Departing from a series of concepts referred to as "the bankruptcy of the States", a perspective taken from Frenchman Philippe Delmas (1992), the author confronts the concepts of lawless areas and empty spaces, stating that they obey two different models of States, that is, unsuccessful States and weak States. Examining the bibliography, Garay discusses the autonomy of the weak states/empty spaces relationship from the unsuccessful states/ lawless areas pair, then applies them to the analysis of Latin America. Under the author’s supposition, the austral zones of Chile and Argentina can be analyzed using the weak states/empty spaces concept rather than the concept of unsuccessful states/lawless areas. An empirical examination permits us to postulate that empty spaces are conflicted spaces for human presence, which weakens the presence of the state, and given that the resources of the aforementioned states are scarce, that which is produced is a presence that is weakened from the police system, but not by the absence of law, which is why it would not be pertinent to extend this typology to the Southern Cone, as is normally done when analyzing the Tri-Border area.
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This paper reviews the relationship between Defense and the federal public budget, with the objective of checking compliance with formally stated goals. In spite of its relevance, the Brazilian public budget gives more emphasis to financial information, to the detriment of operational or strategic information. Nevertheless, the public budget does allow the observation of certain occurrences. Defense and supply are disconnected, the latter characterized as an expense element. Defense-related programs were not regarded as strategic in the multi-annual plan, in force in 2001. Moreover, in the corresponding multi-annual plan there is an apparent overlap between the activities of each branch of service, and there is no special reference to defense-related diplomatic activities or intelligence. There is also some evidence of rescheduling of the 2001 budget elements, while maintaining values within additional limitations. The most serious discrepancy is in the lack of association between diplomatic relations and the national defense function, without any evidence of budget values in the attached detailed report, despite policy and legal direction. These issues point out subjects that should be given more attention by national planning and control in Brazil.
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This paper focused on the origin, structure and roles of the military of Belize, an arm of the state of the only English-speaking country in Central America. The key tasks that were undertaken by the Belize’s military were both external and internal. It is shown that Belize is the only country of the English-speaking Caribbean in which armed forces are used primarily for defense. This is so to deter the Guatemalan army from marching into Belize and to control the infiltration of its borders by illegal immigrants. However, Belize’s military has become increasingly involved in "police" operations, including the combating of drugs and maintaining domestic order, thus leading to a blurring of the roles of the police and the military, as well as the provision of relief during natural and other disasters. Finally, Belize’s military engaged in self-help programs and provided assistance to a number of civilian projects as a way of fostering improved civil-military relations.
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The article was written by one of the individuals directly involved in drawing up the 1995 Framework Treaty on Democratic Security in Central America and in its enforcement, who was a main player in the historic circumstances that led to this treaty. The article is primarily intended to show the contribution made by this ambitious instrument to the new multidimensional model of hemispheric security that the Organization of American States (OAS) has been developing and which was successfully expressed in the OAS Special Conference on Security, held in Mexico City, Mexico on October 27-28, 2003, where this contribution made by Central America was widely recognized.
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There is a new civil-military pragmatism in the region defined by armies that engage in internal, role expansive missions at the behest of democratically elected officials. In the past, the armed forces would exploit such missions for their own political gain, while revising doctrines to make role expansion a permanent feature of military orientation. Instead, today’s armies have undertaken missions for purposes of helping civilian leaders fill vacuums and resolve specific problems that could not otherwise have been adequately dealt with. Military cooperation in this regard is dutiful but not altruistic; the military’s objective is to parlay these ventures into a justification for greater defense budget shares, salaries, and equipment. But role expansion is not inherently threatening to civilian control so long as soldiers remain decision-takers not makers. This they have, as brief case studies of Argentina and Venezuela make clear.
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The paper reviews the challenges of achieving a hemispheric-level consensus regarding security and defense. The authors detect two main difficulties: (a) the importance awarded by the different countries to their national security as a priority, and (b) the preeminence of the global security designs. In 2002 and 2003, the OAS discussed the notion of "Hemispheric Security." The 34 countries forming the organization drafted the "Declaration of Security in the Americas" as a result of Mexico's conference on October 27-28, 2003. Two notions of security were discussed during the negotiations: one of them mostly related to social, economic and governability problems, supported by many Caribbean and Latin American governments, called "multidimensional security;" and the other notion confined to issues such a cooperation against terrorism, drug trafficking, organized crime and the so-called "emerging threats," supported mainly by the United States. In addition, countries such as Canada have developed notions such as "human security." These problems result in a complex security and defense agenda, or a North-South agenda: the North worried about the new threats led by terrorism and the South concerned about development problems. Finally, the article reviews Mexico's contradictory position, trying to state its foreign policy principles in the hemispheric security debate, while being part of North America, and therefore, a neighbor of the United States.
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It is the tragic events of September 11, 2001 what set a before and after in terms of hemispheric and international security. This long anticipated "catastrophic or massive terrorism" showed up in the one country that rules international security. From then on, there has been an accelerated development of reflections or thoughts that have been shaping a true long-term Grand Strategy with such significance that it has been compared to the ones developed during the early days of the Cold War. The destabilizing mix of "terrorist governments" and "villains", international terrorist networks, and their tactical or strategic partners, whether at regional or national levels, and the non-conventional weapon proliferation have become a main concern for many coming decades. Under such context, the National Security Strategy (NSS) provides a sharp and sophisticated review of the interaction and cooperation between international terrorism and organized crime, as well as the need to limit the spread of "ungoverned regions or areas" and "weak governments" where this non-governmental actors may be based. Given the nature of these threats, any bilateral and multilateral cooperation efforts for security purposes, defense policies and any funding and goods flows acquire crucial significance. Under such context, the Rule of Law and strength of a democratic government, together with its institutions, become strategically important for any non-governmental enemies that regard such "weak governments" and "non-liberal democracies" as fertile ground for their actions.
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The latest international developments require changes in the defense policies of any country. In the case of Brazil, this requirement is deeper since the National Defense Policy Document (Documento de Política de Defesa Nacional- DPDN), from 1996, does not achieve the functions of a real defense policy. In September 20th of 2001, the Brazilian Minister of Defense Geraldo Quintão spoke in favor of specific elements to a new approach for the national defense. The Minister’s pronunciation mentioned the construction of a system of rapid deployment forces (RDF) in conjunction with a regional security structure. The purpose of this paper is to offer statements in support of this new approach. The paper analyzes the differences between the Minister’s defense policy approach and the DPDN of 1996 and also analyzes the United States RDF system. The paper concludes that the Minister’s pronunciation was a real advance in relation to the DPDN in all aspects of a defense policy. It also defends that the RDF system can offer timely conceptual contributions to Brazil. The paper recommends that a Governmental strategic evaluation may be more accurate in order to provide better political parameters to the military action planning of the Brazilian armed forces. Second, just through clear military action planning and a joint command and planning structure, it may be possible to concept a force design that provide the necessary national military capacities.
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In the aftermath of September 11th many commentators expressed renewed concerns that the United States' reliance on the Middle East as a petroleum source made it politically and economically dependent upon an unstable region. Most of these observers also voiced a sense of pessimism about the United States' ability to change this situation. Yet in fact the United States' energy position is now stronger than it appears, and there is reason to believe that it will improve in the future, because of the growing importance of Canada as a source of petroleum. According to Canada's National Energy Board, Canada has the world's largest deposit of oil sands, which may equal or exceed the proven petroleum reserves of Saudi Arabia. Canada is already the largest exporter of petroleum to the United States, and its production will likely triple this decade. This will place renewed pressure on OPEC, weaken the political influence of Saudi Arabia and greatly strengthen the United States' energy position. This paper will describe the rapid changes in Canada's petroleum industry, and how this may affect the United States from a security perspective.
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The purpose of this paper is, first, to seek an answer for the question about what has been left behind in hemispheric security, given that the 21st Century has started with changes to the traditional security concepts developed during the previous century, and specifically any other concepts that are typical of the Post Second World War and Cold War eras. Secondly, to review the continent’s security scenario, and describe any causes for lack of security, based on the source and the way they are perceived by the different actors. This review shows that Latin Americans basically want a security system that provides them with Human and Individual Security, mainly through instruments and agencies, other than the Armed Forces, with capabilities to cover all other levels where security manifests itself, such as: Government Security and International Security, where the Armed Forces play a prominent role. Lastly, in order to seek a solution to meet the above requirements, the basics for a model is proposed, so that it may efficiently allow neutralizing any causes for lack of security by minimizing any sovereignty loss threats due to third-party interventionism, and based on existing instrument revitalization, aimed at adopting a flexible architecture supported by bilateral and multilateral relations designed to secure sub-regional and hemispheric agreements.
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