Environmental Security in Latin America

Gavin O'Toole

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138693784
• eBook ISBN: 9781315529394
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines security in Latin America through an environmental lens, at a time when this region faces a broad and growing spectrum of threats.

The book considers the backdrop against which security debates about Latin America have been conducted; the extent to which scholarship has been dominated by traditional US strategic concerns; and how, in the changing context at the end of the Cold War, some policymakers within Latin America itself at both national and regional levels began to reposition security. It argues that traditional security scholarship focusing on military defence and strategic affairs in this region is hard to explain and out of date, and offers reasons why a new focus on environmental threats within a broader human security perspective has much to offer this field. Such a focus is justified by the scale of the challenges that environmental degradation is posing in Latin America, and the very real impact of climate change there. The book considers how the various theoretical possibilities of the term 'environmental security' all have some potential application to this region, where the natural environment is rapidly being securitized by military forces on behalf of their states. Finally, it proposes that a fruitful approach to Latin America might be one where human and environmental security have parity.

This book will be of interest to students of environmental security, Latin American security, human geography and IR in general.

1
Security in Latin America

To say the role of the military in Latin American political development has been influential would be something of an understatement, and it has often been a dominant political actor: from the earliest struggles of Independence to the mostly transacted demobilization under democratization. The military interpretation of security threats and fetishistic sovereign vocation have had an overbearing influence on the evolution of societies, and it has been both a corporate political actor under the state and an independent one seeking control of the state. Even where the military has been consciously excluded from institutional politics, as in Mexico in the era of single-party rule following the 1917 revolution, it has left its imprint on the norms shaping political activity. Since the Independence era, the military has shaped fundamental aspects of Latin American political culture:

• Statebuilding: the armed forces have been key protagonists in the construction of viable states tied to global markets by, or on behalf of, elites. Their role has been to extend the authority of the central state in order to ensure stable conditions for foreign capital in extractive economies supplying a global marketplace. As a result, the Latin American military’s focus on protecting the sovereign state with armed force represents an almost paradigmatic example of traditional security doctrine.
• Development: the armed forces have actively shaped economic development throughout Latin America, where the fate of national economies has been closely tied to the extraction of abundant natural resources. O’Donnell’s (1973) bureaucratic authoritarianism, for example, alluded to only the most recent example of the link between economic modernization and military rule. The armed forces remain key developmental actors in many Latin American states.
• Relative inter-state peace: one of the main ironies of military history in Latin America is that its role has rarely been one of fighting external threats posed by other states. In comparative terms, this region has been characterized by relative peace, although on this issue contemporary scholars are divided.

The transitions to democracy of the 1980s and 1990s, as the Cold War ended, confirmed the place of Latin American militaries at the heart of political development. The principal challenges facing post-authoritarian governments were delimited by the military question, in particular how to exert civilian control over armed forces that had enjoyed generations of autonomy (see Mares and Martínez 2014). A range of factors influenced the degree to which democratic controls could be imposed on militaries, and progress varied. Since 1980, however, the appointment of civilian ministers of defence has become a consistent trend (see RESDAL 2014: 29). Initiatives by civilian governments to redefine the military mission, review its institutional prerogatives, and determine its relationship with democracy varied considerably, and civil–military relations remain a factor in politics today (see Pion-Berlin 2001). Throughout Latin America, the armed forces continue to have missions that draw them into domestic functions, and troops are often deployed in a policing role, reflecting what some observers describe as a trend towards the ‘militarization’ of public security (see Kinosian 2013). Tickner (2016) has warned that the concept of ‘democratic security’ articulated in an effort to redefine the relationship between militaries and civilian authorities, particularly in Central America, may even threaten democratization. There is evidence that Latin American militaries retain considerable leeway over how they interpret their missions and can be choosy about what they do (see Jaskoski 2012). Renewed attention by Latin American governments to social problems has also extended the military’s civic roles, and politicians remain mindful of the risks this poses. Diamint (2015) has spoken of a ‘new militarism’ in Latin America whereby presidential appeals to the army for help in tackling crime have returned them to the centre of political life. Military prerogatives also remain robust: Latin America has a long tradition of the armed forces acting as ‘guarantors’ of the institutional order, and generals have often employed constitutional arguments to legitimize interventions. Progress has also been slow and erratic in bringing to justice former military officers accused of human rights abuses.

The inescapable presence of the armed forces in Latin American political development helps to explain why, until the 1990s, security policy remained exclusively a military domain characterized by a focus on the defence of the central state and its territorial boundaries (Tickner 2016: 67; Nolte and Wehner 2016: 34). While external threats to those boundaries were largely illusory, national security doctrine in Latin America was also distinctive in the emphasis it placed upon the military’s domestic mission countering subversion, thereby legitimizing a disproportionate military influence in politics or outright authoritarian rule. This ensured that, until the 1990s, military thinking remained stubbornly within the parameters established by orthodox strategic concerns about the survival of the nation-state. As Kacowicz and Mares point out (2016: 25), the classic themes of strategic studies (especially the discussion of national defence) contributed the majority of theories, ideas and ideologies present in publications and public debates in the region regarding international and regional security. The threat and use of force to deter and defend against enemies of the state has remained the primary way in which security has been understood (Marcella 2016: 162, 166).

A second formative theme that must be taken into account in any discussion of security perspectives in Latin America is US hemispheric military tutelage, most recently in the context of the Cold War (Mares 2016b). There is considerable evidence of how the insertion of Latin America in the ‘world security architecture’ has taken place under the aegis of US hegemony (Kacowicz 2016: 336, 344; Escudé 2016: 57). The Cold War had a profound influence on the character of inter-American relations because of the US priority placed upon the concept of national security, although the meaning of this has changed over time. US experiences in Guatemala in 1954 had a formative influence on its application of this doctrine, and a broad definition of security in the 1960s thereby incorporated support for greater socio-economic development, resulting in the Alliance for Progress aid programme. US influence helps to explain why similar doctrines were adopted by politically diverse military establishments, many of whose officers attended the US Army’s School of the Americas in the Panama Canal Zone. The US role meant that Latin American foreign policies were often considered in terms of how they would be viewed in the North, and often reflected an introspective and defensive vision of national interests preoccupied with sovereignty that suppressed regional cooperation.

In the short term, the end of superpower tensions after 1989 further constrained Latin American foreign policy options as Washington retained hegemony in the western hemisphere by default. However, there was a flurry of scholarship raising the prospect of a ‘new agenda’ in US policy towards Latin America and exploring the fate of its hegemony (Layne 2006, 2009). A number of factors suggest that Latin American states strengthened policymaking autonomy vis-à-vis the US.

First, the watchword of international relations became ‘globalization’ in a new order based upon the uneven distribution of international economic and political power. Tulchin and Espach (2001) suggested that an institutionalist account of international behaviour had become suitable for assessing Latin American regional policy options in such a context. Second, the relaxation of Cold War tensions and democratization broadened the ideological spectrum of governments that the US had to do business with, strengthening its need to use diplomacy. Third, the multipolar character of world affairs meant, among other things, that Latin America was not a high priority for the world’s most powerful states, and the region received increasingly less attention. US preoccupations elsewhere enhanced the ability of states to assert their autonomy in foreign policymaking. Under President Hugo Chávez (1999–2013), for example, Venezuela revised a security doctrine once based on the US national security model to a Cuban vision of prolonged popular war. The rise of Brazil as a regional power and increased arms spending throughout Latin America suggested that US military preeminence could no longer be taken for granted (see Munks 2009). A potent symbol of US isolation was the creation in 2010 of the Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (CELAC [Community of Latin American and Caribbean States]), which excluded the US and Canada. Kacowicz (2016) points out that Latin America will continue to have marginal importance in the ‘world security architecture’ because of its limited strategic significance.

The US threat assessment itself also changed, and in the 1990s, its focus on Latin America began to emphasize free trade and democratization as the bases for security, while counter-narcotics replaced counter-insurgency as a foreign policy priority. There was a progressive shift to identify multiple emergent, mostly transnational threats, exemplified by the US-sponsored Williamsburg confidence-building process after 1995, and reinforced by the 9/11 attacks that initiated the ‘war on terror’. Now ‘homeland’ security sought to identify all potential sources of threat to the US mainland and understood risk in a multifaceted way. The US National Security Strategy of 2002 made the perceived threat posed by ‘failed states’ more explicit, and in the context of rising drugs violence, this concept was extended to Latin America through mechanisms such as the Plan Colombia aid package. US security thinking now devotes considerable energy to identifying the risk posed in the Americas by weak institutions, organized crime and drug trafficking (see White House 2015). Nonetheless, there has been disagreement within US policymaking circles over how national security concerns should be reflected in policy towards Latin America; some argue for the use of ‘soft power’, and others stress the persistence of traditional security anxieties. There have also been more recent signs of a revived emphasis on military power originating in the 2002 National Security Strategy: US support for the militarization of anti-drug strategies in Colombia, then Mexico; the reactivation in 2008 of the US Fourth Fleet; and an increasing US military presence in traditional allies such as Colombia and Honduras (see Baer 2015). According to Prevost and Vanden (2014), a shift in the focus of US security policy back to issues of armed force make it more reminiscent of the Cold War era.

Against this backdrop, scholars of security have struggled to position environmental issues and climate change within the US understanding of emergent threats (see for example Baldwin and Meltzer 2012: 26). The environment has been incorporated in an inconsistent way within US security thinking itself, reflecting both international inconsistencies but also domestic political divisions (see for example Floyd 2010). Matthew (2013) noted how the Pentagon has returned to the environmental security issue through the notion of climate security (see also CNA 2007; Campbell 2008; ASP 2009).

Security debates about Latin America

The attention given in US scholarship to emergent threats has been influenced by alternative conceptions of security in English-language academic literature that go beyond traditional concerns of war and peace. These reflect new threats that make traditional issues of war and peace inadequate for coping with ‘intermestic’ (both international and domestic) problems deriving from globalization and non-state actors (Kacowicz and Mares 2016: 26).

However, these English-language scholarly debates around alternative conceptions of security have had a limited impact upon academic perspectives on Latin America. As Tickner (2016: 67) points out, there has been little scholarly attention to processes in the region through which the meaning of security has changed. In the absence of a large indigenous body of work, anxieties cherished in US scholarship continue to exert disproportionate influence over a scholarly focus that has been premised on the potential for inter-state conflict according to a realist perspective in international relations. This emphasis is captured well by a Colombian quote summarizing the strong emphasis on traditional criteria in planning for ‘war and “other than war”’ (Marcella 2016: 166). Moreover, where English-language scholarship has applied alternative notions of security to Latin America, this has reflected US concerns. For example, there is a notable focus in academic and policy research on: how issues of public security affect stability; the ‘war on drugs’; cross-border migratory and terrorism threats; and persisting conflicts within strategic US allies such as Colombia (O’Donnell and Gray 2012; Guerrero 2013; Moreira Alves and Evanson 2011; Neumann 2013; Bergman and Whitehead 2009; Polit Dueñas and Rueda 2011; Avilés 2006). Considerable attention has been given to the issue of public security in recent years (UNDP 2012, 2013). Scholars attempting to explain public insecurity or give an overview of it have focused on the causes of drug violence and the response of security forces to it in Mexico, Brazil and El Salvador (Sabet 2013; Arias and Davis Rodrigues 2006); the relationship between humanitarian relief and public security in Haiti (Ferris and Ferro-Ribeiro 2012; Muggah 2010); the origins of high levels of violence in Guatemala and Nicaragua (Preti 2002; Cruz 2011); policing and community-based strategies to fight crime and the fear of crime (Dammert and Malone 2006; Sunwin Uang 2013); and the specific issue of gender-related violence (Fregoso and Bejarano 2010). The US-led ‘war on drugs’ has been a significant factor in shaping security cooperation, particularly in Mexico and Colombia (Guerrero 2013; Kristlik 2012; Peceny and Durnan 2006; Carpenter 2013). US priorities in its ‘war on terror’ have also exercised considerable influence over security and intelligence policies (Ferkaluk 2010; Emerson 2010). Research on migration has focused heavily on countries most likely to have an impact on US national security concerns (Fetzek 2009; Guerrero 2013). At the same time, while there are examples of active challenges from within Latin America to US security primacy, such as the bilateral security alignment between Venezuela and Cuba, these merely reinforce the narrative in scholarship that attributes a dominant role to the US in shaping the terms by which the security agenda has hitherto been examined.

That is not to say that security debates that focus on Latin America have been completely isolated from the growing focus on non-traditional themes. Some scholars recognize the importance of new thinking and accept that there is room for a broader concept of security to develop (Kacowicz and Mares 2016: 25–26). Some Latin American scholars have also started to challenge the traditional, militarized reading of security and explore alternative conceptions or refer to both traditional and non-traditional threats (see Tick-ner 2016: 67; Grabendorff 2003; Mathieu and Rodríguez Arredondo 2009; Tavares 2014). There is recognition that the security agenda in the region today, as elsewhere, demands the simultaneous management of interrelated sources of insecurity from domestic, inter-state and transnational threats. Democratization has clearly nurtured scholarship exploring changing civil–military relations and challenged the military monopoly over security thinking. Kacowicz and Mares (2016: 26) suggest that in the last 30 years academic studies of security by Latin American scholars themselves have also tested military exclusivity in security policy (see also Diamint 2004; Marcella 2016: 164). To an extent, this has resulted in subtly different perspectives on security between the military and other institutions. Flemes and Radseck (2009: 7) note that most military institutions, including South America’s armed forces academies, still adhere to balance-of-power thinking and practices, while other parts of the policymaking bureaucracy, such as the diplomatic corps, have internalized security-community discourses and practices.

Alternative conceptions of security in Latin America have taken a variety of forms. Goldstein (2016: 140–142) argues that among alternative conceptions in use within this region, ‘human security’ has received relatively little attention, possibly because of its conceptual breadth. Tickner (2016: 67) draws attention to such themes as ‘democratic security’ and, more recently, ‘multi-dimensional’ and ‘citizen security’. Citizen security is a prominent framework for conceptualization, largely because of the problems of public order posed by violent crime (Goldstein 2016: 138, 142). Other, more innovative conceptions have also been developed in response to the region’s growing pluralism and the challenges posed by globalization. Lucero (2016: 149), for example, argues that indigenous and Afro-Latino peoples have also generated challenges to dominant notions of security.

At the same time, Latin America has also been the scene of new thinking on international relations as security cooperation rises up the political agenda, not least Escudé’s peripheral-realist perspective (Escudé 2016: 56). Neglect and democratization expanded the opportunities open to Latin American countries to develop new strategic options (Russell and Tokatlian 2011). One outcome of this was to test the traditional understanding of sovereignty which has become more relative, and the region’s states have been active participants in a shift towards cooperative multilateralism (Kincaid 2000). There are now undeniable efforts to frame security problems in regional and sub-regional terms and to build regional structures to confront new threats (Kacowicz and Mares 2016: 27; Flemes and Radseck 2009). Patterns of intra-regional security cooperation in Latin America have become institutionalized, increasingly testing realist perspectives in international relations (see Flemes 2005; Kacowicz 2016: 339).

If scholarly debates have applied alternative conceptions of security to Latin America in a limited or fragmented way, it might be reasonable to conclude – given the military’s monopoly on security policymaking in the region and US influence over this – that this merely reflects the fact that such alternatives are not present in policy perspectives in the region itself. The problem with such a position is that research has simply not been conducted to say this with any confidence. A limited way to address the shortfall is to start by examining security policies themselves, and we are fortunate to have a small library of libros blancos, or white papers, compiled throughout the region as part of the confidence-building agenda agreed by defence ministers at Williamsburg. For this volume, the contents of 38 national white papers and associated policy documents and 30 regional declarations and policy documents from between 1989 and 2015 were examined. These provide valuable insights into a reassessment of security thinking in Latin America that challenges the picture painted by scholarship. All translations are by the author, except in the case of documents made available in English where stated in the bibliography.

Security reassessments within Latin America

Political perspectives have had a strong bearing on the reinterpretation of security policies and military missions across Latin America, and this is amply reflected in the libros blancos. The most prominent recurring theme in all of these white papers is the role of democracy within security reform, and a number of countries, particularly in Central America, explicitly developed the notion of ‘democratic security’. El Salvador (1998), for example, situated this democratic conviction firmly within the Williamsburg process and repeatedly emphasized the respect militaries must pay to democratic authorities and human rights (El Salvador 1998: 6–7; see also El Salvador 2006: 19–21; Guatemala 2012: 10; Honduras 2005: 23; Peru 2005: 26–27). In a similar vein, in Colombia’s (2003) white paper, President Álvaro Uribe went to considerable lengths to distinguish the concept of ‘democratic security’ from the country’s insurgent movements (Colombia 2003: 5, 12–20). In Ecuador, democracy also became a prominent theme in security policy, following the election of Rafael Correa’s ‘Gobierno de la Revolución Ciudadana’, to conform with a new ‘state–society’ relationship (Ecuador 2008a: 94)....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of tables
• Introduction
• 1 Security in Latin America
• 2 Environmental security
• 3 Environmental threats
• 4 Security policy and the environment: national perspectives
• 5 Security policy and the environment: regional perspectives
• 6 Towards a greener security agenda
• Bibliography
• Index