ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the range of pressures that the civilian presidents must deal with as they seek not only to establish their governing authority but also to respond to the considerable pressure being placed on them from the United States. The reality of dual leadership in the war on drugs has created a host of domestic problems for the civilian presidents of Latin America. Although the drug crisis has touched some countries more than others in Latin America, it nevertheless is an issue that reveals the complex challenges of leadership in this region. The drug wars fought in Latin America are thus in many respects capitalism's version of the wars of national liberation that spread throughout the less-developed world in the 1960s. Latin American presidents who head nations that are engulfed in the drug wars face a challenge more difficult to overcome than controlling the transfer of huge amounts of money or strengthening the institutional framework.
