STATE AND SOLDIER IN

LATIN AMERICA

Redefining the Military’s Role inArgentina, Brazil, and Chile

Wendy Hunter

UNITED STATESINSTITUTE OF PEACE

CONTENTS

Foreword v

Summary vii

1 New Roles for Latin America’s Militaries 1

2 Argentina’s Military: Political Weakness and a Modest External Role 10

3 The Brazilian Military: Intermediate Autonomy and Diversified Missions 20

4 The Chilean Military: Political Strength and Professionalization 29

5 Conclusion 35

Notes 38

About the Author 49

About the Institute 51

Given the history of military intervention inLatin America, it is striking that today wecan point to no country in the region that

is under military rule. Yet the success of popularlyelected governments should not blind us to the con-tinuing political importance of the military in manyLatin American countries. Although apparently onthe sidelines at present, the possibility that the mili-tary will again seek to take over the reins of govern-ment when it hears “the knock on the barracksdoor” needs continuous review.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and its sup-port of leftist insurgencies around the world, thestrength of most of the insurgent movements inLatin America has waned, thereby removing one ofthe main threats for the region’s militaries. More-over, the impetus for economic reform across the re-gion puts pressure on civilian governments toreduce the size of their armed forces and free upbudget funds that are desperately neededelsewhere.

In such a milieu, what new missions can thesecivilian governments assign to their armed forces inorder to keep them satisfied with fewer resources,constrain their domestic role, and reinforce theirsubmission to civilian authority? Former JenningsRandolph Senior Fellow Wendy Hunter examinesthis question in this latest edition in the Institute’sPeaceworks series.

Professor Hunter is an expert on Latin Americanmilitaries, and the following pages attest to her keeninsights into an institution that has distinguisheditself by serving as the guardian of order during tur-bulent periods in the region’s history. Her extensiveresearch on the armed forces in Argentina, Brazil,and Chile provides an excellent comparative per-spective on the different historical patterns of civil-military relations in these countries. More im-portantly, though, she suggests what kinds of newmissions these and other civilian governments insimilar circumstances can assign to their armedforces in order to integrate them into a democraticpolitical culture under civilian control.

What does this have to do with conflict and itsresolution? In an era when interstate wars are givingway to more internal conflicts, many of Latin Ameri-ca’s national security threats are falling within the“gray area” between jurisdictions of the military and law enforcement. Indeed, as Professor Hunterargues, the threats Latin America’s militaries seethese days stem less from external attacks and leftistguerrilla movements than from drug trafficking,conflict with indigenous groups, immigration, andenvironmental assaults. In addition, as ProfessorHunter reports, the military is increasingly beingdeployed in nation-building duties, ranging fromdistributing food and other public services in acountry’s more remote areas to repairing or con-structing a national infrastructure.

Professor Hunter’s report includes practical sug-gestions for U.S. government policy in support ofreducing civil-military conflict in the countries ofLatin America. The lessons of her research may havesome salient applications to other regions, wherepopularly elected governments are replacing com-munist or other authoritarian regimes. One of thechallenges of the early twenty-first century will be toconsolidate and strengthen the democratic forcesthat have made such dramatic advances throughoutthe world in recent years. Forging a constructivealliance between civilian governments and the mili-tary constitutes a critical part of that challenge. Thisreport provides useful insights into the state-build-ing dynamics policymakers will be addressing in theyears to come.

RICHARD H. SOLOMON

PRESIDENT

v

FOREWORD

viivii

Recent years have given rise to an intensedebate about appropriate roles for LatinAmerica’s armed forces: Should they re-

main the guardians of political stability, or shouldthey restrict themselves mainly to external de-fense? The two major challenges for the region’scivilian leaders are to carve out missions for theirmilitaries appropriate to both the security environ-ment of the post–Cold War era and to civil-militaryrelations in a democracy, and to provide ways mili-taries will effectively adopt these missions.

This essay examines efforts to identify such mis-sions and assign them to Latin America’s armedforces. It also analyzes the implications for democ-racy and civilian control of specific roles for thearmed forces that are either under considerationor already under way in Argentina, Brazil, andChile. These countries’ militaries are the mostpowerful in the Americas outside of the UnitedStates and have also ruled their countries for alengthy period during the Cold War era.

If the region’s civilian governments do little toshape roles for the military that are compatiblewith democracy and civilian control, the result will be continued military meddling in civilian de-cision making and inflated defense budgets. This will increase the difficulty of the region’s govern-ments to restructure their economies and free up

resources that could be devoted to long-neglectedsocial concerns. If left unattended, poverty andother social problems could well pose long-termrisks to political stability as restive segments ofthese societies lose patience with new democraticinstitutions.

The status of the armed forces also has conse-quences for regional peace. Whether historical na-tionalist conflicts will remain at bay depends onhow the armed forces in these countries react to ef-forts to redefine their role vis-à-vis the state andtheir place in society. Latin America currently hasthe chance to reshape its political landscape, mak-ing it more compatible with sustaining democracyat home and securing peace and security in the re-gion and abroad. The serious implications of civil-military relations merit investigation of whereLatin American militaries are headed and what de-termines the specific paths they take.

The two central issues at stake with civil-military relations in the current era are the degreeof subordination of the armed forces to civiliancontrol and the substantive orientation of the re-gion’s defense forces (namely, whether their pri-mary focus is internal or external security).Theoretically, a military can be highly subordi-nated to civilian authority and have either a pri-marily internal or external orientation. In practice,however, strong civilian control is difficult to sus-tain when the armed forces are oriented mainly to-ward internal conflict. This is especially true incountries where the armed forces have sought toexpand their role in times of domestic political andeconomic crisis.

A variety of factors support Latin America’s civil-ian governments in their efforts to reform civil-military relations: the relatively recent wave ofdemocratization that has swept over the region;the end of the Cold War and the widespread disap-pearance of leftist guerrilla insurgencies; and thespread of neoliberal economic reforms that havereduced the military’s ability to command the di-rection of these countries’ strategic economicsectors.

However, other factors may thwart reform.Many of these countries’ national security threatsare falling in the “gray area” between strictly de-fined military functions and law enforcement.Drug trafficking, immigration, environmentalprotection, and the like are becoming more

SUMMARY

viii

significant national security issues in a regionwhere many traditional military concerns (forexample, border conflicts) have either been re-solved or have diminished in importance.

Similarly, Latin American governments’ re-newed attention to social problems and the armedforces’ need for organizational justification haveled to the enlargement of civic action and social de-velopment roles for military personnel across thecontinent. The most recent Conference of Ameri-can Armies recognized economic inequality, terror-ism, drug trafficking, and ethnic conflict as theprimary threats to security in the region.

The major options for Latin American militariesat this time involve some combination of (1) con-ventional defense of territorial integrity; (2) inter-national peacekeeping; (3) internal security, whichincludes counterinsurgency and drug interdiction;and (4) civic action and development functions.

Latin America’s civilian governments have achoice of two strategies to keep their militaries incheck. Subjective control reins in military ambi-tions in the domestic sphere by actively subordi-nating the armed forces to the control of thegovernment and other civilian groups. The moreeffective method of objective control attempts tokeep the military out of politics by “buying it off”through increased defense spending and an em-phasis on modernization and professionalization.While objective control seeks to enhance the mili-tary’s traditional focus on external defense, such astrategy is hard to justify in an era when govern-ments are trying to pare down and reorient bud-gets and when there are few external enemies.What strategies have Argentina, Brazil, and Chileadopted, and how effective are they?

Following a stormy period of exerting subjec-tive control over the military during the Alfonsínadministration, Argentina has managed to assert ahigh degree of authority over its armed forces anddiminish their domestic jurisdiction. PresidentCarlos Saul Menem’s policies have included someelements of objective control by making externaldefense and participation in multinational peace-keeping missions central functions of Argentina’smilitary. While such objective control has not de-manded sophisticated training and weaponry, thecountry’s defense expenditures—going mainly to-ward salaries—still consume a large part of theArgentine budget. The Menem administration’s

objective control of the military also allowsmilitary leaders more autonomy in strictly profes-sional matters.

Civil-military relations in Brazil suffer from anoverly broad and inclusive definition of the armedforces’ role. Pressure to scale down the budget, lowexternal threats, and numerous social and internalsecurity problems militate against an exclusive ex-pansion of the army’s energies in the direction ofconventional defense and toward involvement inits traditional functions of internal security and so-cial action. Such involvement does not bode wellfor Brazil’s nascent democracy in a country whereprofound social problems remain and civilian po-litical institutions are traditionally weak andinefficient.

Of the three militaries examined in this study,Chile’s has had the fewest civilian-imposed con-straints. Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s privileged posi-tion during the transition to democratic rule hasmaintained the Chilean military’s political and eco-nomic strength in the postauthoritarian period de-spite civilian attempts to prosecute officers forhuman rights violations committed during the1973–90 dictatorship. The military’s position hasallowed it a high degree of freedom in choosing itsmissions, which are focused primarily on modern-ization and external defense. Domestic missionsare largely confined to national developmentprojects.

If one risk in redefining military missions isoverinclusion, while another is excessive exclu-sion, the appropriate governmental policy shouldincorporate elements of objective control, respect-ing the military’s special role in providing for de-fense and adequately funding appropriate militarymissions. In return, the military must recognizethat it is accountable to the rule of law and must re-main nonpartisan in its respect for civilianauthority.

In Argentina, civilian leaders should stay thecourse. In Brazil, they should define military rolesmore clearly, more narrowly, and outside the realmof internal functions. In Chile, they should try toattenuate the military’s political prerogatives,while taking caution to preserve some of the objec-tive control mechanisms already in place. In gen-eral, Latin America’s governments shouldcontinue to downsize their militaries while simul-taneously encouraging military preparedness and

viii

ix

professionalism with fewer resources. In addition,government officials should build up police andother nonmilitary security forces and rely on onlythem to handle what police typically handle: stop-ping crime and maintaining social order.

While taking measures to enhance professionaldevelopment and encourage the reduction of force

levels among Latin America’s militaries, the UnitedStates should be wary of pushing noncombat taskson them. Enlisting these armed forces to performcounternarcotics operations, for example, coulddraw them into other internal tasks, such as intelli-gence operations, and threaten the region’snascent democratic institutions.

ix

Civil-military relations in Latin America areat a crucial juncture. Recent years havegiven rise to an intense debate about the

boundaries and appropriate missions of LatinAmerica’s armed forces. At stake in this debate iswhether the armed forces should remain theguardians of political stability when civilian gov-ernments falter—a role that puts them at the centerof broader social and political conflicts histori-cally—or whether they should shed this and relatedfunctions and restrict themselves to tasks confinedmainly to external defense. The two major chal-lenges for the region’s civilian leaders are to carveout missions for their militaries appropriate toboth the security environment of the post–ColdWar era and to civil-military relations in a democ-racy, and to provide inducements and sanctions sothat military organizations effectively adopt thesemissions.

Latin America’s civilian governments can seizethe opportunities presented at this current junc-ture to reorient the armed forces away from politi-cal activism and toward strictly military functions.They can also fail to exploit the trends favoring re-form and leave the military without a clear, legiti-mate mission, thereby contributing to theperpetuation of the military’s tradition of domesticactivism and interventionism. While the capacityof civilians to shape military missions presupposes

some degree of leverage vis-à-vis the officer corps,the precise missions that civilians assign to thearmed forces in turn affects the sovereignty of civil-ian decision making in the future.

This paper examines efforts to identify and as-sign missions to the armed forces and analyzes theimplications for democracy and civilian control ofspecific roles for the armed forces that are eitherunder consideration or already under way. For thepurposes of this study, I define the term role as theprincipal orientation of the armed forces. Roles areusually expressed in functional terms (internal orexternal) but, as I demonstrate in the course of thisstudy, the term has an even greater political dimen-sion, namely, the relationship of the military vis-à-vis the state. Missions are the specific tasksassigned to the armed forces. While the militarymay be responsible for a wide range of tasks, cer-tain missions—individually and collectively—tendto define the military’s fundamental role in the na-tion.

The service branch I examine for comparativepurposes in this study is the army, the most politi-cally relevant branch of the military. The countriesI have selected for comparison are Argentina,Brazil, and Chile, which have the most powerfularmed forces in the Americas outside of the UnitedStates. These armed forces have also distinguishedthemselves by having ruled their countries for alengthy period during the Cold War, which con-tributed to military dominance in several ways.

Needless to say, I do not claim that these casestudies should serve as exact models for how othercountries in the region redefine their civil-militaryrelations. Quite simply, the structures and histo-ries of the region’s governments and armed forcespresent as many crucial differences as they do sim-ilarities. Haiti’s military is an obvious example ofjust how tenuous generalizations can be. Yet mypurpose in linking these case studies to the regionseeks to highlight the common pressures most ofthese countries will face to a greater or lesser extentand to focus the universe of policy options onthose that seem more appropriate, given the his-tory of the continent’s armed forces’ serving as au-tonomous actors and nation-builders, the relativelyrecent wave of economic and political reform thathas swept over the continent, the decline of leftistinsurgencies in practically all of these countries,and the lack of external threats. Put another way, I selected these three case studies to offer a look at

1

1NEW ROLES FOR

LATIN AMERICA’SMILITARIES

2

quite different histories of civil-military relationsand the corresponding policies that seemed appro-priate in balancing military interests against the de-mands of demobilization, economic reform, anddemocratization. The vast majority of the region’scountries will have to confront such trade-offs tovarying degrees in the near future. As such, my useof the case studies is not to suggest a particularmodel for how to redefine civil-military relationsacross the continent, but to isolate similarities andask simply, How should we expect other civiliangovernments to approach the issue of redefiningcivil-military relations, given roughly similar condi-tions in the case-study countries?

Argentina, Brazil, and Chile are useful cases forsuch a comparative analysis. Despite the presenceof several common influencing factors (the end ofthe Cold War, the reemergence of democracy, andfew significant external ene-mies), a distinctive set of mili-tary role definitions hasbegun to emerge in eachcountry. In Argentina, thearmed forces have come to as-sume an almost exclusive (al-beit modest) focus onexternally oriented roles, ofwhich international peace-keeping is a large component.In Brazil, they are trying tomaintain activities on boththe domestic and externalfronts. In Chile, the armedforces are vigorously strengthening external de-fense capabilities and moving away from politicalactivities, despite the significant autonomy theyenjoy and their persistent saber-rattling over civil-ian attempts to prosecute officers for human rightsviolations committed during the 1973–90 dictator-ship.

What precisely are the imminent and potentialthreats posed by Latin America’s militaries duringthis crucial period? What could result from the fail-ure of civilian leaders to manage correctly the de-mobilization and definition of new roles for thearmed forces? In the realm of domestic politics,worst case scenarios include recurring military re-bellion, as witnessed in Argentina under PresidentRaúl Alfonsín (1983–89), or a full-blown (albeitless probable) authoritarian backlash mounted by the military leadership to recover institutional

prerogatives eliminated or imperiled by civiliangovernments.

On a less dramatic and more probable note, ifcivilian governments do little to shape roles for themilitary that are compatible with democracy andcivilian control, the result will be continued mili-tary meddling in civilian decision making and in-flated defense budgets. This will increase thedifficulty of the region’s governments to restruc-ture their economies and free up resources thatcould be devoted to long-neglected social con-cerns. If left unattended, poverty and other socialproblems could well pose long-term risks to politi-cal stability as restive segments of these societieslose patience with Latin America’s new democraticinstitutions.

In the regional and international sphere, back-sliding by Latin American states on previous com-

mitments to nuclearnonproliferation is ar-guably the most seriouspotential outcome ofcivilian governments’failure to retain controlover the armed forces inthe process of trying toredefine them. Only in1991, when Argentinaand Brazil had presi-dents capable of con-taining the military, didthese two countriesreach a nuclear rap-

prochement and subject themselves to inspectionby the International Atomic Energy Agency. Simi-larly, only with the “military question” at leastpartially resolved did Argentina’s second postau-thoritarian president, Carlos Saúl Menem, act vig-orously to arrest the development of the air force’sballistic missile program. The development andexport of such missiles have clear adverse implica-tions for international security. Brazil has yet tocommit itself as clearly as other countries in the re-gion to curbing the production and sale of highlysensitive military technology.

The status of the armed forces also has conse-quences for regional peace. With the advent ofcivilian rule in three major South American coun-tries—Argentina, Brazil, and Chile—annual militaryspending in these countries has dropped byroughly one-fourth. Civilian rule has led to the

What could result

from the failure of

civilian leaders to manage

correctly the demobilization

and definition of new roles for

the armed forces?

resolution of many regional disputes as well, suchas the clash between Argentina and Chile in 1977over territory at the southern tip of South Americaand the competition in nuclear development pro-grams between Argentina and Brazil. Democratiza-tion and the activation of trade in the SouthernCone have also resulted in a reduction of borderdisputes and other sources of regional tension.Whether historical nationalist conflicts will remainat bay depends in no small part on how the armedforces in these countries react to efforts to redefinetheir role vis-à-vis the state and their place insociety.

In short, the current juncture provides a rarechance for Latin America to reshape its politicallandscape, making it more compatible with sus-taining democracy at home and securing peaceand security in the region and abroad. The seriousimplications of civil-military relations merit investi-gation of where Latin American militaries areheaded and what determines the specific pathsthey take.

The two central issues currently at stake in civil-military relations are the degree of subordinationof the armed forces to civilian control (indepen-dent of the specific substantive roles they perform)and the substantive orientation of the region’s de-fense forces (namely, whether their primary focusis internal or external security). The autonomy ofthe military from civilian control and the substan-tive roles the armed forces play are analytically dis-tinct issues. Theoretically, a military can be highlysubordinated to civilian authority and have eithera primarily internal or external orientation. Inpractice, however, strong civilian control is diffi-cult to sustain when the armed forces are orientedmainly toward internal conflict. This is especiallytrue in countries where the armed forces havesought to expand their internal role in times of do-mestic political and economic crisis.

Factors Affecting Military Missions inthe Current Era

What are the forces that militate in favor of a redefi-nition of civil-military relations and a contractionof the armed forces’ jurisdiction in Latin America?The first is the wave of democratization that hasspread across the region in the last decade and ahalf. As recently as 1978, the armed forces gov-erned in half of all Latin American countries. Since

then, military governments have vanished fromthe region. Only in Peru, which witnessed anextreme economic crisis and a serious threat ofguerrilla insurgency, did a civilian president tem-porarily suspend constitutional democracy (inApril 1992) and invite the armed forces to play alarger role in the government. Democratizationhas emboldened citizens to contest the military’scontrol over issues of broad national importance,question the institution’s raison d’etre, and de-mand justification for its consumption of scarceeconomic resources.

The nature of threats facing the region is impor-tant in justifying which roles and missions the mili-tary plays. The end of the Cold War and thewidespread disappearance of guerrilla insurgen-cies and their external sponsors have largely invali-dated internal security missions for LatinAmerica’s armed forces. Latin America’s militariesand socio-economic elites viewed leftist organiza-tions in their countries as a threat to capitalism, tothe extant social order, and to the military hierar-chy itself. As recipients of funding from variousSoviet-bloc countries, including Cuba, some LatinAmerican leftist groups endorsed the notion ofarmed struggle, directly challenging the military’sinstitutional interest in monopolizing coercivepower. The U.S. government provided high levelsof support in the form of direct military aid and fa-vorable financial and trade arrangements to LatinAmerican governments and militaries intent oncombating and defeating these insurgency move-ments.

The spread of neoliberal economic reforms, par-ticularly privatization, has reduced the military’sability to command or influence the direction ofthese countries’ strategic economic sectors, suchas mining, telecommunications, and energy. Mar-ket reforms have exposed once-protected militaryindustries and the weapons systems they produceto the dictates of competition. Moreover, countriesthat are undergoing economic restructuring needto be on good terms with the United States andWestern financial institutions, which place severeconstraints on the development and purchase ofsophisticated military technology they deem unac-ceptable.

However, there are other factors in the regionthat may thwart reform. At a time when LatinAmerica’s governments are eager to distance theirmilitaries from the domestic realm, many of the

3

immediate threats to national security are fallingwithin the “gray area” between strictly definedmilitary functions and law enforcement. Drug traf-ficking, immigration, environmental protection,and the like are becoming more significant na-tional security issues in a region where many tradi-tional military concerns (for example, borderconflicts) have either been resolved or have dimin-ished in importance.

Similarly, Latin American governments’ re-newed attention to social problems, coupled withthe armed forces’ need for organizational justifica-tion in an era when diminished external as well asinternal threats exert heavy pressures to downsize,has led to the enlargement of civic action and so-cial development roles for military personnelacross the continent. The most recent Conferenceof American Armies recognized economic inequal-ity, terrorism, drug trafficking, and ethnic conflictas the primary threats to security in the region.1

One analyst has summarized the dilemma thisposes: “How [Latin American] military institutionsretain a legitimate institutional function in moderndemocracies while at the same time defining secu-rity missions that assign meaningful but politicallyunintrusive roles to those institutions is a toughact.”2

Nevertheless, civilian governments must man-age to surmount these problems and to define re-spectable, credible, and stable nonpoliticalmissions for the armed forces if they seek to breakthe region’s legacy of military tutelage and end itsrecurring authoritarian-democratic cycle of politi-cal rule. In the words of one author, “The military’smission is the most critical determinant of civil-military relations. . . . Mission is critical because itdetermines doctrine; doctrine, in turn, is like soft-ware—it runs the military’s hardware.”3

Mission Options

The major options for Latin American militaries atthis time involve some combination of (1) conven-tional defense of territorial integrity; (2) interna-tional peacekeeping; (3) internal security, whichincludes counterinsurgency and drug interdiction;and (4) civic action and development functions.

Conventional Defense. Virtually all militaries inthe region insist on retaining the defense of territo-rial integrity as their predominant mission. At the

very least, conventional external defense remainsthe primary official function of the armed forces inArgentina, Brazil, and Chile. Their insistence onthe continued need to combat conventionalthreats was made amply clear when the hemi-sphere’s military leaders met in Williamsburg, Vir-ginia on July 24–25, 1995, for the first-everinter-American defense summit. While the UnitedStates displayed an ongoing tendency to under-score “gray-area” threats and the need for LatinAmerican militaries to perform “operations otherthan war,” including drug interdiction, many LatinAmerican leaders showed resistance to the sugges-tion that the military play a more active role inthese struggles. Instead, they tried to emphasizeterritorial disputes and conventional combatroles.4

Concrete external threats in the region are diffi-cult to identify, but Latin American military officersare quick to point out that, just as the SovietUnion’s dissolution led to the outbreak of sub-national ethnic conflicts on the Eurasian conti-nent, the waning of left-wing terrorism andsubversion in Latin America—which had created aunited front among Latin American militaries inthe past—may now give way to interstate disputesthat were previously kept in check. The outbreakof war between Peru and Ecuador in early 1995signals, in their view, the greater potential for bor-der disputes between countries in the region. De-spite the overall trend toward economicintegration on the continent, South America’sarmed forces continue to take seriously extant ter-ritorial disputes and threats, and perhaps even ex-aggerate them. They persist in regarding combatpower as the ultimate arbiter of sovereignty andexhibit across-the-board support for enhancingtheir country’s capacity to defend itself againstthese threats.5 At a time when civilian leaders areactively pursuing economic integration and cross-border ties in other nongovernmental sectors, themilitary remains one of the last bastions of nation-alism in Latin America. On the whole, civilian poli-cymakers appear less concerned than seniorofficers about conventional defense and are lesswilling to allocate the resources necessary to en-sure that the region’s militaries are viable combatorganizations.

International Peacekeeping. International peace-keeping provides military personnel with credible

4

participation in international missions and highlyvalued professional experience at a time whenbudgetary constraints at home make it difficult formany Latin American militaries to train at a levelthey consider appropriate. It also constitutes a wayof increasing officers’ and enlisted men’s salaries,which have witnessed a steady decline in recentyears. By sending troops to far-off corners of theglobe, various Latin American governments havedemonstrated their solidarity with the United Na-tions as well as with the United States and otherWestern nations. As such, peacekeeping opera-tions also serve as a way for these governments tointegrate their otherwise marginalized armedforces into their foreign policy objectives. Notwith-standing the various benefits of peacekeeping,many officers remain wary of giving it too high apriority. Arguing that peacekeeping detracts fromthe resources and attention devoted to the defenseof their own countries, they insist that it not be-come the armed forces’ primary mission.

Internal Security. Traditionally, Latin America’sarmed forces have had a variety of internal securityfunctions: counterinsurgency, drug interdiction,fighting organized crime, and quelling socialprotest, among them. Guerrilla insurgency re-mains a problem in some countries, such as Peru,Colombia, and Mexico. Subversion and counter-insurgency continue to be subjects of intense dis-cussion at recent conferences among LatinAmerica’s armies. Moreover, civilian governmentspersist in looking to the armed forces for protec-tion when guerrilla groups resume their activities.

Counterinsurgency is by definition “geared tomilitary, political, economic, and civic action” andthus invites the military to expand its reach.6

Counterinsurgency also politicizes the institutionand inevitably leads its members to commit hu-man rights violations. The armed forces’ insistenceon immunity for these violations typically un-leashes mass social recrimination, causing topcommanders to guard the institution’s autonomywith even greater vigor. This lock-step sequence ofmilitary abuses, amnesty, social protest, and themilitary’s efforts to redouble its autonomy has un-folded recently in Peru. Such a cycle does not bodewell for making the military more amenable tocivilian oversight and control in the long term.

Drug interdiction is among the most credibleroles for the armed forces in the 1990s and one

that the United States has urged many Latin Ameri-can militaries to assume. As recently as spring1995, U.S. Secretary of Defense William J. Perrystated, “The only way to deal effectively with thenarco-trafficking problem is to treat it as a regionalproblem. . . . Military forces can provide neededsupport to our civilian law enforcement agenciesin fighting the drug trade. We hope to see this co-operation between the police and the military andbetween nations wherever narco-traffickingcrosses borders.”7 Narco-trafficking is indeed ascourge, undermining democratic political institu-tions, seriously challenging governmental author-ity, wreaking violence on society, and colludingwith insurgent groups and criminal gangs. Sincethe late 1980s, the U.S. Army’s Southern Com-mand has been deeply engaged in supporting andcoordinating U.S. efforts with host-country organi-zations devoted to fighting narcotics trafficking.8

President Clinton’s selection of General BarryMcCaffrey in January 1996 to head the WhiteHouse Office of Drug Control Policy is a tellingsign of the United States’ insistence on involvingthe military in narcotics interdiction. In the twoyears prior to his appointment as the nation’s“Drug Czar,” Gen. McCaffrey was the commandingofficer of the Army’s Southern Command.

Fighting the drug war is imperative, but assign-ing such a mission to the armed forces promises tobe counterproductive from the standpoint of scal-ing back the military’s influence in Latin Americansociety. A military charged with drug interdictioncould very well demand the right to conduct sur-veillance, to apprehend suspects, and even to ad-minister justice. Militaries engaged in suchactivities typically begin to assume intelligencefunctions, and there is a fine line between monitor-ing the movement of drugs and keeping a watchfuleye on other internal social and political develop-ments.9 As is the case with counterinsurgency ef-forts, violations of citizens’ constitutional rightsand due process are almost inevitable in a waragainst drugs. Besides preferring to avoid such en-tanglements, many militaries eschew the assump-tion of counternarcotics functions because of theirnumerous opportunities for corruption. U.S. ef-forts to encourage Latin American militaries to be-come involved in the war against drugs, whichoften sparks nationalist resentment over pushing“police roles” on Latin American military officers,provides yet another disincentive for the military

5

to carve out a counternarcotics mission. In short,although drug trafficking is a serious problem,both civilian governments and the military recog-nize that the militarization of the drug war leavesmuch to be desired.10

Civic Action. Civic action and development roles,such as the provision of food and health services inpoor and remote areas, infrastructure building,and environmental protection, would provide auseful contribution by the military in a regionmarked by poverty and inequality. All countriescould benefit from the human resources and logis-tical support the military could lend to such ef-forts, especially in the absence of private sectorinitiatives or state-funded civilian agencies to takeon these tasks. Civic action also compensates thearmed forces somewhat for the demise of the mili-tary-development model resulting from the aban-donment of Latin America’s state-led developmentpolicies. Civilian and military policymakers havegiven this mission more consideration in the1990s, threatening the return to a tradition amongLatin American militaries that goes back to the1950s and 1960s, when modernization theoristsadvocated civic action roles for militaries of devel-oping countries. The U.S. government also advo-cated such roles and funded this type of activity asa means of bringing Latin American militaries inline with the objectives of the Alliance forProgress.11

Domestic missions such as civic action havealso been subjects of debate regarding new mis-sions for the U.S. armed services. Senior public of-ficials and members of Congress knowledgeableabout national security matters, such as SenatorSam Nunn, have called for the U.S. military’s in-volvement in refurbishing the country’s infrastruc-ture and addressing social problems incommunities. One of the driving forces behind therenewed attention to civic action for militaries inmany countries is the need for the military to makeitself useful domestically in order to compete suc-cessfully for budgetary allocations.

However, Latin America is a region where devel-opment missions have encouraged the military toview itself as more effective than civilians and toexpand its role in development beyond that of amere instrument of the civilian leadership topolicymaker. As such, the military’s adoption of a

central social development mission has potentialdrawbacks. Expanded civic action programs,coupled with the political inclinations of manyLatin American militaries, have the potential todraw the institution into social conflicts. This situa-tion has unfolded in Ecuador, where civic actionprovided an opening for the army to ally itself withright-wing evangelical groups against progressivesectors of the Catholic church and grass-roots or-ganizations representing the country’s increas-ingly mobilized indigenous population.12 There,civic action on the part of the military has becomeintertwined with the state’s desire to exercise so-cial control over the country’s indigenous peoples.

Expanded social roles for the army also helpcreate a positive public image for the institution,often in contrast to that of political parties andother civilian institutions. Survey data suggest thatsuch an image may contribute to bolstering publicsupport for broader, more interventionist politicalroles as well.13 Moreover, the fact that the armytakes on civic action often means that civilian insti-tutions capable of fulfilling social functions do notdevelop.

Reservations about extensive military involve-ment in civic action are summed up well by oneanalyst: “Whereas a larger role for the military indevelopment will result in a more encompassingconcept of security, such an expanded conception,including development-related issues, will, in turn,tolerate larger military roles.”14

How to Redefine Military Missions

In the process of recasting civil-military relationsand defining future roles for the armed forces,politicians and policymakers run the risk of adopt-ing two mistaken approaches, either one of whichcould well provoke tension and conflict in theshort or long term. These risks loom especiallylarge if drastic downsizing is not a viable option.Drastic downsizing is not feasible in most LatinAmerican countries, where the military has been avery powerful actor throughout the continent’shistory and where civilian governments lack suffi-cient power or the will to confront the institutionso directly.

The first risk is that civil-military relations areinsufficiently transformed when the search to find useful missions keeps the military involved

6

in activities that immerse it in broad social prob-lems. Fighting crime, drugs, and insurgenciesperpetuates the notion of the military as theguardian of internal order, and civic action or pub-lic works activities keep the armed forces in therole of “nation-builder.” Even if they are not coup-mongering or actively trying to usurp power, thearmed forces will remain a politicized institution atthe center of domestic strife. Expanding militaryjurisdiction (“mission creep”) is a definite danger,with injurious long-term effects on reorientingcivil-military relations in line with democratic stan-dards and principles .

The second risk is that civilian efforts to controlthe military and minimize its role in society end upisolating the institution. Such an outcome maystem from the economic and political imperativesof the late twentieth century or from the mistakennotion that all forms of military strength are neces-sarily dangerous for democracy.15 In any event,marginalizing what remains in many countries themost organized institution with the greatest coer-cive power is obviously not a wise policy option.Such a tendency could well ignite civil-military con-flict in the short term and create the basis for fester-ing military resentment with adverse longer-termconsequences for stable civil-military relations.

Because civilian elites in Latin America have his-torically viewed the military as part of an alien cul-ture, despite the comprehensive role of theinstitution, it is particularly imperative that con-temporary civilian leaders not be perceived asdowngrading the profession of arms or the socialstatus of officers. The partially correct view amongmilitary officers that civilians have looked downon them socially and have always held the militaryprofession in low esteem (but have willinglyturned to the institution for a strong hand to re-solve political crises) has bred in the officer corps aresentment that militates against accepting civiliandictates.

In this respect, there is a threshold above whichcivilian leaders probably cannot go without pro-voking a backlash. Even if active military rebellionin response to real or perceived isolation is not animmediate threat, the perceived contempt of civil-ians toward men in uniform will not facilitategreater military openness to the idea of subordina-tion to civilian authority. Such an exclusionary ap-proach may even work against the armed forces’

own impulses toward a higher level of integrationwith the civilian world. In this connection, oneanalyst of military affairs notes a lesson to bedrawn from recent experiences in Latin America:

Many Latin American armies are organizing froma defensive posture, in the sense that they faceshrinking public resources, diminished social es-teem, or military defeat. In this context, it wouldbe expected for any institution to withdraw, re-group, and find ways to build walls between itselfand the outside world. It is precisely at these mo-ments that civil society must remain open to civil-military rapprochement, and make explicitovertures to this effect. The uncomfortable lega-cies of military domination may make continuedsegregation between civilians and soldiers seemthe path of least resistance, but it is precisely atthis juncture that civilian leaders need to take theinitiative to assure the continued vitality and needfor senior officers to be part of the state’s future.16

An overly inclusive approach to military mis-sions may make use of the military’s human re-sources and logistical capacity but at the risk offurther role expansion. An approach that carriesthe risk of excessive exclusion reduces defensespending in the immediate term but may plant theseeds of future civil-military conflict. In light ofthese perilous choices, the question for civiliangovernments becomes, Are there alternatives thatboth sides can accept?

One alternative is to keep military budgets andsalaries at Cold War levels (or thereabouts) andallow the military to develop greater and moresophisticated capabilities against intangible andremote enemies in exchange for the institution’sacceptance of political subordination and a shrink-ing degree of influence in the domestic sphere. Putsimply, why not “buy them off,” or placate themfinancially at least as a temporary strategy? In thisconnection, one retired U.S. military officer andanalyst of Latin American militaries points out,“The idea that the military will be provided for isone of the successes of the civil-military contract inthe United States.” This contract includes “provid-ing an adequate standard of living—health care,retirement, housing, etc.—to ensure professionalintegrity and to discourage the armed forces fromseeking financial resources from other sources.”17

Similarly, in his guidelines for democratization,

7

Samuel P. Huntington highly recommends boost-ing military salaries, pensions, and benefits, usingthe funds saved by reducing the size of the armedforces.18

Indeed, allocating relatively high levels of finan-cial resources to the armed forces would seem togo a long way toward placating officers at a timewhen they fear the virtual elimination of their insti-tution. Core concerns of officers at the presenttime include the ability to earn salaries highenough to afford them a middle-class lifestyle andbudgetary resources sufficient to maintain reason-able levels of training, education, and equipment.

Objective vs. Subjective CivilianControl: Pros and Cons

The strategy of funding the armed forces wellenough for them to carry out their professionalroles is an important aspect of the notion of objec-tive civilian control, originally elaborated bySamuel P. Huntington. This concept rests on theassumption that the vocation of most men in uni-form is that of arms, not politics. Civilian control issaid to be “objective” when civilian politicians pro-vide the armed forces with the conditions to orga-nize, plan, equip, and train for combat roles(external defense) that reflect their special statusas experts in the management of violence. Thearmed forces, in turn, jealously guard this sphereof competence and autonomy in return for politi-cal subordination.19 At the risk of oversimplifica-tion, adherents of objective control recommendgiving the military “new and fancy toys” in order tooccupy its attention and keep it satisfied.20

Modernization and professionalization help cre-ate the conditions for objective control by enhanc-ing the military’s professional status.21 Bothmodernization and professionalization rest on ma-terial or technological improvements as well as theability to maintain reasonable levels of training,leadership, strategy, organization, and coordina-tion. Professionalization alone has not and mostlikely will not prevent the military from engagingin political meddling, as Alfred Stepan suggests inhis concept of “the new professionalism,” referringto the fact that the most technologically advancedmilitaries of Latin America came to power in the1960s and 1970s.22 Nevertheless, enhancingprofessionalism can help tame the military by

conferring prestige on the institution and giving itdirection.

Objective civilian control is thought to be supe-rior, or at least a necessary complement, to subjec-tive civilian control, which seeks to minimizemilitary power by maximizing the relative powerof civilian groups and institutions. Instead ofrecognizing an independent professional militarysphere, subjective control means that civiliangroups define, oversee, and monitor military activi-ties. However, subjective control suffers from atleast two related problems. First, “the maximizingof civilian power always means the maximizing ofthe power of some particular civilian group orgroups.”23 Since some civilian groups in LatinAmerica—particularly on the right—have histori-cally supported military activism to protect the sta-tus quo, their “control” over the institution mightnot keep officers out of politics. For example, Peru-vian president Alberto Fujimori appears to have animpressive level of command and influence overthe country’s armed forces. But at the same time,he has also used them as a domestic political in-strument. Subjective control also does not allowthe military to develop its own independent com-mitment to political noninterference. By inducingthe military to be less interested in politics, objec-tive control mechanisms would eventually providean additional source of military restraint shouldcivilian governance falter and lead groups to“knock on the doors of the barracks.”

Hence a strategy of control based on objectivemechanisms or professionalization might seemsuperior and highly useful politically, but currentconditions do not provide a propitious context forthe development of objective civilian control inLatin America. While there is no necessary corre-spondence between levels of spending and the pro-fessional status of the armed forces—that is,militaries can learn to do “more with less” and canbecome “leaner and meaner”—higher levels offunding certainly facilitate modernization and pro-fessionalization. Objective control is more likely toexist in the presence of formidable external threatsand ample defense expenditures. A strategy of civil-ian control based on co-optation lacks feasibility inan era when external enemies are few and whengovernments are seeking to stabilize theireconomies and reduce public deficits. Such astrategy is also untenable when the first goal of

8

many politicians is to fund programs that will winthem votes with the public rather than points withthe high brass and when international powersmake loans and other benefits conditional upondiminished defense expenditures. Indeed, neo-liberal economic reform imposes crucial limits to“buying off the military.”24

In any event, although the current juncture pre-sents an opportunity for civilians to provide themilitary with a clear guide to its proper conduct,the cross-cutting pressures of the 1990s render dif-ficult a definition of military roles compatible withnarrowing the military’s jurisdiction while simulta-neously achieving and sustaining the primacy ofthe civilian sector. Pressures of this type includethe desire among many civilian governments toconfine military functions to defending nationalborders in an era that sees few tangible externalthreats; budgetary constraints that tempt civilians

to neglect the expensive modernization necessaryto turn Latin American militaries into more viablecombat organizations and to sanction domesticoperations instead; and U.S. pressures on LatinAmerican governments and militaries to engage inoperations other than war, such as drug interdic-tion. Despite these and other problems, the failureof Latin America’s fledgling civilian governmentsto provide their armed forces with clearly definedmissions may well invite traditional patterns of be-havior to reemerge and exacerbate the current cri-sis of identity among many of the region’smilitaries, a condition that is not salutary fordemocracy or political stability.

Let us now turn to three cases—Argentina,Brazil, and Chile—where the armed forces have as-sumed somewhat different profiles in reaction torecent domestic and international developments.

9

Of the three militaries under study,Argentina’s is without question the most subject to civilian control. It is also

the institution with the most modest and circum-scribed role; conventional defense is defined as itsmain mission. International peacekeeping, logisti-cal support in antinarcotics operations, and com-munity aid in the event of national disasters aresecondary missions.25

In practice, the Argentine armed forces’ sphereof activity is confined almost exclusively to the ex-ternal arena, namely to international peacekeepingand conventional defense roles. Only under veryexceptional circumstances—when civilian securityforces are overwhelmed—do the armed forces havethe authority to participate in functions that comeunder the rubric of “internal security.” Their contri-bution to drug interdiction is merely logistical.Aside from occasional stints in disaster relief, theirparticipation in civic action/public works is practi-cally nonexistent. Compared to past eras, whenArgentine caudillos and generals issued sweepingpronunciamentos with far-reaching consequencesfor the political and economic order, today’sarmed forces, while still an actor to be reckonedwith, have assumed a much narrower scope andexercise less authority in the economic, social, and political order of the country.

To explain the recent constriction of the mili-tary’s domain, it is necessary to return to the past,specifically to the period of military dictatorshipduring 1976–83, the self-styled Proceso de Reorga-nización Nacional (Process of National Reorgani-zation). The armed forces’ abuse of power in thisperiod (also known as the “Dirty War”), combinedwith their devastating defeat in the Malvinas/Falk-lands War with Great Britain in 1982, turned Ar-gentine society against the institution. This forcedthe military to subordinate itself to a new civilianregime and to assume a more circumscribed rolein society, politics, and the economy, causing con-siderable conflict between the military and thecivilian leadership. If Argentina’s first postauthori-tarian president, Raúl Alfonsín, ended up margin-alizing and isolating the armed forces in hisvigorous efforts to subordinate them, his succes-sor, Carlos Saúl Menem, has sought to reintegratethe armed forces in Argentine society and givethem direction. Alfonsín’s measures were crucialin ultimately bringing the military under control,but their immediate result was to provoke a mili-tary backlash. Menem’s more accommodationiststrategy has lowered the level of conflict betweenthe civilian leadership and the military.

The following discussion of Argentina is dividedinto three parts. The first section describes the ex-pansive role definition for the military in Argentinehistory. The dictatorship of 1976–83, which ulti-mately turned society against the armed forces andunleashed efforts to contract their sphere of influ-ence, represented an extension of this pattern. Thesecond section traces the process by which Ar-gentina’s postauthoritarian governments havemanaged to assert their authority over the oftenunwieldy military institution, shrink its jurisdic-tion, and ultimately channel its members’ energiesin directions judged fitting for sustained civilianrule. The third section evaluates the country’s cur-rent civil-military relationship and discusses re-maining and potential problems.

The Military: From Nation-Builder toPowerful Political Player

In the century between the 1870s and 1970s, theArgentine military evolved from playing a centralrole in the final demarcation of the country’s bor-ders to seizing power from elected civilian leaders

2ARGENTINA’S MILITARY

Political Weakness and aModest External Role

10

11

and sitting at the head of government. In the latenineteenth century, Argentina’s hierarchical andunified army occupied Patagonia and defeated war-ring Indian populations in what became known asthe “conquest of the desert.”26 This period was crit-ical in establishing the army’s self-image of na-tional unifier and defender against not onlydivisive internal forces but external attack as well.

The Argentine military made its first direct polit-ical intervention in a 1930 coup, arrogating to it-self the role of “guardian of the nation” and“supervisor of the political system.” From then on,Argentina oscillated between military and civiliangovernments. As one specialist on the Argentinemilitary writes, “After early appearances as the‘watchdog’ against corruption and guardian of theconstitution, military leaders increasingly began toimpose their own rules and standards on the polit-ical system, until, eventually, the armed forces be-came that system’s most powerful player.”27 Overtime, the armed forces also established for them-selves a huge military-industrial complex in arms,metals, petrochemicals, shipping, and other strate-gic industries.

The most recent instance of the military’schronic political interventionism took place in the1976–83 dictatorship. This period was an unmiti-gated disaster for all institutions of Argentine soci-ety. The junta advanced economic policies that ledto the demise of important industries and pro-duced record-high levels of unemployment.28

Systematic state repression caused the “disappear-ances” of at least nine thousand Argentine citi-zens—suspected subversives and countlessinnocents. A desperate eleventh-hour attempt tosalvage the regime’s support led Argentina into areckless war with Great Britain over the Malvinas/Falkland Islands. The failures, errors, and crimesof military rule—a damaged economy; extensive,heinous human rights violations; and an ignomin-ious defeat in war—all served as the basis for effortsby Argentina’s subsequent civilian governments todiminish military power and influence and reori-ent military missions away from the domesticarena and toward external defense. By 1983, thearmed forces were badly divided and in too weakof a position to defend themselves against these ef-forts.

Since the return to civilian rule in 1983, electedpoliticians in Argentina have gone much further

than their counterparts in either Brazil or Chile indiminishing the armed forces’ political, economic,and social standing and asserting authority overthem, even if the country’s two postauthoritariangovernments went about this task in radically dif-ferent ways. Raúl Alfonsín waged a direct con-frontation against the military and set in motion aredefinition of institutional roles—at the risk ofcausing leading officers to feel attacked and ex-cluded. Conversely, Carlos Saúl Menem has gone along way toward reintegrating the military and de-veloping an accommodation with its memberswithout relinquishing control over them.

The Alfonsín Government: Contestingthe Military without Redirecting It

The failings of the Proceso and the widespreadpublic support for reducing military influence mo-tivated President Raúl Alfonsín to assume officedetermined to break the institution’s politicalclout.29 From the time he took office in December1983, he proceeded to challenge the military on itspolitical prerogatives, budgetary expenditures,and human rights record. Such a confrontation onso many fronts was unprecedented in a countrywhere men in uniform had literally gotten awaywith murder for so long.

With respect to institutional prerogatives, theAlfonsín administration secured the passage of nu-merous reforms reducing the armed forces’ auton-omy and influence.30 Laws passed during thisperiod transferred decision making over impor-tant policy areas—such as the military budget, de-fense production, logistics, and national defensepolicy—from the heads of the three servicebranches (downgraded from commanders to“chiefs of staff”) to a civilian-led Ministry of De-fense. Additional reforms stripped the armedforces of management over public-sector defensefirms and charged the Ministry of Defense with su-pervising them.

The Alfonsín government also succeeded inpassing legislation limiting military participationin matters of internal security, a constitutionallyauthorized attribute the military had relied on inthe past to legitimate its political activism. The1988 National Defense Law (No. 23.554) formedthe centerpiece of efforts to remove the militaryfrom the realm of internal security, providing a

12

legislative separation between external defenseand internal security by putting the military incharge of the former and making police forces andborder patrols responsible for the latter. This leg-islative change would not preclude a military benton intervention from overstepping legal bound-aries, but it would increase the costs of undertak-ing such action. In addition to overseeing thepassage of the National Defense Law, the presi-dent removed over two hundred active duty andretired military personnel from the country’s chiefintelligence agency, the Secretaría de Inteligencia yDefensa del Estado (SIDE),which is now directly subordi-nate to the presidency.

The Alfonsín governmentalso proceeded with a drasticreduction in defense expendi-tures as well. The political mo-tive to weaken the military inevery way possible reinforcedthe economic incentives to cutthe military budget and thusreduce the country’s perni-cious inflation and public debt. As a share of pub-lic sector expenditures, the armed forces occupied32.3 percent in 1982, compared to 18.4 percent in1990.31 Stated in absolute terms, military expendi-tures (in constant 1993 dollars) stood at $9.2 bil-lion in 1982 and fell to $4.9 billion by 1989.32

Demobilization contributed to a large part of thesesavings; between 1983 and 1989, the governmentreduced military personnel from 175,000 to95,000.33

The budgetary cuts the government imposedon the armed forces weakened their operationalcapacity severely. The physical condition of build-ings and equipment deteriorated. By the late1980s, finances were so tight that the work weekwas shortened and the capacity for training was se-verely undermined by insufficient resources suchas fuel and munitions.34 On any given day duringthis period, the barracks and army ministry wereempty by 2:00 p.m. Officers of all ranks were re-ported to be “moonlighting.” Military service be-came a part-time job rather than a profession ofsingular dedication. While all of the services suf-fered from budget cuts, the army—historically the most politically meddlesome branch—took the biggest hit.35 In short, under the Alfonsín

administration, the military became a shadow ofits former self. The days of splendor for the institu-tion were most certainly over.

Civilian moves to reduce the political and eco-nomic standing of the military frequently fueledtension in civil-military relations, most notably inthe efforts to prosecute officers responsible for thedeaths and “disappearances” during the Proceso or“Dirty War.” The initial intention was to prosecuteonly the top leadership and stop there; this waslargely accomplished by the end of 1985. Militaryacquiescence to the trials was put to the test after

members of the Argentinelegislature and some hu-man rights groups soughtto extend the proceedingsfurther down into theranks, specifically to thelevel of unit commanders,implicating scores of juniorofficers. This would erodethe distinction that thepresident initially had madebetween top officials who

had issued commands, individuals who had fol-lowed orders, and those who had exceeded or-ders.

In sum, the crux of government policy towardthe military under President Alfonsín was orientedmore toward restriction and exclusion than redi-recting the institution into activities and missionsaimed at keeping its members out of politics. De-militarization, not redirection through profession-alization and modernization, formed the core ofgovernment efforts during this period. This orien-tation is understandable in light of both the exten-sive misdeeds the military had committed in theprevious period and the public sentiment for pun-ishing and weakening the armed forces on allfronts. Such a tack may even have been a neces-sary precondition for later reintegrating the mili-tary on terms favorable to civilian rule. Efforts tocut state resources for the institution also madeeconomic sense, given the crisis-ridden state of theArgentine economy and the competing demandsfor public funds.

At the same time, major sectors within the mili-tary perceived the policies of the Alfonsín era as amultifront assault that stripped the institution ofall prestige and deprived it of any role to perform,

The Alfonsín government’s

battle with the country’s

armed forces wound down

on a fragile truce.

13

including strictly military and professional func-tions. One student of the Argentine military ob-served that, “Government policies were aimed ateliminating any danger posed by the armed forcesto either government or society. However, theirresult was to combine steps toward political debili-tation of the military with their institutional debili-tation, which, in many ways, had the oppositeeffect of that intended.”36 Rather than depoliticiz-ing the institution and encouraging its reprofes-sionalization, goals that enjoyed widespreadsupport among officers, the strategy backfired and led to renewed politicization and defiance of civilian authority.

Junior and mid-level army officers struck backin three rebellions that took place between April1987 and December 1988. These officers becameknown as the carapintadas (“painted faces”),named after the camouflage paint they applied totheir faces. The primary and initial cause of mili-tary rebellion was the move to prosecute junior of-ficers for human rights offenses. But the army’sperceived isolation, professional degradation, andlack of mission further fueled the rebels’ campaignand expanded their following.37 As is the case withjunior officers nearly everywhere, those in Ar-gentina tended to be more radical than their supe-riors and were more insistent on wresting theconditions for a strong professional role from therelevant political authorities.

The army leadership initially did little to opposethe rebels since it, too, resented these develop-ments and considered them detrimental to the in-stitution’s future. Its members were not willing toinitiate a confrontation with the government,fearing that such a move would risk further oppro-brium for the institution, but they were not abovequietly resisting civilian orders to subdue rebel-lion. The fact that army leaders discontinued theirsupport of the carapintadas by the third andfourth rebellions, in which political and ideologi-cal issues figured more prominently than institu-tional or professional ones, suggests that they didnot have an explicitly political agenda but, rather,were interested in defending institutional integrityfirst and foremost.38

The perceived linkage of political and institu-tional strength is something David Pion-Berlinpoints to as a phenomenon that is consistentlymisunderstood among civilian policymakers. In

his view, the blurring of the distinction results inconfusion about the military’s ultimate objectives.Where military power takes on political connota-tions, it is indeed unhealthy for democracy. Butwhere military power assumes institutional char-acteristics—that is, when it bolsters institutional au-tonomy in ways that enhance modernization andprofessionalization—it may in fact facilitate the mil-itary’s withdrawal from politics.39 Such a view ispredicated on Huntington’s notion of objectivecivilian control, described above.

Leaving the military with an ill-defined missionand insufficient resources to reprofessionalize con-tributed to the instability of civil-military relationsunder the Alfonsín government. Government pol-icy in this critical period erred on the side of isolat-ing and excluding the unwieldy institution in aneffort to subordinate it. Nevertheless, the presidentended up negotiating with the military in the after-math of each rebellion, setting an inauspiciousprecedent for asserting the primacy of civilianpower. Miscellaneous concessions were granted tothe rebels, the most noteworthy of which absolvedall officers below the rank of colonel for humanrights abuses, but little was done to try to design arole definition for the army in accordance withwhat Argentine citizens would find acceptable andwhat public resources they were willing to spend.The Alfonsín government’s battle with the coun-try’s armed forces wound down on a fragile truce.

The Menem Administration’s MilitaryPolicy: Seeking Accommodation andIntegration

The Menem administration’s policies have beeninstrumental in depoliticizing the armed forces,providing them with renewed prestige and profes-sional roles, and stabilizing civil-military relations.While civil-military relations under the Menemgovernment should not be held up as an idealmodel of civilian control, its policies may offersome lessons on how to induce military compli-ance and channel the energies of officers in apoliti-cal directions in countries where military eliteshave resisted subordination to civilian authority.

The key features of the Menem administration’sstrategy toward the military consist of concedingissues where implacable military hostility wasbound to persist, namely, human rights; upholding

the previous government’s efforts to weaken theautonomy and standing of the institution (by cur-tailing its political prerogatives and cutting defensespending); and offering inducements to enhancemilitary compliance by encouraging peacekeepingand other professionalizing roles.

President Menem’s relations with the militarybegan on a dramatic note. Shortly after assumingpower in July 1989, Menem granted a blanket par-don to officers imprisoned for repression in theDirty War (including all junta members) and thosewho led uprisings under the Alfonsín government.Having witnessed what three military rebellionsdid to disrupt the precedingadministration, Menem’s firstpriority was to purchasepeace with the military andthen turn to other pressing is-sues, namely, the deep eco-nomic crisis he had inherited.

If the military interpretedMenem’s gesture as a sign ofweakness and an invitation totest the new president fur-ther, it was mistaken. Hopingto extract more concessions,extremist elements in the Ar-gentine armed forces pushed their luck and re-volted for the fourth time since 1983.40 Menemrose to the challenge by ordering army leaders tocrush the rebellion; they complied, firing on rebelforces. By handling the uprising in this way, thepresident bolstered his reputation for brooking nodissent and strengthened his credibility with themilitary, dissuading would-be dissenters. Notably,no military revolt has erupted since.

By the end of 1990, the fourth rebellion hadbeen thoroughly quashed and the leaders of theArgentine junta had been pardoned. Only after thedust settled on these events did civil-military rela-tions enter a period of accommodation. The gov-ernment now focused its attention squarely on thequestion of defining new military missions. By Jan-uary 1991, the Menem administration had plantedthe seeds of reconciliation between itself and themilitary.

The subsequent stabilization of civil-military re-lations helped President Menem uphold his prede-cessor’s reforms to curb the political autonomy ofthe armed forces and continue the trend of smaller

defense budgets. Strengthening Menem’s capacityto hold his ground against the armed forces wasthe broader success of his economic policies,namely, curbing inflation and restoring economicgrowth after mid-1991.

The Menem government has done little to re-verse the demise of many of the military’s politicalprerogatives effected under the Alfonsín adminis-tration. Institutional prerogatives transferred fromthe military to the civilian-led Ministry of Defenseunder Alfonsín’s presidency have stayed withinthe ministry’s purview. The general prohibition ofmilitary participation in internal security roles re-

mains in place, save whenrelevant civilian authoritiesjudge the situation to ex-ceed the capability of thepolice.41 While not want-ing the army’s organiza-tional justification toshrink any further, manyofficers have grave reserva-tions about reimmersingthe institution in internalconflicts and linking sol-diers once again with therepression of Argentine cit-

izens, an inevitable consequence of such opera-tions.42 Analyst J. Samuel Fitch, who hasconducted an extensive survey of attitudes amongArgentine officers, documents a rather markedchange of sentiment toward internal security rolesbetween 1985 and 1992: While 70 percent of offi-cers interviewed in 1985 listed internal security asa mission for the armed forces, by 1992 only 30percent of respondents on active duty regarded in-ternal security as a military mission. Fitch writes,“[p]articularly among active-duty officers, there ap-pears to be a widespread acceptance of the officialposition that regular military forces are the last re-sort in cases of insurgency or internal disorder.”43

The military does have two other “subsidiary” or“secondary” missions that are internally oriented,but these are highly circumscribed. The first islogistical support in drug interdiction. The centralresponsibility for counternarcotics operationsgoes to civilian security forces, the GendarmeríaNacional (border guards), the Prefectura Naval(coast guard), and the Federal Police.44 Eventhough Argentina is only a transit country and not

14

If the military interpreted

Menem’s gesture as a sign of

weakness and an invitation

to test the new president

further, it was mistaken.

a drug producer, the military has been adamantabout not wanting to assume a larger drug inter-diction role. Representatives of the U.S. militaryhave made overtures to the Argentine governmentand armed forces to solicit their help in takingjoint action against narco-trafficking.45 TheMenem government, despite its strong interest inremaining on good terms with the United States,has consistently resisted drawing Argentina’s mili-tary further into drug interdiction.46

Disaster relief is the only other internal role thearmed forces perform. Recent examples of this ac-tivity include efforts by the army and air force totreat people already infected and prevent furthercontamination in the cholera epidemic that sweptacross Argentina’s northern provinces during1992–93. Both service branches helped transportthe sick, brought thousands of liters of potable wa-ter to the northern region, and set up water purifi-cation equipment.47 Departing from a long historyof civic action dating back to the beginning of therepublic—which included literacy education, med-ical services, and infrastructure development—themilitary now performs no civic action roles on aroutine basis.48 Survey data gathered by Fitch in1992 show that whereas half of the retired officerslisted civic action as a legitimate military mission,only a quarter of the active-duty officers did so.49

The recent elimination of compulsory militaryservice has further diminished the armed forces’broader impact on society.50 Instituted in 1901,obligatory military service not only provided ade-quate troop levels in the event of war, but alsointegrated and imparted a sense of patriotism toArgentine citizens, who comprised high numbersof immigrants in the first half of the twentieth cen-tury. President Menem eliminated Argentina’stradition of conscription after barely consultingwith the military leadership.51 The lack of publicprotest by the armed forces in the wake of this his-toric decision was testimony to how much author-ity Menem had come to develop over men inuniform.52 As of January 1995, Argentina leftbehind the era of the citizen-soldier and adoptedvoluntary military service, a further step towardconfining the military to a narrow professionalsphere.

In the realm of economics and trade policy, thestrict neoliberal orientation of the Menem govern-ment has also posed various other challenges for

the armed forces. Regarding Argentina’s previousembrace of nationalism and nonalignment as un-fitting for a country seeking to bring itself out of adecades-long economic decline, President Menemhas advocated instead open markets, cooperativesecurity, and diplomacy. Menem’s close relation-ship with the United States has eliminated obsta-cles to advantageous commercial and financialrelations, but his new internationalism has put fur-ther pressure on the armed forces financially, re-stricting the types of weapons they can buy anddevelop on their own.

The austerity programs prescribed for Ar-gentina by international lending institutions likethe International Monetary Fund and the WorldBank have exerted downward pressure on thecountry’s military budget. Continuing the trend to-ward lower military budgets, defense expendituresunder Menem reached only 1.7 percent of grossnational product (GNP) in 1993, falling from 2.6percent in 1989.53 This represents a dramatic dropcompared to the late 1970s, when defense expen-ditures stood at roughly 8 percent of gross domes-tic product (GDP).54 The relative decline from 1989to 1993 corresponds to a small drop in absoluteexpenditures. Whereas military expenditures to-taled $4.9 billion (in constant 1993 dollars), theyfell to $4.2 billion in 1993.55 In line with cuttingdefense expenditures, the government reducedforce levels from 95,000 in 1989 to 65,000 in1993.56

As part of a comprehensive dismantling of pub-lic sector industries, the government privatizedkey military firms, including the arms producerFabricaciones Militares.57 Other assets in the mili-tary’s vast real estate holdings were sold off aswell.58 Privatization has not only subjected the mil-itary’s weapons acquisition programs to the de-mands and uncertainties of a market economy, ithas also eliminated many managerial jobs for offi-cers and has greatly diminished the armed forces’impact on the economy.

The Menem government’s drive to align its for-eign policy unequivocally with powerful Westernnations was undoubtedly the chief reason behindits downgrading or elimination of high-technologyprojects, such as the CONDOR II ballistic missile,which the United States and other Western gov-ernments deemed objectionable. The dismantlingof the CONDOR II program involved a struggle with

15

the air force, for which the project represented or-ganizational pride and a symbol of national sover-eignty, but Menem ultimately prevailed. This actsignaled an important shift in Argentina’s foreignpolicy and brought the Menem government closerto the United States.59 Another subsequent movein this direction was Argentina’s decision to ad-here to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.60

Some countervailing measures have been en-acted to conciliate the military, such as pay raisesand the diversion of revenues from defense indus-try privatization to the purchase of new militaryequipment. Also, President Menem’s emphasis oncooperative security—especially on confidence-building and other preventive measures—as ameans to reduce international tensions (and, byimplication, to reduce the need for a large standingmilitary) has put him in a better position to per-suade the officer corps to accept smaller budgetsand personnel levels. All in all, the Menem govern-ment has continued to limit military spending aspart of its program to restore economic growthand stability and to restrict the construction of sen-sitive military high-technology projects.61

Changes in objective threats facing Argentinaprovide no real impetus to counteract the eco-nomic pressures to downgrade the military’s arse-nal and capacity for modernization. Chile remainsArgentina’s biggest rival, though diminished ten-sions with this country as well as with Brazil (an-other historical adversary) have rendered ratherremote the possibility of a conventional war. Ar-gentina and Chile—while at the brink of war in1978 over three islands in the Beagle Channel—signed a series of agreements in 1991 that put anend to most of their outstanding border conflicts.In December 1991, Argentina and Brazil, the twoLatin American countries with relatively advancednuclear programs, mutually consented to openingtheir nuclear facilities to inspection by the Interna-tional Atomic Energy Agency. The prospect ofgreater economic integration between Brazil andChile enhances the probability of continued peacein the region.62 In addition to diminished tensionswith bordering countries, Argentina has reestab-lished diplomatic ties with the United Kingdomand has committed itself to bilateral negotiationsaimed at resolving the historical dispute over theMalvinas/Falkland Islands. Oil exploration in thearea around the islands has recently heightened

Argentina’s interest in their economic and strategicpotential. While still determined to gain controlover the archipelago, Argentina has virtually aban-doned the idea of doing so by military means, eventhough some of the country’s extreme nationalistgroups—including some in the armed forces—stillhope for a military takeover of the islands. Re-cently, Argentina’s foreign ministry admitted that itwould even consider paying inhabitants of theislands (who prefer to remain under Britishdominion) to transfer the islands to Argentinesovereignty.63 In short, the foregoing develop-ments contribute to making military spending an obvious target for a government seeking toeconomize resources.

Hence, the Menem government has continuedthe trend toward downsizing that began underAlfonsín. In the decade between 1983 and 1993,military personnel fell from 175,000 to 65,000.64

Efforts to shape the army chain of command into amore pyramidal structure have heightened compe-tition for places at the top. The seventy slots re-served for generals between 1983 and 1989 fell toforty-two in the period 1990–91, to thirty-four in1992–93, and to thirty-two in 1995.65

If the Argentine armed forces are in such direstraits, what inhibits them from expressing theirdispleasure and strong-arming the government toredress the situation? On the one hand, leading of-ficers regard as insurmountable the political andeconomic pressures to confine the goals and eco-nomic means of the institution, short of forcing anundesirable confrontation that President Menem—shielded by the support of large sectors the Argen-tine elite and middle class—would be almost sureto win. Acutely aware of the armed forces’ image,they have noted that periods in which low militarybudgets and salaries (accompanied by militarycomplaints) have been major news items are typi-cally followed by dips in the public’s approval rat-ing of the institution.66 Beyond institutionalconsiderations, individual officers need to be con-cerned about their own careers when speaking out against the government. Being passed up forpromotion or led into retirement in more directways constitute genuine professional threats, espe-cially in an era of such streamlining.67

Beyond the disincentives for resisting civiliandirectives, the armed forces are relatively quiescentbecause the Menem government has also offered

16

them at least the minimal amount of resources tosatisfy their core institutional and professional in-terests. In the interest of conciliation, PresidentMenem has tried to bolster military prestige andfind external professionalizing roles for the institu-tion to play. Sending Argentina’s armed forces onUnited Nations peacekeeping missions through-out the world since 1990 is the centerpiece of thisaspect of Menem’s military policy.68 Peacekeepinghas provided the Argentine armed forces with pro-fessional experience, higher salaries, and a boostin morale, serving as a counterweight to the re-strictions that domestic financial burdens impose.It also constitutes a way ofintegrating the military, mar-ginalized in many otherways, into broader govern-ment objectives.

The idea to engage the Ar-gentine armed forces in in-ternational peacekeepingoperations and elevate thisactivity to a central missioncame directly from PresidentMenem, and the Gulf Warprovided the first opportu-nity to lead them in this di-rection. In September 1990,a little over a year into his presidency, Menem andhis minister of foreign affairs decided to join theUN-sanctioned blockade against Iraq, sending twoships, air force transport planes, and approxi-mately six hundred commissioned and noncom-missioned officers to the Gulf.69 Thereafter,Argentina became one of the UN’s most reliableparticipants in peacekeeping operations. In March1992, Argentina sent an army battalion to Croatia,including close to nine hundred commissionedand noncommissioned officers, with new person-nel rotating in and out of the region every sixmonths. Since then, the government has senttroops to places as far ranging as Somalia, Cyprus,Kuwait, Haiti, Angola, and other trouble spots.One analyst writes, “If 1992 and 1993 rates ofArgentine involvement continue, by the middle ofthe decade, over half of the military’s permanentpersonnel will have participated in internationalmissions.”70 In 1994, three thousand men fromthe Argentine armed services went abroad andtook part in such missions.71 The government has

even sponsored the creation of a peacekeeping op-erations training center in Argentina for troopsfrom around the world. President Menem inaugu-rated this center, the Centro Argentino de Entre-namiento Conjunto para Operaciones de Paz(CAECOPAZ), on June 27, 1995.

For the Argentine government, UN peacekeep-ing bolsters the pursuit of an international eco-nomic and foreign policy closely aligned with theUnited States. It has also given the government away to offer the country’s historically problematicmilitary a credible, positive, medium-expense mis-sion. For the military, peacekeeping addresses im-

portant institutional andprofessional concerns, thefirst of which is morale. For aninstitution that was an interna-tional pariah less than adecade ago, becoming a leaderin UN peacekeeping boostsself-image and morale, of criti-cal importance for keepingdown restiveness in the bar-racks. Marching alongsideU.S. troops in a Gulf War wel-come-home parade—a muchreported event back home inArgentina—was a dramatic

change of profile for Argentine troops.72 Mostmembers of Argentina’s service branches welcomethe ability to travel and gain foreign experience,and this is especially true among the army’s sol-diers, few of whom have traditionally gone abroad.Higher wages that accrue to those engaged in for-eign operations also provide relief from the dismalfinancial situation plaguing most military person-nel in Argentina.73 Furthermore, the opportunityto train and work with some of the world’s mosthighly trained militaries provides solid profes-sional experience for soldiers eager to exercise andenhance their skills.74 In Fitch’s 1992 survey of Ar-gentine officers, 81 percent of respondents sup-ported the international peacekeeping mission, asopposed to only 3 percent in 1985.75

Officers of more advanced militaries, which face higher prospects of carrying out traditionalcombat roles, tend not to view peacekeeping in thesame way. Among such armed forces, peacekeep-ing is often considered a “second best” activity, per-haps even one that threatens the institution’s

17

Peacekeeping has

provided the Argentine

armed forces with profes-

sional experience, higher

salaries, and a boost in

morale.

ability to carry out more exciting and sophisticatedoperations.76 Along these lines, Robert Potash, aveteran student of the Argentine military, notesthat the military’s embrace of peacekeeping is aconcession to the fact that its standing in Argen-tine society has dropped.77 However, the scope ofwhat encompasses peacekeeping has greatly ex-panded in the post–Cold War era. Peacekeepingnot only often brings military troops into a varietyof politically complicated situations, but it alsonow can include such elements as “civil functions,disarming militias, providing security to the popu-lation, rescuing ‘failed’ countries, organizing elec-tions, launching preventive deployment,encouraging peace settlement, providing humani-tarian assistance, or security for delivery of human-itarian assistance.”78

Some Argentine officers share some of the morefundamental doubts of their counterparts frommore advanced militaries regarding peacekeepingoperations, insisting that collective security effortsshould not replace the defense of sovereign terri-tory as the number one goal of the Argentinearmed forces. At the same time, however, many ofthem recognize the need for noncombat activitiesto occupy Argentine troops, at least until resourcesimprove and the armed forces find a more credibleand acceptable set of roles to perform. In themeantime, much of the military leadership, as wellas the rank and file, remain enthusiastic aboutdonning the UN’s blue helmets.

In short, Argentina’s experience with peace-keeping missions provides an important examplefor new democracies seeking to reorient their mili-taries away from internal security to roles that aremore appropriate for democratic regimes in thepost–Cold War era. This is not to suggest thatpeacekeeping is a panacea for diverting the armedforces from domestic political temptations, or thatit will replace the need for a careful redefinition ofnational military missions. But at the very least, themerits of peacekeeping operations as an interimrole in a transitional period should be seriouslyconsidered.

Assessment of the Current Situation

Civil-military relations in postauthoritarianArgentina have undergone a dramatic shift. The

civilian leadership has managed to assert a highlevel of authority over the military institution andto diminish its jurisdiction. The military’s principalmission is external defense; international peace-keeping plays an important secondary role. Onlyunder exceptional circumstances does the armyengage in internal functions.

President Alfonsín’s positive contributions aswell as his failings lay in measures to enhance sub-jective civilian control. By transferring military pre-rogatives to civilian institutions, Alfonsín aimed to“demilitarize” the military. However, such a strat-egy caused the armed forces to feel professionallyand politically marginalized and provoked theirmembers into attempting to regain institutionalstrength through extraconstitutional means.

President Menem, while keeping the military’srole definition narrow and modest, has adopted astrategy that includes some of the defining featuresof objective control. In contrast with the predeces-sor government, the Menem administration allowsuniformed leaders more autonomy in professionalmatters. For example, while setting down generalguidelines for restructuring, it has left the details ofdemobilization to the military. Similarly, it has notdirectly tried to influence the attitudes and con-duct of junior officers. Instead, it has made seniorleaders acutely aware that their own professionalsurvival and ascent rests on promoting the notionsof subordination and adherence to civilian author-ity among the ranks. In these and other ways, non-interference in each other’s sphere of influencecharacterizes the relationship between the Menemgovernment and the armed forces.

Beyond this “live and let live” theme in currentgovernment policy toward the military, Menemhas gone further than Alfonsín in trying to inte-grate the armed forces into the government. Peace-keeping forms a central part of the integrativeaspect of Menem’s military policy. By sending the armed forces on peacekeeping missions, thegovernment signals that they have a respectable,explicitly military contribution to make in thesphere of foreign relations. Hence, the Menemgovernment has introduced into its military policysome basic elements of a model of objective con-trol. Even though the application of such a strategyin Argentina does not involve highly sophisticatedtraining and weaponry, the elements that are in

18

place have helped to stabilize civil-military rela-tions and keep the armed forces’ jurisdictionconfined.

Indeed, the Argentine military has assumed amuch lower political profile since 1990; for themost part, it is subordinate to civilian authorityand oriented toward the external realm. Needlessto say, what the armed forces perceived as “hostil-ity” on the part of Alfonsín strengthens their will-ingness to accept Menem’s “friendly” efforts atsubordination. There is much to be said for thesedevelopments, especially in light of the institu-tion’s history of political unwieldiness and thetense state of civil-military relations as recently asduring the Alfonsín government. In this respect,the experience of the Menem government may of-fer some lessons in how to tame the armed forcesand keep them quiescent.

Critics of Menem’s military policy are quick tonote that much “de facto” military autonomy ineveryday decision making within the Defense Min-istry is one result of the president’s “hands off”posture toward explicitly military matters. This au-tonomy stems in no small part from the fact thatcivilians abdicate their responsibilities from thelack of either interest or knowledge, or a combina-tion of the two. To be sure, men in uniform, on ac-tive duty and retired, continue to set the agendaand the parameters of discussion over such ques-tions as which defense programs should be devel-oped or phased out.79

In this connection it should be underscoredthat defense expenditures, despite reductions inrecent years, still consume a large part of the coun-try’s budget. Even with demobilization, the de-fense budget is on par with that of education,culture, and health combined.80 The purpose of al-locating financial resources on this order is ques-tionable in light of the country’s diminishedexternal threats and poverty concerns that stillneed to be addressed. From the standpoint ofsocial needs and efficient resource allocation, thereis a reasonable argument to be made for even more

drastic budget cuts. But doing so could very welldisrupt the underpinnings of objective control anddestabilize civil-military relations.

Menem’s critics also note that senior officershave not used their decision-making influenceover the allocation of defense expenditures to theinstitution’s advantage. The critics contend thatrather than accepting current realities and makingtheir forces smaller yet more efficient, there is littlerhyme or reason to the current process of restruc-turing. Reform has not been undertaken with aneye toward creating an integrated defense system.Given that 80 percent of all defense expendituresgo toward salaries, the remaining percentageneeds to be used efficiently.81 However, ratherthan coordinating their efforts, the three servicebranches are undertaking separate restructuringprojects. Many of the weapons being salvaged oracquired do not comprise a logical system; they arenot only costly but are useless from the standpointof providing the country with a true measure of de-fense. Expensive weapons that have been pur-chased often lack the requisite human andmaterial resources to maintain them.82 “The Ar-gentine military,” one analyst has commented, “islike a trunkless elephant.”83 These outcomes—defacto military autonomy in the area of defense andstill rather ample defense expenditures—may bethe necessary price exacted for the strategy of ob-jective control the Menem government has fol-lowed. Pursuing a more comprehensive process ofreform would have to address these problems, butdoing so could well antagonize the military anddisrupt the accommodation that President Menemhas forged.

If civilians and the military in Argentina havesucceeded in defining the military’s main missionas external defense and greatly limiting the institu-tion’s reach in other areas, their counterparts inneighboring Brazil have not made such a commit-ment. While they have circumscribed the armedforces’ influence over distinctly political questions,military roles remain relatively diversified.

19

Military and civilian leaders in post-authoritarian Brazil have openlytackled the question of what role the

armed forces should serve for the remainder ofthis century and into the next. As in Argentina, thepolitical and economic standing of the Brazilianmilitary, as well as the nature of threats facing thecountry, constitute critical determinants of whatmissions the armed forces will carry out. In termsof their political and economic strength, as well astheir standing in society, the Brazilian armedforces stand midway between the Argentine andthe Chilean. Brazil’s armed forces have greaterclout than the Argentine military in lobbying fortheir preferred roles, but unlike their Chileancounterparts, they are not sufficiently influential tobe able to pick and choose what missions they arewilling to perform.

Of the three militaries in question, the Brazilianhas the largest sphere of operations at the presenttime, including conventional external defense, in-ternational peacekeeping, internal security (in-cluding drug interdiction), and civic action. If theArgentine military has little choice but to accept arole definition limited to modest external defense,and the Chilean armed forces can focus on makingconventional defense a primary and robust mis-sion, the Brazilian military is neither as restricted

as its Argentine counterpart, nor as privileged asthe Chilean. In order to understand why the atten-tion and resources of the Brazilian armed forcesare spread over such far-reaching activities, it isnecessary to examine the history of the institution,including its most recent experience in power.Such an examination should also include currentpolitical and economic factors, especially the coun-try’s persistent weakness of civilian authority andproblems of governance.84

The Military as Nation-Builder, PoderModerador, and Champion of Brazil’sWorld-Power Status

Since the birth of the republic in 1889, the Brazil-ian armed forces have spent the lion’s share oftheir resources and organizational energy in rolesrelated to internal security as well as the overall de-velopment of the country. Beginning in the earlytwentieth century, the army spearheaded explo-rations in outlying regions of Brazil; planned andoversaw the construction of infrastructure, princi-pally roads and telecommunications systems, tointegrate the vast country; and established andmanaged state-owned firms in strategic areas ofthe economy, such as energy and minerals. Theseroles helped to create and sustain the military’sself-image as an indispensable agent of nationaldevelopment and progress. Moreover, such rolespositioned the armed forces to champion the ideathat Brazil, a huge and resource-rich country, wasdestined to greatness and world-power status. Theaspiration to transform Brazil into a world playeraccounts in part for the military’s developmentalorientation and mania for large-scale projects,leading it to promote ventures ranging from thedevelopment and occupation of the Amazon re-gion to the construction of a nuclear submarine.

From the last century until now, the Brazilianmilitary has also played a central role in quellinginternal conflicts. In the last century, army troopsquashed local rebellions, including state seces-sionist movements in the 1930s. In the 1960s andearly 1970s, they assumed a counterinsurgencyrole against suspected subversives. As recently as1995, soldiers invaded the slums of Rio de Janeiroto root out criminal gangs and drug traffickers.Since the inception of the republic, all Brazilianconstitutions have recognized and legitimated a

3THE BRAZILIAN

MILITARY

Intermediate Autonomy and

Diversified Missions

20

role for the armed forces in providing domesticlaw and order.

As an extension of this internal security focus,the Brazilian armed forces have historically arro-gated to themselves the role of poder moderador(“moderating power”). Their leaders would justifyrepeated military interventions as efforts to “mod-erate” politics or stop governments (even electedones) from becoming too radical, generally mean-ing “left-leaning.” Beginning with the removal ofthe monarchy in 1889, the army became the ulti-mate arbiter of Brazilian politics. After helping tooverthrow the oligarchic regime in 1930, thearmed forces threw their support to Getúlio Var-gas, responsible for instituting important state-and nation-building reforms in the Estado Novo(1937–45). In the years between 1945 and 1964,Brazil’s previous period of democracy, military ac-tions were decisive in influencing the course ofseveral national political crises.85

After mounting a coup d’etat in 1964, the mili-tary headed the government for twenty-one years.The guiding doctrine of the period, encapsulatedin the slogan “security and development,” saw aclose connection between ensuring social stability(by stemming political mobilization) and safe-guarding capitalist economic development. In thefirst decade of the dictatorship, the military regimedemobilized the radical left and greatly expandedBrazil’s industrial plant. The modernization ofagriculture and large-scale (often ecologically de-structive) development projects in the Amazonwere among the hallmarks of the economic expan-sion that took place in these years. Despite thelegacy of repression (comparatively mild in rela-tion to what occurred in Argentina and Chile) andfinancial debt, Brazil’s military governments man-aged to garner an impressive degree of publicsupport for themselves.86 The country’s bureau-cratic-authoritarian regime was neither as brutal asthe Argentine dictatorship, nor as economicallysuccessful as the Chilean.

The military as an institution emerged from theauthoritarian governments of 1964–85 in a fairlyfavorable position. Notwithstanding the legacy offinancial debt, the economic successes the publicassociated with Brazil’s military governments, thecomparatively low incidence of human rights vio-lations they committed, and the public supportthey managed to command allowed the last two

military presidents, Generals Ernesto Geisel(1974–79) and João Figueiredo (1979–85), tokeep a firm grip on the transition back to democ-racy and to preserve important institutional pre-rogatives for the military in the process.87

Compared with the thoroughly discredited Argen-tine armed forces, the Brazilian military enteredthe new democratic period with considerable in-fluence over both its own institutional affairs andextramilitary matters as well. However, it did notretain legal guarantees of the degree and kind theChilean armed forces have used to bolster their po-litical as well as their professional standing.

The Political and Economic Context forRedefining Military Missions

The armed forces enjoyed considerable politicalinfluence under Brazil’s first postauthoritariangovernment (1985–90), led by José Sarney. Duringthis time, they successfully insisted on maintaininginternal security as a central role and also madestrides to enhance their external defense capabili-ties. Since then, beginning with the government ofFernando Collor de Mello (1990–92), the militaryhas become more vulnerable to civilian influencesthat impinge on its role definition. The diminutionof threats from Brazil’s traditional external ene-mies and the virtual disappearance of communistinsurgencies coincided with the political weaken-ing of the military and its subsequent struggle tomaintain increasingly tenuous claims on the bud-get. Together, these factors forced the military andthe civilian leadership to confront the need to rede-fine military missions. Dependent on resources al-located by civilian politicians, the military couldno longer dictate its own role and found it neces-sary to justify its purpose. The following discus-sion seeks to illustrate where the process ofredefining military missions has led and to explainwhat political and economic factors have influ-enced the specific roles assigned to and assumedby Brazil’s armed forces.

Conventional External Defense. Unified supportexists among all branches of Brazil’s armed forcesfor expanding conventional external defense mis-sions. The raison d’etre of most militaries—evenones that meddle in domestic politics—is to protector advance national sovereignty. Moreover, by

21

1985, being in power for over two decades hadtaken its toll on the institution. After experiencingthe typical strains of military rule—politicization,factionalism, corruption, and an erosion of strictlymilitary capabilities—many officers anticipatedwith relief and eagerness the renewed attention be-ing given to preparing for combat roles.

In principle, virtually no civilian politicians takeissue with this goal. In debates over military provi-sions in Brazil’s 1988 constitution, many progres-sive politicians argued that the defense ofterritorial integrity should be the sole purpose ofBrazil’s armed forces. Yet even proponents of anexclusively external orientation for the country’smilitary could not then, and still cannot now, pro-vide many concrete and compelling war scenariosthat directly involve Brazil. The external threatsfacing Brazil that demand a large and vastlyequipped military are indeed few and remote, es-pecially given the resolution of previous disputeswith Argentina. Even leading officers themselvesare hard pressed to point to tangible external ene-mies, arguing instead that defense is like insur-ance: something one cannot pay for only when theneed arises. But in a setting where economic re-sources are tight and hotly contested, politiciansfind themselves reluctant to allocate funds forsuch vague potential contingencies. Electoral com-petition has motivated Brazil’s patronage-orientedpoliticians to search ever more energetically foreconomic assets to distribute as political pork bar-rel, thereby improving their electoral chances. De-fense expenditures in Brazil yield little electoralcapital; the arms industry employs few people andis concentrated in one state. Moreover, the Brazil-ian legislature has limited influence over militarybases. Hence, civilian ministries that lend them-selves more readily to pork barrel politics, such astransportation, education, and health, have moreappeal among politicians.88 The amount Brazil’spoliticians are willing to allocate for defenseappears insufficient for making external combatroles the sole or even primary mission of thearmed forces, especially the army. Without a moreextensive organizational justification, the militaryseems unable to ward off a loss of resources anddownsizing.

During the Sarney presidency, especially in itsfirst half, all three branches of the armed forcesmanaged to make headway in technologicalmodernization programs they had announced in

1985. Land Force 1990 (Força Terrestre 1990), thearmy’s plan for reorganization and reequipment,called for new and improved weaponry (especiallyin the area of advanced electronics), new garrisons(particularly in the northern Amazon region), anda major increase in troops (from 183,000 toroughly 296,000) over several years.89 The airforce sought to develop new air-to-air missiles,telecommunications satellites, and a subsonic jetfighter, the AMX. Sustaining these programs wouldnaturally require high levels of funding.

Since 1985, however, and especially after 1988,when the new constitution bolstered the bud-getary powers of Congress, the pressure on de-fense spending has complicated and rendereddifficult the realization of these ambitious plans.Unlike the Argentine case, this pressure stems pri-marily from domestic political and economic im-peratives, not from foreign governments andlending agencies. For example, up until it wasforced to abandon the program in February 1996due to financial constraints, the navy’s main goalwas to advance its nuclear-powered submarineprogram. Relative to Argentina, economic restruc-turing in Brazil has proceeded slowly and has notentailed such strict acquiescence to foreign author-ities, although the Brazilian government has comeunder some foreign pressure to abandon its strate-gic projects.90

As a share of the nation’s budget, Brazil’s mili-tary spending has declined from 20.65 percent in1985 to 14.27 percent in 1993.91 Absolute militaryexpenditures, according to U.S. Arms Control andDisarmament Agency figures, fell from $7.5 billionin 1988 to $5.8 in 1993 (in constant 1993 dollars).Between these same years, military expenditureswent from occupying 1.4 percent to 1.1 percent ofGNP.92 Force levels for the three branches, ratherthan taking the upward turn the services hadhoped for, decreased from 319,000 in 1988 to296,000 in 1993.93 Military officials havelamented their financial constraints, complainingthat their equipment is outdated and that troopsare unable to perform routine exercises. Accordingto one informed source, “The country’s militarycan scarcely deploy highly trained infantry units,with limited air cover, for antiguerrilla operations,and does not have a force structure capable of en-gaging in an international confrontation.”94

Defense of Brazil’s Amazon border is the one“external” project that has commanded attention

22

and resources in the decade following the return tocivilian rule and remains the primary security con-cern of Brazil’s armed forces at the present time.The part of the Amazon within Brazil occupies a lit-tle more than five million square kilometers andrepresents 59 percent of all of Brazil’s territory.95

From a strictly military perspective, the Amazonregion is vulnerable; it is sparsely populated, andthe nine-thousand-kilometer border itself is poorlydefined and defended.96 Traditional geopoliticalviews of the river basin’s susceptibility to foreignpenetration inform and reinforce current militaryviews toward Amazonia. The armed forces may ex-aggerate some recent threats, which include drugtrafficking; foreign guerrilla insurgents who regu-larly cross the border; prospectors from neighbor-ing countries pilfering gold and other contraband;foreign environmentalmovements devoted to sav-ing the Amazon rainforestfrom further destruction;and even the U.S. Army,which recently conductedexercises along the borderin Guyana.97 Nevertheless,the defense of the Amazonborders is probably themost credible external rolethe Brazilian military couldperform in the late twenti-eth century. The military in-stitution’s marginalizationin the sphere of Brazil’s po-litical life renders its Ama-zon claims especially vital. The armed forces donot appear to have any expansionist designs in theregion, but they do make much ado of anythingthat can be construed as a threat. There is virtualconsensus within the armed forces for fortifyingsecurity in the region.

Civilians across the political spectrum also sup-port strengthened security in the Amazon, at leastin principle. Political groups of practically everystripe can identify with the nationalist implicationsof guarding the resource-rich region from foreigninterests. Progressive forces see an added benefit inrelocating army units and their internal securityfunctions away from Brazil’s large urban centers tothe remote Amazon region.98 In the 1989 presiden-tial campaign, virtually all candidates endorsed acentral role for the military in the Amazon.

As part of the military’s intensified assertion ofcontrol over Amazonia, the armed forces initiatedthe Calha Norte (“Northern Headwaters”) projectin 1985. Calha Norte involves strengthening secu-rity along the northern border through a system ofmilitary posts, airstrips and garrisons, roads, and“colonization” projects.99 Encompassing 14 per-cent of the nation’s territory, the Calha Norte pro-ject essentially put roughly four thousand miles ofBrazil’s border under military jurisdiction, pleas-ing the Sarney administration’s (1985–90) sup-port of military efforts to strengthen borderdefense.

Since the early 1990s, military units have relo-cated to the northern border from the states of thecenter-south, such as Rio de Janeiro and RioGrande do Sul.100 In 1992, the army created a new

military command head-quartered in the northernstate of Pará.101 PresidentFernando Collor de Mello(1990–92) supported inprinciple advances inAmazonian defense thatthe military tried to makeunder his tenure.

Under Collor’s succes-sor, Itamar Franco(1992–94), the militarymade progress toward an-other major defenseproject, Sistema de Vig-ilância da Amazonia, orSIVAM (System for the Vigi-

lance of the Amazon). SIVAM is an expensive sur-veillance system consisting of satellites,ground-based and airborne sensors, and environ-mental data-collection platforms.102 SIVAM’s radarswill be able to monitor invasions of the country’sairspace by planes and missiles and track themovement of ships and ground troops. The pro-gram has the potential for use in environmentalprotection, but it appears to be essentially a mili-tary project aimed principally at post–Cold War,nonstate (“gray-area”) threats, such as drug traf-ficking and the movement of other contraband,guerrilla insurgencies, and recent challengesposed by indigenous peoples’ movements in theregion.

Most signs suggest that military efforts to en-hance its mission in Amazonia will continue, but

23

From a strictly military

perspective, the Amazon

region is vulnerable; it is

sparsely populated, and the

nine-thousand-kilometer

border itself is poorly defined

and defended.

even this mission is subject to political andeconomic constraints. The political weakness ofPresident Sarney, which reinforced military influ-ence, contributed to the institution’s ability tostake out its claims in the Amazon. It succeeded,despite the heavy pressure exerted on the Braziliangovernment by foreign environmental groups,governments, and lending institutions to rein inthe occupation and development of the rainforest.Under President Collor, whose neoliberal eco-nomic program made him more susceptible to in-ternational opinion and whose political strength(at least initially) made him willing to challengethe military, the advancement of Project CalhaNorte practically came to a halt. The project wassubject to scrutiny on environmental grounds andwas deprived of funds by civilian ministers andpoliticians for whom it was not a priority.

Collor’s successor, Itamar Franco, allowed mili-tary influence to expand in response to his own be-leaguered presidency and conceded to militarylobbying for SIVAM. The go-ahead for the surveil-lance system, approved in August 1993, came inthe wake of extensive saber-rattling over the dwin-dling funds devoted to the military’s budget. How-ever, the program has been suspended overcharges of corruption in the contracting process.Despite the scandal in the SIVAM program, Brazil’spresident since 1995, Fernando Henrique Car-doso, has done little so far to restrict military activi-ties vis-à-vis Amazonia, which will most likelyremain the principal focus of the Brazilian armedforces’ activities. If past patterns serve as any indi-cation, though, a weakening of the military politi-cally will mean less maneuvering room for theinstitution even with respect to one of its mostlegitimate and widely supported missions.

Peacekeeping. Brazil’s military has participated ina few international peacekeeping efforts, but suchoperations are far from a central mission for thecountry’s armed services. Between 1965 and1966—when Brazil was the principal Latin Ameri-can contributor to the Inter-American Peace Forcein the Dominican Republic—and the end of 1993,Brazil had little involvement in international mili-tary missions. At the present time, Brazil has smallcontingents of troops in Mozambique (at onepoint, up to 850 soldiers), El Salvador, and the former Yugoslavia.103 In 1995, after much

deliberation, eleven hundred Brazilian troops em-barked on a peacekeeping operation in Angola,constituting the largest Brazilian military opera-tion overseas since World War II.104 Prior to that, aBrazilian general supervised the withdrawal ofCuban troops from Angola.105

Brazil’s involvement in Mozambique and An-gola stems from the country’s long-standing ties tothe two former Portuguese colonies. Both coun-tries, especially Angola, have been the site of Brazil-ian investment, particularly in developing Angola’spetroleum industry. The army ministry saw the An-golan mission as a good opportunity for training,and the army’s mission there is also undoubtedlylinked to Brazil’s positive assessment of the coun-try’s investment climate. The United Nationssought Brazilian participation in its Angola andMozambique missions because of the commonlanguage. Recently, U.S. Secretary of DefenseWilliam Perry expressed interest in seeing greaterBrazilian participation in UN peacekeepingefforts.106

We should not expect to see Brazil assume apeacekeeping role on the scale of the Argentinearmed forces. Brazil’s foreign ministry does not re-gard such operations as key to the country’sbroader foreign policy goals. Even though impor-tant segments of Brazil’s civilian and military lead-ership have ceased to embrace anti-Americanstrains of Third World nationalism, Brazil still re-sists coming under the influence of the UnitedStates and international organizations subject toheavy U.S. influence. Much more than Argentina,Brazil has tried to remain independent in its eco-nomic and foreign-policy making even as it under-goes economic restructuring and the shift to amore open market economy.

Moreover, peacekeeping remains tangential tothe establishment of an institutional purpose capa-ble of preserving a major military organization. Incontemporary Latin America, only a very weak-ened and discredited military, like the Argentine,would embrace peacekeeping as a central mission.Even in such cases, the military regards it as “sec-ond best” to combat roles. As such, the Brazilianmilitary is concerned that allocating money and re-sources to peace operations will detract fromother, more central, missions.107 Such reasoning isconsistent with the military’s resistance to aban-don sensitive military technology programs.108 It

24

is also consistent with the traditional aspiration ofthe officer corps to see Brazil develop into an im-portant and relatively independent power.

Internal security. The Brazilian military’s roledefinition goes beyond the conventional defenseand peacekeeping activities discussed above to in-clude internal security and civic action. Many polit-ical leaders and citizens alike regard the problemssurrounding these internal missions as more im-mediate than those supporting the military’s exter-nal defense roles. Internal missions bolster thearmy’s organizational justification in particularand thereby help this service branch resist budgetcuts and reductions in force levels. In contrast tothe situation in Argentina, comparatively solidpublic support for the Brazilian military regimehas allowed the military as an institution to keeptraditional internal activities and even acquiresome new ones. In light of these and other factors,the army in Brazil has maintained a highly diversi-fied role definition.

Internal security missions enlist military troopsin what are essentially police or national guardfunctions, including combating crime in urbanareas and drug interdiction. Civilian and militarysupport for military involvement in such activitiesis mixed, but army troops have nonetheless car-ried out these functions in recent years, at least ona temporary or emergency basis. Internal securityroles rest squarely within the tradition of theBrazilian armed forces, as all Brazilian constitu-tions have sanctioned military involvement inguaranteeing “law and order.”109 The constitutionin place since 1988 allows the military to continueto play this traditional central role but goes furtherthan previous basic laws in making sure that civil-ian authorities decide the terms of the military’sinvolvement.

What constitutes Brazil’s current internal secu-rity problems? The threat to stability posed by thecountry’s radical left in the 1960s has all but disap-peared. Brazil’s most important leftist party, theWorkers’ Party, is firmly committed to electoralpolitics. The demise of communism certainly low-ers the probability that threats to internal securityof the kind that prompted the military to intervenein the 1960s will return.110 Nevertheless, other in-ternal conflicts remain and are even on the rise, in-cluding crime in Brazil’s major cities and drug

trafficking.111 Many regard the army as the mostobvious institution to combat them.

No one disputes that crime in Brazil’s urbancenters is a grave problem, especially in Rio deJaneiro. Gambling, racketeering, gang violence, thetrafficking of arms and drugs, and general disordercreate a tremendous sense of public insecurity. Forthe last several years, the hills surrounding Rio deJaneiro have witnessed nightly shootouts. Fromtime to time, gangs descend onto the beaches ofthe city and rob people en masse. The police tendto be corrupt, lack credibility, and are outgunnedby criminal gangs.112 The military maintains thatfighting crime is a job for the police.113 At the sametime, the military is well aware that the crime prob-lem will not be resolved short of an all-out reformand reequipping of the police, something thatBrazil’s civilian leadership has yet to tackle in acomprehensive way.114 Military leaders also notethat it is not their prerogative to set policy but,rather, to respond to civilian orders. Recent yearshave given rise to numerous civilian-initiated pro-posals to deploy army troops to combat urban vio-lence. Two particular instances of militaryparticipation in crime control deserve mentionsince they reveal the sources of civilian and mili-tary support for the army’s participation in inter-nal security as well as the bases of its reservationsregarding such activities.

Military troops were deployed to guard Rio deJaneiro during the 1992 United Nations environ-mental conference. The army’s massive presencein the city reduced the incidence of crime sharplyand led to an outpouring of public praise and sug-gestions that the army assume regular police func-tions. Charged with safeguarding the city duringthe Earth Summit, military intelligence mappedout areas particularly prone to problems stemmingfrom drugs, arms trafficking, and criminal gangs.The army drew up a plan of action should conflictspiral out of control during the conference.

The army became more deeply involved in in-ternal security in the fall of 1994. By August of thatyear, organized crime and related gang violence,gambling racketeers (bicheiros), and general dis-order in the slums of Rio de Janeiro (much of it re-lated to the trafficking of arms and drugs) hadreached such alarming proportions that civilianauthorities were forced to consider taking aggres-sive action to combat it. They looked to the army.

25

The great majority of the city’s residents supportedthe idea of the institution’s intervention: 82 per-cent favored such a prospect, 13 percent rejectedit, and 5 percent expressed uncertainty.115

In an offensive called “Operation Rio,” the armycommanded its own soldiers, the military police,the federal police, and the state’s civil police in amassive sweep of the favelas (slums) of Rio deJaneiro. The operation, described as a “sweepingout” of the favelas, lasted from November 1 to De-cember 30, 1994.116 The purpose was to over-whelm traffickers and gangs, remove the largecaches of arms that had accumulated in the hill-sides, and put in place public works for the impov-erished residents of the city’s favelas.117 OperationRio was not an independent military initiative.Rather, it was launched as a joint initiative of thestate governor and thepresident after undertak-ing careful planning andlegal precautions.118 Presi-dent Cardoso approvedanother military sweep ofthe favelas in March 1995,calling for participationfrom all three servicebranches.119 Before assum-ing the presidency, Car-doso maintained that itwas not appropriate for themilitary to be involved inpolice duties due to theirlack of proper training.120

Yet given the gravity of thesituation, which he likened to an “undeclared civilwar,” he eventually sent them back in.

Support for army intervention rose from 82 per-cent to 86 percent in a poll conducted after sol-diers first occupied the streets of the city.121

Overall support for the military as an institutionran high in the aftermath of the fall 1994 opera-tion, despite the occurrence of human rights viola-tions.122 As the weeks passed, especially afterhuman rights violations were exposed, the armyreiterated its position that public security not bepart of a permanent mission but, rather, only anepisodic role during emergencies. Military leadersappeared increasingly concerned about staying inthe favelas too long and having public sentimentturn against the army troops.123 They stressed that

military involvement in such roles should go onlyas far as providing logistical support and not ex-tend to direct operations.124

The army has demonstrated on several occa-sions that it does not want to abdicate its guardianrole, enshrined in the constitutional prerogative tomaintain “law and order.” But at the same time, theunfolding of Operation Rio indicated that most of-ficers reject the development of a regular andcentral mission in internal security. A frequentlystated objection is that public security puts the in-stitution at the center of society’s conflicts withoutgranting its leaders broader policymaking author-ity. Another objection is that police duties do notrequire distinctive military skills, diminishing thearmy’s unique professional standing and draggingit into situations for which its soldiers are not pre-

pared. The potential forcorruption in fighting orga-nized crime is a furtherconcern. Asking poorlypaid military personnel tointerdict drugs and inter-vene in other forms ofcrime that involve largeamounts of money is totempt fate.

Civic Action. Civic actionroles are part of a long-standing tradition in theBrazilian armed forces.They are rooted in notionsof the military as an agent

of development and a state- and nation-builder.125

Many Brazilian officers continue to think of theirinstitution as a force for national integration andthe sole representative of the state in remote re-gions of a vast and underdeveloped country. Con-crete examples of enlisting military troops in civicaction include the construction of roads, bridges,dams, and other infrastructure projects, and theprovision of education, food, and field health ser-vices in impoverished and remote areas.

As the institution with the most penetration intothe country’s interior, the Brazilian military beganits social action mission at the end of the last cen-tury.126 The 1950s and 1960s witnessed renewedattention to military involvement in such activitieswhen U.S. policymakers tried to mobilize Latin

26

Unlike the Argentine

military, which is

necessarily confined to

modest external activities,

Brazil’s army retains the

popular support to operate

on the domestic front.

American militaries to assume development rolesin order to diminish the attraction of leftist move-ments among the continent’s poor.127 The Brazil-ian military has revisited civic action in recentyears, beginning with the Franco administration(1992–94). Since then, the army has stepped up ef-forts in poverty-stricken areas to distribute do-nated food; construct roads, public housing, andsanitation systems; and provide field health andeducational services. In the first four months ofone program’s existence, the army distributed ba-sic foodstuffs to over eleven hundred municipali-ties. Eight battalions of army engineers—over twothousand men—are currently engaged in an effortto repair over eighteen hundred kilometers ofroads in several remote states.128

The armed forces have regarded the assumptionof greater development and civic action roles as amixed blessing. They cannot deny that abjectpoverty and underdevelopment are problematicand could even constitute a threat to security inso-far as frustrations stemming from misery and in-equality could eventually lead to mass socialunrest. In reaction to a wave of supermarket loot-ings across the country, a top officer recently pro-claimed, “Today, misery, not communism,threatens to subvert the social order.”129

Civic action also expands the organizational jus-tification of the army at a time when downsizingand budget cuts are a real danger to the military’svitality. The army has been rather open aboutagreeing to take on social functions conditionalupon gaining budgetary resources for doing so.130

Another motivating factor is the improvement inthe army’s public image that comes with civic ac-tion. Army leaders perceive (probably correctly)that social development roles help the institutionappear as “a friend of the people.” Another per-ception is that carrying out tasks that have con-crete and immediate social utility helps boost themorale of soldiers at a time when the identity anddirection of the institution are unclear.

On the other hand, military leaders have reser-vations about enlisting soldiers to combat povertyand underdevelopment. Their first reservation is shared by all relatively advanced professionalmilitaries: Should military troops regularly engagein noncombat roles; that is, roles that do not callon distinctly military training? Will doing so di-minish their status as professionals and eventually

jeopardize their ability to perform and acquire re-sources for more sophisticated combat roles?

Another objection is that domestic assignmentsin general immerse the military in social and eco-nomic problems, which could eventually pose athreat to institutional boundaries. Many officersseek to lift the institution out of the kinds of con-flicts in which it was mired for over two decades.Yet another source of resistance stems from the atleast partially correct perception that the U.S. de-fense establishment is trying to mobilize supportfor noncombat roles on the part of Latin Americanmilitaries, while denigrating their conventional de-fense missions.

Nevertheless, ample civilian support exists formilitary involvement in civic action. Proposals toenlist the energies of soldiers and the logistical ca-pacity of the military in antipoverty efforts have re-ceived more substantial and unequivocal supportfrom civilians than efforts to deepen military in-volvement in sophisticated external defense roles.As a whole, Brazil’s legislature is amenable to theidea, even though it keeps the institution involvedin the domestic sphere. Legislators from the Work-ers’ Party favor this activity for the military, despitetheir general exhortations to turn the military’s at-tention outward.131 Most civilian leaders regardpoverty as a more pressing problem than the exter-nal threats facing the country. Moreover, they viewsocial action as a better use of the country’s limitedresources.

Assessing the Direction of MilitaryMissions

In sum, Brazil’s armed forces have a very diversi-fied role definition, with a foothold in functions in-volving conventional external defense as well asinternal security. Brazilian politicians have demon-strated a reluctance to continue funding expensivemilitary programs against unlikely, intangible ene-mies. Military missions that make a social contri-bution in some concrete and immediate way areon the rise. Pressure to scale down the militarybudget and the combination of low externalthreats and the numerous social and internal secu-rity problems that beset the country militateagainst an exclusive expansion of the army’s ener-gies in the direction of conventional defense andtoward involvement in internal security and social

27

action. This has begun to occur despite high mili-tary interest in building up missions related to theformer and reservations about deeper involvementin the latter.

Unlike the Argentine military, which is necessar-ily confined to modest external activities, Brazil’sarmy retains the popular support to operate on thedomestic front. But in contrast to its Chilean coun-terpart, it lacks sufficient clout to pick and chooseits activities. Hence, no activity enjoys the status of aprimary mission. The lack of a concrete definition ofthe military’s place and function is therefore great-est in Brazil, compared with Argentina or Chile.Brazil’s army is torn between professional impulsesto turn outward and pragmatic political considera-tions to continue its traditional internal securityand nation-building focus. Absent the occurrenceof a major political movement to discredit the mili-tary (along the lines of the Proceso in Argentina),traditional missions continue to reemerge and rein-force current developments shaping military roledefinitions.

Does the situation that has begun to develop inBrazil present cause for concern? Put simply, interms of the two broad risks for democracy andcivilian supremacy noted at the outset, if civiliangovernments in some countries undergoing a re-assessment of civil-military relations and militaryroles err by going too far in isolating or excludingthe institution (for example, Argentina underAlfonsín), Brazil’s civilian leadership can be faultedfor keeping the domain of military roles overlybroad and inclusive, thus failing to transform his-torical patterns of military activism in wide-ranging

national issues. Since 1985, civilian politicians haveindeed curbed the military’s tendency to ventureautonomously into extramilitary activities. Yet“mission creep” and the subsequent unraveling ofcivilian control nevertheless remain a danger whenthe military takes on internal functions. Moreover,it does not bode well for democracy that the army,upon expanding into internal operations, comes tobe regarded as more effective than the civilian po-lice. Nor is it salutary for civilian supremacy thatmilitary units are virtually the sole representativesof public authority in many rural areas.

Creeping jurisdiction would not present such ahigh risk if Brazil’s civilian governments tended tobe more effective. With the partial exception of thecurrent administration of Fernando Henrique Car-doso, which has successfully brought down infla-tion and promoted economic growth, all of Brazil’spost-1985 governments have been marked by po-litical and economic instability, a context that ren-ders more difficult the maintenance of stable andconfined military roles.132 While Brazil’s currentdemocracy has so far been able to survive despitecorruption, hyperinflation, and stagnant growth, inpast years the country was not able to sustain de-mocratic rule in the midst of poor political, social,and economic performance. Hence, in a countrywhere social problems remain profound, civilianpolitical institutions are weak and often ineffective,and economic stability is far from assured, the fail-ure to delimit the boundaries of military jurisdic-tion and provide the institution’s members with aclear sense of identity and direction is indeed causefor concern.

28

Civilian-imposed constraints on the militaryhave been the lowest in Chile. The politi-cal and economic autonomy and strength

of the Chilean armed forces in the postauthoritar-ian period have allowed them to act on theirrenewed interest in enhancing military profession-alism. Chile’s armed services are heavily engagedin national defense, strictly defined. Unlike itscounterpart in Brazil, which faces greater bud-getary constraints, the Chilean military is not mak-ing noncombat tasks a major part of its regular roledefinition, although it is involved in national devel-opment to some degree, and the constitution doescharge it with a tutelary political role (to “guaran-tee the institutional order of the Republic”). In con-trast to the Argentine armed forces, the Chileanmilitary’s participation in international peacekeep-ing missions has been minimal. Instead, the armedforces in Chile are engaged primarily in preparingfor conventional defense.

The current direction of the Chilean militarycorresponds with the generally apolitical nature ofthe institution roughly from 1938 to 1970.133

However, given the military’s sharp break with thisapolitical stance beginning with the coup of 1973and continuing throughout the seventeen-year-long dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet,something more than tradition is necessary to

explain the current profile of the institution. Thepolitical and economic strength of the Chileanarmed forces is what allows them a high degree offreedom in choosing the roles they wish to per-form. Officers regard as desirable and prestigiousmissions relating to national defense in a strictsense, and these have prevailed over noncombatfunctions. Stated more dramatically by one U.S.army officer who participated in joint exerciseswith the Chilean army in 1992, “Chilean officersare obsessed with war-fighting.”134

There is evidence of the military’s desire for an expanded (vis-à-vis pre-1973 levels) role inChilean development, particularly in the sphere ofscience, technology, territorial occupation and bor-der consolidation, and the exploitation and protec-tion of the country’s natural resources. Yet to theextent that this orientation exists, it stems muchmore from the armed forces’ confidence and con-viction of their own broader importance, whichgrew under the Pinochet dictatorship, than from adefensive need to enhance organizational purpose.Supremely confident in their institution, senior of-ficers view the armed forces as uniquely qualifiedto guide the country into the future. According toone analyst, “Chileans who wear the army uniformstill see themselves as symbolizing the finest attrib-utes of the Fatherland, as having a historical voca-tion, and as playing social and developmentalroles—and doing so successfully.”135

What factors have enabled the Chilean militaryto elude some of the constraints faced by theircounterparts in Argentina and Brazil? Many ofthese factors go back to the dictatorship of1973–90 and to the negotiated transition back todemocratic rule. The armed forces presided overwhat eventually became a showcase model of anopen economy. Many Chileans—while critical ofthe human rights offenses that occurred under mil-itary rule—credit the regime with saving the coun-try from chaos and putting it on a path to success.While insufficient for victory, the 43 percent of thevote that General Augusto Pinochet garnered inthe 1988 plebiscite to determine whether hewould remain in power for eight more years re-flects the considerable support that still existed for the regime. Public opinion polls suggest thatthe military continues to enjoy a fair degree ofpublic support.136 Such support was critical toGeneral Pinochet’s ability to wrest and sustain the

29

4THE CHILEAN MILITARY

Political Strength andProfessionalization

institutional prerogatives that insulate the militaryfrom forces that might otherwise seek to reduce itsinstitutional and professional strength.

What do these prerogatives consist of? The1980 constitution and the Leyes Orgánicas Consti-tucionales for the armed forces conferred guaran-tees of autonomy on the military and police, whilelimiting executive, judicial, and legislative author-ity. Concessions to the military included a provi-sion for General Pinochet to remain at the helm ofthe army until 1997 and immunity for all militaryofficers—from the commander-in-chief down (in-cluding the chief of the police, or carabineros)—from dismissal by the president. The prerogativesalso included a powerful, military-dominated Na-tional Security Council, whose authority extendsbeyond advising the president to exercising vetopower over policies affecting national security. TheNational Security Councilgives the military a strong-hold in the executivebranch. Notwithstandingthe passage of reforms in1989 that have weakenedthe council’s formal author-ity and deprived the armedforces of a majority pres-ence on it, the council re-mains a central locus ofmilitary influence.137

General Pinochet’s blueprint of a “protecteddemocracy” consisted not only of a military withconsiderable autonomy but also a strong politicalright wing. Both actors had been allies since therise of leftist radicalism in the early 1970s andwere expected to support each other against the in-evitable reemergence of the center-left in a newdemocracy. Thus beyond measures to expandspecifically military prerogatives, the outgoing au-thoritarian regime made provisions to overrepre-sent the right in the Senate. The designation ofnine senators, coupled with the introduction of a“binomial majoritarian system,” was designed forthis purpose.138 Conservative politicians were ex-pected to defend the military prerogatives put inplace by the Pinochet regime. The overrepresenta-tion of conservative parties and the formidable ob-stacles to amending the constitution and the LeyesOrgánicas (requiring a two-thirds vote in bothhouses of the legislature) would make it difficult

for any reformist government to pass measuresweakening military influence.

In addition to expressly political prerogatives,the military enjoys important economic privilegesthat underpin the combat role definition it isassuming. The first of these privileges, enshrinedin the Ley Orgánica de las Fuerzas Armadas of1989, ensures that the armed forces receive bud-getary allocations equivalent to at least those of1989 levels in real terms. To ensure that its for-tunes would not be tied to the whims of civilianpoliticians and to the electoral imperatives towhich democracy would give rise, the militarysought to guarantee its own fiscal autonomy be-fore it departed from power.139

The second noteworthy economic prerogativeof the Chilean military provides it with 10 percentof all profits from copper exports of the state mo-

nopoly, Codelco. This pre-rogative represents anadvance on what the armedforces claimed previously.In 1973, the armed forcesenjoyed the right to 10 per-cent of all copper profits,but with a floor on returnsset at U.S.$90 million. In1986, a new law (No.18.445) retained the 10 per-cent provision, but raised

the floor to U.S.$180 million. In recent years, thearmed forces have extracted upwards of U.S.$400million annually from this extrabudgetary source.

The funds channeled to the military through thecopper surtax are divided equally among the threebranches and designated expressly for the pur-chase of equipment. Because it pays for newweaponry, the money from the copper surtax hasindirectly expanded the military’s ability to in-crease the numbers and salaries of its personnel.The payroll for the armed forces has doubled sincethe 1970s (in contrast to most other Latin Ameri-can militaries), and this level of expenditure isguaranteed to continue due to the constitutionalarrangements the military secured before leavingpower.140

From time to time, civilian politicians have pro-posed reallocating money from the copper fund foreducation, health, or other social programs.141 Be-cause the military jealously guards this prerogative,

30

In short, the Chilean military

enjoys an unusual degree of

independence from civilian

authority.

it would surely resist losing its control over thefund. If such reforms advanced before GeneralPinochet’s departure in 1997, the general himselfcould be expected to lead the struggle against theirpassage and implementation. Moreover, given theoverrepresentation of the political right in the Con-gress, it is far from clear whether advocates of re-forms to eliminate these military prerogativescould even garner enough support amongcivilians.

In short, the Chilean military enjoys an unusualdegree of independence from civilian authority.142

In neither Argentina nor Brazil does the militarypossess such standing. This has allowed Chile tokeep up defense expenditures, advance in themodernization of weaponry, and elevate the train-ing and skills of its troops. Chile’s per capita de-fense spending is roughly twice that of Argentina,four times that of Peru, and ten times that ofBrazil.143 Historically, Chile was not a country withlarge military budgets. If one examines defensespending as a percentage of fiscal expenditures (avalid way to see where defense stands in relation toother government priorities), the Chilean militarydid not fare particularly well compared to its coun-terparts in neighboring Argentina, Brazil, or Peruin the decades between 1940 and 1970. On this ba-sis, Chile ranked fourth in the postwar years in re-lation to these comparable Latin Americanpowers.144

Chile’s military numbers 91,800 for a popula-tion of only 13.5 million. Brazil has a force of296,700 for a population of 156 million and Ar-gentina has 65,000 active troops for a populationof roughly 33.5 million.145 Thus with less than halfof Argentina’s population, Chile has nearly 27,000more military personnel. In fact, in proportion toits population, Chile has the largest standing mili-tary force in South America, even exceeding thoseof Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia, countries in whichthe military is busily engaged in combating drugcartels and guerrilla groups. Consistent with theirrelatively privileged position, the Chilean armedforces also provide more extensive training for re-cruits than their counterparts in Argentina andBrazil. There is no question that obligatory militaryservice will remain in place.146

In short, the Chilean military enjoys a level of in-stitutional and professional strength far in excessof the Argentine armed forces, and greater also

than the Brazilian military. How does the relativelyprivileged position of the Chilean armed servicesaffect their role definition?

Military Missions

Unlike the Argentine and Brazilian militaries,whose repertoire of missions has been definedlargely in a prohibitive manner (according to whatthey cannot do), the Chilean military has taken aproactive approach to assuming its own roles inthe post–Cold War era. The new democratic pe-riod has given rise to frequent public articulationsby the military leadership of the institution’s razónde ser (reason for being). Uniformed leaders havealso tried to educate civilians about national de-fense and the military’s contribution to it, and tobuild support for their preferred missions amongthe political leadership and civilian population ingeneral. Behind these efforts to train their owncivilian cadres is the desire to sustain the strong in-stitutional position of the armed forces and theirnational defense goals, especially should civilianreforms erode the military’s political and eco-nomic autonomy.

Chile’s military leaders state clearly that conven-tional external defense is the institution’s overrid-ing mission, and they are taking active steps topromote this activity. They have participated onlyminimally in international peacekeeping efforts,despite UN requests and prodding by the U.S.Army’s Southern Command, and play a small rolein internal security. Military-initiated proposals areunder consideration that would provide the insti-tution with a higher level of involvement in na-tional development.

At the present time, all three services are pursu-ing programs to modernize their weapons systemsand enhance training. Their considerable insula-tion from civilian decision making and their steadysource of income give them a more solid and pre-dictable basis on which to chart future programs.The military’s objective is to maintain readiness tofight against real and perceived threats from thecountry’s three principal regional rivals: Argentina,Peru, and Bolivia. Although none of these coun-tries poses an immediate threat of war, the Chileanofficer corps continues to view these traditional ri-vals with distrust.147 Chile’s disputes with Ar-gentina over parts of Patagonia date back to the

31

last century. Chile fought the most importantpostindependence war in nineteenth-centurySouth America with Bolivia and Peru (the War ofthe Pacific) between 1879 and 1883, which shapedthe Chilean military’s view about the need for pre-paredness for over a century. Although neither Ar-gentina, Peru, or Bolivia is presently at its peakmilitarily, Chile’s armed services want to be pre-pared for the possible strengthening of these mili-taries.148 For this and other reasons, the Chileanarmed forces seek to enhance the training andskills of soldiers and purchase or develop sophisti-cated technology that will afford them greater in-dependence from the United States and othermajor powers.

The army has been busy pursuing a moderniza-tion program since the early 1990s. This servicebranch lags behind the others because part of itsorganizational energies were devoted to the gov-ernment during military rule. Following the trendamong contemporary armies, Chilean army lead-ers are trying to work toward developing a moremobile, flexible, rapidly deployable, and efficientforce. The army’s modernization program empha-sizes informatics and advanced electronic warfare;in particular, it seeks to strengthen anti-air andanti-armor defense. Military training is being reori-ented along these lines at a recently constructedtraining center, the Centro de Entrenamiento Op-erativo y Táctico. Beyond reequipping and trainingthe army in an effort to make it a viable, modernwar-fighting organization, its leadership has alsodeveloped a new center for strategic thought, theCentro de Estudios Estratégicos, with this aim inmind. The country’s navy and air force have fol-lowed suit, pursuing their own modernization pro-grams to project Chile’s presence in the sea and toenhance its air power.149

As for international peacekeeping, Chile hasbeen reluctant to assign large numbers of service-men to such missions. It has sent modest numbersto Cambodia, El Salvador, India and Pakistan, andthe Persian Gulf to take part more as observersthan as members of missions with a more distinc-tive military character. In general, however, Chile’sreactions to UN requests for greater participation,and a progressive increase in the degree of involve-ment with each request—from observers, to techni-cal-assistance specialists, and then to combattroops—reveal considerable reservations about

becoming more deeply engaged in peace missions.Chile rejected the idea of maintaining a preparedcontingent that would be available whenever nec-essary for UN peacekeeping missions. On severaloccasions, it also rejected UN requests for troopassistance.150 The reasons for these refusals havevaried somewhat according to the specific in-stance; but overall, the military’s resolute stanceagainst deeper involvement and that its overridingmission is to deter, fight, and defeat Chile’senemies reflect a relatively privileged position todecline such tasks and still maintain itself as a vi-able organization.

With respect to internal security, the Chileanmilitary plays a negligible role even though abroad provision for such a mission exists in theconstitution.151 After the coup of 1973, the militaryconducted counterinsurgency operations in con-junction with the carabineros, Chile’s heavilyarmed and disciplined police force. Chile’s firstpostauthoritarian government returned the cara-bineros to the Interior Ministry after a seventeen-year period under the Ministry of Defense,underscoring internal security as the preserve ofthe police and not the military.152 It also excludedthe army from working with the newly createdOficina Coordinadora de Seguridad Pública (Coor-dinating Agency of Public Security), the civilian-ledagency responsible for coordinating the cara-bineros’ antiterrorist program.153 Evidently, themilitary did little to resist these moves, suggestingthat it does not desire regular participation incounterinsurgency or internal security conflicts asa central role.154

Notwithstanding the renewed attention theChilean military has paid to the strictly military as-pects of national defense, the armed forces aremoving increasingly into development roles aswell.155 The institution’s tradition includes civicaction, but not nearly on the order carried out bymilitaries in the less-developed, less-integrated na-tions of Latin America, including Brazil.156 Thespecific type of development projects the armedforces are currently pursuing focus on the occupa-tion and exploitation of land and sea in order toenhance Chile’s economic modernization and sov-ereignty.

Territorial occupation and national integrationessentially are the goals of the army’s FronterasInteriores (“Interior Borders”) project, whose

32

extramilitary activities nevertheless correspondwell with Chile’s ongoing efforts to modernize itseconomy further. The rationale behind FronterasInteriores is that the country’s border regions (es-pecially in the extreme north, south, and easternstrip of the country adjacent to Argentina) needmore vibrant regional economies. The military’shope is that boosting these regions’ economicvalue will have a “pull effect” and help to distributeChile’s very unevenly concentrated populationover more of the nation’s territory. Ninety percentof Chile’s population inhabits the area between thecities of La Serena and Puerto Montt. In the army’sview, occupying virtually deserted territory notonly establishes a base for development efforts butguards against potential encroachments on sover-eign territory from across the border. The armyleadership has repeatedly asserted that the con-quest of the nation’s underdeveloped hinterlandhas always been a military mission, but in fact it ap-pears to represent the reinvigoration of an olderpolicy: the army’s drive under the dictatorship tomodernize Chile.157 General Pinochet is fond of re-peating that the country should take advantage ofthe resources and capacity the army can contributeto the Fronteras Interiores project, which wouldbegin with the extensive construction of infrastruc-ture. So far, the army has conducted studies of theborder regions and drawn up proposals abouthow to develop them, but civilian authorities haveyet to approve the project.158

Similarly, Chile’s navy recently formulated atwenty-year plan to project its presence into the Pa-cific Ocean, fortify Chile’s rights in its territorialsea, and expand scientific and oceanographic pro-grams. This project draws on the navy’s perceptionof the ocean as the natural space for Chile’s devel-opment and growth. The idea for Mar Presencial(“Sea Presence”) was formulated in 1989 and envi-sions staking out Chile’s claims beyond the coun-try’s two-hundred-nautical-mile exclusiveeconomic zone to include a huge area eastward toEaster Island and southward to Antarctica. The1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea recog-nizes this area as part of the “high seas” and, assuch, open to all nations. The navy’s ultimate goalin the Mar Presencial program is to stake an even-tual claim of Chilean sovereignty over this area,thereby closing off this portion of the high seasand its resources to commercial exploitation by

other nations. The Chilean navy views these oceanresources as rightfully belonging to Chile.

The three principal projects in the Mar Presen-cial program are the development of ocean fishing;conducting marine and other scientific investiga-tions; and the construction of a port on Easter Is-land, which would allow the navy to exercise agreater sovereign presence in protecting and ad-vancing Chilean interests without violating inter-national law.159

While staking out claims for scientific explo-ration and economic exploitation of deep sea re-sources is undoubtedly part of the reason for MarPresencial, the goal of projecting Chilean powerand sovereignty onto the high seas undoubtedlyalso motivates this program. Recalling a centraltenet of Chilean nationalism—that Chile’s destinyhinges on predominance in the South Pacific—theproject’s goals are both economic and geopolitical.Mar Presencial would expand Chile’s maritime ju-risdiction from 1.3 to 9.1 million square miles.Based on a unique Chilean interpretation of the1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, Mar Pres-encial contradicts United States policy on the UNtreaty. Mar Presencial is still only an idea, but itsimplementation would surely require Chileannaval power to establish and defend the nation’spresence on the high seas.160

Assessing the Current Direction ofMilitary Missions in Chile

The Chilean military remains a strong political andprofessional institution. Its professional strengthand its demonstrated capacity to continue makingprofessional advancements stem in no small mea-sure from its solid political and economic stand-ing. A comparison with Argentina and Brazil,where the military has been less able to defendstrictly military aspects of national defense, lendssupport to this thesis. The Chilean armed forcesare progressing more rapidly than their neighborsin building up their arsenal, although they do notrival their Brazilian and Argentine counterparts insophisticated missile and nuclear-related technol-ogy. It is reasonable to expect that unless and untilthe political and economic autonomy of theChilean military declines markedly, the institu-tion’s ability to enhance its external defense capa-bilities will surpass that of the armed forces in

33

neighboring countries, including especiallyArgentina.

What concerns does the Chilean situation raise?First of all, it should be noted that an examinationof the political and professional standing of theChilean armed forces, compared to the Argentineand Brazilian, suggests an obvious correlation thatis not lost on the institutions themselves: Thegreater the political strength (and, by implication,economic strength) of the military institution inquestion, the better off it is in strictly military orprofessional terms. Stated differently, the more themilitary is forced to accept subordination to civil-ian authority, the more it exposes itself to contem-porary domestic and international pressures thatmilitate in favor of limiting the military’s externaldefense capabilities. If notions about objectivecivilian control have any validity (namely, thatgranting the military maneuvering room in thesphere of national defense will create disincentivesfor domestic political involvement), the rewardsystem for military subordination to civilian au-thority in the major countries of Latin America ismisguided. If civil-military relations are based on apolitical compact that exchanges civilian fundingfor the military’s obedience, what happens to thecompact when the money starts to dwindle?

Another potential problem the Chilean caseraises for the region stems from the fact that it issimply out of step with the trend in neighboringcountries. While the Argentine military is busykeeping global peace, Chile is buying arms andtraining soldiers for a conventional war. BothArgentina and Brazil have cut back on the trainingof troops, but Chile proceeds with full force, creat-ing the general impression that it would be betterprepared than its neighbors to fight an actual warshould the eventuality arise. Although the Argen-tine armed forces have grudgingly accepted theircivilian-imposed boundaries, at least provisionally,

the officer corps is well aware that Argentina is los-ing ground to Chile, which not only has a strongand prepared reserve but also possesses air superi-ority over Argentina.161

Similarly, while other countries have shownsome interest in collective security arrangementsin the region, Chile has signaled its refusal to takepart. There are as yet no signs that the growing mil-itary imbalance (more in terms of the rate ofChile’s advance than its absolute capability) posesa direct and concrete threat to peace in the region.However, concern among neighboring militariesimpedes them from letting down their guard andaccepting with much confidence the trend towardsmaller and less heavily equipped armed services.

As for the Chilean military’s recent proposals toexpand into development roles, while signifyingthat the long period of military rule may have ledto a more permanent entrenchment of the institu-tion in the political, social, and economic fabric ofthe country, programs such as Fronteras Interioresand Mar Presencial do not portend the kind of mis-sion creep that could be injurious to democracy incountries with weak civil societies and ineffectivecivilian governments. In countries such as Brazil,Peru, and Ecuador, nation-states that are less inte-grated and where political and economic stabilityis more elusive, military role expansion—especiallyin internal security but also in civic action—carriesthe risk that men in uniform will come to believethat they have more competence than civilians tomanage governmental affairs and may well be per-ceived as such by society. However, the impressiveperformance of Chile’s elected center-left govern-ments since 1990 in maintaining Pinochet’s eco-nomic growth policies and in advancingequity-enhancing social reforms and keeping so-cial order leaves little room for the military to pre-sent itself, or be seen as, a superior governingalternative.

34

The current political and economic climatein Latin America presents at once opportu-nities for military reform and difficulties in

reorienting the military away from the internalarena and toward robust and professional externalroles. The demise of communism and the declineof insurgency groups within Latin America, andthe broad support for democratic rule from practi-cally every segment of Latin American society—in-cluding the military—bodes well for shrinking themilitary’s jurisdiction. However, the diminution ofregional disputes and the rise of drug traffickingand other “gray-area” threats, combined with pres-sure on military budgets, constrain the develop-ment of strictly professional military missions.

Objective control, which rests on defining clearand nonpolitical military missions, is indeed aworthwhile goal for Latin America’s civilian gov-ernments to pursue. If one risk in redefining mili-tary missions is overinclusion, while another isexcessive exclusion, the proper response shouldfollow the contours of objective control, or whatJoseph Nye calls the “liberal bargain,” in whichcivilians respect the military’s special role in pro-viding for defense and support adequate fundingfor appropriate military missions. In return, themilitary recognizes that it is accountable to the ruleof law and must remain nonpartisan in its respect

for civilian authority.162 If missions matter insofaras they serve as the basis for the military’s indepen-dent commitment to political neutrality, then civil-ians must work to define honorable and credibleroles that draw the military out of functions thatcan lead them into politics.

Subjective control suffers from several draw-backs. When implemented by civilian elites whoare willing to use the military for their own domes-tic purposes, subjective control can politicize theinstitution and keep its members politically in-volved. Or, in order to prevent a slide into militaryactivism and interventionism, a strategy of subjec-tive control can pressure civilians to improve theirmanagement of the government’s affairs. For thetime being, the ability of civilians to keep their ownhouse in order is not a major cause for concern ineither Argentina, Brazil, or Chile, but this leavesthe important issue of civilian control vulnerableto a myriad of factors beyond the control of electedofficials. Nevertheless, civilian leaders shouldwork hard to resolve pressing problems, such asterrorism, rampant crime, and economic and polit-ical chaos, that have historically led the military tointervene in the affairs of government.

The political strength of the armed forces andtheir ability to command economic resources goesa long way in determining whether the military canovercome traditional role definitions, stepping outof internal security and civic action functions andadopting an exclusive focus on external defense.The greater the political clout of the armed forcesand the more resources they can command, themore confidence and ability they have to focus (al-most exclusively) on developing robust conven-tional defense roles. This describes the case ofChile.

At the other end of the spectrum, where thearmed forces have extremely low political standingand face serious economic obstacles, they will bemore or less forced into accepting a modest roledefinition based on external functions in light ofsocial objections to their involvement in the do-mestic sphere. This characterizes the situation ofthe Argentine military during roughly the lastdecade.

Where the military finds itself in an inter-mediate position—with enough social support tocontinue operating in the domestic realm and suf-ficient budgetary allocations to aspire to strength-

35

5CONCLUSION

ening conventional defense but insufficient tomaintain the organizational justification for thismission—it is usually subject to role expansion anddiversification. This describes the Brazilian mili-tary.

While the Chilean case suggests a strong posi-tive association between political and professionalstrength, the Argentine case reflects the difficultyof reconciling political weakness with strong pro-fessional status. If political strength is required forexercising institutional and professional strength(as the Chilean case suggests), and if such institu-tional or professional strength is the basis of objec-tive control, then the incentives for militarysubordination to civilian authority would seem tobe misguided. Argentina’s Menem has managed toat least partially overcome this apparent “contra-diction of civilian control” by creating a basis forobjective control without dedicating massiveamounts of financial resources to the armedforces.163 He has allowed the military ample au-tonomy in its own institutional affairs and has alsoengaged officers and soldiers alike in a credible ex-ternal orientation—international peacekeeping—while holding the military’s political involvementin check.

Based on the patterns elicited in these case stud-ies, the following are shorthand recommendationsto civilian policymakers seeking to reform theseLatin American militaries in a direction more com-patible with sustained democratic rule. In Ar-gentina, they should stay the course. In Brazil, theyshould define military roles more clearly, morenarrowly, and outside the realm internal functions.In Chile, they should try to attenuate the military’spolitical prerogatives (a frontal assault would bepolitically impossible), yet taking caution to pre-serve some of the objective control mechanisms al-ready in place.

If “missions matter” and objective forms of con-trol are desired, what policies can civilians enact inthe current political and economic milieu to keepup their end of the “bargain” and encourage themilitary to focus on strictly military functions? Thefollowing constitute fuller policy recommenda-tions with these goals in mind. The first set focuseson what civilian leaders in Latin America shoulddo to focus military attention outward and to cre-ate the basis for objective control. The second fo-cuses explicitly on what civilian authorities should

do to draw the military out of internal roles thatcould keep them mired in social and political con-flicts. I then turn to the question of what policiesthe United States should pursue in this area.

First of all, civilians must do everything possibleto promote downsizing and restructuring so thatthe armed forces save money on personnel andother basic operating costs in order to beef up con-ventional defense capabilities with existing re-sources. They should, in other words, increasemilitary preparedness and professionalism by en-couraging leading officers to do more with less; forexample, by reducing standing troop levels andredirecting money toward newer weapons sys-tems. In a further effort to find legitimate ways ofchanneling the energies and attention of the mili-tary outward, civilian authorities should promoteexternal ventures such as peacekeeping operationsand other kinds of collective security efforts.

Although the strategy of objective control en-tails the creation of a separate sphere for the mili-tary, this should not be implemented at theexpense of trying to integrate the institution fullyinto the civilian world. In this connection, civiliansneed to take steps toward turning around their his-torically disparaging view of the military profes-sion in Latin America. Measures that could servethis end include the promotion of educational ex-changes between civilian and military institutionsand the training of civilian defense specialists whocan interact positively with military officers.

Civilians should also build up police and othernonsecurity forces and rely upon only them tohandle what police typically handle: stoppingcrime and maintaining social order. To make surethe distinction between military and police func-tions is clear, civilian officials could delineate inclear and explicit terms where the jurisdiction ofeach institution begins and ends. In this connec-tion, a reform of the police is imperative in manycountries, such as Brazil, so that the military doesnot continue to be the “default option” when civil-ians decide they need to impose order. A reform ofthe police must include measures to root out cor-ruption and to force greater compliance with hu-man rights standards.

Similarly, U.S. policies should encourage theprofessional development of Latin American mili-taries based on the premise of “shared security.”Technological modernization could be promoted

36

through a variety of programs, such as equipmentdonations, discounted sales/procurements, andparticipation in joint programs. The developmentof professional norms and codes of conduct fittingfor the military in a democracy could be promotedthrough the maintenance or expansion of the U.S.Department of Defense’s International Military Ed-ucation and Training (IMET) program. New IMET

programs in place since 1991 have focused oncivil-military relations, trying to impart to LatinAmerican militaries norms involving accountabil-ity—including the protection of human rights—andsubordination to civilian authority.

To promote the simultaneous goals of downsiz-ing and professional development, the UnitedStates should encourage some standardization ofmilitary spending as a confidence-building mea-sure among Latin American states. Similarly, itwould behoove the United States to promote col-lective or cooperative security arrangements in theframework of diplomatic initiatives, since the issueis still sensitive among the continent’s civilian andmilitary leaders alike. Such measures would effec-tively provide Latin American states with the assur-ance to promote downsizing among their armedforces. Downsizing, in turn, would safely and grad-ually inhibit these militaries from taking on ex-panded role definitions in an effort to enhancetheir organizational justification.

While taking measures to enhance professionaldevelopment and reduce force levels among LatinAmerica’s militaries, the United States should alsobe wary of pushing noncombat tasks on them. Ingeneral, the United States should be cautious notto force new missions on reluctant Latin Americanmilitary establishments. Officers may resist evensensible suggestions if they perceive them as pater-nalistic interference by the superpower to thenorth.

Drug interdiction carries the risk of undermin-ing institutional integrity through corruption.Counternarcotics operations also threaten to drawthe military into other internal tasks detrimental to

sustained civilian control, such as intelligence op-erations. While the case studies offer relatively lessevidence to draw such conclusions with regard tothese particular programs, their relevance for LatinAmerican civilian governments that are combat-ting drug cartels’ operations (for example, Colom-bia and Bolivia) lies in trying to assess the politicalimplications of enlisting the military’s help in suchcampaigns, based on crucial similarities in thecivil-military relations of these and the case-studycountries.

Civic action and development roles may seeminnocuous, at least in the short and medium terms,but they may be difficult to reconcile with the long-term goal of trying to reduce the comprehensiverole that the military has historically played in thecountry’s society, economy, and politics. Ratherthan invite the armed forces to become involved in“transitional roles” that emphasize domestic func-tions, the United States should recognize that theactivist history of most Latin American militariesimbues such roles with higher significance thanwhen U.S. forces adopt them.

In short, if Latin American governments are seri-ous about seizing the present moment to redefinethe historical role of the military, they need to cre-ate the conditions for objective control. They cando this by encouraging professional developmentand discouraging involvement in extramilitaryfunctions. How military missions are defined willlargely determine whether the armed forces losetheir traditional role as social guardians and cometo see themselves as concerned specifically andsolely with questions of external defense. The ef-fectiveness of civilian governance will also be vitalin shaping future military conduct. However, giventhe myriad of factors affecting whether future civil-ian leaders can preside over governments wellenough and provide enough political stability topreclude a return to military guardianship, thecareful definition and adoption of military mis-sions with limited potential for role expansion isnothing short of imperative.

37

I would like to thank Claudio Fuentes, Joe Klaits,Brook Larmer, Peter Pavilionis, Francisco Rojas,Luis Tibiletti, and Kurt Weyland for their contribu-tions to this monograph. Special thanks go toUrsula Tafe, my invaluable research assistant at theUnited States Institute of Peace. I would also like toacknowledge the financial assistance of the Univer-sity Research Council of Vanderbilt University andthe United States Institute of Peace.

1. Robert Olson, “Concepts for Future Defense andMilitary Relations with Counterparts,” in Hemi-spheric Security in Transition: Adjusting to thePost-1995 Environment, ed. L. Erik Kjonnerod(Washington, D.C.: National Defense UniversityPress, 1995), 205.

2. Georges Fauriol, “Thinking About U.S. DefensePolicy in Latin America,” in Hemispheric Secu-rity in Transition: Adjusting to the Post-1995Environment, ed. L. Erik Kjonnerod (Washing-ton, D.C.: National Defense University Press,1995), 31.

3. Michael Desch, “What is the Mission of a Demo-cratic Military in the Post–Cold War Era?” inCivil-Military Relations and the Consolidationof Democracy (Washington, D.C.: InternationalForum for Democratic Studies and the George C.Marshall European Center for Security Studies,1995), 6–8. Douglas Johnson and Steven Metzdefine doctrine in the following way: “Militarydoctrine is the official, usually consensual, state-ment of what a service is and does. It is a basicguidebook.”; see their article, “Civil-Military Rela-tions in the United States: The State of the De-bate,” The Washington Quarterly 18, no. 1(1995): 206.

4. “Hemispheric Military Leaders Pledge IncreasedCooperation,” in NotiSur—Latin American Politi-cal Affairs [Latin American Data Base], vol. 5, no.29 (August 4, 1995).

5. Thomaz Guedes da Costa, “Post–Cold War Mili-tary Relations between the United States andLatin America,” in Security, Democracy, andDevelopment in U.S.–Latin American Relations,ed. Lars Schoultz, William C. Smith, and Au-gusto Varas (New Brunswick: Transaction Publi-cations, 1994), 139–40.

6. Alfred Stepan, The Military in Politics: ChangingPatterns in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton Univer-sity Press, 1971).

7. “Why Have Defense Ties in the Americas?,” ad-dress delivered by U.S. Secretary of DefenseWilliam J. Perry on 26 April 1995 at the AnnualStrategy Symposium, cosponsored by the UnitedStates Army Southern Command and the Insti-tute for National Strategic Studies, National De-fense University, April 25–26, 1995, Miami,Florida.

8. David G. Bradford, “Planning for Victory in theDrug War,” Military Review 74, no. 10 (October1994): 15–24.

9. Guedes da Costa, “Post–Cold War Military Rela-tions,” 144.

10. Gabriel Marcella, “Forging New Strategic Rela-tionships,” Military Review 74, no. 10 (October1994): 31–42.

11. William F. Barber and C. Neale Ronning, InternalSecurity and Military Power (Columbus: OhioState University Press, 1966).

12. See J. Samuel Fitch, “Military Role Beliefs inLatin American Democracies: Context, Ideology,and Doctrine in Argentina and Ecuador” (Paperpresented at the XIX International Congress ofthe Latin American Studies Association, Septem-ber 28–30, 1995, Washington, D.C.), 77.

13. Fitch, “Military Role Beliefs in Latin AmericanDemocracies,” 78.

14. Felipe Agüero, “The Latin American Military: De-velopment, Reform, and ‘Nation-Building’?” inSecurity, Democracy, and Development inU.S.–Latin American Relations, ed. LarsSchoultz, William C. Smith, and Augusto Varas

NOTES

38

(New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1994),244.

15. David Pion-Berlin, “Theories and Theory-Build-ing in Civil-Military Relations” (Department ofPolitical Science, University of California, River-side, photocopy), 7.

16. See remarks of Andrés Fontana as reported inRapporteur’s Report of Presentations at the May4–6, 1995 Conference, “Civil-Military Relationsin Latin America” (Washington, D.C.: TheDemocracy Projects, 1995), 9.

17. See remarks of John Cope as reported in Rappor-teur’s Report, “Civil-Military Relations in LatinAmerica,” 10.

18. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: De-mocratization in the Late Twentieth Century(Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press,1991), 252.

19. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), 8.

20. Huntington, The Third Wave, 252.

21. I employ the term “professional” followingSamuel P. Huntington, who emphasizes the di-mensions of “expertise, responsibility, and cor-porateness.” I do not equate “professional” with“apolitical,” as is sometimes done. To define thelatter in terms of the former would invalidate onmethodological grounds along the argumentthat professionalism helps draw the military outof politics. See Huntington, The Soldier and theState, 8.

22. Alfred Stepan, “The New Professionalism of In-ternal Warfare and Military Role Expansion,” inAuthoritarian Brazil: Origins, Policies, Future,ed. Alfred Stepan (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1973), 47–65.

23. Huntington, The Soldier and the State, 80.

24. Even in the United States, where the armed ser-vices arguably face more war-fighting possibili-ties than most Latin American militaries, civilian

leaders are abandoning objective control, tryingto influence issues once within the domain ofmilitary autonomy and asking the institution toplay a greater role in internal activities, such asantinarcotics operations, disaster relief, and in-frastructure development and repair. Civil-military relations have come under strain in theprocess. See Michael C. Desch, “Mission Matters:The End of the Cold War and Future Civil-Military Relations” (John M. Olin Institute forStrategic Studies, Harvard University, June 1995,photocopy), 19.

25. The preservation of ecology is also listed as asubsidiary mission. However, there is no firm in-dication that the armed forces are actually carry-ing out this mission. See “Misión Principal ySubsidiarias del Ejercito,” Verde Oliva, no. 8(November 1993): 7.

26. Frederic Ruiz-Ramón, “Depoliticization of Mili-tary Organizations: A Theoretical Framework,Policy Implications, and Case Studies of France,Spain, Argentina, and Nigeria” (Ph.D. diss., Har-vard University, 1994), 311–18.

27. Deborah L. Norden, Military Rebellion in Ar-gentina: Between Coups and Consolidation(Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press,1996).

28. William C. Smith, Authoritarianism and the Cri-sis of the Argentine Political Economy (Stan-ford: Stanford University Press, 1989), 35.

29. Public opinion data collected in Argentina be-tween 1992 and 1994 show persistent negativeopinion of the armed forces in general. The datafrom 1992 report that 55 percent of Argentinessurveyed believed the military’s prestige had di-minished over time, and 23 percent believed thatthe institution’s prestige would continue to di-minish into the future. Data collected between1986 and 1994 reveal that positive public opin-ion of the armed forces, while increasing from alow of 24.6 percent in 1987 to a high of 40.2 per-cent in 1990, appeared to be stalled at percent-ages in the low to mid-30s (31.2 percent in 1991,36.7 percent in 1992, and 36.3 percent in 1993).See Eduardo Rubilar, “Chilenos y argentinos

39

opinan de sus FF.AA.,” La Nación, October 18,1992; “Percepciones y opiniones sobre las FF.AA.en Argentina y Chile analisis comparativo de dosestudios,” Fuerzas Armadas y Sociedad 7, no. 2(April–June 1992): 30–35. See also, “Imagenpublica de las fuerzas armadas,” Cuaderno, no.51 (Buenos Aires: Centro de Estudios Uniónpara la Nueva Mayoría, April 1994): 4–5, 16; and“Sondeos de Opinión sobre imagen de lasfuerzas armadas,” Cuaderno, no. 86 (BuenosAires: Centro de Estudios Unión para la NuevaMayoria, June 1994): 2, 4.

30. See Herbert Chandler Huser, “Civil-Military Rela-tions in Argentina: The Alfonsín Years,1983–1989” (Ph.D. diss., George WashingtonUniversity, 1991); Norden, Military Rebellion inArgentina; Ruiz-Ramón, “Depoliticization of Mil-itary Organizations”; and David Pion-Berlin, “Be-tween Confrontation and Accommodation:Military and Government Policy in DemocraticArgentina,” Journal of Latin American Studies23, no. 3 (October 1991): 543–571.

31. Thomas Scheetz, “Military Expenditures inSouth America” (United Nations DisarmamentConference, Asunción, Paraguay, working paper,1993).

32. See U.S. Arms Control and DisarmamentAgency, World Military Expenditures and ArmsTransfers, 1993–1994 (Washington, D.C.: ACDAPublications, 1994), 52.

33. See U.S. Arms Control and DisarmamentAgency, World Military Expenditures, 52.

34. J. Samuel Fitch, “Military Role Beliefs in LatinAmerican Democracies.” (United States Instituteof Peace, Washington, D.C., 1993, photocopy).

35. Apparently, Alfonsín deliberately tried to in-crease the status of the navy and air force at theexpense of the army. In the first two years of hisgovernment, the navy’s share of the total defensebudget rose from 37 percent to 43.4 percent, butthe army’s share fell from 36.5 percent to lessthan 33 percent. In a similar vein, while Alfonsíncut many army programs, he allowed the air

force to pursue the development of the contro-versial CONDOR ballistic missile program, whichbegan in 1979. See Ruiz-Ramón, “Depoliticiza-tion of Military Organizations,” 364.

36. Deborah L. Norden, “Between Coups and Con-solidation: Military Rebellion in Post-Authoritar-ian Argentina” (Ph.D. diss., University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, 1992), 164. (Italics mine.)

37. Complex generational and intraservice divisionswere also at work. See Marcelo Fabián Sain, LosLevantamientos Carapintada, 1987–1991, 2vols. (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de AméricaLatina, 1994); and Norden, Military Rebellion inArgentina.

38. The carapintadas developed an increasingly na-tionalist outlook in response to President Men-em’s neo-liberal economic and foreign policyorientation.

39. Pion-Berlin, “Theory and Theory-Building,” 7–9.

40. Among other demands, the rebels wanted thegovernment to elevate the status of the army’scarapintada faction in order to address the insti-tution’s budgetary problems and to veer off orslow its course in foreign policy in general, but inforeign economic policy in particular.

41. See ”La Ley de Seguridad Interior crea un sis-tema no militar,” Cronista Comercial, July 30,1990. Accompanying the Domestic Security Lawwas the creation of a bicameral InvestigationCommittee, composed of six senators and sixdeputies, to monitor the work of the national se-curity and intelligence bodies. See “Guardians’guardians,” Buenos Aires Herald, December 23,1991.

42. “El Ejército condiciona su intervención por eltema de la seguridad interna,” La Nación, Janu-ary 19, 1994.

43. Fitch, “Military Role Beliefs in Latin AmericanDemocracies.”

44. “Integrating Factor,” Buenos Aires Herald, De-cember 20, 1994.

40

45. “Jefe del Ejército de EE.UU. realiza visita oficialal país,” Los Andes, March 24, 1992.

46. On the Menem administration’s relations withthe United States, see Anabella Busso, “Menem yEstados Unidos: Un Nuevo Rumbo en la PoliticaExterior Argentina,” in La Politica Exterior delGobierno de Menem (Rosario, Argentina: Cen-tro de Estudios en Relaciones Internacionales deRosario, 1994), 53–109. Regarding Menem’s re-sistance to assign drug-interdiction roles to theArgentine military, see “Descartan intervenciónmilitar en tareas de inteligencia interna,” Rio Ne-gro, March 25, 1994.

47. “Cooperación militar contra el cólera,” LaNación, February 14, 1992.

48. Barber and Ronning, Internal Security and Mili-tary Power, 124–25.

49. Fitch, “Military Role Beliefs in Latin AmericanDemocracies,” 74.

50. A presidential initiative in August 1994 (laterpassed by the legislature) eliminated conscrip-tion.

51. Public opinion surveys carried out after this inci-dent suggested that only 25 percent of all Argen-tine citizens favored the continuation ofcompulsory military service. See “Rebeldes conCausas,” Pagina, no. 12 (May 28, 1994). For abreakdown of opinion toward conscriptionbased on gender, age, political affiliation, andlevel of education, see “Sondeo favorable a laeliminación del servicio militar obligatorio,” LaNueva Provincia, October 2, 1994.

52. Leaders of the armed services, while they wouldhave preferred a higher degree of consultationregarding the terms of the shift, basically ac-cepted the decision and noted that the earliersystem of compulsory military service corre-sponded to the “socio-cultural, economic, politi-cal, and military situation of the early years of thecentury, which were not the same as those of theend of the century.” See “Quick-Marching theArmy into the Future,” Buenos Aires Herald,June 28, 1994.

53. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,World Military Expenditures, 52.

54. “Retreating to Advance,” Buenos Aires Herald,September 28, 1992.

55. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,World Military Expenditures, 52.

56. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,World Military Expenditures, 52.

57. Two entire subsecretariats of the Ministry of De-fense were devoted to the privatization and re-structuring of military-controlled firms.

58. See “Venderán este mes bienes del Ejército,” LaNación, December 3, 1991. See also “Confirmanque se venderán 71 inmuebles del Ejército,” LaPrensa, December 3, 1991.

59. “Elogian el ‘corage’ de Menem al anular elproyecto ‘Cóndor II,’” La Prensa, June 8, 1991.See also “Menem felicitado por desmantelar elCóndor,” La Voz del Interior, January 21, 1993.

60. “La Argentina se suma,” La Razón, February 10,1995, p. 11.

61. See Patrice Franko, “De Facto Demilitarization:Budget-Driven Downsizing in Latin America,”Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Af-fairs 36, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 37–74.

62. But there is a sense in which the military aspectof the question (i.e., changes in defense policies)have not accompanied the move toward eco-nomic integration. “La cuestión militar en la inte-gración,” Ambito Financiero, March 22, 1991.

63. See “Argentina Weighs Offer to Buy Falkland Is-landers’ Allegiance,” New York Times, June 8,1995, p. A13.

64. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,World Military Expenditures, 52.

65. “La indefensión ocupa hoy el primer plano,” ElInformador Público, November 5, 1993, p. 4. See also “Desde 1983 se redujo a la mitad el

41

número de militares de alto rango,” La Nación,August 16, 1993. Compared to other militaries inLatin America and Western Europe, the ratio ofgenerals per total officials is quite small (1/160in the Argentine army, as compared to, for exam-ple, 1/79 in the Chilean army and 1/75 in theFrench army).

66. For a statement that reflects this perception bythe military, see “Predominio de imagen positivaen la opiníon pública sobre las Fuerzas Ar-madas.” Tiempo Militar 1, no. 3 (April 9, 1993).

67. A March 17, 1995 interview the author con-ducted with Admiral Emilio Ossés, former headof the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Menem presi-dency, revealed the constraints perceived by offi-cers on being outspoken. Admiral Ossés was“asked” to step down after expressing once toooften his frustrations about low military budgetsand for having said publicly that the governmentdecided the military budget on economic factorsalone. See “Ossés pidió evitar una visión exclusi-vamente economicista,” La Nación, May 15,1991. See also, “Almirante Ossés: no existehipótesis de conflicto,” La Nueva Provincia, Sep-tember 28, 1991.

68. See Rosendo Fraga, La Cuestión Militar en losNoventa (Buenos Aires: Centro de EstudiosUnión para la Nueva Mayoría, 1993), 187–96;and Deborah L. Norden, “Keeping the Peace,Outside and In: Argentina’s United Nations Mis-sions,” International Peacekeeping 2, no. 3 (Au-tumn 1995): 330–49. For a military perspectiveon peacekeeping, see “La Argentina y las mi-siones de paz,” Revista del Suboficial 75, no. 611(March–April 1994).

69. Fraga, La Cuestión Militar en los Noventa, 195.

70. Norden, “Keeping the Peace,” 14.

71. “Las misiones de paz tocaron techo,” Cronista,January 25, 1994.

72. “Argentina en el Desfile de la Victoria,” CronistaComercial, June 11, 1991.

73. For a comparison of military salaries at variousranks to those of executive, legislative, and judi-

cial officials, see “Las FF.AA. están controladas,afirmó el presidente,” Rio Negro, September 23,1994.

74. A special edition of the military journal Revistadel Suboficial was dedicated to the question ofArgentine involvement in UN peacekeepingmissions. See Revista del Suboficial 75, no. 611(March–April 1994).

75. Fitch, “Military Role Beliefs in Latin AmericanDemocracies,” 73.

76. Another disadvantage of peacekeeping is that itis starting to strain financial and logistical re-sources. With UN deficits putting increased fi-nancial burdens on participant countries,Argentina is frequently saddled with having topay for its contribution. In 1994 alone, Argentinaspent $60 million to maintain 1,548 soldiers de-ployed in El Salvador, Haiti, Croatia, Israel,Cyprus, Kuwait, Angola, Mozambique, Cambo-dia, and the Western Sahara. “Las misiones depaz tocaron techo,” Cronista, January 25, 1994.

77. “¿Adónde va el Ejército?” Clarín, October 16,1994.

78. David Wurmser and Nancy Bearg Dyke, “TheProfessionalization of Peacekeeping, A StudyGroup Report,” ed. Robert B. Oakley, Indar JitRikhye, and Kenneth M. Jensen (Washington,D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, workingpaper, 1993), 8.

79. Civilians who have worked in the Defense Min-istry report that a high degree of “de facto” mili-tary influence—in large part due to the omissionof civilian policymakers—persists over issues thatrequire a degree of technical knowledge. Authorinterviews with Virgilio Beltrán, former subsecre-tary of politics and strategy in the Menem ad-ministration, March 6, 1995; Rut Diamint,technical assistant in Subsecretariat of Politicsand Strategy, March 7, 1995; and GuillermoGasio, director of the National Defense School,March 15, 1995.

80. “El Presupuesto de Defensa para 1993 es supe-rior a la suma de las partidas de Educación, Cul-

42

tura, Salud y Acción Social,” La Maga, January 6,1993.

81. “El 80% del gasto va a los salarios,” CronistaComercial, May 12, 1991.

82. Thomas Scheetz, “El Marco Teórico, Político yEconómico para una Reforma Militar en laArgentina,” in Defensa No Provocativa: unapropuesta de reforma militar para la Argentina,ed. Cnl. (R) Gustavo Caceres and ThomasScheetz (Buenos Aires: Editorial Buenos Aires,1995), 76–93.

83. Author interview with Virgilio Beltrán, formersubsecretary of politics and strategy in theMenem administration, March 6, 1995.

84. For an elaboration on some of these ideas, seeWendy Hunter, “The Brazilian Military after theCold War: In Search of a Mission,” Studies inComparative International Development 28, no.4 (Winter 1994): 31–49.

85. See Stepan, The Military in Politics; and PeterFlynn, Brazil: A Political Analysis (BoulderColo.: Westview Press, 1978).

86. For a comparison of the degree of repression inthese countries, see Alfred Stepan, RethinkingMilitary Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988),70. On public support for Brazil’s militaryregimes, see Kurt von Mettenheim, “The Brazil-ian Voter in Democratic Transition, 1974–1982,”Comparative Politics 23, no. 1 (October 1990):23–44; see also Barbara Geddes and John Zaller,“Sources of Popular Support for AuthoritarianRegimes,” American Journal of Political Science33, no. 2 (May 1989): 319–47.

87. See Wendy Hunter, “Back to the Barracks? TheMilitary in Post-Authoritarian Brazil” (Ph.D.diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1992),chapter 3.

88. See Wendy Hunter, “Politicians Against Soldiers:Contesting the Military in PostauthoritarianBrazil,” Comparative Politics 27, no. 4 (July1995): 425–43, especially 436–39.

89. See Thomas E. Skidmore, The Politics of MilitaryRule in Brazil: 1964–1985 (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1988), 273.

90. Patrice M. Franko, “The U.S. and South America:Collaborators or Competitors?,” in HemisphericSecurity in Transition: Adjusting to the Post-1995 Environment, ed. L. Erik Kjonnerod(Washington, D.C.: National Defense University,1995), 196. See also Carlos H. Acuña andWilliam C. Smith, “The Politics of Arms Produc-tion and the Arms Race among the New Democ-racies of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile,” inSecurity, Democracy, and Development inU.S.–Latin American Relations, ed. LarsSchoultz, William C. Smith, and Augusto Varas(Miami: North–South Center, University of Mi-ami, 1994), 224.

91. Computed from Secretaria de Planejamento eCoordenação da Presidência da República,Anuário Estatístico do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro:Fundação Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Es-tatística-IBGE, 1985–1993). In computing thesefigures, I have corrected for the fact that thissource includes the government’s internal debtand social security spending in the total budget.The former increased greatly in the 1980s. Thelatter, previously in a special budget, began to beincluded in the overall government budget after1988. Not correcting for this anomaly (that is, in-cluding these budget items) vastly exaggeratesthe relative decline of military spending.

92. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,World Military Expenditures, 55.

93. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,World Military Expenditures, 55.

94. See remarks by Thomaz Guedes da Costa as re-ported in Paul C. Psaila, Redefining National Se-curity in Latin America: A Workshop Report,Woodrow Wilson International Center for Schol-ars, Latin American Program, Working Paper204 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Inter-national Center for Scholars, 1993), 9. When as-sessing such complaints, it should be kept inmind that the Brazilian military has spent largesums of money on the development of highly so-

43

phisticated technology. Hence, it is not surpris-ing that it cannot cover basic operations.

95. Malorí José Pompermayer, “The State and theFrontier in Brazil: A Case Study of the Amazon”(Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1979), 89.

96. Henrique Paulo Bahiana, As Forças Armadas e oDesenvolvimento do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Edi-tores Bloch, 1974), 45.

97. As U.S. military bases in Panama were in theprocess of closing, U.S. officials asked theirBrazilian counterparts if they could use part ofthe Brazilian Amazon for jungle training. WhenBrazil responded negatively, the United Stateswent to Guyana. In explaining its decision, Brazilaccused the United States of having ulterior mo-tives. See “O inimigo criado,” Estado de SãoPaulo, August 3, 1993, p. 3; and “Desocupaçãodo Panamá preocupa,” Estado de São Paulo, Au-gust 15, 1993.

98. See “PCB tem tarefa para militar,” Jornal doBrasil, April 22, 1989, p. 2.

99. Elizabeth Allen, “Calha Norte: Military Develop-ment in Brazilian Amazonia,” Development andChange 23 (1992): 71–99.

100. On the movement of troops to the Amazon, see“A floresta verde-oliva,” Istoé, April 13, 1994, pp. 40–42.

101. See “Collor baixa decreto que amplia presençamiliar nas regiões de fronteira,” Gazeta Mercan-til, August 11, 1992. The jurisdiction of thenorthern command includes the states of Pará,Maranhão, Amapá, and part of Tocantins.

102. Michael S. Oswald, “Brazil’s Amazon ProtectionSystem: Security and ‘Sustainable’ Developmentfor the 1990s?” (Latin American Studies Pro-gram: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque,photocopy, 1994).

103. “Brasil vai á guerra,” Istoé, January 19, 1994.

104. Daniel Zirker, “The Brazilian Military and theAmazon Region: National Security vs. the Envi-ronment?” (Paper presented at the conference,

“Security in the Post-Summit Americas,” Univer-sity of Miami North–South Center, Fort Leslie J.McNair, Washington, D.C., March 1995), 19(note 7).

105. “Governo estuda envio de tropas a Angola,”Folha de São Paulo, June 15, 1993.

106. “EUA querem Brasil em operações no Exterior,”Estado de São Paulo, November 19, 1994.

107. Comments of Colonel Luis Carlos Guedes deliv-ered at the conference “Confidence-BuildingMeasures in the Southern Cone,” Stimson Cen-ter/Naval War College/Institute for NationalStrategic Studies, National Defense University,Washington, D.C., May 25, 1995.

108. Acuña and Smith, “The Politics of ArmsProduction.”

109. See Hunter, “Back to the Barracks?,” chapter 3,for a fuller discussion on this point.

110. It deserves reiteration here that Latin Americanmilitaries have not completely discarded the pos-sibility of renewed guerrilla insurgency. See“Chefes de 16 exércitos debatem ‘subversão’ naAmérica Latina,” Jornal do Brasil, November 9,1993.

111. For three different opinions on whether the mili-tary should fight drug trafficking, see “As ForçasArmadas devem combater o crime?,” Folha deSão Paulo, April 9, 1994.

112. Recent opinion polls continue to suggest thatthe public has more trust in the military than ineither the militarized state police or the civil po-lice. While 40 percent of those polled expressedconfidence in the military, only 21 percent saidthey trusted the police (either category). “A Horada Reflexão,” Jornal do Brasil, June 11, 1995.

113. “Militares discutem sua missão com Itamar,” Jor-nal do Brasil, January 30, 1993.

114. Brazil’s federal system presents a major obstacleto a thorough reform of the police. The milita-rized state police (Policia Militar) is under the

44

control of Brazil’s still very powerful governors,for whom such reform is not a high priority.

115. See “Cariocas apóiam Exército na luta contra vio-lência,” Jornal do Brasil, August 23, 1994.

116. “Exército pronto para combater crime no Rio,”Jornal do Brasil, August 23, 1994.

117. “Plano militar terá três prioridades,” Jornal doBrasil, November 3, 1994.

118. “Itamar quer que militares subam morro,” Folhade São Paulo, October 27, 1994.

119. “Reanudarán operativo militar en Rio deJaneiro,” Clarin, March 27, 1995.

120. “Tanques não sobem morro,” Veja, November 2,1994.

121. “População aprova operação do Exército,” Cor-reio Braziliense, November 13, 1994.

122. “Comando do Exército vive fase popular,” Jornaldo Brasil, November 6, 1994.

123. “Zenildo promote investigar denúncia de tor-tura,” Jornal de Brasília, December 1, 1994;“Exército enfrenta oposição para sair do Rio,”Folha de São Paulo, December 2, 1994.

124. “Militares defendem ‘intervenção branca’ noRio,” Jornal do Brasil, October 24, 1994.

125. Lucian W. Pye, “Armies in the Process of PoliticalModernization,” in The Role of the Military inUnderdeveloped Countries, ed. John J. Johnson(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962).

126. “Exército: ação social com as prefeituras,” OGlobo, January 28, 1993.

127. Agüero, “The Latin American Military.”

128. For these and other recent examples of army in-volvement in civic action, see “Militares prestamserviços à sociedade,” Correio Braziliense, Au-gust 25, 1994, p. 6.

129. “Para SAE, guerra social ameaça a segurança,”Folha de São Paulo, November 16, 1992.

130. “Exército aceita nova função social,” Jornal doBrasil, February 16, 1993. See also “Exército es-pera com atuação social sensibilizar revisão con-stitucional,” Jornal do Brasil, February 21, 1993.

131. “A Role for the Military,” Latin American WeeklyReport, February 4, 1993, p. 52.

132. For details, see Scott Mainwaring, “Democracy inBrazil and the Southern Cone: Achievementsand Problems,” Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 37, no. 1 (Spring 1995):113–79.

133. Frederick M. Nunn, The Military in ChileanHistory: Essays on Civil-Military Relations1810–1973 (Albuquerque: University of NewMexico Press, 1976), 182, 188, 193, 242.

134. Confidential interview with the author.

135. Frederick M. Nunn, “The South American Mili-tary and (Re)Democratization: ProfessionalThought and Self-Perception,” Journal of Inter-american Studies and World Affairs 37, no. 2(Summer 1995): 20.

136. Andrés Fontana, “Chile y Argentina: Percep-ciones Arcerca del Rol de las Fuerzas Armadas”(Buenos Aires, Fundación Simón Rodríguez, July1992, photocopy). See also Eduardo Rubilar,“Chilenos y argentinos opinan de sus FF.AA.,” LaNación, October 18, 1992.

137. Informative sources about the terms of Chile’snegotiated transition include Mark Ensalaco, “Inwith the New, Out with the Old? The Democra-tising Impact of Constitutional Reform in Chile,”Journal of Latin American Studies 26, no. 2(May 1994): 409–29; and Brian Loveman, “¿Mis-ión Cumplida? Civil Military Relations and theChilean Political Transition,” Journal of Inter-american Studies and World Affairs 33, no. 3(Fall 1991): 35–74.

138. This system, designed under the assumptionthat the center-left opposition coalition wouldhave a majority and that the right would have

45

slightly more than one-third of the vote, makes itpossible for a party (alliance) commanding a lit-tle more than 33 percent of the vote to end upwith one-half of all legislative seats.

139. See Francisco Aravena Rojas, “Chile y el gastomilitar: un criterio histórico y jurídico deasignación,” in Gasto Militar en América Latina:Procesos de decisiones y actores claves, ed.Francis Rojas Aravena (Santiago: Centro Interna-cional para el Desarrollo Económico [CINDE] andFacultad Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales[FLACSO], 1994), 239–77. See also, GuillermoPatillo, “Evolución y Estructura de Gasto de lasFuerzas Armadas de Chile, 1970–1990,” FuerzasArmadas y Sociedad 7, no. 2 (April–June 1992):1–13; and Augusto Varas and Claudio Fuentes,Defensa Nacional, Chile 1990–1994: Modern-ización y Desarrollo (Santiago: FLACSO, 1994).

140. Patillo, “Evolución y Estructura,” 10, 12.

141. See Silvia Yermani, “CUT pide bajar gasto mili-tar,” La Nación, May 2, 1992. See also TeresaEspinoza, “Ley Reservada del Cobre debe sereliminada, afirmó ministro Hales,” La Epoca,December 20, 1992.

142. It should be noted, however, that this autonomyis far from absolute. Given Chile’s broader de-mocratic framework, the military is necessarilycounterbalanced by competing groups. The mili-tary budget has decreased in recent years in rela-tion to social spending. In the years between1989 and 1992, defense expenditures steadilyfell from 12.82 percent to 10.08 percent of thenational budget. In the same period, the percent-age of the budget devoted to social spendingrose from 62.13 percent to 65.64 percent. SeeRepública de Chile, Ministerio de Hacienda,Dirección de Presupuestos, Estadísticas de Fi-nanzas Públicas, 1989–1992 (Santiago: Ministe-rio de Hacienda, June 1993), 57.

143. “Chile’s Army Stands Tall, and Casts a Shadow,”New York Times, January 26, 1990, p. E4.

144. Nunn, The Military in Chilean History, 250–51.

145. International Institute for Strategic Studies, TheMilitary Balance, 1993–1994 (London:Brassey’s, 1993), 227.

146. Augusto Varas and Claudio Fuentes, “ServicioMilitar Obligatoria,” chapter 4 in Defensa Na-cional, Chile 1990–1994: Modernización y De-sarrollo, 164–88.

147. A recent public seminar sponsored by the Armyattested to this persistent distrust of neighboringBolivia, Peru, and Argentina. See Academia deGuerra, Seminario: Política de Defensa, Memor-ial del Ejército de Chile, no. 441, 1992.

148. María Irene Soto, “Los secretos del HV-3,” Hoy,no. 730 (July 15–21, 1991), pp. 6–7.

149. For a brief but informative discussion of the ma-jor projects of each branch, see Varas andFuentes, Defensa Nacional, 35–68. See alsoClaudio S. Fuentes, “Los Efectos de una NuevaRealidad Internacional en las Fuerzas Armadasde América Latina: El Caso Chileno” (Paper pre-sented at the XVIII International Congress of theLatin American Studies Association, Atlanta,Georgia, March 10–12, 1994).

150. See “Chile Ha Sido Reticente a Enviar Personalde las FF.AA. al Extranjero,” El Mercurio, Febru-ary 9, 1995, p. C3; and “Esperan Aumento deParticipación Chilena en Misiones de Paz,” ElMercurio, January 11, 1994, pp. A1, A12.

151. Survey opinion data show some public supportfor such participation. Of all those polled inChile, 26 percent felt it was legitimate for thearmed forces to carry out functions related toorder and public security. See Andrés Fontana,“Chile y Argentina.” See also “Chilenos yArgentinos opinan de sus FF.AA.,” La Nación,October 18, 1992.

152. See “Carabineros lose military status,” LatinAmerican Weekly Report, November 15, 1990, p. 11.

46

153. “No part for army in anti-terrorist unit,” LatinAmerican Regional Reports—Southern Cone,May 30, 1991, p. 6.

154. “FF.AA. y de Oreden No Objetan Dirección Civilpara Inteligencia,” El Mercurio, April 18, 1991, p. C3.

155. Nunn, “The South American Military and(Re)Democratization”: 20.

156. Barber and Ronning, Internal Security and Mili-tary Power, 62, 185, 239.

157. Author interview with Jorge Burgos, undersecre-tary of the Army, Ministry of Defense, Santiago,Chile, February 7, 1995.

158. See “Ejército Plantea Crear Comisión Sobre‘Fronteras Interiores,’” El Mercurio, July 19,

1994, pp. A1, A12; “Pinochet Llamó a Dejar deLado Confrontaciones,” El Mercurio, August 20,1993, pp. A1, A20. See also “La Conquista de lasfronteras interiores,” La Nación, July 5, 1994;and “Ejército Pide Desarrollar Nuevos Polos dePoblación,” El Mercurio, July 11, 1994.

159. See the three-part series in El Diario by JorgeMartínez Busch, “El Mar Presencial: Actualidad,Desafíos y Futuro,” May 28, 1991, p. 2; “El MarPresencial: Actualidad, Desafíos y Futuro,” May29, 1991, p. 2; and “El Mar Presencial: Actuali-dad, Desafíos y Futuro,” May 31, 1991.

160. James L. Zackrison and Lt. James E. Meason,“Subject: Chile’s Theory of Mar Presencial” (un-published paper, 11 November 1994).

161. “Admiral Gets the Chop,” Latin American Re-gional Reports—Southern Cone, July 2, 1992, 3;

47

49

“US Aircraft Not the Start of Ar-gentina–Chile Arms Race,” Latin Ameri-can Regional Reports—SouthernCone, July 2, 1992, p. 8.

162. See Joseph Nye’s concluding remarksin Civil-Military Relations and theConsolidation of Democracy (Wash-ington, D.C.: International Forum forDemocratic Studies, 1995), 20–21.

163. For a further elaboration of this contra-diction, see Wendy Hunter, “Contradictions of Civilian Control:Argentina, Brazil, and Chile in the 1990s,” Third World Quarterly15, no. 4 (1994): 633–53.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE INSTITUTE

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan federal institution created byCongress to promote research, education, and training on the peaceful resolution of international conflicts.Established in 1984, the Institute meets its congressional mandate through an array of programs, includingresearch grants, fellowships, professional training programs, conferences and workshops, library services,publications, and other educational activities. The Institute’s board of directors is appointed by the Presi-dent of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.

Chairman of the Board: Chester A. CrockerVice Chairman: Max M. KampelmanPresident: Richard H. SolomonExecutive Vice President: Harriet Hentges

Board of Directors

Chester A. Crocker (Chairman), Research Professor of Diplomacy, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Max M. Kampelman, Esq. (Vice Chairman), Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobson, Washington, D.C.

Dennis L. Bark, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University

Theodore M. Hesburgh, President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame

Seymour Martin Lipset, Hazel Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University

Christopher H. Phillips, former U.S. ambassador to Brunei

Mary Louise Smith, civic activist; former chairman, Republican National Committee

W. Scott Thompson, Professor of International Politics, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Allen Weinstein, President, Center for Democracy, Washington, D.C.

Harriet Zimmerman, Vice President, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Washington, D.C.

Members ex officio

Ralph Earle II, Deputy Director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

Toby Trister Gati, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research

Ervin J. Rokke, Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force; President, National Defense University

Walter B. Slocombe, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Richard H. Solomon, President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting)

51

Peaceworks No. 10. First published October 1996.

The views expressed in this report are those of the author alone. They do not necessarily reflectviews of the United States Institute of Peace.

UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

1550 M Street NW, Suite 700Washington, DC 20005-1708

Phone: 202-457-1700Fax: 202-429-6063E-mail: usip_requests@usip.orgInternet: www.usip.org

gopher.usip.org

Other titles in the Peaceworks series:

Turkey’s Role in the Middle East: A Conference Report by Patricia Carley (Peaceworks No. 1)

Central Asians Take Stock: Reform, Corruption, and Identity by Nancy Lubin (PeaceworksNo. 2)

From the Managing Chaos conference:

Keynote Addresses by Les Aspin and Ted Koppel (Peaceworks No. 3)

Sources of Conflict: G.M. Tamás and Samuel Huntington on “Identity and Conflict,” and Robert Kaplan and Jessica Tuchman Mathews on “‘The Coming Anarchy’ and the Nation-State under Siege” (Peaceworks No. 4)

NGOs and Conflict Management by Pamela R. Aall (Peaceworks No. 5)

Humanitarian Assistance and Conflict in Africa by David R. Smock (Peaceworks No. 6)

Self-Determination: Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity, and the Right to Secession by PatriciaCarley (Peaceworks No. 7)

Serbian Nationalism and the Origins of the Yugoslav Crisis by Vesna Pesic (Peaceworks No.8)

Peace Operations and Common Sense: Replacing Rhetoric with Realism by Denis McLean(Peaceworks No. 9)

UNITED STATESINSTITUTE OF PEACE

1550 M Street NWWashington, DC 20005 Peaceworks No. 10