Important aspects of regional dynamics now facilitate military
support for democracy and peaceful conflict resolution in the
Western Hemisphere. But success will still require efforts from
both civilian and military leaders. In this article I will offer
and discuss ten observations that describe the current status of
inter-American security relationships and that shape what might
lie ahead. 1. Conditions in the Western Hemisphere have greatly
improved over the past generation. Change toward a more
harmonious regional order is broadly evident. With Canada,
Mexico, and the United States in NAFTA, with the anglophone
Caribbean as stoutly democratic as ever, and with the end of
dictatorships in South America complementing the end of
internationalized conflicts in Central America, the 1994 Miami
Summit credibly set forth the integration of the entire Western
Hemisphere as a common goal. In sharp contrast to military
rivalries in other parts of the world, Argentina and Brazil have
ended their nuclear competition an