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MILITARY MISSIONS IN
DEMOCRATIC LATIN
AMERICA

David Pion-Berlin

POLITICS,
ECONOMICS,
AND INCLUSIVE
DEVELOPMENT
Politics, Economics, and Inclusive Development

Series Editors
William Ascher
Claremont McKenna College
Claremont, California, and USA

Natalia Mirovitskaya
Duke Center for International Development
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina, and USA

Shane Joshua Barter

Soka University of America
Aliso Viejo, California, and USA
The Politics, Economics, and Inclusive Development series examines the
challenges and progress in promoting humanistic development. The
complex tasks of simultaneously pursuing economic growth, broad
participation and equity, democratic peace, and sustainability require
scholarship that merges in-depth analysis of the many factors that influence
development outcomes with contextually rich experiences. The single- or
multiauthored monographs use an interdisciplinary methodology to
explore diverse experiences of individual nations, world regions, or the
entire global system in their quest for more democratic, technically sound,
and sustainable development. The publications from the Politics,
Economics, and Inclusive Development series will be valuable to students,
scholars, policymakers, and international development practitioners.

More information about this series at

http://www.springer.com/series/14539
 David Pion-Berlin

Military Missions in
Democratic Latin
America
David Pion-Berlin
University of California
USA

Politics, Economics, and Inclusive Development

ISBN 978-1-137-59269-9 ISBN 978-1-137-59270-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59270-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016942804

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Nature America Inc. New York
 To my parents,
Jim and Beverly Pion
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In writing this book, I have incurred a few debts to various individuals

and institutions. Though I have been thinking about the Latin American
military for quite some time, I did not set out to write a book about
military missions. I owe the original inspiration for this volume to William
Ascher, Donald C. McKenna Professor of Government and Economics at
Claremont McKenna College. William Ascher kept nudging me to contrib-
ute to the Palgrave Macmillan series on Politics, Economics, and Inclusive
Development of which he is editor, and after two or three attempts on
his part, I finally took him up on the offer. I am glad I did, because it has
been a rewarding experience. It forced me to revisit and revise some old
theoretical hunches about the pros and cons of military operations in the
region, and undertake a deeper empirical investigation into cases I had
previously only glanced at.
Funding for this project was made possible through a COR Academic
Senate Grant from the University of California, Riverside. Additional
funding for research assistance was generously provided by the Pacific
Basin Research Center, Soka University, California. The time needed
to complete the research and writing was made possible through a two-
quarter sabbatical approved by Stephen Cullenberg, former Dean of the
College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, University of California,
Riverside.
I want to especially thank the anonymous reviewer for having appraised
the entire manuscript, contributing valuable chapter-by-chapter comments
and suggestions for revision. In addition, I am grateful to Roderic Ai Camp
and Harold Trinkunas for having read portions of the manuscript, offering

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

me their insights, observations, and constructive criticisms. Admiral Carlos

Ortega Muñiz, former head of Mexican Naval Intelligence, helped me
understand how his navy operates during internal security missions, and
from whom they learn lessons. Maria Teresa Belandria shared her knowl-
edge of the Venezuelan military with me, and Loreta Tellería Escobar
helped me get a better handle on the Bolivian military’s social mission to
distribute school vouchers. Finally, Collin Grimes proved to be an able,
thorough, and dependable research assistant throughout the process.
 CONTENTS

1 Introduction 1

2 Assessing Military Missions 11

3 Defense 41

4 Internal Security 73

5 Disaster Relief 113

6 Social Programs 143

7 Conclusion 181

Bibliography 195

Index 211

ix
 LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 3.1 Average defense expenditure as a % of GDP

by region, 2009–2014 63
Fig. 7.1 Military capabilities and mission outcomes 184

xi
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Hemispheric defense ministerials 1995–2014: priority items 57

Table 4.1 Security threat, state response, and force selection 78
Table 4.2 Mexico’s national commission on human rights:
complaints, cases and victims of army and
navy abuse, 2006–2014 94
Table 4.3 Mexican military missions: commonalities 97
Table 4.4 Mexican military kingpin operations, 2007–2012:
criminal and civilian casualties 100
Table 4.5 Mexican military missions: differences and results 101
Table 5.1 Disaster response in Latin America and military participation 116
Table 6.1 Venezuelan social missions and military role 156
Table 6.2 The Mercal mission: performance indicators 162
Table 6.3 Military size and use in the Bono Juancito Pinto
program, 2011 166
Table 6.4 Military officers in the cabinet: Venezuela vs. Bolivia 167

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

We all have images of soldiering seared into our memories. Perhaps we

visualize troops firing at each other from World War I (WWI) trenches,
allied forces storming the beaches of Normandy, or the thousands lying
dead in the fields of Gettysburg. We might recall U.S. planes dropping
napalm on Vietnamese villagers, or more recently, the massive airstrikes
that lit up the nighttime sky above Baghdad as the 2003 invasion of Iraq
commenced. These are all images of war, and needless to say, soldiering
is first and foremost about battling enemy forces in combat. But nations
are not continuously at war with each other. Most of the time they are at
peace, and yet nearly all have standing militaries. What exactly are their
soldiers doing during peacetime, and how well do they do it?
There is no one answer to that question but it is an important one,
especially in a region like Latin America where interstate wars are exceed-
ingly uncommon, and peace between neighboring states the norm. Only
Colombia suffers a civil war and that one appears to be winding down. It
is among the most pacific regions on earth, and yet with the exception
of Costa Rica, Haiti, and Panama, all countries there have armed forces.
We could be forgiven for not knowing what soldiers do there, because
unlike wars, non-combat roles are often not highly publicized. Unless one
were to consult military web pages on a regular basis, one would prob-
ably not have seen images of soldiers patrolling city streets; chasing after
drug traffickers; guarding oil pipelines and gas fields; repairing or building
roads, bridges, ports, and schools; offering literacy classes and medical

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1

D. Pion-Berlin, Military Missions in Democratic Latin America,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59270-5_1
2 D. PION-BERLIN

assistance; distributing food, water, and clothing to poor communities or

crisis-ridden zones; or rescuing victims of floods and earthquakes. Yet that
is exactly what thousands of enlisted men, women, and officers have peri-
odically been called upon to do.
On the face of it, one would think these deployments are beneficial
because they render services that in theory could deter crime, reduce
economic sabotage, build infrastructure, relieve suffering, and save lives.
There are, it would seem, both short-term and long-term security and
development-oriented payoffs to these endeavors. Governments can, in
theory, provide goods and services to society without incurring great costs,
because militaries are already paid for. Wage-earning soldiers would simply
be undertaking alternative tasks within pre-existing defense budgets.
In fact, would it not seem ideal for nations to have armed forces that
were flexible enough to shift from combat to non-combat roles and back
again depending on societal needs? In the early 1960s, the sociologist
Morris Janowitz theorized that the military of the future would do exactly
that. It would become more like societal organizations, and its officers
more like managers of corporations or large bureaucracies, equipped with
transferable skills that could be useful in the private or public sectors in
times of peace.1 The onslaught of the nuclear age and the rise of more
complex weaponry meant, in his view, that distinctions between civilian
and soldiers would weaken, as technological competence, not combat
heroics, would be in greater demand. It followed that as militaries adapted
themselves to the changing times, embracing civilian-like skill sets, they
could be usefully deployed in a full spectrum of activities, many of which
would be non-combat related, and which required a minimal use of force,
or no force at all. Janowitz envisioned a constabulary force, one prepared
to operate with equal proficiency in times of war and peace.2
Has Janowitz been proven right? There is no question that military
leadership in the contemporary era demands a fuller slate of managerial,
technical, and inter-personal skills, and that military institutions have been
asked to perform a much wider assortment of tasks. But how well they
are up to those tasks is a different matter. The fact is, there is a limit to
which militaries can “stretch” beyond their conventional roles. Janowitz
himself was cognizant of the need to ‘limit military goals to feasible and
attainable objectives’.3 In particular, he worried that soldiers might not
take to constabulary or police-like roles easily since they think of those
assignments as having less prestige and honor. Latin American militaries,
we find, are often asked to perform police-like roles and many others that
 INTRODUCTION 3

Janowitz might have envisioned for them. But the proficiency at which
they perform those tasks varies. The fact is, some of their assigned missions
have gone awry.
It turns out that the armed forces are quite adept at performing certain
tasks, and inept at others; that governments have to be quite selective
about when and where they choose to deploy soldiers to solve security
and development problems. When does it make sense to rely on the armed
forces to conduct missions of this sort? When does it make more sense
to leave them in the barracks? This is a book that grapples with those
questions from a pragmatic perspective. It argues that decisions to deploy
soldiers should be based on an assessment of the severity and urgency of
the problem, the capacity of the military to effectively respond based on its
own innate abilities, and the availability of alternative solutions.
It will be shown that militaries are at their best when tasked with mis-
sions that draw on pre-existing organizational strengths that can be uti-
lized in appropriate and humane ways. They are at a disadvantage when
tasked with missions that are organizationally incompatible, professionally
damaging or degrading, or both. Militaries of Latin America are conserva-
tive organizations that are resistant to change. If asked to conduct opera-
tions that require that they re-invent themselves, or strain to be something
they are not, they will usually comply, but will not perform competently.
They may resent their assignments, believing their time would be better
spent preparing for combat.4 They may make their compliance contingent
on government concessions or side payments. In short, they may not fully
cooperate with their political overseers.
Latin America is no stranger to uncooperative armies. The better part
of the last century featured politically minded militaries in pursuit of their
own agendas at the expense of democratically elected governments and
the rights of ordinary citizens. But outright defiance of civilian orders,
military coups, and mass political repression are not the prevailing norms
of behavior in the first part of the twenty-first century. There is scant evi-
dence to suggest that in the contemporary period, Latin American armed
forces, when faced with difficult or undesirable missions, threaten the via-
bility of democratic governments and systems.5 There are indications that
some militaries have shirked specific duties as a strategy to alter the rules
of engagement (ROE) in their favor. In this scenario, the military still
respects the overall civil–military hierarchy, and is not interested in over-
turning the government or regime. Rather, it is guarding its professional
4 D. PION-BERLIN

well-being the only way it perceives tenable.6 Once it has succeeded in

changing the ROE, it faithfully returns to its mission.
More commonly, when asked to deploy, militaries do so. However,
they may go without the necessary preparation or skill sets. This is espe-
cially so when tasked with assignments that stray far afield from traditional
combat and normal training regimens. They may perform badly, and poor
performance not only can do injury to the alleged beneficiaries of the
campaign, but could redound to the detriment of the political authorities,
not to mention the armed forces themselves. That is why when govern-
ments assign their militaries a mission, they must find a fit between the
nature of the assignment and the inherent strengths and weaknesses of the
military organization. They must, in other words, deal with their militar-
ies as they are. This is more so in regions of the world where armies are
especially conservative and risk averse, prone to avoid circumstances that
would compel them to innovate.
Some militaries have the ability to adapt to new and difficult circum-
stances. When handed a set of unfamiliar if not daunting tasks, they will
reorganize their forces, incorporate new technologies, and undergo new
training regimens; they will be ready for the undertaking. What does it
take to spur reform? It is usually something outside of the military organi-
zation itself: a defeat in war, a profound shift in a security environment, or
great technological innovations could shake up the status quo, awakening
a keen interest in changing force structure, force size, doctrine, and mis-
sion orientation.7 Scholars have referred to the ideas of sustaining and dis-
ruptive innovation to describe either incremental or more radical changes,
the latter being the kind that may overturn vested institutional interests
and ideas.8 Militaries that rise to the challenge have re-invented them-
selves, and are prepared to confront new realities.
But other militaries cannot operate out of their comfort zone.
Adaptation is hard if not impossible for them, as it is for so many orga-
nizations. As Stephen Rosen said, ‘almost everything we know in theory
about large bureaucracies suggests not only that they are hard to change,
but that they are designed not to change….Military bureaucracies, more-
over are especially resistant to change.’9 Innovation is a tough sell, because
it is asking the military to do something it has not done before. It is
unfamiliar, and thus for many inside the organization, it is risky. Once
bureaucracies stumble upon a successful formula for survival, they stick
to it. Routine and repetition become the names of the game. More of the
same is better, because it has worked in the past. An organizational culture
 INTRODUCTION 5

develops around continuity, and preserving the status quo. Those ideas
are reinforced by organizational vested interests. A change, if it involves
downsizing or force reorientation of any kind, may result in a loss of posi-
tions, power, and privileges for some within the hierarchy. Add to this the
fact that the military is not a monolithic entity; it is composed of service
branches, each of whom is competing with the others for getting more of
what they already have. Those narrow, selfish interests do not usually look
kindly upon innovation, especially if it involves sacrifice. To the contrary,
service competition tends to drive up the overall demands for resources
which drives up overall costs. Effectiveness and cost-cutting efficiency are
often on a collision course with each other in a military torn by service
rivalries.
For this reason, it has been argued that the innovators must come from
the outside. Only those without narrow, vested interests to protect, and
more distant from ingrained organizational cultures and habits can have
the independence of mind to promote change.10 For example, innovators
may be found in what Kimberly Zisk calls a defense policy community.11
But those policy entrepreneurs must find civilian elites who are on good
terms with military commanders who in turn are receptive to their ideas
and who can use their authority to set the innovations in motion down
through the chain of command, who can promote young officers more
open minded to change, and can remove the old guard who stand in the
way.
That is an uncommon convergence, more so in Latin America, where
reform-minded military commanders and civilians are in short supply.
More often than not, outside reformists—if they exist at all—will not find
military commanders willing to partner with them, because they too are
part of the problem, not the solution. They resist change, and often seem
more encumbered by their past, then they are liberated by the prospect
of inventing their future. Frederick Nunn’s classic book on the influences
upon modern day military professionalism in Latin America was aptly
titled ‘Yesterday’s Soldiers’.12 Officers look behind more than they look
forward.
If, as scholars maintain, innovational lessons are learned from opera-
tional experiences (and especially setbacks) on the battlefield,13 then Latin
America is at a double disadvantage. Since the mid twentieth century, it
has only seen three wars, and thus there are very few battlefield lessons to
be drawn. And yet, even in the aftermath of two of those conflicts—the
1982 Malvinas War between Argentina and Great Britain, and the 1995
6 D. PION-BERLIN

Cenepa War between Peru and Ecuador—the top brass in those countries
chose not to review combat deficiencies, nor remedy them through the
development of new defense programs and strategies. For the most part,
they preserved the status quo. Civilian leaders themselves were to blame
by not insisting that their armed services learn the lessons of war, compel-
ling them to make changes nonetheless. Instead, as will be shown in Chap.
3, defense preparedness has never become a political priority in the region.
Resistance to change is not limited to the realm of defense. In fact, the
problems that most Latin American states face lie off the conventional bat-
tlefield. They involve crime, drug trafficking, and the violence they invoke,
along with poverty, social ills, and disparities, and the destruction wrought
by natural disasters. As mentioned before, soldiers have been called upon
to lend a hand in attempting to resolve or at least ameliorate these kinds of
problems. But those commitments also run up against questions of revised
training, learning, and adaptation. For instance, are soldiers equipped to
plunge head first into anti-crime operations, requiring of them skill sets
normally reserved for police? Do they know how to suddenly shift from
the use of explosive force to restrained violence, which is an essential adap-
tation within densely populated urban areas? Can they inter-face with the
unarmed public in a respectful way? And can they humanely deliver social,
economic, and medical services to in-need populations without using
those occasions to exploit victims for their own benefit?
As will be shown in the chapters that follow, the answer to these ques-
tions is no and yes. There are too many examples to mention of militaries
from Brazil to Mexico to Central America who have failed to innovate,
instead resorting to excessive levels of forces, and a callous disregard for at
risk populations. At the same time, and contrary to conventional wisdom,
militaries have been able to carry off certain non-traditional, non-combat
domestic operations with a considerable degree of skill, restraint, and cir-
cumspection. What is constant across the negative and positive cases is that
militaries bring to those missions the organizational resources, capacities,
and skills already in place. By and large, they are not great innovators,
able to retrain, re-learn, and adapt to new, unfamiliar circumstances. And
so we would argue that Latin American democratic governments have to
play the hands they are dealt; they do not get to re-shuffle the deck. They
work with the military organizations as they are, and drawing on their
core, pre-existing strengths, try to match them with suitable missions.
Consequently, understanding the ontology of military organizations is a
 INTRODUCTION 7

prerequisite to knowing where the armed forces are likely to succeed at

assigned missions and where they are not.
This is not an exercise in optimality. Governments are not deploying
their armed forces because they are necessarily the best at what they do. In
fact, they may be the only ones that do what they do, when civilian agen-
cies are not available. As argued, the choices are pragmatic, defined by the
gravity of the problems, the available solutions at hand, and the opportu-
nity costs to not using the military when needed.

THE REST OF THE BOOK

Chapter 2 provides some analytical lenses for assessing the value of mili-
tary missions. Why should soldiers be deployed in the first place, particu-
larly in a region like Latin America where states rarely go to war? Are not
there better ways to spend federal revenue than on men and munitions?
We will review the ‘guns versus butter’ debate to see if it can throw light
on whether military missions have any relative value in the contemporary
era. A familiar argument has been to say that missions conducted inside
the borders of a nation not only have little value to society, but could cause
great harm. Soldiers could get embroiled in domestic politics, lose sight of
their professional obligations, and perhaps exploit their services to accrue
power for themselves. It will be shown that this is not necessarily so, as
there are examples where internal missions have been conducted properly
and constructively.
The central, alternative ideas expressed in Chap. 2 are twofold. The first
is that that the choice to deploy or not deploy soldiers in Latin America
is a pragmatic one. It is driven by governments making strategic deci-
sions based on the gravity and urgency of problems they face, the utility
of drawing on military capabilities and skills, and the opportunity costs
to not doing so. Calling on the armed forces to lend a hand in combat-
ing crime, distributing social goods and services, or conducting rescue
and relief operations is always a comparative needs assessment: what is
the gravity of the problem, what are the alternative remedies, and if they
exist, are they any better? And the second idea is that the utility of military
deployment is a function of its organizational strengths, and whether these
are properly matched to the mission at hand. The chapter will examine
some core features of the Latin American military organization, and how
these could be usefully exploited.
8 D. PION-BERLIN

The book is designed to assess four principal military missions in Latin

America. Chapter 3 is devoted to defense. It will be demonstrated that
defense has been a low priority for governments of the region, and that
militaries have not devoted themselves sufficiently to the task of strength-
ening and modernizing their forces. This lack of attention stems from the
historical paucity of interstate wars that could have compelled nations to
build up larger, more able defense forces. By contrast, what states have
been doing with great relish is to forge cooperative security agreements
and build regional institutions that make the risk of armed engagement
between neighbors more remote. At the same time, countries have coop-
eratively redeployed some military units to their shared border regions
to face down non-state criminal elements. These deployments do not
come near to testing the warfare capabilities of national defense forces,
but rather display to what lengths neighboring states have been willing to
go to pool resources, share intelligence, and operate jointly to suppress
those threats. Security cooperation has also allowed states to pursue arms
procurement in a non-threatening manner, since neighboring states do
not perceive such purchases with alarm.
Chapter 4 considers the military’s internal security missions. Despite the
misuse and abuse of military coercion in the past, all nations of the region
continue to allow for some form of military domestic deployment under
certain conditions. Internal security is an umbrella term that encompasses
a wide array of different operations and scenarios, each different from the
next in terms of the nature of the security threats and the risks they pose
to state and society. Because that is so, the introduction of the armed
forces could be appropriate—if not necessary—in certain circumstances
and unwise in others. Useful deployment depends on whether a mission
demands of the military skills consistent with its organizational character,
and appropriate to the tasks at hand. Those propositions will be explored
in a case study of Mexico’s armed forces and their immersion in counter-
narcotic operations. Interestingly, it will be shown that for a very specific,
targeted security mission, the military was up to the task; for others, it left
much to be desired.
Chapter 5 investigates the military role in responding to natural disas-
ters. When a ferocious hurricane makes landfall, or a powerful earthquake
suddenly erupts, governments must mount a response that is rapid, mas-
sive, superbly coordinated, and comprised of professionals and volunteers
who are sufficiently well trained. And that requires institutions—public
and/or private—that already have some built-in capability, organization,
 INTRODUCTION 9

and infrastructure that could be called upon at a moment’s notice. Thus,

it is little wonder that so many countries call upon the armed forces to
lend a hand. But their deployment is not without its risks. Civil–military
problems do not disappear simply because Mother Nature is the culprit.
Questions will surface having to do with shared authority, command and
control, relations between civilian agencies and military units, and mission
termination. These issues will be explored in a case study of Chile, and that
nation’s response to two earthquakes.
Chapter 6 assesses the pros and cons to involving the armed forces in
social programs. When nations must bring potable water to crisis-ridden
rural communities, deliver medical services to masses of citizens, dispense
subsidized food to the poor, or combat wide-scale illiteracy and unem-
ployment, they may call upon the armed forces to lend a helping hand.
Indeed, military-led civic action projects that go back centuries in the Latin
American region have delivered such services. But do the armed forces
exploit these roles for their own selfish gain? Do they leverage their social
tasks in ways that would impinge on the autonomy of civilian officials,
and on the rights of citizens? In case studies of Venezuela and Bolivia, this
chapter finds that is not so. In neither case did the armed forces perpetrate
harm to government, society, or themselves by virtue of their immersion
in social missions. But in Venezuela, harm was done to them by the ways in
which the political leadership manipulated their social ground operations
in order to fulfill larger political objectives.
The concluding chapter synthesizes the findings across the four mis-
sions, arraying the results according to how successful missions have been,
and how compatible they have been with the military’s organizational and
professional attributes. The implications of these findings for civilian con-
trol and democracy are then assessed.

NOTES
1. M. Janowitz (1960) The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait
(New York: The Free Press), pp. 417–440.
2. Janowitz, The Professional Soldier, pp. 418–419.
3. Janowitz, The Professional Soldier, p. 435.
4. Surveys of peacekeepers from a variety of countries who are deployed to
non-combat policing operations find that they will do the job, but with
reservations. They question just how appropriate it is and whether it is
good for their careers in the long run. By large margins, peacekeepers have
10 D. PION-BERLIN

found the work to be boring. B.J. Reed and D.R. Segal (2000) ‘The
Impact of Multiple Deployments on Soldiers, Peacekeeping Attitudes,
Morale, and Retention’, Armed Forces & Society, 27, 1, 57–78; K. Michael
and E. Ben-Ari (2011) ‘Contemporary Peace Support Operations: the
Primacy of the Military and Internal Contradictions’, Armed Forces &
Society, 37, 4, 657–679.
5. An exception to this rule occurred in Venezuela in 2002, when the mili-
tary took affront at Chávez’s order to use force against peaceful demon-
strators. Soon thereafter, they turned against him in a forty-eight-hour
coup that ultimately failed.
6. See D. Pion-Berlin and H. Trinkunas (2000) ‘Civilian Praetorianism and
Military Shirking During Constitutional Crises in Latin America’, Journal
of Comparative Politics, 42, 4, 395–411.
7. B. Posen (1984) The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and
Germany between the World Wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press);
K. Zisk (1993) Engaging the Enemy: Organizational Theory and Soviet
Military Innovation, 1955–1991 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press); T. Farrell, S. Rynning, and T. Terriff (2013) Transforming Military
Power since the Cold War: Britain, France and the United States, 1991–
2012 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
8. Farrell, et al. Transforming Military Power.
9. S.P. Rosen (1991) Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern
Military (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press), p. 2.
10. Zisk. Engaging the Enemy.
11. Zisk, Engaging the Enemy, p. 21.
12. F.M. Nunn (1983) Yesterday’s Soldiers: European Military Professionalism
in South America, 1890–1940 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press).
13. See T. Farrell, F. Osinga, and J.A. Russell, eds. (2003) Military Adaptation
in Afghanistan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press).
 CHAPTER 2

Assessing Military Missions

INTRODUCTION
Military missions are a component of everyday Latin American life.
Surprisingly, little has been written about them.1 This chapter will begin
with a discussion of missions and who the decision-makers are. From there
we turn to a discussion of mission compliance, and whether militaries are
in positions to defy deployment orders. Then the issue of mission utility
is addressed, exploring some alternative approaches to the problem. The
classic ‘guns versus butter’ debate is reconsidered, for purposes of under-
standing whether mission utility can be assessed based on the economic
trade-offs between defense and non-defense spending. Then, we turn to
the scholarship on mission location, and whether or not internal opera-
tions are inherently problematic: Do they inevitably lead to human rights
abuses, military overreach, and a loss of civilian control? Is it better that
militaries be confined to external defense missions only? Finally, the chap-
ter develops a pragmatic approach to assessing military utility. It argues
that there must be a compatibility between a military’s organizational
strengths on the one hand, and problems which it is asked to address
on the other. When that convergence is achieved, succeeding chapters
will show, perhaps surprisingly, that the armed forces can perform well in
domestic operations, conducting themselves in a manner that is effective,
humane, and that fulfills the policy objectives of democratic governments.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 11

D. Pion-Berlin, Military Missions in Democratic Latin America,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59270-5_2
12 D. PION-BERLIN

MISSIONS AND DECISION-MAKING

Missions are those primary and permanent roles, usually codified into law,
which states assign to their armed forces. They define the military’s pur-
pose and direction, and in doing so, allow strategic and operational plans
to then be devised for achieving politically determined security objectives.
Defense ministries publicize these missions, as do the websites for armies,
air forces, and navies. A Latin American military mission statement may
typically refer to the defense of a nation’s sovereignty, independence, and
territorial integrity. But depending on the country, it may also make refer-
ence to the preservation of a nation’s peace, security, internal or consti-
tutional order, and it might also mention the military’s participation in
national development or in peacekeeping abroad.2 Hence, countries may
choose to more narrowly circumscribe their military’s assignments, or give
them greater latitude.
The terms mission and operation are often used interchangeably,
though they differ somewhat in meaning. Operations are more specific
episodic campaigns undertaken in fulfillment of a particular mission. For
example, Brazil regularly deploys the armed forces to the Amazonian fron-
tier, as part of territorial defense. In pursuit of that mission, the military
has launched and re-launched Operation Agata that brings together army,
navy, and air force personnel to patrol inland border territory, rivers, and
airspace. Brazil has also joined forces with Colombia in a joint operation
called Comissão Binacional de Segurança Fronteirica (COMBIFRON),
designed to deter illegal mining, drug trafficking, and bio-piracy along
their common border. In fact, there can be many dozens of operations
conducted under the rubric of a single mission. In this study however,
mission and operation will sometimes be substituted for each other for
purposes of stylistic variation.
The choice of missions may be written into the constitution, or if not,
specified in another set of laws. But in a democracy, the decision to acti-
vate those missions is plainly in the hands of a civilian, elected president
who is the commander in chief, in consultation with his foreign policy
advisors, and often with the approval of the congress. The military’s role
is then to execute the mission in ways that will achieve the ends sought by
government. In a phrase, the political leadership are the decision-makers,
and the armed forces are the decision-takers.3 The convention is that civil-
ians in government will devise the overarching national objectives for a
said mission, authorize its use, and then hand off to their commanders the
 ASSESSING MILITARY MISSIONS 13

task of implementing it. Big questions about political–strategic purpose

are reserved for civilian leaders, while more precise tactical–operational
aspects of the mission are reserved for the officers.
The division of labor is never as sharp as a clear blue line. It does blur
at the edges, since there is often an intermingling of civilian and military
experts. Politicians rely on military advice, and advisors are sometimes
asked to sit at the decision-making table. If knowledge is power, then
advising officers can become quite powerful when and if they enjoy a near
monopoly on defense wisdom. We are reminded of President George
W. Bush’s reliance on what his field commanders told him in order to
make decisions on the Iraqi War. Besides, decision-making is a not a one
shot deal; it is a process. Leading to the final judgment is a stream of deci-
sions into which flow various inputs from military as well as non-military
sources. It would be unusual to find a defense secretary or president who
made mission decisions in complete isolation, oblivious to the ideas held
by those in uniform. Those who have arrogantly dismissed the advice of
officers have sometimes led nations into quagmires, and have paid a hefty
price for doing so.4 By the same token, civilian leaders should never turn
their backs entirely on the conduct of missions, especially war, because
they need to decide where the line should be drawn between means and
ends. Otherwise, problems could arise when soldiers extend the boundar-
ies of a conflict, or change its form, thinking that they are simply making
operational adjustments when in fact they are interfering in the formula-
tion of policy.5
The classic mission is defense. The military must always be ready to
defend the nation from external attack. When generals are given the sig-
nal, they mobilize, deploy, and fight. If and when they are called to war,
it is not within the generals’ purview to set their own starting date, define
the mission objectives, determine when those objectives have been met,
and decide when the war should be concluded. It was the great Prussian
theorist Clausewitz who famously said that war was ‘merely the continu-
ation of policy by other means’.6 He meant that war was not an end in
itself, but one method of achieving political goals set by the government
in power. It follows that those in charge of conducting and carrying out
the war are not free to define war’s purpose. To clarify, Clausewitz also
told us that war has its own grammar, but not its own logic.7 War has to
be conducted according to military science and expertise; those outside
of the military who are unfamiliar with the ‘language’ of battle have no
business telling soldiers how to fight. But there is no logic in going to war
14 D. PION-BERLIN

unless or until it is defined by policymakers; the soldier does not provide

it or invent it. If and when that relation between government and military
is overturned, when the grammar of war dictates the logic of politics,
nations are in trouble. At that moment, the warriors have grabbed too
much power.
The same rule pertains to other missions outside of war. It is not for
soldiers to decide whether to deploy and for what purpose, whether they
be on border patrol, peacekeeping missions, civic action, or disaster relief.
This notion is consistent with Huntington’s original formulation that pro-
fessional militaries are apolitical; they have no agenda of their own and
thus exist to serve their political masters. In his view, the more professional
they become, the more observant they are of that distinction, thus sub-
scribing fully to the principle of civilian control.8
The difficulty however with Huntington’s formulation is that militar-
ies—including highly professional ones—also have their own corporate
interests and identities, and these may produce inclinations that clash with
those held by politicians. Militaries, for example, have views about which
missions are appropriate or not. This judgment is based on the compat-
ibility between the tasks to be fulfilled on the one hand and the mili-
tary’s doctrine, training, capabilities, and customary practices, on the other
hand. Missions that are, in the military’s mind, professionally degrading or
otherwise irreconcilable with the military’s raison d’être are ones it would
prefer not undertaking. The costs to a military of undertaking a mission
are measured in terms of how much a task requires it abandon familiar rou-
tines and precepts, and whether this is in a desirable direction or not. Does
the military accept the mission or resent it? And if a mission is acceptable
to the military but challenging, is it up to the challenge? At the other end,
there are missions that are professionally degrading or simply unfulfilling.
The gap between mission requirements and professional vision, training,
and practice is great, but so too is the gap between the tasks at hand and
desirability. The military is neither prepared for these operations nor does
it consider them to be consistent with their professional calling.

MILITARY AUTONOMY AND MISSION COMPLIANCE

A military might resist if pressed into service on an undesirable mission.
But a decision to resist orders assumes the military has sufficient auton-
omy to do so. Not all militaries enjoy that power. Some have so absorbed
the principle of subordination as to make defiance unthinkable; others are
 ASSESSING MILITARY MISSIONS 15

so restricted by current political conditions to make defiance untenable.

In some political systems, armies are integrally tied to the regime’s ruling
coalition by virtue of ethnic or religious identity, others by tight patronage
networks, and still others by fear of what would happen to them should
they defect.
A politically autonomous military has no such fear, and is one that acts
as if it were above and beyond the constitutional authority of the gov-
ernment.9 It answers to itself, not to its political overseers. It weighs the
costs and benefits of a mission, ultimately deciding whether it is worth
pursuing or not. It may decide at times to comply with deployment
orders, and at other times to defy such orders. At one extreme, a fully
autonomous military can decide to not only defy orders but also topple
the government that issues those orders. That condition often depicted
political life in Latin America prior to the 1980s. No region perhaps other
than Africa better captured the reality of military intervention than did
Latin America. Rather than relegating themselves to subordinate posi-
tions within the political framework, the ‘new military professionals’ of
the 1960s and 1970s expanded their spheres of influence to absorb func-
tions previously performed by what were perceived as less capable civilian
governments.10 They would decide which missions were worth pursuing.
As the role-expansive army enforced the institutional boundaries between
it and civil society, it also expanded the limits of its political influence, up
to and including the conquest of state power.
Were the Cold War military interventions and dictatorships construed
as missions? Yes, and self-bestowed ones, driven by ideologically inspired
hatreds of left-wing movements, militant trade unionists, and their sym-
pathizers, and a determination to impose an economic model favorable to
propertied sectors and multi-national capital.11 Military leaders considered
themselves to be literally at war against Marxian-inspired movements that
in their view posed existential threats to the nation. To defeat those move-
ments, the generals devised war plans in the form of a national security
state apparatus that treated the country as enemy territory. The repressive
state would carve the nation into security zones, penetrating every region,
every organization, and every sphere of political and social life. This state-
led assault would in essence ‘cleanse’ the polity of unwanted political ele-
ments, which in turn would permit other kinds of transformations of an
economic nature to take place.
Like any mission, military rule had a beginning, middle, and end.
Though the generals seldom set any timetable for departure from office,
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