Colombia: A Nation’s Struggle, Success, And Uncertain Future

>> H.R. McMaster: America and other free and open societies face crucial challenges and opportunities abroad that affect security and prosperity at home. This is a series of conversations with guests who bring deep understanding of today's battlegrounds and creative ideas about how to compete, overcome challenges, capitalize on opportunities, and secure a better future.

I am H.R. McMaster. This is Battlegrounds.

>> Presenter: On today's episode of Battlegrounds, our focus is on Colombia. Our guest, Juan Carlos Pinzón, is the former Minister of Defense of Colombia and a two-time Ambassador of Colombia to the United States. Pinzon served as Minister of defense from 2011 to 2015.

He was first appointed Ambassador to the United States in 2015 and later returned to Washington for a second term in 2021. Between his diplomatic posts, he served as President of Pro Bogota, a private nonprofit dedicated to support economic progress in Bogota. Pinzon has also held senior government roles including Chief of Staff to the President of Colombia and Deputy Minister of Defense, and served as a senior Advisor to the Executive Director at the World Bank.

He holds a bachelor's and master's degree in Economics from Pontifica Universidad Haveriana, a master's in Public Policy from Princeton University, and an honorary degree in Defense and National Security from the Colombian National War College. Columbia South America's fourth-largest country is home to over 50 million people. Indigenous civilizations thrived in the region for millennia before Spanish colonization in the early 16th century.

Colombia remained under Spanish rule until 1819 when Simon Bolivar led a nine-year independence struggle that resulted in the formation of Gran Colombia. In the 20th century, Colombia experienced cycles of political instability and violence. Following Liberal presidential candidate Jorge Alessia Gaetan's assassination in 1948, the country descended into a decade long period of unrest known as La Violencia, which subsided with the formation of the National Front in 1958.

A power-sharing agreement between liberal and conservative parties helped restore stability. It also limited political competition. Left wing rural insurgent groups, including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC and the National Liberation army, arose alongside powerful drug cartels and fueled decades of violence. An urban guerrilla group, M19, committed bold acts of violence in urban areas, including taking hostages in Bogota's Supreme Court and murdering supreme court justices in November 1985.

M19 reached a peace agreement with the government in 1990. By the end of the century, Colombia exported most of the world's cocaine and the FARC controlled vast territories funded by the narcotics trade. In response, the US and Colombian governments launched Plan Colombia in 1999, a comprehensive strategy that combined military, law enforcement and economic development initiatives to combat drug trafficking and insurgency.

This effort weakened the FARC and and the group began demobilization following a 2016 peace agreement. Colombia's political landscape shifted in 2022 with the election of Gustavo Petro, a former M19 member and self described socialist. Petro has decreased eradication of coca leaves, the origin of cocaine and limited US Colombian counter drug cooperation.

Clashes between the ELN and FARC dissidents have displaced tens of thousands in the Catatumbo region. Petro has strongly criticized the United States support for Israel and US sanctions on Venezuela, referring to U.S' positions to pressure Venezuela as a blockade. We welcome Ambassador Pinzon to discuss Colombia's evolving security landscape, its relationship with the United States and international politics in the Western hemisphere.

>> H.R. McMaster: Ambassador, Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon, Bienvenido a battlegrounds, great to have you here.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: Gracias, mijeneral. Thank you for having me.

>> H.R. McMaster: Hey, so it's a real privilege to host you and there's so much to talk about, but I'd like to as a historian, go back and tell a bit of history that you were very much involved in, and your leadership was critical in a period of time in which Colombia was in a very difficult position.

I mean, a lot of people in the late 90s, they thought Columbia's gonna be a failed state. But then something changed, right? Leadership in Colombia changed. The relationship between the US And Columbia was very successful in turning around what was a desperate situation. And could you maybe just tell your part of the history, your view of the history from 99 until when Colombia got back on the path to success, really defeated the cartels and got on a path to more security and prosperity.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: Well, General, it's an honor to be here. And being next to you, you're a living legend on national security affairs. So is a very privileged I insist, let me tell you. The first thing I wanna remind ourselves is and honor the Colombian soldiers and policemen, those who died, those who fought, because anything that we did well is because of them.

We owe them everything. And those that are still wounded and have these scars, we will have to revere and regard them forever. Now, I think Colombia really was a failed state by the end of the 90s. And we got this literature of President Pastran at the time. He got together with President Clinton and then with President Bush and they were able to craft Plan Colombia.

Plan Colombia got even the leadership of President Biden, being a member of the Senate, and Senator McCain, who I respect, highly respect for everything they did. And we moved forward and we recovered the capabilities of the military, the justice system, and we were able to expand the economic realities of the country.

Then we got a really tough, strong leader and courageous leader, President Uribe. President Uribe really got the hurdle for fighting the FARC, fighting terrorism, fighting the cartels. And we really move forward into a very effective way. By the time I got in, I was Vice Minister, Deputy Minister of defense from 2006 to 2009, and then became Minister of Defense during President Santos time from 2011 to 2015.

We really moved forward. Our military, our police, our justice system, and our partners of the United States and others really contribute to defeat the greatest terrorist organization in the history of Latin America, as simple as it is funded by drugs, funded by illegal mining, and that create that condition.

Sadly, what has happened since then, since the year 2015 towards today is a different story, and we'll speak about that. But I wanted just to honor a little bit of these successes and greatness that happened during those years.

>> H.R. McMaster: And we'll talk about how policy evolved and maybe some decisions that now, in retrospect, were not good decisions about how to consolidate the gains against the FARC and really organized crime networks that had penetrated so much into society.

But first some of the lessons from this period of time you mentioned the judiciary. And what we see with these cartels and organized crime networks, is they establish really control through fear, but also through these patronage networks, and they try to take over local governance, and intimidate judges.

You had so many courageous judges, many of whom were assassinated in this period of time. Can you talk about, besides having a determined leader like President Uribe, what it takes for a society like you had in Colombia to throw off the kind of yoke of this oppression from these terrorist organizations, these organized crime networks, and what is kind of the recipe for success that other countries might learn about?

We see Mexico, for example, now in a very precarious position because of the power of the cartels.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: Multiple things, the first is that Colombian society, out of ideology, out of being enforced, got desperate, so was the people. The people was because of suffering, because of what you described.

Judges were killed, journalists were killed, of course, our soldiers were killed, our policemen were killed. Colombian society was hostage kidnapped by these terrorists, and these criminal organizations. The country got frustrated by the year 2002, the country said, we need a real change, we need strong leadership, we need a different future.

Few things have happened. One, I think, the fact that we have a strong technocracy that was able to craft a plan, and that plan was presented during Pastrana's time to President Clinton, and then to President Bush to gain the credibility and the partnership with the theory of correspondability.

Yes, Colombia is the producer of drugs, but sadly, America is the consumer of drugs. So that partnership was out of mutual interest, fighting for a mutual cause to defeat the same enemies that were killing your people and killing our people, that was the first thing. The second thing I believe was very strong was the fact that we had a professional military.

They were underserved for many years in terms of budget, but they kept being professional and being related to U.S training and Jewish doctrine for decades. The reason why I speak English and somehow get connected to the US I'm an army brat.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: My dad was a mayor and lieutenant colonel, and he was transferred to the US on different occasions, and that's how we connected.

But it's just a simple example to say that there was a multiple set of leaders and military generations that got ready for the right moment, so they were ready. Then as a society, I think there are few, we decide to create a wealth tax. So the wealthiest Colombians pay a very big chunk of money to recover security and recover stability in the country.

So we Colombians not only put our lives, not only did the fight for us. America gave us training, knowledge, technology, and capability but was Colombian blood, Colombian flesh that was in front, but then Colombian people's money creating these network. And then I think that you describe all these, the need of leadership, the need of people that took the hurdle and took the political cost for doing this was really important.

My final point will be that democracy persevere. In most of the cases of the problems similar to Colombia, it ends with a dictatorship, it ends with some kind of disruption, coup d'etat, or something like that. Not in Colombia, it was democracy and institutions,. So other institutions began to adapt, so the judicial system start to adapt.

The Congress began to provide the laws, and I would say that we could do better, but for being a democracy, that was the kind of response. And I think those are the elements that become a highlight for the history of Colombia.

>> H.R. McMaster: Well, Carlos, could you explain then how the situation's evolved since then?

I remember when we first met, it was 2017, and you were ambassador to the United States, and you came with President Santos who had made the deal with the FARC. Could you explain the nature of that deal, what the expectations were, and then maybe how some of those expectations turned out to be too high, and how the situation deteriorated a bit after the peace agreement with the FARC.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: I think that every Colombian from the generations previous to mine, my generation, the generation after mine, is always hoping for peace, because we have never seen peace as a reality. So because we were with an upper hand, because we were able to take down the leader of the FARC, because we were able to take down every leader of the FARC, ELN, or criminal band that was in Colombian territory, especially, fortunately for me, in the years I was, our military outperformed the criminals.

>> H.R. McMaster: I mean, some of the most amazing military operations you can think of, right? Using deception, do you want to explain a couple of these? Because I think our viewers would be really interested in hearing about the bravery, the courage, and the imagination, and innovations that the Colombian armed forces came up with to really break the backs of the backs of the cartels.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: That's what is impressive, so we were able to put together high quality special operations. We probably got the best special operation soldiers in jungle warfare in the world. And I still get emotional about.

>> H.R. McMaster: And I think, one of my friends, Ralph Puckett, the late Ralph Puckett, Medal of Honor recipient, fantastic person, right?

The big Ranger at what is now, Fort Morrow, Fort Benning, Georgia, was one of the first advisors to the Lancero School which our viewers should know. I think it's like the toughest special operations course, training course you can go through. I mean, a lot of my friends were Ranger qualified, they go to that school, they're like, man, I almost died.

You know, it's just so hard but maybe talk about that a little bit.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: Well, Colonel Puckett is a legend here in America, he's a Medal of Honor recipient, but in Colombia, military is someone that we have in the positions of heaven. He's one of these goddess because he in the 50s came together to create these Lancettos schools.

So all that inheritance, we had in the Special Ops sentiment, and they were great. But then we really strengthened intelligence and we create these very sophisticated intelligence units, both human, and with the best technology we could acquire, and got from the US, and UK cooperation. And merging all this with natural world, with political decision making, we were really able to create some of the greatest operations in military history.

Probably, Operacion Hockey happened in the year 2008. I was Deputy at the time, was President Riviera the President, Minister Santos, the minister, and to be honest, that was a pure military ingenuity, innovation idea. Those guys deserve all my love and credit forever, and they're heroes. They just created a system in which they were able to bring, with no even a fight, the hostages that were there for decades, that was what is impressive.

And they really created a deception capability, and they were able to do that. But on the other side, we were able to go leader after leader of every major organization. On my time as minister, we took down the head of the FARC. With a very high quality operation, just to say the decisiveness, the quality of the intelligence.

Because you can imagine there is drug money, criminal money all around. Trying to penetrate to take advantage or take off the secrecy and the confidentiality of these operations. So that proved that we were able to create a system that was operating and was really degrading all these criminals.

We degrade drug trafficking, remember Colombia by the year 2013, myself being minister, we have the lowest ever production of cocaine and hectares of coca. And that was great, why? Because we created a spraying campaign with the U.S, an alternative development campaign. And we really were pressuring and seizing as much cocaine as we could in the sea, in the air, in the land, wherever.

So they were really struggling and suffering. President of the time, Santos thought that we had a good condition for negotiation. Wars sometimes cannot go forever, especially counter insurgents who were because sadly, the bad guys get inside communities. So you're not only risking to go after the bad guys, but sometimes they put at risk civilians, kids, babies, women, elder people, etc.

So that was a decision but I think when things began to go wrong, in my opinion, was not the good intention of making a peace, but was first not including the whole country. So part of the political position was not included in negotiation, big mistake. This was a national endeavor, not a party endeavor or a group endeavor.

Second, time, this is always an important lesson for negotiations. In democracies, we have limited time and politicians want to look good for the next election. They want to, in their period, do everything.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: So they deliver things that are not ready. While the bad guys, the criminals, they can stay there forever, so that's what they did.

Our upper hand in the military, our military victory and decisiveness was starting to be balanced and even changed by the needs of a government to sign whatever. And then people that knew that they could wait to the last moment. Sadly, the agreement ended having a big impunity. Criminals against humanity are today members of the center of Colombia with no justice consequence.

It was created a transitional justice that is really going after the military rather than going after the criminals. No sentence, no penalty yet has been done, even after almost a decade that all this happened. Thirdly, the fight against drugs that was so important to undermine this was open.

The ways we were fighting them were stopped by the year 15, 16. And today we have six times the cocaine we used to have at that time, five times the crops. So what is happening today in Colombia? All this is reversing, territories are now controlled by former FARC, ELN, new criminals.

And we are in a very difficult situation to the point that that criminal money, funds corruption, funds political corruption. And then we have a government now that is internationally creating all kinds of questions. And doubts if they are really legitimate in terms of the way they got to power or who they really represent.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right, and so it's really kind of a perfect storm now in terms of political will. Everything that you said was an advantage, right? And a key to success from in the 2000s up to 2013, 14 seems to have been, or being reversed or in the process of being reversed.

And we saw that and talked about it pretty candidly between President Trump and President Santos in 2017. The trend in terms of vast increase in cocaine production and trafficking was already clear. And so, can I just ask you, how did the political situation evolve after the backdrop of the agreement with the FARC?

President Santos leaves office, President Duque comes in, and then can you explain maybe the experience of his presidency. And then how that bridged in to really now a far left government under President Petro. A government that seems to lack any will really to take on the cartels and the increasing lawlessness in certain portions of Colombia.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: So as I expressed, I got an odds with President Santos. I was really frustrated to see that our military was being weakened in terms of budget, in terms of people. Some of the good intelligence officers were retired as part of that, so I started to really hesitate and have a big difference.

So start to oppose, separated from the government, retired. And I will mention this because I ran for president in 2018 and I decided to run for president not being a politician, I was a technocrat. I was mainly a person that was coming from private sector into service. And I decided to run because I felt that I could correct this, the country didn't see me.

They thought that because I worked for Santos, I was close to Santos. And those that were in the Santos side said that how could I oppose Santos? So I got into this difficult position, move on but then President Duque was elected. Duque was a young man, good man with good sentiment, but limited experience at the of his government.

So he was trying to assess what was going on and probably a lot of time was lost already in that process, then pandemic came. And this is important because pandemic is going to be remembering the history as you historian that you are. As that point in which a new cold war or a new global competition really became official.

And I think for countries like Colombia, it had implications. It created the space for the perfect storm because thousands of Colombians were losing jobs, especially young Colombians, because of the pandemic. Companies need to be closed, people was going to their homes very frustrated. But at the same time, criminal economies, especially drugs, cocaine and illegal mining of gold was growing.

So the legal economy was declining, the illegal economy was growing. And on the other side, we always have had, because we have been a democracy, the opportunity for even radicals to be part of our democratic system, to be elected. So we got these extreme left group that were members, former members of a terrorist organization.

M19 and others, FARC and others, brewing, brewing this idea of revolution, brewing this idea of going to the streets. So sadly, by the end of the period of President Duque, these materialized and we got these social unrest, massive presence, bonded by drugs, bonded by crime. And with the intention of toppling the government, Duque hold the line, was was able to maintain.

But sadly the country couldn't in the election of 2022, have a reform government, a government that could correct, enhance or move forward. And we got this guy Petro, Petro is a former M19 guerrilla, not even a leader, he was a middle low guy.

>> H.R. McMaster: Explain just for a second, maybe the ideology behind M19. I think maybe some of our viewers don't understand that these people are like, they're really communists, I mean they really believe In sort of a Marxist, Leninist ideology.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: That's very important because when you speak about the left in the US or the right in the US, it's a total different spectrum than when we speak on that, especially in Latin America.

When I speak on extreme left in Latin America, it's people that were trained as terrorists, in many cases that were aligned with organizations that were created by the Soviet Union, the Cuban government, and other extremists. And part of their mindset is to topple whatever you call the American Empire, the West, or democracies as we know it, or freedom as we know it.

They really want to impose or promote ideas of communism, Marxism. But of course, they are now presenting these with different colors, trying to just present this like they're really fighting for human rights, they're really fighting for new freedoms. But the ideology at the end is to push. Onto that world.

And now we have these global power, competition, and for them, an alternative they're getting and feeling enhanced and more powerful. And if you add to that, the funding coming from organized crime, drugs and other things that allows political corruption to be executed and governments to be elected in those kind of environments.

You see in the case of Colombia, this guy, President Petro, a former guerrilla, but then someone that benefited from democracy. He was member of the House, member of the Senate, mayor of Bogota, multiple times candidate to the presidency, President of Colombia. And still instead of him being institutional, trying to promote freedom, to promote goodwill for the people, and maybe representing that people that wanted change.

And needed the end of inequality in a country like mine, or work for that as an agenda, he has decided to go to Berlin and said, well, I lament the fact that the Berlin Wall fell. Or he goes to the events in Israel and Palestine where a terrorist organization like Hamas, not the Palestinian people, Hamas, made a terrible crime against humanity, took hostages.

And then he decides to go against the Israeli government, break relations and put himself in favor of Hamas, Hezbollah and others. And now he's trying to look friendly to autocracies. So that's Warism and of course, that is creating in a country like Colombia, a reverse in which we have organized crime expanding, territorial control happening, more cocaine than ever, more legal gold than ever.

Politics being influenced by all this and the economy moving slowly but structurally backwards. So we have a problem in the fiscal finances, security, as I said, is declining, and a lot of uncertainty. So that's the kind of environment, so I say all this because we need to watch and we need to move forward and move away from this because we're brewing something bad.

>> H.R. McMaster: Well, you don't have to look too far around for an example of what happens next, right. You've got a failing state in Cuba. It's been failing for decades under this kind of a system right next door in Venezuela. Look at what Ortega is doing to Nicaragua. Could you explain maybe what's on the minds of the people now as you see it in Colombia and is there a recognition that the Petro government is taking them in the wrong direction?

You've got an election coming up in 2026, how do you see public sentiment shifting now? Is it gonna shift back kinda toward the center, away from the far left, in recognition of some of the deficiencies, not only internally to Colombia, but the alignment, who aligns with Hamas, really?

So is there skepticism about what's happening in Colombia and are you optimistic about a corrective to that sort of direction that Petro's taken the government?

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: I'm worried about my country, these days I keep saying I have the life that I ever want. I'm a professor at Princeton, I teach, I go to boards, I travel the world in conference.

I'm able to see amazing people like you and have these kind of changes. But I have to confess, my heart is dying when I see my country moving backwards. When I think about the sacrifice of my soldiers, of my policemen, the heroism they had, the opportunity they built to us.

And see the disgrace in which my country is moving forward, in which my people, the Colombian regular citizens, are not going to have a good opportunity, it really hurts me. I have to confess, and let me mention some things that you said one, we never thought that was going to happen in Colombia.

Why, because we have Venezuela as a mirror. Venezuela is our Siamese brother and through Colombia, 5 million Venezuelans have crossed, 2 million have stayed. And every time you meet a Venezuelan, they said, look what happened to us. We got this criminal, Maduro, we have this criminal, Chavez, and this is what we got.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, I mean, Over a quarter of the population has left what had been the wealthiest country in South America.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: In the whole hemisphere more, more reserves of oil than any other country in the world. And they were able to create this mess, so we thought that can never happen to us, well, we're brewing it, we're brewing it, and this is happening in front of our eyes.

Second, yes, Colombian people is in need and is frustrated. And I have to tell you sometimes I feel bad for those who died for us because they died thinking that we were going to make the right set of policies. But for instance, the agreement of 2016 is a full set of promises with no operational plan.

No operational plans, no changes, no budgets, no realities, so still no development has been taken to those areas. No, really, opportunities, economic opportunities, have done, so in consequence, they are angry and they felt compelled with the idea that we need change. And then change can be worse than what you have and this is what we're moving.

Thirdly, I'm super worried, and I said already about the expansion of organized crime. Because once it expands, it penetrates the justice system, the journalism, the whole tissue of society. It corrupts the country and it can influence elections through social control, through money, or through violence. And these are the things that I foresee in Colombia, not so different from what I see in Mexico, in Ecuador, in Honduras, in Venezuela, this is a disease that is happening in Latin America.

So about the change, I strongly think that around 70% of Colombians are very worried about what is going on, they feel the country is going wrong and they won't change. Part of the problem these days is populism, anybody comes to the public and said, I will solve your problems.

They don't have a clue, they don't have the education, they don't have the training. They have never done anything on policy, they have never led the armed forces. Dealing the armed forces, you are general, this is not a thing that you just say, I'm gonna lead the armed forces.

>> H.R. McMaster: All right.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: You have to lead by example, you have to lead by history, you have to lead by stamina. So those are the things that I believe we need to discuss and think how to help Colombians to move away from this. So summary, we have a big problem, we have multiple elements that can make the problem even worse.

We have the Colombian people that probably wants change, but we need to. To create the political solution that creates that change and can create a better future for Colombia. Because sometimes the medicine can be worse than- The disease.

>> H.R. McMaster: Then the disease. We've seen the region Latin America, of course, you can't just lump Latin America together.

You have to look at country by country, each has different dynamics, but go through this kinda cycle in the past, right? We had kind of the movement toward far left sort of progressive authoritarianism in the 80s. That's when I was majoring in Latin American studies at West Point, because I thought as a military officer that's what I would have to be most focused on.

But then you saw kind of a reversal of that. And, I think, of countries like Nicaragua as an example, where you had the Sandinistas in charge and the US support for the Contras, you had a period of democratic governance. And now, again, you have Ortega returning and putting back into place.

Really an authoritarian regime that's imprisoned all of his opponents and taken over the press, as you've mentioned. The way that these authoritarian regimes consolidate power is to take over all the mechanisms of state control, right? And tell the population stories, hey, I'm the only one who can save you and control the press and the information that they're getting and try to take over the security forces.

And so, we've seen this kind of pink wave, you could call it, some people call it in the region with kind of a far left government in Mexico, in Nicaragua. Returning to Nicaragua, you saw a really radical left government collapse in Peru, not really accomplish what they wanted to accomplish in Chile.

But this is in Ecuador, right, Ecuador had a far left government and that's been corrected, but there's another election coming up. How do you see the trends in the region and how do you view the international dimension of what you've seen inside of Colombia?

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: A pink wave doesn't worry me, as much these are people that want to provide new ideas and policies that I might disagree or not.

But at the end that they want to be there and leave when the institutional framework establish. The problem is a red wave.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: And I see a red wave, radical red wave, coming in places in which they are trying to change constitutions, change the judges or the judicial system, as we saw in the case of Mexico.

Or making a fraud, as we saw in Venezuela, or starting to connect reorganized crime, straightforward like we've seen in Honduras. And we have some sense of that according to permanent scandals in Colombia or in Ecuador.

>> H.R. McMaster: In Ecuador.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: Those are real problems.

>> H.R. McMaster: And it happened in El Salvador until Bukele came in. And you may have deep concerns about his tactics and so forth, but he's reversed that situation.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: But about that, let me tell you, this is a thing that I've been thinking, writing, and somehow you're a thinker and I believe we need to discuss on this. I think when global power competition happens, which has been the most often type of reality in the history of the world in our time, not. We were very fortunate when the Cold War ended that-

>> H.R. McMaster: I was kinda depressed about the end of the Cold War, I mean, my enemy went away there, I mean, I was without.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: A fight, but in terms of what happened then is that we got this hope of democracy, the end of history, everything was going to be democratic.

And by the way, Latin America was the space for that. So if you go in the year 1985, half of the governments of Latin America were dictatorships. If you go by the year 1999, every country with the exception of Cuba was a democracy in Latin America. So that was the bright spot.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: Everybody was dreaming about this. And relationship between the United States and countries in the region, when you and I were working together. Absolutely.

>> H.R. McMaster: We were the closest allies ever.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: Absolutely, that was the kind of opportunity and reality. But then when I see global power competition coming back, I'm starting to remind some things.

First, since we have nuclear war or nuclear war potential or nuclear era, real actual war between powers tends not to happen. It's too dangerous. But if you go and look how many small wars it happened during the period of Cold War, it was cold for the US and the Soviet Union, not so cold for the world.

The whole war was hot, Africa and Latin America was full of internal conflicts. So my point is, if we're getting back to global power competition, some of the things that are happening are. First, global war is not important anymore because nobody's going to enforce it. So it means that bad guys can misbehave and nobody's gonna go after them.

So it means that organized crime gets a benefit because there's no really a concerted global policy against organized crime. Fourly, then something else happens. Those that want to change democratic rules can do it because nobody's gonna go after them.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: So what I perceive for the future is more conflict and less democracy, more small wars again.

Now, about Latin America, you have Mexico, Mexico has cartels running the country or part of the country. And the government having a policy called Abrazos nova lazos, which means-

>> H.R. McMaster: Hugs not bullets.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: Hugs not bullets, which means they are more in the favor of the criminals. You have the case of Honduras where the president and the former president are anything related to drugs.

You have the case of Ecuador where the organized crime challenged the Ecuadorian state. And actually, they're winning in the sense that they now have a battle test and something else can happen there. You have Venezuela, which is an Arco state, you have Nicaragua, which is an Arco state and dictatorship already.

You have Colombia that did all these great stories that we discussed today. But now is reversing back and being more and more controlled by organized crime in the whole nation. You have the favelas in Brazil being run by criminals. You have in the city of Rosario in Argentina that despite the advances, something is there.

And then you have the cases like El Salvador where you see this incredible reaction from being the most violent country in the world to the most safe in the western hemisphere and one of the safest in the world. But then they have a problem of thousands of gang members and criminals that, what is gonna happen with them?

How are you gonna handle that? Their warehouse is right now, yeah. When that happens, I think, opposing powers tend to allow more dictators than before and then tend to look to a different place when bad things are happening. I'm worried about Venezuela, Venezuela made an incredible fraud. This guy Maduro kind of make joke of the whole world.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right, and he was caught red handed.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: He was caught throwing the election and the opposition did a fantastic job getting access all of the ballot results and all the voting results in every precinct. And when confronted with that, he just disregarded it, obviously. But look at these, now it matters that they have oil reserves. So from, I would say the west side, they will said, well, we need to have a low oil price of let's not go after this guy. And if you think on the other team, they said, well-

>> H.R. McMaster: These are the license agreements for Chevron, for example, that we keep renewing every month.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: Absolutely.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, right, yeah.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: But if you see it from the Chinese side or the Russian side, well, they don't care about Venezuela, but they care that they continue to promote disruption in Latin. Latin America, so, suddenly a guy that was breaking every international law, breaking democracy, is with full impunity right now, no consequence. That's a problem where we are right now.

>> H.R. McMaster: And he has an international system of authoritarians who are supporting him. And this is, Iran providing him with refined petroleum products, Russia with security support, the Cubans with medical insecurities support, and China, helping to finance the regime. We only have a little time left, which I can't believe, but what I'd like to ask you more about is, how about the role of Venezuela?

We saw recently the Trump administration secure the release of six people, I think regrettably the US envoy there in a photo op with Maduro, which I think probably was a blow to the opposition, for example. I'm in favor of a tough approach to Maduro because I see kind of his hand in everything.

He's destroyed his economy, but he's still throwing a lot of cash around the region, it seems like. And supporting a lot of these governments that are anti, I would say they're people, but anti the US and kind of sort of neo Marxist or far left leaning governments. How central do you think Venezuela is to the problems overall in the region?

What policy would you recommend vis a vis Venezuela? And then what I'd like to do is just ask you for your final thoughts too on, are you optimistic about the future? I mean, do you think, we've described a lot of problems here, what do you envision as a path toward a better future?

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: So, let me start with Venezuela. The best way to save Venezuela is to make sure that Colombia keeps democracy and recovers the path of goodness. That's so important. So Colombia is the key strategic player to guarantee the stability of Latin America these days. The Western hemisphere itself is in play in Colombia.

Because if we have a strong democracy, if we can continue and go back to go after crime, to eliminate criminals especially in Colombia, and to create investment, economic prosperity, and social programs in the country. Take development to the marginal areas of Colombia, that's gonna set again an example and it's gonna make the life of Maduro and people like them very bad.

That is why Maduro cares for the finger of Colombia and keeping Colombia on the wrong direction. That's something I want you just to see it from a strategic point of view. Now about Venezuela. Honestly, I foresee these days that anybody that takes migrants, and anybody that doesn't hustle with the US, is with no mere problem.

And I understand that, I respect that, I'm not anyone to judge US policy and I will never get into that, but I would recommend just to think on longer periods. Having the Maduro regime in Latin America is like having total wasted apple, that is wasting the whole set of apples.

So, we need to eradicate that criminal behavior. That criminal behavior not only against the Venezuelan people, but also against the rest of Latin America, and also against long-term US interests.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: I think people need to see that, and I believe it's important. Now, what are the policy tools?

There are multiple, and we will not get into that, you and I have done that before and we'll do it happily with a lot of proficiency, but that's the kind of mindset that is required. Now, about the future, I've been always an optimistic person, General. I've been always convinced that once you can have the power to build a future, you can create an incredible future.

Look, even me, my grandfather was an army sergeant, he was a farmer. My great grandfather was a guy coming from a small town in Colombia. Of course, my dad was a soldier, believed in discipline, he was strong, he believed in education, he provide me. I got my own scholarships because I wanted to move forward.

And then every day in my life I continue to drive for a better future for me, for my family, for my business, for creating an opportunity, even as a public servant. When I got to the Ministry of Defense, we were in the worst position, we were suffering. The country was bad, the country was not moving forward, we were having in front the greatest enemy of an insurgency in Latin American history.

And we defeat them because we wanted, because we could. I've been these days here in Silicon Valley, and that's what makes me hopeful, especially for Latin Americans, especially for Colombia. We have young people, we have minerals, we have food, we have the connection with the United States, we have the possibility of attracting investment.

We can be one of the greatest countries in the world and beyond Colombia. If the US and Latin America can create this bridge, we can be this region of the world that is the most prosperous, even without caring what is happening in the rest of the world. I'm not suggesting that, but I'm telling that's possible.

So, I'm optimistic if we use technology, intelligence, innovation, and at the same time, political decision making, you have to make what you have to do and you have to move forward. So, I'm optimistic.

>> H.R. McMaster: Well, I can't thank you enough for being here great to see you again.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: Thank you so much.

>> H.R. McMaster: And thank you for helping us learn about a battleground important to all of us. And also, in your last message, really helping restore kind of a sense of agency, right? We can build a better future if we work together. What an honor to be with you again, thanks for joining us on Battlegrounds.

>> Juan Carlos Pinzón: Thank you, General, it's an honor to be here. Thank you, sir.

>> Presenter: Battlegrounds is a production of the Hoover Institution, where we generate and promote ideas advancing freedom. For more information about our work, to hear more of our podcasts or view our video content, please visit hoover.org.