A New Doctrine of Insecurity? U.S. Military Deployment in South America
Tokatlian, Juan Gabriel
NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS A New Doctrine of Insecurity? U.S. Military Deployment in South America insist, that these threats demand that the division between internal security and...
...private institutions...
...Bolivia, eighth...
...and provides commercial treaties, both multilateral foreign military missions require, and for mediation to reestablish “good rethe impact in the medium term on lations between the two countries...
...Indeed, there are two ists, and the deployment of preventive interpretations of the resolution...
...Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Panama...
...This article was originally published as “El militarismo estadounidense en América del Sur: La configuración de un problema,” in the June issue of Le Monde diplomatique’s Southern Cone edition (www.eldiplo.org...
...international determine the mission, and only later would the military deployment in the region...
...All the quantitative and qualitative indicators—budget, doctrine, deployment, reach, corporate weight, institutional pressures, civicmilitary balance—point in this direction...
...The opportunity is ripe...
...Finally, Brazil’s call ton’s obsession with the Middle East for the founding of a South American and Central Asia and its loss of inter- Defense Board shows, on the one hand, national and hemispheric prestige has the obsolescence of Washington’s Interallowed for a proliferation of initiatives American Defense Board and, on the conceived without U.S...
...government bureaucracy, like the Departments of State, Justice, and the Treasury, have also disappeared in the document: They seem irrelevant or unnecessary...
...Washington would not tol- year’s “Plan Mexico” (known officially as the Merierate any international competitor, be it a current da Initiative), which reproduces the same punitive 6 SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2008 U.S...
...interests...
...it is whether the “Prussian” route to Finally, significant changes in primacy has really been embraced by defense and foreign policy do not its leadership...
...Third, there are political exchanges that have been weakened and are lacking a positive agenda, now concentrating only on “problem cases” like Venezuela and Colombia...
...Democrats ers...
...In the Americas, U.S...
...ity, corruption, and criminality are all proposal for a joint Central American electoral process is taking place...
...In 2005–07, coalitions—that is, the above-mentioned four countries in the recoalitions of the willing...
...The principal source of the United and Republicans show at most careStates’s eventual imperial decline is to fully differentiated modes of a calibe found in its domestic scene, and is brated primacy...
...break inter-American unanimity...
...by Juan Gabriel tokatlian the Caribbean and Latin American coastline right to use its military might against any country, T h l s i r o f d a World War II–era flotilla, to patrol preventive war, Washington reserv e e n c ) h n t e e Fourth s Navy’ U.S...
...ComWith the goal of increas- pare this with the 61,000 ing stability, Southcom in- soldiers and police trained tends to actively link with by the infamous School of various state agencies, the Americas from 1946 to NGOs, and public and 2000...
...as the leading organization among The Southern Command’s new existing agencies to guarantee “se- strategy comes in the context of a curity, stability, and prosperity in growing role for the Defense Departthe Americas...
...terms, a relative convergence between Faced with this panorama, Latin the two main candidates: They speak America shows its fragmentation...
...However, quite apart from the humanitarian sentiment behind Latin American involvement in the Haitian contingent, many countries in the region assign a growing value to their armed forces offered by Colombia and its decision in processes of pacification, stabiliza- not to repeat such an action “un- W into the e ment can with divide u. r s egion . engagetion, and reconstruction beyond their der any circumstance...
...After September 11, 2001, and especially after done away with, and thus the work of police, sethe invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the United curity forces, and the armed forces must overlap...
...presidential election...
...8 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS ment, Southcom establishes itself political development processes...
...February agreements between BraThis fact, together with the executive’s zil and Argentina on nuclear power inability to put its own country’s econ- and defense are of great importance...
...whether it is taken advantage of or not depends essentially on the countries of South America...
...reiterates the borders...
...States transformed its foreign and defense policy, They must exchange information, erasing the borpursuing a new strategy oriented toward main- ders between police and military activities...
...The inattention paid by the United States to the region after 9/11 and its loss of credibility after the Iraq invasion, combined with its bad economic management in the last few years, offer the region rare leeway...
...It also successfully recruited 12 countries in the region to commit to the military-police mission in Haiti beginning in 2004...
...in the United States...
...registers the apologies therefore merits a detailed evaluation...
...The kinds of intra-military region’s commitment to confronting three areas: First, there linkages that are being made in the the threats from “irregular groups and are trade relations that operate within hemisphere, the internal training that criminal organizations...
...Southcom thus announces its role in protecting the region for the next 10 years as if it were a continental proconsul...
...or a hawkish Republican will change of increasing the number of so-called the course of military diplomacy tocooperative security locations (in re- ward the region in the next decade...
...admin- could verify that the attack was indeed planned: istration, prompts us to ask: Will Washington Imminence and evidence did not seem to matter...
...agency regarding the region that has been conceived in years...
...Cold War primacy preventive war Flexible or ad hoc coalitions essay Post 9/11 7 essay and occupies an ever more central place in Washington’s regional strategy...
...The U.S...
...and bilateral (NAFTA, CAFTA-DR, Second, there is a military dimension Colombia’s willingness to abide by the Pentagon, is articulated by the U.S...
...malpa in El Salvador...
...Since Septemin the region’s “socio-economic and ber 11, civil society has been so sensibetween 2001 and 2005, 85,820 latin American soldiers were trained in the United States, compared with the 61,000 soldiers and police trained by the infamous School of the Americas from 1946 to 2000...
...gion were among the top These coalitions are meant 15 recipients of U.S...
...This immediately and whether or not the United States development, on the cusp of a new U.S...
...Predicting The economic deterioration and its a major transformation based on a spread beyond the United States will candidate’s profile is imprudent, even no doubt occupy the next president’s more so when Washington shows no agenda...
...underpinned by a network of strong logic in the region...
...pro- Southcom’s near decadepose negotiating “security long strategy (ending in agreements throughout 2016) will continue to the hemisphere...
...Peru, gion and elsewhere...
...This is an has this status now...
...tized that any president will have to be “tough” on terror...
...It reaffirms, among other terror” in the region is beginning to things, the validity of the principle acquire some uncertain contours that of territorial sovereignty...
...milito be available for peace tary assistance: Colombia, operations both in the re- fifth...
...Democrats and Republicans, neoconservatives and liberals, all have an excessive faith in the use of force in world politics and appear not to respect international law and essay global regimes...
...The document only indicates that ungoverned spaces in the region could “potentially” be used to harm vital U.S...
...essay tracting more and more attention from Washington...
...The hypermilitarization of foreign policy is more and more telling...
...Military Deployment in South America insist, that these threats demand that the division between internal security and external defense be essay Juan Gabriel Tokatlian is professor of international relations at the Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires...
...Over the decades, Washington has notice- Even though the subordinate hemispheric ably varied its international strategy, its broader logic that accompanies this redefinition of grand global doctrine, and the diplomatic instruments strategy—what we could call a “doctine of nathat sustain it (see chart, opposite page...
...foreign strategy...
...In sum, the country is locked inside the logic of 9/11—both captive and captivated...
...Reproduced with permission...
...The executive will have to put signs of abandoning its bid to secure the country’s house in order before try- and maintain military, economic, and ing to deal with the “houses” of oth- political predominance...
...importance of developing programs The underlying assumption is that no of training in the area of “internal government led by a dovish Democrat security” in Latin American nations...
...In this context, the Colombian regional consensus, is an encouraging Southern Command (Southcom), (Coalition of the Willing) national Insecurity Doctrine military’s March 1 attack on the Revo- sign that an inappropriate mode of lutionary Armed Forces of Colombia action can be prevented from becom(FARC) in Ecuadoran territory is of ing a valid, standard, and permanent great significance...
...The text begins by reviewing the Command is excessive...
...In force could be established as a stan- the optimistic version, Latin Amerdard practice...
...primacy...
...Politicians have been restricted by that trauma, the military has become addicted to the new “war on terror,” and both are hypnotized by the notion of global U.S...
...the of summer he announced redeployment Fl this , friend ent (C (the ina Eur . A opean cordi Union) g to th or n incipient e w do c t tr e oppo in f e t o e - f represents a major new projection of North whether or not that country intended to attack American military power in the region...
...depend on individuals...
...omy in order has meant that neither Uranium enrichment for peaceful the White House nor Wall Street have purposes, designing a nuclear power been able to seriously question or de- reactor, and commitments for the joint ter the testing of heterodox economic production of arms constitute the core measures in the hemisphere...
...In the docuprincipal challenges facing the United States in Latin America and the Caribbean...
...Soviet Union...
...and stimulate extensive and comprehensive underjoint efforts among government and taking, whose execution, it appears, is non-state actors in humanitarian independent of the political-military tasks...
...Between 1997 activities are added the establish- and 2007, total U.S...
...That is why there is a respond to different party imperatactical consensus on certain strategic tives...
...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS A New Doctrine of Insecurity...
...global grand strategy...
...military and poment and support of regional and lice assistance to the region was about global $7.3 billion...
...In identified as significant menaces...
...in the pessimistic version, zation of responses to the region’s Washington was nonetheless able to long list of socio-political problems...
...supporting the battalion...
...Conspicuous in their absence from the report are policy instruments like the InterAmerican Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance and the Inter-American Defense Board, as well as multilateral institutions like the OAS and the UN...
...First, it presents the strategy...
...Washington made it ington has successfully implanted the omknown that the effects of retaliation would be nipresent idea of “new threats” and the prolifdevastating if the Soviet Union launched a nu- eration of all kinds of dangers, including global clear attack...
...Such ad hoc coalitions are a key of feature of the new U.S...
...This, in turn, may give ica has successfully confronted the rise to the distortion of legitimate United States and rejected intervendefense and to the further militari- tionism...
...Its exhaus- portant emerging power...
...Will Latin America be a focus of renewed and replaced by ad hoc coalitions (e.g., the Coattention after the November presidential elec- alition of the Willing...
...Southcom’s “Command Strategy 2016: Partnership for the Americas” (available at www.southcom.mil), released in 2007, reveals the most ambitious strategic plan by a U.S...
...Washington alone would tion...
...grand strat- terrorism, transnational organized crime, and egy was complemented by a subordinate logic: international drug trafficking, all of which operWashington did not give the armed forces of ate in “empty spaces” where the state has vanthe region a fundamental role in combating the ished or is markedly disappearing...
...This taining U.S...
...grand strategy had different to or implemented, there are evident signs that components: The strategy of containment pre- Washington may nonetheless establish such a dominated...
...The current reassessment of the state in South America is a consequence of the costs produced by policies established 10 PAtricio reALPe / LAtinPHoto.org NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS under the so-called Washington Con- of its own if it wants to become an imsensus through the 1990s...
...impose fundamental continuity with On these questions we see, in general minor tactical changes...
...Paradoxically, this is occurring at a rare conjuncture: There have been few other times that presented such concurrent conditions to reduce Latin America’s subordination to the United States and widen its autonomy in world affairs...
...military...
...An For this reason, the Organization of alternative view, which attempts to American States’ March 17 resolution discern the nuances of the resolution, on the Colombian operation is of great leads one to conclude that the “war on importance...
...Grand Strategy During the Cold War and After 9/11 Strategy Doctrine Instruments Containment Deterrence Alliances (nAto, rio pact, AnZUS, Hemispheric Logic among others) national Security Doctrine drug-war logic of Plan Colombia, and the new participation of the Brazilian military in combating the drug trade in the favelas suggest that the strict separation of defense and security is progressively diminishing...
...A subsequent oAS resolution reaffirmed the importance of territorial sovereignty...
...In are also meant to help in the last five years, annual the identification of “third arms sales to the region party nation alternatives to have been an average $1.1 accept migrants,” and to billion...
...Containment was backed up by the doctrine of deterrence...
...primacy...
...Washing- of the agreement...
...other hand, the South American desire to prevent and reduce conflicts in the In this context, three issues that revolve around Brazil will be the key to region by its own design...
...It turns that none of the major threats to the United States (totalitarian states armed with weapons of mass destruction or forms of transnational terrorism with a global reach) appear in the region...
...appropriate coalition be formed to carry it out...
...military strategy...
...The Pentagon garnered direct military support from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic, as well as explicit initial political support from Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica, in the coalition that attacked Iraq in 2003...
...In order to “enable prosper- future of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well ity,” the document emphasizes the as the next U.S...
...The so-called left turn in South America is the natural consequence of a democratizing movement that, with the crisis of dictatorships during the 1980s, counted on active support from the United States...
...continue its imperial temptation in Latin Amer- The solid alliances of the past were reformulated ica...
...Translation by NACLA...
...Meanwhile, poverty, inequal- into Latin America that the U.S...
...targets con- Aruba, Hato Rey in Curaçao, and Cofirmed...
...military’s view of Latin America or consent...
...participation...
...Latin America has in turn accepted, though not unanimously, the thesis of the new coalitions of the willing...
...expansion of the Soviet Union and, to the extent possible, roll back the consolidation of its sphere I ash W , y countr each in of levels n latin acceptance america, though with different - of influence...
...Instead, it put forth the so-called The Pentagon has insisted, and continues to National Security Doctrine to combat the “internal enemy”: local Communism...
...rejects the are as dangerous as any to be found Colombian incursion into Ecuadoran within the international system...
...nowhere in the text is the existence in ality, small military bases like the ones the region of radical Islamic groups at Manta in Ecuador, Reina Beatrix in I power of ojection W t ashington’ is against s pr this backdrop of bent on attacking U.S...
...Second, the Colombian op- Yet the OAS resolution leaves the eration justifies the violation of inter- doctrine of confronting “new threats” national law to combat alleged terror- at an impasse...
...and improving the defini- this sense, there will probably be more But the mission of the Southern tion of the Defense Department’s role continuity than change...
...To the usual military ment in Latin America...
...Obama and McCain much more socioeconomic than po- do have distinct personalities and litical-military...
...Worryingly, many facts point and decisive alliances, it attempted to limit the in this direction...
...Antonio HerrerA P. / LAtinPHoto.org SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2008 A Salvadoran battalion that had been deployed to Iraq as part of the U.S.-sponsored Coalition of the Willing...
...No candidate or political force appears disposed to propose a new role for the military in U.S...
...Second, the tion is visible throughout the region...
...Will there be changes in U.S...
...designate demand more material renew countries as new “ma- sources and greater autonjor non-NATO allies” (only Argentina omy for the U.S...
...The dilemma is not those differences are more about style whether the United States is on its way and form rather than substance or conto becoming a new or stronger empire...
...civic-military relations and domestic The ratification of principles of coexisdemocratic evolution are questions tence and respect among nations, like that emanates, basically, from the worth some careful examination...
...The territory without Quito’s “knowledge U.S...
...During tional insecurity”—is still not wholly consented the Cold War, U.S...
...There is no doubt a big difference between the war waged by Washington and its allies in Iraq and the deployment of forces in Haiti, endorsed by the United Nations...
...Between 2001 and establish programs to deal 2005, 85,820 Latin Ameriwith the problem of large- can soldiers were trained scale migration...
...This, however, does not imply issues: curb China, co-opt India, de- that there will be a turning point in ter Russia, control Europe, quarantine U.S...
...In little about those matters, and when the most noted case in South America, they make their differences known, Andean conflicts have flared up, at9 oAS secretary José miguel Insulza inspects the site of a Colombian military attack on FArC guerrillas in ecuadoran territory...
...The hemispheric relations maintained by other parts of the U.S...
...They 10th...
...interpretation of the risk of the “war on terror” being Latin Colombian attack as legitimate “selfAmericanized—even though the only defense,” on the other hand, seems to place where this modality of terrorism justify any and all methods in the fight has not yet manifested itself is Latin against U.S.-defined terrorists...
...A number Pakistan, contain Iran, sustain Saudi of forces, factors, and phenomena, Arabia, defend Israel, isolate Venezu- both internal and external, seem to ela, assist Colombia, among others...
...tent...
...First, the ther an inexorable enemy nor an important discovery of oil along the indispensable ally...
...whether South America wastes this Taken together, these regional opportunity, attempts a simple depen- trends indicate a growing realism dent re-accommodation, or devises a toward the United States: It is neimore emancipatory response...
...and Mexico, 12th...
...But its geopolitical Brazilian coast will change the regional projection and military deployment energy equation and oblige Brazil to in South America constitute a growdesign a more consistent grand strategy ing problem...
...With fear in the air, an economic recession, and the threat of a larger financial crisis, it is difficult to suppose there will be a substantive and definite change of course for the United States in terms of foreign relations...
Vol. 41 • September 2008 • No. 5
