[SS from essay by Paul J. Angelo, the Director of the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies and a Foreign Area Officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve. He is the author of *From Peril to Partnership: U.S. Security Assistance and the Bid to Stabilize Colombia and Mexico*. The views expressed here are his own.]
Now more than ever, Latin America needs help with its security. In 2023, more than 40 of the world’s 50 most murderous cities were in Latin America and the Caribbean. A lethal mix of readily available firearms; illicit commodities such as drugs, weapons, and illegally mined precious metals; and growing government corruption has dramatically strengthened the region’s transnational gangs, cartels, and Mafias. In Ecuador, drug gangs are using extortion and wanton violence to make the country one of the world’s most violent, contributing to an unprecedented exodus of ordinary citizens.
From the beginning, the [Biden administration](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/topics/biden-administration) has elevated the importance of the Western Hemisphere, not least in its 2022 National Security Strategy, which asserts that the region’s pressing problems of democratic erosion, mass migration, environmental degradation, and transnational crime are now matters of U.S. national security. To address the crisis, President Joe Biden pledged to “get to work building the future this region deserves” in 2022. But amid other urgent security concerns, such as Russia’s war in Ukraine and containing China, Washington’s rhetoric about Latin America has not been matched by decisive action. Recent U.S. strategy has focused more on enhancing economic opportunity—by mobilizing private investment, supporting regional entrepreneurs, and extending climate-conscious development loans—than bolstering local security forces. Although economic initiatives can help address joblessness and the incentives of gang affiliation, even more urgent is the task of giving regional police and military forces the training and resources they need to counter the far-reaching security threats that are preventing normal economic life from taking place.
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[SS from essay by Paul J. Angelo, the Director of the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies and a Foreign Area Officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve. He is the author of *From Peril to Partnership: U.S. Security Assistance and the Bid to Stabilize Colombia and Mexico*. The views expressed here are his own.]
Now more than ever, Latin America needs help with its security. In 2023, more than 40 of the world’s 50 most murderous cities were in Latin America and the Caribbean. A lethal mix of readily available firearms; illicit commodities such as drugs, weapons, and illegally mined precious metals; and growing government corruption has dramatically strengthened the region’s transnational gangs, cartels, and Mafias. In Ecuador, drug gangs are using extortion and wanton violence to make the country one of the world’s most violent, contributing to an unprecedented exodus of ordinary citizens.
From the beginning, the [Biden administration](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/topics/biden-administration) has elevated the importance of the Western Hemisphere, not least in its 2022 National Security Strategy, which asserts that the region’s pressing problems of democratic erosion, mass migration, environmental degradation, and transnational crime are now matters of U.S. national security. To address the crisis, President Joe Biden pledged to “get to work building the future this region deserves” in 2022. But amid other urgent security concerns, such as Russia’s war in Ukraine and containing China, Washington’s rhetoric about Latin America has not been matched by decisive action. Recent U.S. strategy has focused more on enhancing economic opportunity—by mobilizing private investment, supporting regional entrepreneurs, and extending climate-conscious development loans—than bolstering local security forces. Although economic initiatives can help address joblessness and the incentives of gang affiliation, even more urgent is the task of giving regional police and military forces the training and resources they need to counter the far-reaching security threats that are preventing normal economic life from taking place.