By Latin America Reports | Created at 2026-08-10 13:56:01 | Updated at 2026-08-10 14:18:45
55 minutes ago
As Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn in as Colombia’s new president on August 7, a new report from Crisis Group warns his administration against relying on a hardline military approach to armed groups could backfire, worsening violence and putting vulnerable communities at greater risk.
De la Espriella has said he plans to scrap his predecessor Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” policy of negotiating with armed and criminal groups, and pursue a tougher security strategy.
During his campaign, De la Espriella, a lawyer and entrepreneur with no previous political experience, promised high-level captures of armed group leaders, the restart of coca crop eradication, expanded aerial bombardments, deeper cooperation with the United States, including more extraditions, and the construction of new “mega prisons”.
But Crisis Group says a crackdown of this scale carries “inescapable risks” and could cause violence to spike rather than reduce it.
“The new administration should carefully consider the risks of relying solely on a military-led response. A heavy-handed campaign could worsen the violence it seeks to contain and place already vulnerable communities at even greater risk,” Glaeldys Gonzalez Calanche, Colombia analyst at Crisis Group, told Latin America Reports.
De la Espriella narrowly won the presidential election in a run-off on June 21 against left-wing candidate, Ivan Cepeda, largely off the back of his tough messaging on security.
Read more: Leftist Ivan Cepeda concedes defeat in Colombia electionCrisis Group says he inherits Colombia’s “most severe humanitarian crisis of the last decade”, with a sharp rise in forced displacement, child recruitment and the use of improvised explosive devices.
But while the report says Colombia urgently needs a more effective security strategy, Crisis Group argues that force alone will not be enough to dismantle armed and criminal groups that have expanded their control across parts of the country.
It recommends a combination of targeted military operations, stronger intelligence gathering, improved state presence and the continued use of dialogue where it can reduce violence.
The report says that targeting the leadership of armed and criminal groups can fragment them, triggering intense turf battles among rival factions. It also warns that aerial bombardments risk killing civilians, while mass arrests could ensnare innocent people.
Colombia’s security forces, it says, are facing two major challenges. The first is that the armed groups they are confronting today are fundamentally different from the insurgency the military was originally designed to fight.
After the 2016 peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), groups that remained outside negotiations continued operating, while former FARC members who rejected or later abandoned the agreement formed dissident factions. Other groups expanded into territories previously controlled by the guerrillas, creating a more fragmented and complex security landscape.
Unlike the FARC, whose stated objective was a political revolution, many current armed groups operate primarily through criminal economies. According to the report, today’s threats are “more akin to organised crime than political rebellion.”
Armed and criminal groups have also grown significantly. Between 2022 and 2025, total estimated membership nearly doubled from 15,132 to around 27,000, according to figures cited in the report from the Ideas for Peace Foundation. Police estimates suggest that around half of new recruits are children and young people.
Gonzalez told Latin America Reports that the tactics used to weaken the former FARC, including aerial bombardments, are far less effective against today’s armed and criminal groups because of their changing nature.
“These organisations blend into the communities they control and quickly replenish their ranks, making them more flexible, resilient and difficult to dismantle. By making control over civilians a central objective, they establish a local grip that force alone is unlikely to break,” she said.
The armed forces are also facing their own limitations. The report highlights a decline in military personnel since 2010, alongside weaknesses in intelligence, air capabilities and technology.
Armed groups are increasingly using drones to launch attacks against security forces and rivals, monitor communities and detect approaching troops. But Crisis Group says Colombia’s military has struggled to keep pace.
“Colombia’s armed forces lack the equipment needed to counter this threat, leaving them at a significant disadvantage. The incoming administration should prioritise investment in the technological capabilities needed to regain control of the airspace,” Gonzalez said.
Plans for a national anti-drone system have been delayed by technical and administrative obstacles, leaving the military unable to adequately respond.
While Crisis Group says a stronger military response is needed, it argues that the new government should not abandon dialogue with armed groups.
Over the last four years, Petro attempted to negotiate with armed and criminal organisations through his flagship “Total Peace” policy. The strategy opened nine formal dialogue processes involving around fourteen groups.
The approach produced some local successes. In the western coastal city of Buenaventura, for example, talks between rival gangs contributed to a truce that halted killings for 90 days.
Rival gangs “Los Shotas” and “Los Espartanos” commit to peace in Buenaventura, October 2022. Image source: Comisionado Paz via X.
But overall, Crisis Group says the policy failed to achieve its main objective. Negotiations moved slowly, armed groups expanded their influence and some organisations used ceasefires to strengthen territorial control, extortion networks and recruitment.
De la Espriella has said he will scrap the policy. However, Crisis Group argues that negotiations should not be abandoned completely.
“Talks with armed and criminal groups have been slow-moving and often frustrating, but they are the country’s most promising route to dismantling these outfits,” the report said. “Rather than consign ‘Total Peace’ to oblivion, his government should learn from its successes as well as its failures.”
It argues that one of the problems was not dialogue itself, but how the process was designed and managed. It points to a lack of planning and a series of “undeserved concessions” by the state that ended up benefiting armed groups.
Crisis Group recommends that the new government combine military pressure with a broader strategy focused on protecting civilians, strengthening state institutions and pursuing more effective negotiations.
It says the government should address the absence of state institutions in many rural areas, which has allowed illegal groups to expand, while improving intelligence-led operations and remaining open to negotiations if there is a genuine opportunity to reduce violence and demobilise fighters.
“The era of ‘Total Peace’ may be over, but it is crucial that the new government does not dismiss the enterprise of dialogue entirely,” the report says. “Colombia has never defeated an armed group by force alone.”
Featured image: Abelardo de la Espriella via X.
