By Jose Miguel Pizarro
We live in a different world. One that’s small, highly digital, multilingual and immersed in a global society that moves at high speed. For instance, a recently graduated South Korean law student can easily find a well-paid job in London, New York city or Sao Paulo. Why is this relevant?
The answer is sad, but simple.
It’s quite normal for tens of thousands of South Koreans or European students to find jobs overseas. In contrast, a microscopic minority of recently graduated Latin American students can hardly find jobs in other countries, let alone handle the daunting task of qualifying for a well-paid bilingual job at an international firm in his own city.
The evident decline in Latin American educational standards and the poor performance of our students — all across Central and South America — it's not the reason for this article. It's our failure at the state level to create national policies to help our children understand how important it is to have a well-educated society a matter that threatens several layers of our national security. That’s the central issue that's jeopardizing the essential foundation of military readiness in Latin America, including each country’s ability to compete in a highly skilled and completely multilingual global marketplace. Ignorant societies are easy to defeat, especially if they are rich in natural resources.
In a global economy, where foreign-language competency is critical, only one out of 99 Latinos speaks English. Educational failure puts Latin America’s future economic prosperity, global position, and physical safety at risk. The Latin American region will not be able to keep pace — much less lead — globally unless it moves to fix the educational problems it has allowed to fester for too long. We must invest in smart, well-designed and aggressive public education programs to not only compete with other developed countries and global peers, but also to be able to properly defend our own homeland.
When we remember that old saying, "The soldiers of an army are nothing more than a perfect reflection of the same society they are sworn to defend," the tune is simply reinforced. Poorly educated citizens don't make smart soldiers. Yet, Latin American soldiers and students remain poorly prepared to compete with global peers.
For instance, there is an evident doctrinal and a practical link between the way successful modern warfare is waged by successful armies and the procedures successful businessmen use to achieve commercial victory. Strong economies are always supported by strong armies. But you can't reach that conclusion unless you read…and you must read a lot.
I believe we live in the most violent century in human history and — as common sense indicates and suggests — we need to prepare our people to face a new era. To accomplish this we must provide Latin American readers with concrete tools for not only understanding the basic principles of war, terrorism and security policy in general, but also explain (in our own terminology) how current military and political events will shape the financial future of the Latino community and what you and I can do to stay ahead and survive the sweeping changes that are about to happen.
We have more than 580 million Latinos in Central and South America. The objective of any responsible government today should be to better prepare them for a century in which warfare and economic disasters will play a central role. Lack of natural gas, crude oil, electricity and other energy resources will lead — within the next 5 to 10 years — to a series of global military confrontations between the west and a wide variety of unexpected foes. This new reality could force, for instance, a large number of Latin American nations (and again, their more than 580 million citizens) to explore the possibility of forming a quite convenient alliance with the European Union or with the United States, raising the status of several countries in the region to a whole new level.
Under that particular scenario (which is, by the way, the most likely) the questions are common sense: What type of work opportunities will this new world provide for South Americans in the United States? Considering the gigantic reserves of oil, natural gas and fresh water contained in the Andes Mountains and the jungles of South America, what kind of new business opportunities will be available for Latin American governments and Hispanic enterprising businessmen? In other words, what's a successful mentality to face these new challenges?
Reading basic history and geopolitical issues will help most of our citizens to learn and focus on what military and security policies South American governments should pursue, why certain governments pursue the policies they do, and what will be the consequences of these policies for Latin America, the U.S. and the world in general. At the military, journalistic and college level, simple courses in contemporary history will provide the government, the media and the people the perspective necessary to introduce simple analytical models currently used by political scientists to describe and explain war, security threats, the strange price of oil, the lack of energy resources, etc. and how these issues will affect key domestic political life and policy areas. But we cannot enter the 21st century with hundreds of millions of Latin American citizens fully connected to the Internet, but with absent knowledge and shamefully clueless of the events shaping the future around them.
While this may come as a shock to some, the reality is that today there are very few recently retired South American officers, independent defense analysts or Hispanic military experts writing about warfare in Latin America. In contrast with the past, and for a wide variety of reasons, the Latin American press is not a friendly market to the military. As a result, there are limited offerings in military, defense or security literature written by Spanish-speaking experts. With so many military and defense intellectuals forced into obscurity, very little has ever been done on this particular subject. But that doesn’t mean there is not a starving crowd out there ready to "devour" a new controversial book attempting to explain — from a Latino perspective — what’s going on today with our world.
I believe we need books capable of refining and expanding the little knowledge of the Latino community on basic topics like international security, national defense and war fighting and help them to take into account and digest some of the contemporary ways of thinking about the nature, preparation and the conduct of war, the future of terrorism, and the new forms warfare will quickly mutate into.
Finally, it's quite evident to this writer that the current international energy crisis will end with a global military confrontation that will have almost immediate effects on Latin America. I believe it's the duty of all government servants, intellectuals and journalists to help our people not only understand, but also use various analytical models to describe and explain (current and future) policy-making in such areas as national defense, military industry, economic policy, taxation, international trade and immigration, narco-terrorism, populist governments, civil rights, nationalism and strategic alliances. While we will not be able to reach 580 million readers, we will most certainly reach the eyes and ears of anyone interested in the complex dynamics of Latin American national defense strategies, the future of warfare and the public policy-making process in relation to a broad range of contemporary energy issues and security threats. I believe our efforts will not go unnoticed.
Let’s keep on reading.
Mr. Pizarro is a regular contributor to specialized Latin American and European Military magazines such as Tecnologia Militar (MONCH Publishing Group en Español) and a well-known adviser to the U.S. Defense Industry in a variety of military transformation issues. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he also worked as a commentator on CNN en Español. Mr. Pizarro is a former Chilean Army artillery officer, a graduate of the Chilean Military Academy, a certified defense analyst of the National Academy for Strategic Studies (Chilean Ministry of Defense) and a former U.S. Marine.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Scandal Threatens to Break Military's Secretive Acquisitions System
Chile's Army finds itself in a tight spot after a former officer and three noncommissioned officers were found to have illegally paid themselves out of defense funds. A congressional commission is investigating the fraud, which has punctured a hole in the armed forces' most precious source of funding, the so-called copper law. For decades, the national copper company, Codelco, has been obligated to pass on 10% of foreign sales to the military, providing Chile with a warchest estimated at more than $17 billion since 1995. The law also makes is possible for the military to make purchases without public disclosure, which may have contributed to the fraud. Now, Secretary of Defense Jose Antonio Gomez is taking advantage of the scandal to bring down the copper law. He plans to submit a proposal in 2016 to replace the law with medium- and long-term funding programs. This is not exactly new. The two previous presidential administrations submitted similar proposals, but neither got far. Gomez acknowledges that some secrecy will still be needed in the procurement process, but he's made it clear that the goal is to increase transparency. While military purchases under the copper law are not revealed to the public, it doesn't mean there's no government oversight. The Ministry of Finance has to sign off on all disbursements. Update: CNN Chile broadcast a special report on the scandal.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Chile's Military Budget Shrinks As Copper Prices Slump
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Keep Calm and Learn About 4th-Generation Warfare. Coming Soon to a City Near You
“This
is another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin — war
by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush
instead of by combat; by infiltration, instead of aggression, seeking
victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him. . .
. It preys on economic unrest and ethnic conflicts. It requires in
those situations where we must counter it, and these are the kinds of
challenges that will be before us in the next decade if freedom is to be
saved, a whole new kind of strategy, a wholly different kind of force,
and therefore a new and wholly different kind of military training.”
- President John F. Kennedy addressing the West Point Class of 1962.
Modern
warfare today has taken on a new form and grown to new levels. This
type of warfare is not new, and few of the tactics are new. Classical
examples, such as the slave uprising under Spartacus defeating the Roman
army at every battle, predate the modern concept of asymmetric warfare
and are examples of this type of conflict. What is new is that — for the
very first time — this type of war has recently reached a global
level — and the western armies and its allies have found themselves ill
prepared. Many strategists and theorists have attempted to grasp the
concept of the war we are facing today, yet none has adequately given
it an accurate definition and understanding. Specially no one in
Latin America.
This short article surveys some of the history and literature of asymmetric warfare and how it mutates into Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW), citing and critiquing some of the best
attempts to define the term. Here we will try to discuss the term, its
concepts and its implications, and will attempt to propose our own
definition in an effort to resurrect the term before it becomes
completely obsolete. History and common sense indicates that in the 21st
century — and for a wide variety of reasons — most of the Latin
American armed forces will continue to engage in asymmetric warfare
regardless of the type of enemy they engage. Even while they plan and
hope in the very near future to execute traditional wars, such conflicts
will initially have many asymmetric elements and implications,
especially after the traditional war has been won, but then will be a
series of events that will quickly transform the battlefield into Fourth Generation brutal warfare.
War is Changing
War
always changes. Our enemies learn and adapt, and they adapt very, very
quickly. We must do the same or lose. But today, war is changing even
faster and on a larger scale than at any time in the last 500 years. We
are not only facing rapid change in how war is fought, but we are also
facing radical changes in who fights and what they are fighting for.
Asymmetric enemies are bound by neither the laws of land warfare nor the
Geneva Conventions. They routinely direct violent action against
civilians. Especially against women and children. They use tactics of
terror and horrific images. Many terrorists and insurgents are also
willing to sacrifice their own lives for their cause in a suicide
strike. All of these must be weighed when planning to fight an
asymmetric enemy. No atrocity is beyond this enemy’s capability.
Just
take a look at Paris, London and Madrid. All over the world,
governments and nation-state military forces, find themselves fighting
non-state opponents. This kind of war, which we call Fourth Generation
war, is a very difficult challenge. Almost always, state militaries have
vast superiority over their non-state opponents in most of the areas we
call "combat power" such as firepower, technology, weapons,
techniques, training, etc. Despite these superiorities, more often than
not, state militaries end up losing.
The Root of the Problem
Before
you can fight Fourth Generation war successfully, you have to
understand it. Because it is something new (at least in our time), no
one understands it completely. It is still evolving, which means our
understanding must continue to evolve as well. This article lays out our
best current understanding of the Fourth Generation of Modern War.
At
the heart of this phenomenon, Fourth Generation war is not a military
but a political, social and moral revolution: a crisis of legitimacy of
the state. All over the world, citizens of states are transferring their
primary allegiance away from the state to other things like ethnic
groups, religions, terrorist groups, cartel gangs, extreme ideologies
and so on. Many people who will no longer fight for their state will
fight for their new primary loyalty. In Iraq, the Iraqi state armed
forces showed little fighting spirit, but the Iraqi insurgents whose
loyalties are to non-state elements are now waging a hard-fought and
effective guerrilla war.
The
fact that the root of Fourth Generation war is a political, social and
moral phenomenon, the decline of the state, means that there can be no
purely military solution to Fourth Generation threats. Military force is
incapable, by itself, of restoring legitimacy to a corrupt state lead by
corrupt politicians. This is especially the case when the military
force is foreign; usually, its mere presence will further undermine the
legitimacy of the state it is attempting to support. This is not just a
problem; it is a dilemma and one of the several challenges professional
soldiers will face in the Fourth Generation battlefield.
The First Three Generations of Modern War.
The
Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu said: "He who understands himself
and understands his enemy will prevail in one hundred battles." In order
to understand both ourselves and our enemies in Fourth Generation
conflicts, it is helpful to use the full framework of the Four
Generations of modern war.
What are the first three generations?
First Generation warfare
This
type of war was fought with line and column tactics or, in other words,
in a one-dimensional type of battlefield. It lasted from the Peace of
Westphalia until around the time of the American Civil War. Its
importance for us today is that the First Generation battlefield was
usually a battlefield of order, and the battlefield of order created a
culture of order in state militaries. Most of the things that define the
difference between "military" and "civilian" such as saluting,
uniforms, careful gradations of rank, etc., are products of the First
Generation and exist to reinforce a military culture of order. Just as
most state militaries are still designed to fight other state
militaries, so they also continue to embody the First Generation culture
of order.
The
problem is that, starting around the middle of the 19th century, the
order of the battlefield began to break down. In the face of mass
armies, nationalism that made soldiers want to fight and technological
developments such as the rifled musket, the breechloader, barbed wire
and machine guns, the old line and column tactics became suicidal. But
as the battlefield became more and more disorderly, state militaries
remained locked into a culture of order. The military culture that in
the First Generation had been consistent with the battlefield became
increasingly contradictory to it. That contradiction is one of the
reasons state militaries have so much difficulty in Fourth Generation
war, where not only is the battlefield disordered, but so is the entire
society and the region in which the conflict is taking place.
Second Generation warfare
Second Gen warfare was developed by the French Army during and after World War
I. It dealt with the increasing disorder of the battlefield by
attempting to impose order on it. Second Generation war, also sometimes
called firepower and attrition warfare, relied on centrally controlled
indirect artillery fire, carefully synchronized with infantry, cavalry
and aviation, to destroy the enemy by killing his soldiers and blowing
up his equipment. The French summarized Second Generation war with the
phrase: "The artillery conquers, the infantry occupies."
Second
Generation war also preserved the military culture of order. Second
Generation militaries focused inward on orders, rules, processes and
procedures. There is a "school solution" for every problem. Battles are
fought methodically, so prescribed methods drive training and education,
where the goal is perfection of detail in execution. The Second
Generation military culture, like the First, values obedience over smart
initiative (initiative is feared because it disrupts synchronization)
and relies on imposed discipline.
Third Generation warfare
Third Gen warfare, also called maneuver warfare, was developed by the German
Army during World War I. Third Generation war dealt with the disorderly
battlefield not by trying to impose order on it but by adapting
to disorder and taking advantage of it. Third Generation war relied less
on firepower than on speed and tempo. It sought to present the enemy
with unexpected and dangerous situations faster than he could cope with
them, pulling him apart mentally as well as physically.
The
German Army's new Third Generation infantry tactics were the first
nonlinear tactics. Instead of trying to hold a line in the defense, the
object was to draw the enemy in, then cut him off, putting whole enemy
units "in the bag." On the offensive, the German "stormtroop tactics"
of 1918 flowed like water around enemy strong points, reaching deep into
the enemy's rear area and also rolling his forward units up from the
flanks and rear. These World War I infantry tactics, when used by
armored and mechanized formations in World War II, became known as Blitzkrieg.
Just
as Third Generation war broke with linear tactics, it also broke with
the First and Second Generation culture of order. Third Generation
militaries focus outward on the situation, the enemy, and the result the
situation requires. Leaders at every level are expected to get that
result, regardless of orders. Military education is designed to develop
military judgment, not teach processes or methods, and most training is
force-on-force free play because only free play approximates the
disorder of combat. Third Generation military culture also values
initiative over obedience, tolerating mistakes so long as they do not
result from timidity, and it relies on self-discipline rather than
imposed discipline, because only self-discipline is compatible with
initiative. When Second and Third Generation war met in combat in the
German campaign against France in 1940, the Second Generation French
Army was defeated completely and quickly; the campaign was over in six
weeks. Both armies had similar technology, and the French actually had
more (and better) tanks, weapons and aircraft. Ideas, tactics and
superior intellect, not weapons, dictated the outcome.
Despite
the fact that Third Generation war proved its decisive superiority more
than 60 years ago, most of the world's state armed forces remain Second
Generation. The reason is cultural; they cannot make the break with the
culture of order that the Third Generation requires. This is another
reason why, around the world, state armed forces are not doing well
against non-state enemies. Second Generation militaries fight by putting
firepower on targets, and Fourth Generation fighters are very good at
making themselves "not available" for aerial bombing. Virtually all
Fourth Generation forces are free of the First Generation culture of
order; they focus outward, they prize initiative and, because they are
highly decentralized, they rely on self-discipline. Second Generation
state armed forces are largely helpless against them.
Conclusion
Fourth-generation
warfare (4GW) is conflict characterized by a blurring of the lines
between war and politics, combatants and civilians. The simplest
definition includes any war in which one of the major participants is
not a state but rather a violent non-state actor.
Fourth-generation
warfare has often involved an insurgent group or other violent
non-state actor trying to implement their own government or re-establish
an old religious government over the current ruling power. However, a
non-state entity tends to be more successful when it does not attempt,
at least in the short term, to impose its own rule, but tries simply to
disorganize and delegitimize the state in which the warfare takes place.
The aim is to force the state adversary to expend manpower and money in
an attempt to establish order, ideally in such a highhanded way that it
merely increases disorder, until the state surrenders or withdraws.
Fourth-generation
warfare is often seen in conflicts involving failed states and civil
wars, particularly in conflicts involving non-state actors, intractable
ethnic or religious issues, or gross conventional military disparities.
Many of these conflicts are heavily active right now in the Middle East
and are now rapidly moving into Europe and in Latin America.
Fourth-generation
warfare (4GW) has much in common with traditional low-intensity
conflict in its classical forms of insurgency and guerrilla war. As in
those small wars, the conflict is initiated by the "weaker" party
through actions which can be termed "offensive". The difference lies in
the manner in which 4GW opponents adapt those traditional concepts to
present day conditions. These conditions are shaped by technology,
globalization, religious fundamentalism, and a shift in moral and
ethical norms which brings legitimacy to certain issues previously
considered restrictions on the conduct of war. This amalgamation and
metamorphosis produces novel ways of war for both the entity on the
offensive and that on the defensive.
Make
no mistake, Fourth-generation guerrilla fighters can be defeated by the
State if the political decision is made — with a legally executed
document — containing the purpose and determination to allow the
military forces the freedom of action to act decisively against a
doctrine of pure evil and darkness. But you can’t defeat them by
following their rules.
Mr.
Pizarro, 47, is a former U.S. Marine with an extensive operational
background in both the Latin American region and with the U.S. armed
forces. He also served in the Chilean Army as an artillery officer and
later as a senior security advisor/contractor for four years in the
Middle East. Mr. Pizarro also worked for CNN en Español as a military
analyst. He lives in Washington, DC, with his family. E-mail: jm.pizarro@chilecompany.com
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Peru Rattles its Sabre At Chile's Border
Just as Chile's armed forces are starting a major military exercise, fissures with Peru are opening up again. The government in Lima has created a new district in a disputed piece of territory, triggering an angry response from La Moneda. Up to now, Chile and Peru had resolved border disputes amicably, so the new territorial claim is a significant shift in policy. It's hard to decipher Lima's intentions. Perhaps Peru senses weakness by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, whose popularity has plunged as she presses on with a number of reforms. Chile also has complained about Peruvian military personnel that have been spotted at the border with Chile. The diplomatic spat serves as the backdrop for Huracan (Hurricane), an annual wargame in the north of Chile that combines Army, Navy and Air Force units. Huracan is one of the principal training exercises for Chile's military, and it does send a reminder to neighboring countries that Chile's borders are well-defended. The combined-arms exercise starts Sunday, Nov. 8 and lasts a week. Update: Some 5,500 troops are taking part in Huracan, which includes front-line units from all armed services.