"The key
question about the defence of the American hemisphere is: what is the
threat? In the past, the Americas faced a relatively well-defined threat
that the average American could understand (1). Today that threat has
become infinitely more complex and more difficult to define."
That was Professor Lewis Arthur Tambs, diplomat, historian, professor
at Arizona State University and the author of a report on the future of
the Americas, summarised in nine points the nine Ds the guiding principles
for the hemisphere's security before 11 September. (They are defence,
drugs, demography, debt, deindustrialisation, populist post-cold war democracy,
destabilisation, deforestation and the decline of the United States (2).
There is no T in this alphabet of security, terrorism is classified
under drugs, narcoterrorism being "the alliance between terrorist
organisations, drug traffickers and organised crime, a deadly symbiosis
destroying the vital elements of western civilisation".
But the war against drugs occupies a central place, for the Clinton administration
was accused of failing to keep its promises to eradicate drug trafficking.
Populist democracy refers to the Venezuelan government of President Hugo
Chávez, and demography to the risk to the US from migration (the
most recent US census underlines the growth in the Hispanic population,
58% in 10 years, more than 35m people).
To understand this definition of US security, we must start with the post-cold
war disappearance of the "communist threat". After the fall
of the dictatorships in the 1980s, the return to democracy was accompanied
by a short-lived stability as political openness and the market economy
raised hopes. But since the 1990s free-market democracy has declined,
social crises have worsened and instability returned.
Economic and financial crises
Mexico in 1995, Brazil and Ecuador in 1999, Argentina now have had disastrous
consequences and social and political conditions caused protests. These
include big demonstrations by peasants in Bolivia, an uprising by the
indigenous population in Ecuador and the toppling of President Fernando
de la Rua in Argentina. Civil war in Colombia threatens to destabilise
the whole region while the Chávez government irritates Washington.
Although the US is not threatened militarily by an enemy power, these
troubles renewed security concerns. Defined as "non-traditional transnational
threats", terrorism, drug trafficking, mass migration and environmental
degradation are the new enemy. The political and economic instability
that has served historically to legitimise intervention by the US and
other countries is re-emerging as a potential threat to regional security,
according to US researchers Joseph Tulchin and Ralph Espach (3). This
is especially the case now the war against Colombian insurgents, who control
almost half the Colombian territory, looks likely to spread to Venezuela,
Panama, Ecuador and Brazil, heightening tension and bringing more troops
to the borders. The sources say US policy towards Colombia is to extend
the conflict.
A new security architecture
It is becoming urgent for the US to respond to these non-traditional threats
now that the House of Representatives has approved the Trade Promotion
Authority ("fast track") and that the Free Trade Area of the
Americas (FTAA) is being established. The Centre for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS) finds a close relationship between the construction of
the FTAA and a new "security architecture in the Americas" (4).
It reports that economic change has been more rapid than change in security,
provoking a rise in violence from populations who survive illegally.
Since the countries of the Americas are considered too weak to meet that
challenge alone, they must develop a coherent defence policy for the hemisphere,
defining the aims and institutions necessary to strengthen inter-American
security. The events of 11 September should help by speeding the reforms,
already started, to continental institutions created at the start of the
cold war. Ten days after the Twin Towers fell, there was an extraordinary
meeting of the Organisation of American States (OAS) to discuss a response,
at which the Argentine foreign minister said: "The Inter-American
Mutual Assistance Treaty (TIAR) is fully in force and up to date. It allows
us to discuss the rules and create political framework for any military
response." His words surprised. All the countries in the hemisphere
(except Cuba) belong to the Treaty, which dates to 1947.
It has not been invoked since the Falklands war between Britain and Argentina
in 1982, when Washington refused to implement it and backed London, showing
contempt for the letter of the treaty, which states that an attack on
one member must be considered an attack on them all. (Similar to Article
5 of the Nato treaty.) By coincidence, a few days before the 11 September
attacks, Mexican president Vicente Fox had described the TIAR as out of
date and useless.
The Argentine reference to the TIAR was nevertheless approved unanimously
by the foreign ministers convened by Brazilian president Fernando Enrique
Cardoso; the governments of the continent believed the attacks of 11 September
were a threat to the family of the Americas and the hemisphere's security.
Last June the OAS general assembly failed to reach agreement on adopting
the inter-American democratic charter, which "legitimises a right
to interfere". It was adopted by acclamation and without debate at
the OAS assembly in Lima in September, although there are serious reservations
about some of its articles. Intended to "preserve and strengthen
representative democracy", in particular against attempted coups,
the charter's rules are ambiguous enough to allow a right to interfere
in any member country. If the government of a member state considers that
"its democratic political institutional process or its legitimate
exercise of power is at risk, it may request assistance from the secretary
general or the permanent council for the strengthening and preservation
of its democratic system". The OAS permanent council may then "adopt
measures for the preservation of the democratic system or its strengthening"
and, if it finds that system has been "altered", it may "adopt
the decisions it deems appropriate", "including the undertaking
of diplomatic initiatives." The word including is vague. Who says
what an "alteration of the constitutional regime" really means?
Roger Noriega, the US permanent representative to the OAS, has stressed
that "resolutions approved by the OAS are not rhetoric; they provide
the framework for action. They represent legislation that sets policy
for the OAS member governments" (5). But who has the power to take
decisions in an organisation that has just demonstrated its alignment
with the US hyperpower?
Preventive diplomacy
President Clinton's assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere
affairs, Peter Romero, called in 2000 for the creation of a special OAS
anti-crisis fund, a "preventive diplomacy" mechanism that could
be used in Argentina to prevent social explosions leading to an institutional
crisis. That was not the first time the idea of formalising a regional
intervention mechanism, a support group of friendly countries to deal
with crises, had appeared on the agenda. But previous attempts to set
up such a fund had failed.The OAS's military arm, the inter-American defence
board, regrets that "the lack of a well-defined and consistent legal
framework to regulate the actions carried out by the multinational contingency
forces in the Hemisphere hampers the participation by the member states
when a situation requires it and encourages reluctance to join these missions"
(6). A multilateral force has now been proposed to fight against terrorism
with the agreement of the Argentine government, the US's non-Nato ally,
which, before its fall, declared itself willing to take part in military
action.
Washington's main concern, the establishment of collective defence mechanisms
for multinational operations, as part of its strategy for the region,
involves a permanent expansion of multilateral security organisations.
Apart from the inter-American defence board, there is the committee for
hemispheric security, set up in 1995. Since 1995, the defence ministerial
of the Americas (DMA) has met twice a year; according to former US Secretary
of State for Defence William Cohen, it is designed to strengthen personal
relations and create a consensus for crisis management. The chiefs of
staff of the armed forces also meet regularly. In 1999, the OAS assembly
set up the inter-American committee against terrorism (CICTE) to devise
a structure to assist all OAS member states.But America's strategists
think these bodies are not constraining enough to make up for the supposed
weakness of the OAS security framework: fearing the power of the US, the
countries of Latin America are unwilling to sacrifice their national priorities
for regional gains (7). There is resistance to the transnationalisation
of armies and military operations and the construction of collective defences.
But the idea is gaining ground.
US officers are clever at gaining the support of their colleagues in the
rest of the continent, and some of the military see this as a way of modernising
equipment and making their units more professional. In June 2000 Brazil
signed Protocol 505 to receive arms and equipment. In exchange, the US
may enter Brazilian bases and take possession of the Alcantara satellite
launching base, having "absolute control of it". No Brazilian
will be allowed to enter without the prior agreement of the Pentagon (8).
There was outrage at this, because neither the Brazilian parliament's
foreign affairs committee nor its defence committee were informed. The
sale of F-16 fighter aircraft to Chile is part of the same plan. It allowed
Ricardo Lagos's government to placate a vociferous army and satisfy the
US arms industry, a powerful lobby with the Bush administration.
In a region where feelings run high because of its geopolitical importance
and its oil reserves, the Puebla-Panama Plan (PPP) will bring together
all the countries of Central America and the southeast of Mexico. This
explains the creation of Mexican anti-terrorist units (given the proximity
of Chiapas). It also explains why the Mexican government has refused to
grant the Zapatistas any autonomy, since financial capital expects to
control strategic resources unhindered. The southern border of this trade
corridor, between Mexico and Guatemala, will be militarised to control
migration. Mexico's purchases of military equipment have grown by 300%
(9) and, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
(SIPRI), Latin American countries' arms expenditure has grown by 59% since
the 1980s. Once unpopular, more multilateral military exercises are now
being held, and the US army's southern command (Southcom) operates, often
secretly, on principles decided in regional meetings.
Presented as a change in doctrine, this US multilateralism has two purposes.
The first is to cut costs: as Patrice M Franko says, the US needs to conserve
its defence resources, and conducting training exercises with 32 countries
would be too expensive (10). The second is to spread risks and share losses
while extending the US presence and retaining unilateral control of decisions.
"For Washington, multilateralism means asking allies for a blank
cheque, letting them do the dirty work and putting in machinery to interfere
in their affairs," says a Brazilian.
Who are the terrorists?
The vagueness of definitions is another cause for concern when the OAS
wants to draw up an inter-American convention to prevent and combat terrorism.
Steven Monblatt, the US diplomat who chairs the CICTE, notes that there
are two terrorisms: "indigenous terrorism, where a group's aspirations
or political agenda are restricted to one country, and groups with international
links." When a journalist remarked that it was hard to define terrorism
universally, Monblatt refused to distinguish between national and other
terrorist groups.
"We don't look at the cause. We look at the action that's committed
in the name of the cause," he said. But who are the terrorists? In
Brazil, the military has often described the Landless Peasants' Movement
(MST) a terrorist. In Mexico, the Zapatistas have been accused. The CIA
national intelligence council and the Chilean military research centre
have identified "a new challenge to internal security": the
indigenous threat, from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego (11). On 20 September
last year the inter-American defence board considered a scenario where
the extension of a conflict "could lead to a supra-regional war with
ethnic and religious dimensions". "I've told Hugo Chávez
and the Colombian guerrillas to watch out," said Darc Costa coordinator
of the centre for strategic studies of the Brazilian war academy (12).
Things are moving fast. Pragmatic leaders are skilful at combining multilateral
diplomatic negotiations with bilateral trade agreements, while relying
on local allies to start practical work. Last year, the Argentines were
surprised to find that joint manoeuvres involving 1,300 men from nine
countries (13), including the US, were taking place on their territory
in the presence of Colombian observers. The exercise (Ejercicio Cabanas
2001) was in the Salta region, epicentre of demonstrations led by piqueteros
(unemployed people who set up roadblocks). Sponsored and financed by the
US, they were the largest-scale manoeuvres in the region. More surprising
was the scenario, an imaginary ethnic conflict between the Independent
Republic of Sudistan and the Free Federation of Sudistan. A multinational
UN force was deployed to restore peace, led jointly by Southcom special
forces chief, US General Reno Butler, and Argentine general Jorge Alberto
Olivera, commander of a brigade once led by former dictator Jorge Videla.
For Olivera, "training battalions with a shared doctrine and common
language could serve the future formation of coalition for a UN mission."
But Argentine deputy Torres Molina sees it in reality as "a rehearsal
for participation in a multinational force in Colombia". The Argentine
parliament, which alone can authorise foreign troops to enter the country,
was not consulted. Nobel peace laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel, president
of the Justice and Peace Service (Serpaj), believes the US is pushing
for "a remilitarisation of Latin America in anticipation of a growing
number of social conflicts connected with the extension of free trade
agreements".
In September the inter-American defence board
report admitted as much when it referred to extreme poverty, the rise
of indigenous nationalist movements and increasing unemployment as potential
causes of instability and violence in the region. The special conference
on security in Mexico in 2004 is expected to confirm the board as the
hemisphere's only military organisation, responsible for monitoring the
employment of multinational forces and ensuring effective linkage between
political and military authorities. That is what some call recolonisation.