In Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats, Winifred Tate constructs a fresh and critical interpretation of Plan Colombia, the US aid package approved by the US Congress in July 2000 which has totaled roughly ten billion dollars. As Tate rightly notes, at least in Washington, DC, the policy is often celebrated and widely deemed a great success, especially if one views it in relation to more recent, notable misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Employing a wide-ranging anthropological approach and developing a richly detailed “embedded ethnography” of the aid package (p. 15), Tate forcefully disagrees with that popular view. She buttresses her dissent with persuasive arguments that should temper the triumphalism one occasionally hears about Plan Colombia. But in fashioning a balanced and hard-headed assessment of the aid package, scholars should also recognize the package’s contribution to helping Colombia assert the democratic authority of the state. In this respect, the timing of Tate’s book is especially propitious. From all accounts, the Colombian government of President Juan Manuel Santos is on the verge of reaching a final peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which would thus bring an end to the Western Hemisphere’s only ongoing armed conflict. 

Full review via H-Diplo.