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Case
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Reference no. HKS1044.0
Published by: Harvard Kennedy School
Published in: 1990
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Abstract

This case supplements the geopolitical framework of Coca and the Shining Path in the Upper Huallaga Valley (KSG1020.0) by examining the strategy of a specific military officer charged with ending Marxist guerrilla domination of Peru''s chief cocaine-producing region. The story of General Alberto Arciniega Hugy highlights the ways in which politics and the military are intertwined. General Arciniega sees ridding the Upper Huallaga of Shining Path guerrillas as his foremost objective. By, in effect, countenancing at least the short-term dependence of the Upper Huallaga on the cocaine economy lest he drive the population toward the guerrillas, Arciniega runs afoul of the US interest in a reduction of coca leaf production. Ironically, Arciniega effectively implements counterinsurgency methods in which he was trained in the United States. The case allows for discussion both of the divergent interests of superpowers and developing countries, and the relationship between political goals and military strategy.

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Abstract

This case supplements the geopolitical framework of Coca and the Shining Path in the Upper Huallaga Valley (KSG1020.0) by examining the strategy of a specific military officer charged with ending Marxist guerrilla domination of Peru''s chief cocaine-producing region. The story of General Alberto Arciniega Hugy highlights the ways in which politics and the military are intertwined. General Arciniega sees ridding the Upper Huallaga of Shining Path guerrillas as his foremost objective. By, in effect, countenancing at least the short-term dependence of the Upper Huallaga on the cocaine economy lest he drive the population toward the guerrillas, Arciniega runs afoul of the US interest in a reduction of coca leaf production. Ironically, Arciniega effectively implements counterinsurgency methods in which he was trained in the United States. The case allows for discussion both of the divergent interests of superpowers and developing countries, and the relationship between political goals and military strategy.

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