ABSTRACT
This paper will discuss the role of the US Military Engineers - Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force - and the concept of Nation Development and its role in the emerging deter-stability-win equation of national security. My hands-on experience in this area in Latin America is somewhat dated, but my vantage point from a policy perspective in Washington might be useful. My two great efforts while I was assigned to US Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) were to advocate that we discard the term 'Nation Building' because of its baggage and instead substitute the phrase 'Nation Development' and to urge acceptance of the notion that joint, combined and interagency Nation Development campaign plans could and should be developed. In my view Nation Development is a strategic imperative for the achievement of United States security interests in Latin America . . . and I suggest that the events of the post-Cold War era simply reinforce that belief. As we move from a strategy of containment to one of collective engagement, the instrumentalities for achieving these US national security interests are both more sophisticated and inter-related than at any time in the past. A strategy of peacetime engagement, forward presence, and crisis response to protect American interests will be more difficult to implement than in the Cold War years.
