A Review of From Peril to Partnership: US Security Assistance and the Bid to Stabilize Colombia and Mexico

Oxford University Press, in collaboration with The Council on Foreign Relations, published Paul J. Angelo’s much-anticipated monograph in March 2024. The book is a comparative study, focusing on U.S. security policy to two countries in Latin America at roughly the same period, i.e. during the first fifth of the 21st century. From Peril to Partnership represents a nearly 20-year focus by the author on Latin America in general, Colombia and Mexico, specifically.

From Peril to Partnership: US Security Assistance and the Bid to Stabilize Colombia and Mexico by Paul J. Angelo (Oxford University Press, 2024, 420 pages).

Angelo, a “Washington insider,” graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy rising to the rank of lieutenant; he worked at the Council as an expert on Latin America and is currently the director of the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense University in Washington D.C. 

Angelo is also a scholar—a Rhodes Scholar, in fact, having been selected for the prestigious award in 2006. He spent a couple of years in the United Kingdom at Oxford, studying politics, history and Latin American affairs (notably with the late British historian Malcolm Deas, “Colombianista” to the core). Angelo decided to return to England upon the conclusion of his military obligations in the United States and completed the Ph.D. degree with the late Kevin Middlebrook, a scholar of Latin American politics at University College in London. Middlebrook, an American working in London, was an expert on politics, Latin America, democratization and, more specifically, Mexico. 

It’s important to insert a disclaimer right about here. I know Paul Angelo, having met him at a LASA (Latin American Studies Association) meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2006. Ironically, it was at the most recent LASA conference in Bogotá in June 2024 where ReVista editor June Carolyn Erlick asked if I’d be willing to review the big bright blue book I happened to be holding when I ran into her on the Septima—Bogotá’s 7th Avenue. Saturated with work at the time and struggling through low-oxygen intake at the high-altitude Colombian capital city, I grudgingly agreed. I also know that no one says no to June. 

Paul Angelo is a fast, animated and maybe frenetic talker; he speaks not just in full paragraphs, but in complete pages. The 420-page book—a revised and updated version of his doctoral dissertation—reflects Paul’s infectious enthusiasm, and is testament to the breadth, depth and range of his thinking.   

Angelo, expert on Latin American history and politics, is a “generalist” to some degree. He’s traveled widely in the region (thanks in large measure to the U.S. Navy) and Latin America, to him, is more than “a problem to be solved”—it’s a series of never-ending opportunities for academic growth and personal fulfillment. But, if he were forced to choose, Angelo would characterize himself as a Colombianist—a non-Colombian scholar/student of the South American nation of 50 million inhabitants. Angelo has lived in Bogotá for extended periods of time, he has a clear, unsentimental and pragmatic understanding of Colombian history and has forged significant ties with scholars, political people/diplomats and military officers in both the capital city and the north coast, especially in Cartagena with its historic and significant naval presence. 

The text is clearly, logically organized: it is not theoretically cumbersome and it neither obfuscates nor vacillates in its evaluation of Plan Colombia–a resounding success–or the Mérida Initiative, a colossal failure. 

Plan Colombia is generally defined as an 11- or 12-year program that directed about 11 billion dollars in Security Assistance to Colombia beginning with the Clinton Administration in 2000. Colombia faced serious challenges in the late 1990s when membership in the armed insurgency group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colomba (the FARC) reached perhaps 30,000 individuals. The FARC never held a strategic advantage in this conflict, nor did they dream of taking over Colombia and running the government, i.e. 1950s Fidel-style. They did disrupt weekend vacation plans of the Colombian urban/middle class, they kidnapped and killed innocent civilians and engaged an under-equipped and under-funded barracks-based military. They were unreliable partners in early peace negotiations—most notably the Pastrana Peace Plan which collapsed in early 2002, leading inexorably to President Álvaro Uribe (2002-10) and the “mano dura” approach.   

Uribe’s heavy hand and support from Plan Colombia led to a lengthy peace process with the FARC that concluded in 2016 with the signing of peace accords. Uribe had boasted that he’d “kill” his way out of the conflict with the FARC (i.e. totally eradicate them) but he didn’t and couldn’t. Like most modern conflicts that are historic, complex and lengthy, negotiated settlements represent the most efficacious way forward. 

The Mérida Initiative (2007-16) directed billions of dollars in security assistance to Mexico. The thinking in DC among the think tanks and military/diplomatic class was “what works in Colombia ought to work in Mexico” but nothing could be further from reality. The book’s author knows this, and the military people should have known it, but they were distracted at the time by the unnecessary war they lost in the Middle East, in Iraq. Of the metrics used to evaluate the success of Plan Colombia (involving reductions in criminal activity, homicide levels, and advancing judicial reform), none returned optimistic outcomes or suggested success in the Mexican case.   

Mexico, currently, is the leading trade partner with the United States yet the homicide level there remains stubbornly high at about 26 killed per 100,000 residents. This puts Mexico in line with Colombia—with about the same homicide rate in 2022—as nations with very high homicide rates. The U.S. homicide statistic, high by Western democracy standards, was 6.3 per 100,000 residents in 2022.  

Much of this murder and mayhem, in Colombia and Mexico (and the United States), results from disputes over illegal narcotics. Angelo understands this and though it’s outside the purview of the book under review here, the solution to the narcotics crisis in the Americas is to dump billions of dollars not into security assistance but into public health programs and initiatives, mostly at the site of consumption—the demand side. That approach has never been attempted and many problems in the Americas could be solved simultaneously within a generation, via a serious commitment to this refocus and emphasis. 

Angelo has carefully and copiously studied the secondary literature pertaining to the topic at hand; in fact, his bibliography extends to about 100 pages—excessive for this reader—but I have no doubt he’s reviewed all the items listed at the back of the book. He’s “created” much of the sourcing by commitment to extensive interviews in Colombia, Mexico, the United States and other places. A careful reading of the book’s notes elucidates the enormity of this research project. 

The book is not an “easy read”— it’s authoritatively written, not overly theoretical but a bit wonky in tone and thus, the prose, in places, presents as less than poetic. From Peril to Partnership requires and demands the complete attention of the reader as it reflects the mindset of the author. Angelo has much information to share, built up and stored over two decades, and he’s eager to engage with his readers. The book’s blue cover—captivating and compelling but not necessarily clarifying—was designed by Honduran graphic artist Pablo Cortés. 

Books like this need to be written and published. Paul Angelo’s definitive, comparative study on one region of the world reminds us of the billions of dollars spent on policy initiatives and often, there are good outcomes, but sometimes results are less than satisfying. In the worst case, initiative and funding can exacerbate the crisis at hand, which seems to be the case with Mérida. Diplomats, policy people, military people and politicians make a lot happen in the world—particularly when billions of dollars are sloshing around. The academic class gets to evaluate and criticize the work of the Washington class and Paul J. Angelo is uniquely suited—with a strong, steady and serene presence in each camp—to both contribute to and comment on policy initiatives in the Americas during these extraordinarily challenging times. 

Michael LaRosa is associate professor of history at Rhodes College in Memphis. He focuses on the history of modern Colombia.