War Is Boring

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN Mexico No story has received as much in attention last week as the death of Mexico’s interior minister, Francisco Blake Mora, in a helicopter crash on the morning of Nov. 11. Effectively the vice president in a country without one, head of domestic affairs and CISEN, Mexico’s equivalent of the CIA, Blake [...]

by DAVID AXE Last year the U.S. Navy re-established its 4th Fleet to oversea operations in Latin America. It was part of a broader effort to push naval forces into previously neglected regions, in a bid to build new partnerships and encourage world stability. For its first 18 months, 4th Fleet, headquartered in Florida, sent [...]

By ZACH ROSENBERG Mexicans have some interesting views on drugs and drug violence. On one hand, 95 percent believe that illegal drugs are a big problem, with 73 percent naming them as a very big problem. On the other hand, Mexico leads the recent Latin American trend towards going easy on drug users, having recently [...]

by DAVID AXE In August last year, the senior officer aboard USS Kearsarge, a U.S. Navy ship deployed to Latin America, issued an unusual order. Capt. Frank Ponds ordered the hundreds of sailors, Marines, soldiers and airmen under his command to avoid using the term “troops” when describing themselves to Latin American reporters. At the time [...]

by DAVID AXE In April, the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort – a converted, 70,000-ton tanker — sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, carrying 900 doctors, nurses and engineers from the U.S. military, civilian agencies, non-government charities and even foreign navies. Their mission: to deliver free medical, dental and veterinary care, plus engineering assistance, to impoverished communities [...]

The U.S. Navy is no stranger to humanitarian missions. But with the emergence of “smart-power” doctrine, focused on building alliances and exporting stability, professional capacity and good governance to what Tom Barnett calls “the gap” of the developing world, Navy humanitarians have found themselves on the front lines of U.S. and world security, especially in [...]

The U.S. Navy is no stranger to humanitarian missions. But with the emergence of “smart-power” doctrine, focused on building alliances and exporting stability, professional capacity and good governance to what Tom Barnett calls “the gap” of the developing world, Navy humanitarians have found themselves on the front lines of U.S. and world security, especially in [...]

The U.S. Navy is no stranger to humanitarian missions. But with the emergence of “smart-power” doctrine, focused on building alliances and exporting stability, professional capacity and good governance to what Tom Barnett calls “the gap” of the developing world, Navy humanitarians have found themselves on the front lines of U.S. and world security, especially in [...]

The U.S. Navy is no stranger to humanitarian missions. But with the emergence of “smart-power” doctrine, focused on building alliances and exporting stability, professional capacity and good governance to what Tom Barnett calls “the gap” of the developing world, Navy humanitarians have found themselves on the front lines of U.S. and world security, especially in [...]

The U.S. Navy is no stranger to humanitarian missions. But with the emergence of “smart-power” doctrine, focused on building alliances and exporting stability, professional capacity and good governance to what Tom Barnett calls “the gap” of the developing world, Navy humanitarians have found themselves on the front lines of U.S. and world security, especially in [...]

The U.S. Navy is no stranger to humanitarian missions. But with the emergence of “smart-power” doctrine, focused on building alliances and exporting stability, professional capacity and good governance to what Tom Barnett calls “the gap” of the developing world, Navy humanitarians have found themselves on the front lines of U.S. and world security, especially in [...]

The U.S. Navy is no stranger to humanitarian missions. But with the emergence of “smart-power” doctrine, focused on building alliances and exporting stability, professional capacity and good governance to what Tom Barnett calls “the gap” of the developing world, Navy humanitarians have found themselves on the front lines of U.S. and world security, especially in [...]