Colombian Military Expansion Poses Problems for Venezuela

STRATFOR ^ | 21 June 2002 | Staff

[Axion]

Colombian Military Expansion Poses Problems for Venezuela
21 June 2002

Summary

U.S.-backed plans by Colombian President-elect Alvaro Uribe Velez to substantially bolster defense spending will alter the regional military balance of power over the next several years. This will be especially upsetting to Venezuela's armed forces, which have suffered significant political difficulties and slippage in operational readiness since Hugo Chavez became president in 1999.

Analysis

Colombian President-elect Alvaro Uribe Velez has pledged to double the size of his country's armed forces, create an armed civilian defense force of up to 1 million members and invest significantly more resources in fighting Colombia's more than 30,000 guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug traffickers. Although he may not achieve all of these ambitious objectives fully during his four-year presidency, starting on inauguration day Aug. 7, it is very likely that Colombia's armed forces will begin to grow significantly in manpower, weapons systems, mobility and intelligence capabilities and continue to expand over the next several years.

The expansion of Colombia's military will fundamentally alter the regional military balance of power with neighboring countries like Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, where defense-related spending has been slashed significantly in recent years for economic and political reasons. This will be particularly distressing to Venezuela's armed forces, or FAN, which historically have viewed Colombia as a potential threat to their country's national security and territorial integrity.

Pentagon sources say Uribe will seek to consolidate a "strike-and-hold" strategy of permanently occupying and defending areas presently held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), National Liberation Army (ELN), and the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). This will require more military personnel, attack and transport helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, river patrol gunboats and better intelligence and communications capabilities. The government also will need to construct many new permanent garrisons and forward firebases in areas where it has never historically maintained a permanent presence.

Colombia's expanding armed forces also will benefit from more intensive U.S. training in counter-insurgency operations and low-intensity conflicts, as Uribe has pledged to double the number of career professional soldiers from 50,000 to over 100,000 during the next four years. Although the U.S.-supported Colombian military build-up is intended to contain the FARC, ELN and AUC and force them to negotiate a peaceful settlement, the end result will be a significantly larger professional military force with better training, infantry equipment, mobility and intelligence capabilities.

During a visit to Washington June 18, Uribe called for "permanent integration between the United States and Colombia" in the fight against Colombian guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug traffickers. He also warned that without permanent U.S. support, the Colombian conflict could spread and destabilize much of Latin America. However, Bogota's military expansion likely will get off to a slow start after Uribe is inaugurated.

For instance, to assure his chances of quickly securing U.S. congressional approval for a significant boost in financial and military aid, Uribe has to fulfill commitments that outgoing President Andres Pastrana was unable or unwilling to seek from Colombian legislators. Specifically, Uribe must at least double annual defense spending in the budget from about 3 percent of GDP to 7 percent, according to U.S. congressional sources.

This will require politically unpopular income tax increases and other fiscal levies on Colombian taxpayers, at a time when the economy is growing sluggishly due to a combination of weak international commodity prices, a steep drop in new investment caused by the civil conflict and the extensive and systematic destruction of vital economic infrastructure by FARC and ELN guerrilla units.

Additionally, Uribe must persuade Colombia's Congress to reform the country's military conscription law to expedite the recruitment of more personnel. U.S. congressional sources insist this reform must eliminate exemptions that allow high school graduates to avoid combat duty. This will not be popular with middle- and upper-class Colombians who have kept their sons out of harm's way thanks to this unusual exemption, but Pentagon sources say it's vitally important that Colombia's armed forces should be representative of all levels of society or else it will never become a cohesive and effective professional fighting force.

Nevertheless, it's very likely U.S. military assistance to Colombia will be significantly greater in 2003 because the Bush administration already has decided to expand the scope of aid allocated under Plan Colombia to include offensives against the FARC and to substantially support Colombia's defense buildup under Uribe.

At the same time, Venezuela's military is moving in the opposite direction from Colombia's armed forces. Since Hugo Chavez became Venezuela's president at the start of 1999, the FAN's annual budget has been reduced by 40 percent, Planning Ministry sources in Caracas said June 18. Under Chavez, the military's personnel and equipment have been reassigned to new, non-military missions like the Plan Bolivar 2000 social infrastructure repair and construction program, which has become a major source of corruption for FAN officers charged with directly administrating huge sums of money with little or no oversight.

Numerous armed forces officials have separately confirmed to STRATFOR over the past two months that the Chavez regime's substantial cuts in defense-related spending since 1999 have slowed and disrupted basic training programs in all branches of the FAN. Weapons systems and other equipment have deteriorated, and overall operational readiness has dropped sharply. Many combat units, especially Marine assault battalions with the navy, are down to company-sized strength, according to FAN sources in Caracas.

Although the Chavez government claims Venezuela's border with Colombia is securely defended, military sources with extensive intelligence backgrounds say the government is not being truthful about the deplorable state of Venezuela's border defenses.

Moreover, the FAN's operational readiness likely will decline even more in coming months as Venezuela sinks deeper into a fiscal and financial crisis that could destabilize the economy and cause unemployment to spike over 20 percent before the end of 2002. The economy's projected decline in 2002 and 2003 -- and the government's fiscal woes -- means there will be no additional cash left for defense-related spending.

The Chavez regime's use of the FAN as a political instrument of its increasingly socialist "Bolivarian Revolution" also has opened deep ideological and class divisions in Venezuela's military that were not present before Chavez became president, according to retired Venezuelan air force Brig. Gen. Boris Saavedra. These divisions have been aggravated by Chavez's strategy of driving a wedge through the FAN's traditionally close relations with the U.S. military and provoking Washington with anti-American rhetoric and friendships with individuals and groups like Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, the FARC and ELN.

Saavedra believes that healing these divisions after the departure of Chavez -- who could be forced out of office a second time by the end of this year -- and rebuilding the FAN's apolitical professionalism and institutional integrity could take at least two generations of military officers.

[Fish out of Water]

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Perhaps Chavez will reconsider aiding FARC.