Peru's government under Keiko Fujimori has announced that the country will join the Shield of the Americas, a security cooperation mechanism promoted by the United States, reopening a debate over whether the move will genuinely help curb organized crime or serve mainly as a political gesture.
The news outlet La República asked five specialists in politics and security for their views on the initiative. Among those quoted were Frank Casas, an expert in security and organized crime; Julio Corcuera, a former deputy minister of public security at Peru's Interior Ministry; and Andy Zeballos, a political scientist with a master's degree in anti-corruption policy and rule of law.
What the Shield of the Americas would do
Casas said Peru's entry into the Shield of the Americas would not automatically translate into fewer extortion cases or lower homicide rates. He described it as an international, multilateral mechanism driven by the United States under its own rules, focused on building capacity and providing technical and police assistance.
He pointed to concrete threats such as Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan criminal organization that has spread through the region. According to Casas, the mechanism is meant to allow intelligence sharing, the training of specific National Police teams, possibly involving some prosecutors, and joint operations to dismantle criminal organizations.
Casas said the exact terms remain unclear because the agreement the FBI has worked out with Peru's National Police has not yet been made public. He said the mechanism in theory runs on a mutual exchange of benefits, addressing threats that affect both countries at once. That means it could help against some cases of contract killing or extortion, he said, but only those tied to a criminal organization that affects both Peru and the United States, or one both countries identify as a shared threat, again citing Tren de Aragua.
A former security official's view
Corcuera said international cooperation is always positive for the country, contributing to good practices and equipment at a time when technology changes quickly and is vital for locating suspects, geo-referencing and cross-checking databases. He said this kind of cooperation helps the fight against extortion, contract killing and organized crime by making it a shared priority.
He said there are two dimensions worth separating. The first is the direct cooperation Peru already receives from agencies and officials at the US embassy in Lima, including the INL, described as the antinarcotics affairs and law enforcement section, which works alongside Peruvian control agencies. The second is the cooperation that comes specifically through the Shield of the Americas framework, which he said places greater emphasis on transnational organized crime, distinct from the work the United States carries out domestically against crime and contract killing.
A political scientist questions the motive
Zeballos offered a more skeptical reading. He pointed to the kidnapping of a former Venezuelan president and to US tariff threats made under the argument of narco-terrorism as signs, in his view, that Donald Trump represents a return to a neocolonial and interventionist reading of the Monroe Doctrine, the 19th-century US policy summed up in the phrase America for the Americans.
He also noted that China has become one of the main trade partners for Peru and the wider region, expanding its influence through strategic investments such as the Chancay Port on Peru's central coast. Against that backdrop, Zeballos asked why concern for Peru's internal security had not surfaced earlier, pointing to the US embassy's earlier push, backed by Keiko Fujimori and Rafael López Aliaga, for Peru to buy 24 F-16 fighter jets worth $3.5 billion, even though drones or helicopters would have been more useful had strengthening air capacity been the real priority. López Aliaga, who leads the Renovación Popular party, previously served as mayor of Lima.
In Zeballos's view, the Fujimori government's decision responds more to a search for headlines presenting the alliance as a security achievement than to a genuine strategy against violence. He added that the United States has historically played a destabilizing role in Latin America, citing the September 11, 1973 coup in Chile as an example.
