The eagle and the snowman: United States policy toward Colombia during the presidential administration of Ernesto Samper (1994--1998)

This dissertation focuses on United States policy toward Colombia during the years 1994--1998. It argues that US policy toward Colombia was overwhelmingly driven by factors related to a polemical domestic issue---the "war on drugs". These domestic roots of US policy, along with the fact that Colombia was largely considered to be a "non-crisis" case, meant that US actions were characterized by competition and lack of coordination among the involved government agencies and US Congress. Yet, seeing as how the particular domestic-driven issue of the war on drugs was considered to be in the United States' national interest, a surprising amount of consensus existed among these disparate government agencies and officials.; On the international level of analysis, this bureaucratic form of foreign policy did not, however, prevent the United States from pursuing its domestic-driven objectives in a highly unilateral manner. This style of diplomacy was motivated by the fact that the "war on drugs" was deemed to be in its national interest. The United States was able to implement such a policy since Colombia was a much weaker state, and was thus not able to stand up to the United States in any credible manner.; Chapter One constructs a foreign policy decision making model that serves as the "lens" through which the analysis of this case study is made. This chapter also places the case of Colombia within the literature on US policy toward Latin America since the end of the Cold War. The next two chapters provid the historical evolution of both US-Colombian relations and Colombia's armed conflict and narcotics-related issues. Chapters Four and Five analyze the case of US policy during the years of Ernesto Samper's presidential administration. Chapter Six places this case in comparative context; it also makes predictions as to the nature of overall US policy toward Latin America.