Abstract
The chapter looks at the creation of the South American Defence Council (SADC) as a regional security community stretching from power competition to a forum for conflict resolution and peace. It argues that the establishment of the SADC is a regional response to a new defence context characterized by an increased global asymmetry in the distribution of military power and militarization of the US security agenda towards the region, but at the same time as a consequence of a revival of long political and intellectual regional traditions that has never abandoned the goal of Latin American integration. The new defence scenario, it is argued, has been shaped by material changes related to the militarization of the security policy of the United States towards the region, the revival of territorial and ideological disputes and the emergence of Brazil as a regional power. Ideational changes are also linked to the development of a regional consensus regarding how to deal with defence challenges. The recent convergence of those two dimensions is essential to explain the emergence of regionalism in defence in South America. This chapter thus explores these dimensions to make sense of the SADC in a new regional scenario.
I thank Pía Riggirozzi and Diana Tussie for many insightful comments on earlier drafts.
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- 1.
Söderbaum and Shaw (2003).
- 2.
Composed by Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guayana, Paraguay, Perú, Surinam, Uruguay and Venezuela.
- 3.
On 1 March 2008, Super Tucano aircraft of the Colombian air force launched attacks on Ecuadorian territory, which killed 27 people, including Raul Reyes, the second-in-command of the FARC.
- 4.
As of November 2010, several councils and working groups have been created in the UNASUR framework: (1) South American Council on the World Drug Problem; (2) South American Council for Infrastructure and Planning; (3) South American Council of Social Development; (4) South American Energy Council; (5) South American Council of Health; (6) Board of Education, Culture, Science, Technology and Innovation; (7) Working Group on Financial Integration; (8) Working Group on Disputes Settlement.
- 5.
See South American Defence Council, Goals, available at http://www.cdsunasur.org/es/consejo-de-defensa-suramericano/objetivos.
- 6.
The Inter-American Defense Board provides technical advice and services to the OAS. It is composed of nationally appointed defence officials who develop collaborative approaches on common defence and security issues facing countries in North, Central and South America. The IADB was created in 1942. The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (commonly known in Spanish as TIAR from Tratado Interamericano de Asistencia Recíproca) was an agreement signed in 1947 in Rio de Janeiro among many countries of the Americas. The central principle contained in its articles is that an attack against one state in the region would be considered an attack against them all; this was known as the ‘hemispheric defence’ doctrine.
- 7.
See Chapter 2.
- 8.
Barry Buzan defines macrosecuritization as ‘a securitization aimed at, and up to a point succeeding, in framing security issues, agendas and relationships on a system-wide basis. Macro-securitizations are based on universalistic constructions of threats and/or referent objects. A macro-securitization can be about a shared fate, where the referent object is staged in universalistic terms (e.g. the planetary environment, human civilization), or about a widespread sharing of the same threat even though the specific referent objects are mainly at state and societal level (e.g. terrorism, disease)’ (Buzan 2006).
- 9.
In 2000 the Government of Colombia launched ‘Plan Colombia’ which was developed by former president Andrés Pastrana (1998–2002) as a six-year plan to end Colombia’s long armed conflict, eliminate drug trafficking and promote economic and social development. The original plan called for a budget of US$7.5 billion, with 51% dedicated to institutional and social development, 32% for fighting the drug trade and 16% for economic and social revitalization. However, over 80% of that amount has gone to the Colombian military and security forces since 2000. See Isacson (2010).
- 10.
The United States Fourth Fleet is a major command of the United States Navy in the South Atlantic, operating as a component of the joint US Southern Command and US Fleet Forces Command. Fourth Fleet is based at Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville, Florida and is responsible for U.S. Navy ships, aircraft and submarines operating in the Caribbean, and Atlantic and Pacific Oceans around Central and South America. The US Navy also has operational fleets in the Pacific, the Gulf and off the coast of Asia. The US Department of Defense says the measure is aimed at building confidence and trust in the region by focusing on common threats.
- 11.
The South American Defence Council used this methodology as a model for developing a common methodology for measuring UNASUR defence spending.
- 12.
See Chapter 9.
- 13.
In fact, 82.6% of the Brazilian military and 72.7% of the civilian believe that the Amazonas could be militarily occupied by a foreign power (Bitencourt and Costa Vaz 2009).
- 14.
Speech of President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva during an extraordinary meeting of the Unión Sudamericana de Naciones, Brasilia, 23 de mayo de 2008.
- 15.
See South American Defence Council, Action Plan 2010 – 2011, available at http://www.cdsunasur.org/es/plan-de-accion/formacion-y-capacitacion.
- 16.
See South American Defence Council, Action Plan 2010 – 2011, available at http://www.cdsunasur.org/es/plan-de-accion/plan-de-accion-2010-2011.
- 17.
See South American Defence Council, Action Plan 2010 – 2011, available at http://www.cdsunasur.org/es/plan-de-accion/politicas-de-defensa.
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Battaglino, J. (2012). Defence in a Post-Hegemonic Regional Agenda: The Case of the South American Defence Council. In: Riggirozzi, P., Tussie, D. (eds) The Rise of Post-Hegemonic Regionalism. United Nations University Series on Regionalism, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2694-9_5
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