To catch a smuggler: in the war on drugs, even small victories are celebrated.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: War On Drugs

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IN THE SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN -- An Air Force surveillance plane takes off on a balmy December evening flora Curacao, a Dutch island dependency off the northern coast of South America. After reaching altitude, crewmembers swivel around in their chairs and put on headsets as their workstations whir to life. As soon as the screens start lighting up with air traffic information, they set to work calibrating displays, punching buttons and testing communications in preparation for their 12-hour mission to search for drug smugglers.

It is a cat-and-mouse game here in a region rife with illicit narcotics trafficking by air and by sea. In 2006, an estimated 530 to 710 metric tons of" cocaine departed South America toward the United States, the Interagency Assessment of Cocaine Movement reports. Even though the Defense Department regularly dispatches some of its most prized weapons systems--including this E-3 Sentry aircraft--to battle the problem, more often than not, the mice appear to be winning.

The United States for years has been fighting the $400 billion illicit drug trade, but despite its efforts, about 17,000 Americans continue to lose their lives to illegal drugs annually. "That's equivalent to one World Trade Center event every two-and-a-half months," says Lt. Gen. Norman Seip, 12th Air Force and Air Forces Southern commander, who oversees Air Force assets and civil and military engagements in Central and South America as well as the Caribbean.

Not only does the drug trade kill people but it also creates a great deal of corruption and undermines legitimate governments throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, says Coast Guard Rear Adm. Joseph Nimmich, director of the Joint Interagency Task Force-South, the [J.S. counternarcotics command center based in Key West, Fla. "All these countries are embattled by drug cartels, primarily because of the demand tot cocaine and the funds that are generated by cocaine," he says. "Our responsibility to he]p them fight the narco-traffickers is a key one, because it's our demand that allows these things to exist in the first place."

Stopping the flow of drugs has been the focus of the task force's counternarcotics endeavors here. An estimated 200 metric tons of cocaine travel annually through Venezuela en route to North America and to Europe. Because of its geographical location and lax counterdrug enforcement, Venezuela has become a focal point for drug cartels, says Nimmich.

Twenty percent of the narcotrafficking goes by air, while 80 percent transits by various maritime methods.

Drug runner flights depart daily from South America and head toward Central America, the Caribbean islands and even West Africa. More than 90 percent of these flights originate in Venezuela. A couple tons of cocaine easily are transported in aircraft ranging from luxury corporate jets to small propeller planes, officials say.

The Defense Department helps to detect and monitor illicit trafficking with aircraft and vessels traditionally flown of sailed in shooting wars. But in this battle, the)' aren't allowed to fire a bullet. Any suspicious vehicles are reported to U.S. law enforcement agencies and local authorities, says Nimmich.

Only the law enforcement agencies of partner nations are authorized to prosecute drug smugglers, he says.

Aboard the E-3, the radar shows what appears to be typical evening air traffic in the region, the surveillance crew explains to a National Defense reporter. The plane, known as the airborne warning and control system, of AWACS, is headed into the Caribbean where the team will look at historical routes that narcotics runners favor. There, the crew will monitor hundreds of aircraft during its flight to see whether any exhibit traits commonly associated with drug traffickers.

"It's a process of elimination," says Capt. Kim McClain of the 970th Expeditionary Airborne Air Control Squadron.

The basic skills required for the mission are the same as what the crew would use in combat, but the flow and volume of tracking is different in counterdrug operations, says Lt. Col. Stephen Seaman, commander of the 513th Operations Support Flight, based at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. The crew of mostly reservists is nearing the end of its 120-day rotation at Curacao, where the Air Force maintains several small facilities and shares runways with the international airport.

"It's been...