, illegal Mining and other types of illicit economies are involved, is the fragility of the military Victory or the military success, and and less that's followed up by significant and important non-kinetic action, to establish governance and territorial control that the Situation, can very quickly slip back into a conflict mode, and sometimes
even worse than the previous one, because now, the enemy has adapted and they've learned. Yeah. Because, again, we've taken Fark off the battlefield but they've been replaced by new actors who are more Savvy, who have learned the lessons, who are more difficult to fight. And so the importance of the non-kinetic component, which we have not gotten right in my opinion. I think one of the big problems with counterinsurgency is it?
It still is regarded in most Those mines as a military Endeavor and it really is a state Endeavor with the military component. We need to change our mindset. That counterinsurgency is a military activity. For me. Those are kind of the big planks from the policy level. It's been a 442 makers. Of course, political involvement from the top is really, really, really important in Colombia for years. Preston's, they tend to leave these counterinsurgency task to
the military. It was their mission. Action. So you on your own, see how you can be successful doing that. That approach proved historically to be very, very negative and at the very end it weakens democracy because of course, civilian control over the military is not there on the other side and especially with the US by partisans for was vital.
We are very very proud to say that and we are very proud to be able to work with the side of the house and with the Democratic side of the house we should continue in that direction because it is very important and the US Congress and US government in general, they have been very very special in support of Columbia from both sides, civil-military approach of for the campaign is very important and they mentioned this we continue to struggle in Colombia because we haven't been
able to to really bring what is called unified action into these areas of Columbia in many places of Columbia and Army Lieutenant. An army surgeon, an army captain or a marine Captain is the only presence of the state when you have that it is impossible for, you really to solve the problems for these people that are living on their, this criminal pressure and order this difficult, we already went into joint and Your agency Vision.
But I really believe that even though we have done progress, especially the interagency, a piece is continues to be complicated to implement. Just let me give you one historical example. We were building sort of owner as part of the whole campaign organization. I proposed the creation of a civilian. Sorry for the campaign in support of military commanders.
The idea was to have these star that could jump in different Ministries and bring different budgets and different support from mining Ministry, Transportation Ministry, Commerce, agriculture, Etc. And when I proposed that military leaders, they almost kill me because I was proposing to bring a civilian to the top leadership for this campaign. So, leadership in these policymaker, piece is very important. Alberto said something very
important for 40 years. The conflict in Colombia was seen as essentially a contest between irregular actors farc, eln. Paramilitaries on the one hand and military and police on the other hand and they kept on talking about well, we want to separate the civilians from the war. So you guys go up there.
You guys play in your sandbox but leave the rest of us alone and it wasn't until they had political leadership, particularly presently Bay, but starting with President Pastrana that Stood that this was really a whole of State activity and that it needed to be handled at the highest political and strategic level that things began to turn around. So there was a real Synergy that happened in Colombia. That was in some ways fortuitous.
There had been a police reform between 1996 and 1998 1999. There was essentially a military reform that happened in the first years of plan Colombia between 1999 and 2001 the United States had Come in and gotten on board the population, which would be very divided and kind of mixed about the degree to, which you had to fight, or make peace with the Guerrilla organizations or hope these talks everybody wanted to make
peace. You know, they'd seen the farc in particular, do some very terrible things and Colombians had unified on the topic of the that the state needed to come back the part and all the stuff kind of came together. And then you had the leader, the right leaders.
In this case, who do you say? And in the case of the military you had generals Tapia. In general mortar, who had come from the counterinsurgency fight, who understood that the mission that the military's Mission needed to be the fight in the past had been kind of an ad hoc Mission. You know, is kind of something that you did on the side. While you focus your institution on kind of normal development of conventional forces. I said, no, this is the focus of
the military. This is what we need to do. This is our fight and all our efforts going to be guided towards that. All those things came together in. A very happy coincidence that then helped turn the situation around. And so in some ways it was quite incidental and fortuitous.
But I think you know, trying to recreate those conditions in future conflicts would be very important Alberto, we're about to end the conversation but I want to see if you have any other thoughts from your extensive experience working with United States that you'd like to share before we do. So the only thing I will add is look the US Strategy in general. What one of the tools do you use when you use? This is called a I met program and thanks to the iPad program.
We have been able to send to the US military schools in thousands of officers and ncos and this training these curses and this certification processes have really changed the lives of many. Many of Our people in our military institutions, these people, when they come certifying, how to do, for example staff planning processes, how to be Cavalry or artillery? Using the different elements that we have here in Colombia.
They are good in how to do that because they were trained and certified it. But at the very end all these people they continue to progress in our chain of command and then they go back to more Courses. So what I'm trying to say is that all these educational and training process that is either way invisible to the conflict is very, very important because the same officers that had, for example, in a sponsor in the US are now here in Colombia is sponsoring u.s. officers and
ncos there's an officer that. So how kind are you with foreigners and with Ally officer He's in the u.s. in the different courses are the ones here, you know, providing for the protection of US, Special Forces in places like to myko San Jose, what we re Moko and some other team, who some other very hard places. So in my opinion this training and education programs are not only Waters but we need to continue to expand that thanks to what we learned there.
We have been able to continue to move. Worry, even though plan Colombia and it for our military, we had the ability to continue to fly Blackhawks to continue to strengthen our special operations to continue to have to be more technological in the way that we do. The mining all over the country for example as a result of the
peace process. So at the end we are more professional is one of the reasons why we became Global Security partners of NATO which for us is very important and now we have access to Different Excellence, training centers in Europe. For example, we have now in 80 certify Excellence training center in Colombia, in ptolemaida, in demining operations.
So now we are training people that are coming directly from Europe to train here and to be certified here, we are very proud of that and recently, President Biden announced that Colombia will become an Especial partner is the take a line on Nate. Though, is that alive? Correct me if I'm wrong with it with the major non-nato Ally? Exactly. So, all of that is because we have been able to carry these weight because you teach us and you help us understand how to do that.
And in my opinion, we have been able to prove that we have the ability at the leadership and the professional capability to move in that direction. Gentlemen, unfortunately we have run out of time. This has been a great conversation and I want to thank you for taking the time to join us today. On the irregular warfare podcast. You're welcome. Thank you very much Kyle. Thanks again for joining us for episode, 54 of the irregular warfare podcast.
We release a new episode, every two weeks in our next episode lower. And Kyle have a conversation with Michael Kaufman and Kent. Benedictus on both Russia and Ukraine sees of irregular warfare from the 2014 annexation of Crimea to Russia has 2022, invasion of Ukraine. After that, Laura and Shana discussed the bin Laden papers and more broadly, the evolution of Al Qaeda with dr.
Nelly, lahood and General David Petraeus, If you like today's conversation please be sure to subscribe to The Irregular Warfare podcast so you do not miss an episode. Also please consider leaving a review and comment on Apple podcast. This really helps to increase awareness of the podcast and to drive new listeners from the community to this resource. The Irregular Warfare podcast is part of the irregular warfare initiative. We're an all-volunteer organization.
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