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  • The Good Sailor Policy

    THE GOOD SAILOR POLICY
    by Khatchik DerGhougassian

    Harvard International Review
    http://www.harvardir.org/index.php?page=art icle&id=1817
    Jan 9 2009
    MA

    The Return of the US Fourth Fleet and the South American Reaction

    Khatchik DerGhougassian is a Professor of International Relations at
    the Universidad de San Andrés in Argentina, a Visiting Professor at
    the American University of Armenia (Yerevan, Republic of Armenia),
    and an advisor at the Ministry of Defense of Argentina. He holds an MA
    degree in International Relations from FLACSO/Argentina and did his
    PhD studies at the University of Miami in International Studies. His
    research projects have included arms transfer, gun control policies,
    terrorism, organized crime and international conflict.

    Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, along with Cuba's Castra and Bolivia's Evo
    Morales, denounced the "imperialist" and "interventionist" character
    of the re-deployment. Photo courtesy ¡Que comunismo!/flickr.comAfter
    58 years of absence, the US Fourth Fleet went back to business on
    July 1, 2008 in the southern West Hemisphere. If the event had
    occurred in 1990s, the Argentine government would probably have
    welcomed the initiative and even anticipated further enhancing the
    "special relationship" that the Carlos S. Menem administration had
    with the United States. But times have changed. Since the so-called
    "left turn" in Latin America after the 2001-2003 social and economic
    crises and the subsequent political turmoil in Argentina, Venezuela,
    Bolivia, Ecuador, and other countries, almost every US move in the
    region has been received with skepticism, concern, and criticism. Such
    has been the case with the return of the US Fourth Fleet.

    The decision of re-deployment was made public on April 24, and although
    Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead made an announcement
    assuring Latin America that the move does not imply new military
    assets in the region, the leaders of South American countries were
    not convinced, with the exception of Colombia. Cuba's Fidel Castro,
    Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, and Bolivia's Evo Morales denounced the
    "imperialist" and "interventionist" character of the re-deployment,
    whereas Brazil's Defense Minister, Nelson Jobim, declared that his
    country would not allow the fleet to operate in Brazilian waters
    without authorization. Jobim's Argentine colleague, Nilda Garré--whom
    Admiral James Stavridis, the head of the Southern Command (SouthCom),
    visited on May 7 during his South American tour to personally explain
    Washington's decision--was also not convinced. Brazil and Argentina
    did not take any immediate steps against the US decision, but the
    issue of the Fourth Fleet is on their defense and foreign policy
    agendas and is being widely discussed and debated in both official
    and unofficial circles. In the South American press, an uncritical
    perspective towards the US military move is rare.

    Same Concern, Different Reactions On July 1, 2008, the day of the
    Fourth Fleet's arrival, the leaders of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay,
    and Paraguay--the four founding members of the Southern Common Market
    (Mercado Común del Sur -MERCOSUR)--as well as Venezuela, Bolivia,
    and Chile, met for a summit in the city of San Miguel de Tucumán
    in Argentina. Although the two main issues on the agenda were the
    world food crisis and the European immigration policy, Venezuela's
    Chávez referred to the re-deployment of the Fourth Fleet and proposed
    that his colleagues ask Washington for an official explanation of the
    move. Brazil and Argentina were the first countries to take action. The
    Brazilian Senate debated the issue while Lula rushed his Foreign and
    Defense Ministers, Celso Amorin and Nelson Jobim, to Washington to
    meet separately with their American counterparts. At the same time,
    Argentina's Crisitina Fernández de Kirchner demanded explanations
    from the US Undersecretary of State for Hemispheric Affairs, Thomas
    Shannon, during his visit to the country on July 10. Even Chile,
    which has signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States,
    raised the issue at a bilateral meeting.

    None of the explanations that the representatives of the Pentagon, the
    State Department, or the commanding officers of SouthCom and the Fourth
    Fleet have provided officially have satisfied South Americans. Yet,
    neither Brazil nor Argentina went beyond an official demand for
    explanation. Moreover, during his visit to Argentina in the second
    week of September, Brazil's newly appointed Minister of Strategic
    Affairs, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, denied any relation between the
    re-deployment of the Fourth Fleet and his country's ambitious decision
    to raise the defense budget from 1.5 to 2.7 percent of the GDP. "We
    do not work based on enemies or threats; only on capacities we need,"
    he said. During the VIII Conference of the Defense Ministers of the
    Americas with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Banff, Canada,
    Nilda Garré maintained that bilateral cooperation between Argentina
    and the United States would continue despite her concern about the
    reactivation of the Fourth Fleet, which she described as "a military
    move for which we do not see any convincing explanation."

    Argentina and Brazil's rather prudent reaction can be explained
    first by a realist approach to the issue; historical experience has
    shown that confrontation with the United States never has a positive
    outcome. Second, there is at least one country in South America,
    Colombia, that is aligned with the United States, and Brazil, the
    leading country in the process of the regional integration, does
    not want to alienate any member of the Union of the South American
    Nations (UNASUR). Third, there is a widespread conviction in Brazil and
    Argentina that the defense and exercise of sovereignty are basically
    a function of strengthening national and regional institutions to face
    any direct or indirect attempt of foreign intervention in the region.

    Venezuela, however, did not hesitate to go further and raise the
    stakes with the United States. Barely a month after the Fourth Fleet
    became operative in the waters of the South Atlantic, President Chavez
    seized on the opportunity of renewed Russian-American tension in the
    aftermath of the Georgia crisis and announced that Venezuela and Russia
    would hold joint naval exercises in the Caribbean. On September 8,
    Moscow confirmed the visit of the nuclear warship Piotr Veliki. Later
    that same week, Chávez expelled the US Ambassador in Caracas as
    a gesture of solidarity with Bolivia's Evo Morales' decision to
    expel the US Ambassador in La Paz. At the heart of Venezuela's and
    Bolivia's hawkish position lies not only an ideological factor but
    also the conviction that the United States is indeed intervening
    in their internal affairs. Moreover, both Chávez and Morales have
    experienced direct hostility from Washington: in April 2002, the former
    US Undersecretary of State Otto Reich rushed to legitimize the failed
    military coup against Chávez; in Bolivia the US Ambassador publicly
    repudiated Evo Morales while he was still a leader of the coca-growing
    peasants and a candidate for the presidential elections. Both leaders
    came into power with an agenda of radical reforms violently opposed by
    entrenched minority sectors, which after historically holding power are
    now facing threats and have been displaced and marginalized. Chávez
    and Morales have accused Washington of maintaining ties with the
    opposition, providing its leaders with financial aid, and even arming
    them. Hence, an emerging Russia is seen as a potential ally to balance
    the US hegemonic drive in the region.

    Unconvincing Explanations As soon as news of the redeployment of the
    Fourth Fleet was made public, the leading figures of the US SouthCom
    started an active public campaign to explain the reasons behind the
    decision. Through meetings with South American leaders and several
    press conferences, the following arguments were crystallized as
    the official US rationale: (a) the redeployment of the Fourth Fleet
    has to do with operational reasons, and is not directed against the
    sovereignty of any Latin American nation; (b) there is no hostile
    intention toward any country, including Venezuela; (c) the decision
    has no relation to the discovery of large offshore oil reserves
    in Brazilian waters; (d) more broadly, it does not aim at future
    appropriation or threatening of South America's abundant natural
    resources, including oil, natural gas, water, and agricultural land;
    (e) its mission is to fight drug trafficking and terrorism; (f) this
    mission also includes providing humanitarian assistance in times of
    natural disasters or epidemics.

    Most of these strategic arguments have already been formulated in
    several US military documents that are public, particularly in the
    October 2007 A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century and Admiral
    James Stavridis' U.S. Southern Command 2008 Statement. The first
    document, for instance, concludes that the US sea strategy "focuses on
    opportunities -not threats; on optimism -not fear; and on confidence
    -not doubt." More precisely, Stavridis' address before the 110th
    Congress mentions poverty and inequality, drugs, violence and crime,
    and terrorism as some of the "challenges" that the US SouthCom faces.

    Reasons for Concern in the South Yet, none of these arguments seem
    to convince South Americans. For Argentina, involving the military in
    humanitarian assistance could raise the issue of confusing the roles of
    the military and the civilians. After the bloody dictatorship of the
    military government in 1976-1983, the return of the democracy brought
    about a strict separation of internal and external security, as well
    as civil and military roles. Argentine law forbids any military
    interference in internal affairs, and Argentines are therefore
    suspicious of any move that could weaken civilian rule.

    More broadly, South Americans do not accept "challenges" such as
    drug trafficking, violent crime, and even terrorism as issues that
    reserve any role for the military. This does not necessarily mean
    that some countries have not militarized these issues. Colombia
    is engaged in the US "war on drugs;" Bolivia's military annually
    receives US$30 million dollars in US assistance to fight the same
    war in Bolivia; violent crime in Rio de Janeiro has led to increasing
    public support for the use of the military against organized gangs;
    and even Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution ideal has a strong military
    component. Generally, however, while countries south of the Panama
    Canal look for an authentic means of regional integration, Central
    America and the Caribbean are becoming further integrated in the North
    American process. Whereas in Central America and Mexico militaries are
    increasing their involvement in fighting the so-called "new threats,"
    South American countries are moving toward a regional and global
    strategic repositioning that reserves a more traditional role for
    the military.

    There are two basic reasons why Central American nations and Mexico
    are inclined to give a greater role to their military in dealing with
    the "new threats."

    The first reason is related to the greater integration of these
    countries within the North American process, which has decreased their
    autonomy in executing their defense and security agendas. Despite
    the participation of several Central American nations in the 2003
    US-led intervention in Iraq, Washington does not plan to include any
    Latin American military in its global projections. In other words,
    no Latin American country is foreseen as a partner in a NATO-style
    alliance. During the Cold War, especially in the 1980s, Central
    American militaries were useful in fighting leftist insurgencies
    or regimes. The process of pacification in the early 1990s left
    these militaries with no specific mission. Unwilling to include
    them in its post-Cold War strategic designs, Washington pushed for
    yet another domestic function for these militaries through their
    involvement in the so-called "new threats." For Washington, such a
    role would decrease the risks of arms proliferation in its "backyard"
    (i.e. Noriega). For the Central American militaries, the redefinition
    of their role by Washington has perhaps become essential to their
    institutional survival.

    The second reason is the historically unprecedented level of crime
    and delinquency in Central America and the impotency of the internal
    security agencies to deal with the problem. The military is seen as
    the only efficient way to fight crime, gang violence and organized
    crime, despite the high risk such a move involves. In Mexico, for
    example, it is clearly the cartelization of drug trafficking and
    the high levels of violence that have increased the militarization
    of internal security, a move that Washington hailed within the logic
    of the "war against drugs."

    For South America, by contrast, autonomy from the United States has
    become a virtue, particularly since the failure of the southern
    hemisphere's ill-fated attempts at integration in the 1990s. The
    consistent exception is Colombia, which has sought cozier relations
    with the United States. In general, though, South Americans are all
    too suspicious of Washington's rhetoric about the "war on terror"
    and "preemption," perhaps due to tragic memories of Cold War US
    interventions that were based on similar national security doctrines.

    This strategic repositioning of South America, in turn, is closely
    related to the renewed importance of natural resources in the global
    economy. Oil in Venezuela and Brazil, natural gas in Bolivia, copper
    in Chile, the world's largest water resources, cultivable land areas,
    and the rich resources of the Amazon are gaining new importance in the
    global free market system. With the price of the oil barrel hitting
    historic records, water reserves becoming a strategic asset, and in a
    world facing food crises, South American nations see an opportunity to
    escape cycles of sudden growth and brutal collapse. It is, therefore,
    hard for them not to suspect an interest in natural resources behind
    the redeployment of the Fourth Fleet, notwithstanding the verbal
    assurance they receive from the United States. This is not to say, as
    some suggest, that the United States would appropriate these natural
    resources through military force; but any power projection could be a
    prelude of a direct or indirect interference in South American economic
    policies. After having paid their entire debt to the International
    Monetary Fund, and amidst strong rejection of advice from international
    financial institutions, South American nations have recovered a level
    of sovereignty that includes the protection and management of their
    resource-rich lands--without any foreign interference.

    The Ghosts of the Cold War With the exception of Colombia and perhaps
    Peru, the broad concern that all South American nations share about
    the redeployment of the US Fourth Fleet has to do with two factors:
    (1) the failure of the early 1990s attempt to institutionalize a
    hemispheric defense and security regime, and, (2) the apparently
    enduring phenomenon of the "left turn" and its social, economic,
    and political expressions. Neither of these two factors should be
    understood in absolute terms. Quite the opposite, they are both so
    diverse and complex that the possibility of reversals in the future
    cannot be ignored. In other words, US hegemonic push in the Western
    Hemisphere has not come to an end, and the electoral comeback of
    rightist forces is not impossible. But, both the 1990s failure to
    institutionalize a hemispheric defense and security regime and the
    "left turn" in South America are tangible proof that the post-Cold
    War order has created serious limitations in terms of expectations.

    Nevertheless, the disenchantment of the 1990s has brought back some
    of the Cold War ghosts, and especially the suspicion of renewed US
    involvement in South American internal affairs and a widespread
    hostility to American imperialism. The recent US-Russian tension
    has sparked fears of a "new" Cold War in the Western Hemisphere, as
    Venezuela seems to consider the emerging Russia as a counter-balancing
    factor to the perceived US power play to the South. Regardless of
    the real intentions of Russia, Caracas has opened the possibility
    for Russian battleships to navigate where the US Fourth Fleet now
    is present.

    Conclusion: The Rationale of a Regional "Shield" In all, even if the
    US Fourth Fleet's novel mission of "humanitarian assistance" during
    natural disasters is a serious initiative aimed at reassuring South
    Americans of the United States' good intentions, it still is a move
    within Washington's logic of a global power projection. This global
    projection of power has already defined and confirmed a policy of
    primacy in the world, the aim of which is to prevent the emergence of
    any regional power. In Latin America, however, the United States has
    historically looked for a hegemonic presence, and the long series of
    direct intervention and support for military takeovers is still more
    relevant to Latin Americans than any explanation the US SouthCom can
    put forth.

    Chávez and Morales perceive US hegemony as a threat. Venezuela's
    leader, therefore, sees in the emergence of Russia the opportunity
    to forge an anti-US military alliance as a guarantee for Venezuela's
    national security. At the same time however, Chávez did not hide
    his interest to start a dialogue with the Obama administration.

    Despite their concerns regarding the redeployment of the US
    Fourth Fleet, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and other South American
    countries do not wish to risk the regionalization of another global
    tension. Since the return of democracy in the 1980s, formerly rival,
    if not enemy, South American countries have defined their relations
    as a "security community," and are eager to secure the region as a
    "zone of peace." This "zone of peace" however is sometimes shaken
    by the internal crisis of a country, which can have a "spill-over"
    effect on the rest. The most recent examples are the Colombia-Ecuador
    tensions in March that followed the assassination of the FARC guerrilla
    leader by Colombia on Ecuadorian territory, and the separatist threat
    in Bolivia that in September escalated to deadly clashes between
    the government and the opposition. In both cases, South American
    countries showed a clear political will to deal with the challenges
    and avoid any extra-regional interference. Any revival of the Cold
    War, in its classical or "new" forms of power projection, can simply
    become a potential invitation for intervention by the US Fourth Fleet,
    which few desire.

    This has not been the panorama that Brazil, the emerging power in
    the region, had in mind when the Lula government decided to launch
    a historically unprecedented and ambitious plan to reorganize its
    defense sector, which foresees a drastic increase of the defense
    budget from 1.5 percent to 2.7 percent of the GDP and includes the
    construction of a nuclear submarine. The plan is conceived as a
    common regional "shield" of defense, as well as a broad development
    project, as Minister Mangabeira Unger characterizes it. Indeed, Brazil
    simultaneously proposed the creation of the South American Defense
    Council (CSD), which was approved at a meeting of the UNASUR countries
    in Santiago, Chile in September 2008. If it overcomes tremendous
    political and technical obstacles, the CSD could strengthen the idea
    of a regional "shield."

    Concerning the re-deployment of the Fourth Fleet, the rationale
    of the regional "shield" does not specifically aim at countering
    the US move. It aims at strengthening South America's defense and
    security to prevent foreign interference targeting the region. With
    the prospect of a global financial collapse and the advent of a
    deeply turbulent context in world politics, protectionist policies
    are gaining importance. Overall, therefore, the redeployment of the
    US Fourth Fleet has strengthened the protectionist instinct in South
    America, as no country is willing to give any credibility to alleged
    good intentions in a move that is by essence a power projection.

    Khatchik DerGhougassian is a Professor of International Relations at
    the Universidad de San Andrés in Argentina, a Visiting Professor at
    the American University of Armenia (Yerevan, Republic of Armenia),
    and an advisor at the Ministry of Defense of Argentina. He holds an MA
    degree in International Relations from FLACSO/Argentina and did his
    PhD studies at the University of Miami in International Studies. His
    research projects have included arms transfer, gun control policies,
    terrorism, organized crime and international conflict.

    --Boundary_(ID_brM/ztrgMUPjrUEAOBpe9A)- -
    From: Baghdasarian
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