Description:
The election of President Juan Manuel Santos in Columbia marks a new era in Columbian security policy. Instead of focusing on a solely military solution to conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as his predecessor did, Santos has committed to a multifaceted effort to resolve the dispute. In spite of this hope, the Santos administration has failed to implement many critical non-military policy proposals. Like Santos, the scholarly community has ignored important comparative studies of counterterrorism. This essay attempts to fill a gap in the literature by framing a discussion of the FARC in light of new advances in counterinsurgency studies. While the field has progressed in its conceptions of insurgency in light of the rise and success of al-Qaida, lessons learned here have not sufficiently spread to other networks. Scholarship in the last decade has revealed that negotiating with insurgent networks is best done in nimble and discreet ways, not in black and white. This paper pools new knowledge on the topic of counterinsurgency and applies it to the dynamic conflict in Colombia. A comparative analysis of the historical demise of insurgent networks, combined with important lessons learned in the War on Terror, will add theoretical weight to current policy proposals, as well as generate new recommendations for Colombian strategic security.