As opposed to the national security policy, carried out by South American governments in the 1970's and 1980's in order to stop comunism, both in the form of guerrillas, student movements and political parties; Uribe's democratic security doctrine pretends to protect the Colombian society, threatened by illegal militias, particularly self-called communist FARC and ELN, in order to grant society and both left and right political parties, an opportunity to democratic debate.

Detractors say that democratic security is just an euphenism for the infamous national security doctrine, and that anybody opposed to the current regime is not tolarated.