Youth gangs in Central America, populist unrest in Andean nations, crime and drug smuggling do not need a military response yet the Pentagon was trying to coax Latin American armed forces to tackle them, the study said.

"The lines separating military and civilian governance roles, firmly drawn by many Latin American governments after decades of conflict and military dictatorships, are being erased both in U.S. policy and in the region," it said.

The analysis, entitled "Erasing the Lines", was prepared by the Latin America Working Group Education Fund, the Center for International Policy and the Washington Office on Latin America.

It also said the U.S. defense sector was grabbing a bigger role in handling foreign aid programs that the state or other civilian departments would traditionally have managed.

Civilian oversight of military aid programs such as training and equipment was diminishing as they increasingly became part of the defense budget. That meant important human rights and democracy conditions could be bypassed, it said.

U.S. military aid to Latin America has shot up in the past several years and now almost equals economic and social aid.

The United States is slated to provide $1.03 billion in economic aid and at least $908 million in military aid to Latin America and the Caribbean next year, according to the report.

"This makes absolutely no sense for a region whose greatest challenge is overcoming poverty and inequality," said Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy.

The thrust of the report echoes sentiments already expressed by some Latin American governments and nongovernmental organizations.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in trips to the region, has urged Latin Americans to be more involved in the U.S. war on terrorism.

But Brazil, for one, has said that is not a priority and that many of its social problems, such as crime, require social solutions. Brazil and others have also expressed concern over a U.S. troop deployment in Paraguay, particularly in light of political instability in Bolivia.

The United States can, however, count on Colombian President Alvaro Uribe as a close ally. The war between government forces and leftist rebels in Colombia is the only old-style insurgency still being waged in Latin America, a region where armed revolutionary movements were rife in past decades.

The report said that U.S. drug policy in Colombia was at a standstill but its involvement in the war was growing.

Human rights was also suffering, it said. The United States had lost its moral authority in Latin America because of its policies on torture and treatment of prisoners in its war on terrorism, it said.