As I have noted in earlier
Commentary, the purpose of Security and Defense Studies Review has been,
since its inception, to provide a quality refereed venue for scholars and
practitioners to write in English, Spanish or Portuguese on issues of
continuing defense and security concern, particularly in Latin American and
Caribbean countries. This fourth issue of the journal touches on several
“pending issues,” including the reform and evolution of the intelligence
community and the needs for more transparent defense budgeting, military
reforms and the changing roles and missions of contemporary armed forces in
the region.
Marco Cepik introduces our special
section on the Intelligence Community with a wide-ranging and
well-documented review of the field, its vocabulary and the issues of
concern to scholars and practitioners today. Professors will find his essay
a particularly useful introduction to this complex and controversial field.
Jaime Garreta then treats the reform and professionalization of the
intelligence community in Argentina. There, the Congress took the lead in
writing a new law to govern the community, establishing jurisdictional
limits and ethical expectations in the process. It would be interesting,
too, to know to what models the reformers had in mind as they drew up the
law in Argentina.
Eduardo Moron performs a very useful
service to our emerging Defense Community with his description of the
structure and budgetary process of Peru’s defense and security budget. He
offers a wealth of information about the structure of the defense sector and
the objectives identified for subsectors. At the same time, he recognizes
that as long as the budget numbers remain classified, it is impossible to
assess whether intended programs are carried out or not. Moron’s essay is
an interesting follow-on to Thomas Scheetz’s article in volume 2, number 1
of this journal on the application of the UN Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Standardized Methodology for the
Measurement of Defence (http://www.eclac.org/publicaciones/).
Peruvian legislation defines a much broader scope to defense than that
adopted in the ECLAC study. Moron also identifies a critical policy dilemma
requiring future in-depth analysis: the distance between the legislated or
directed intent of budget programs and the real result derived from their
application. Much more hard data will be required to know whether Peru’s
defense funds are achieving results identified for its budget programs.
Marcelo Sain’s article on dilemmas
of military reform in Argentina reminds us again that the real challenges of
military policy reform lie in the development of a cadre of civilian
policy-makers, analysts, and scholars, able to define the tasks for which
the armed forces much prepare in the near and medium-term future. Sain
describes the different challenges that fall to the armed forces today as
compared to in decades past, and the absence of civil society guidance as to
how (or whether) the armed forces should prepare to address those
challenges. He underscores that in Argentina, at least, laws have been
passed, but not implemented—a major failure of civilian leadership in the
defense and security arena. He reminds us military and security forces are
looking for civil society leadership, without which one cannot expect
obedience. Hopefully this excellent review will prompt scholars in other
countries to undertake similar analyses of the players and processes of
defense and military policy reform in their countries. Security and Defense
Studies Review would like to address this issue on a comparative basis.
In another article on Argentina,
Pablo Vignolles examines the political rationale behind Argentine
governments’ use of the armed forces in peacekeeping as a key instrument of
national foreign policy and the consequences for both Argentina and the
armed forces. Based on a rich set of interviews with key players in the
defense and foreign policy community at the time, Vignolles concludes that
the foreign policy and military communities had overlapping, but not totally
coincidental objectives in undertaking peace operations. The results in
terms of reinsertion into the international community, expansion of regional
political-military and military cooperation on the one hand and increased
professionalism, prestige and pride among the armed forces on the other
resulted in a very positive cost-benefit calculus for all.
Finally, Felipe Rojas offers a
commentary on Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, in
the context of the terrorist attacks of September 2001, in the first
“Commentary” section of the journal. The aim of including this type of
essay in the journal is to stimulate debate on the topics presented. We
hope to generate a forum for discussion and include your responses in the
form of letters and rebuttal essays.
As always, we encourage comments to
the articles published here and welcome proposals for additional articles to
complement these, especially in the fields of intelligence, budgeting, as
well a roles and missions. We also welcome recommendations for book and
literature reviews.
