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 exceedingly 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 probably 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 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 periodically 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 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 missions that draw on pre-existing organizational strengths that can be utilized 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 conservative organizations that are resistant to change. If asked to conduct operations 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 evidence to suggest that in the contemporary period, Latin American armed forces, when faced with difficult or undesirable missions, threaten the viability 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 overturning the government or regime. Rather, it is guarding its professional 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 especially 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 governments 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 militaries 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 circumstances. 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 organization 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 mission orientation. 7 Scholars have referred to the ideas of sustaining and disruptive 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 themselves, 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 organizations. 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, moreover 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 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 positions, 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 operational 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 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, compelling 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 battlefield. 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 adaptation 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,...