APPROVED VERSION. Centro de Estudios Estratégicos de la Defensa Consejo de Defensa Suramericano Unión de Naciones Suramericanas.

Transcription

1 CEED S PRELIMINARY REPORT TO THE SOUTH AMERICAN DEFENSE COUNCIL ON THE TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE CONCEPTS OF SECURITY AND DEFENSE IN THE SOUTH AMERICAN REGION The Centre for Strategic Defense Studies (CEED) is constituted as a knowledge authority to prepare studies and analyses that contribute to the development of strategic thinking and South American identity with regard to regional and international defense and security. The IV CDS Executive Authority Meeting, held in Lima in the month of April, entrusted the CEED with the conduction of a study on the terms of reference for the concepts of security and defense. The III CDS Ministers Meeting requested the Foreign Affairs Ministers Council to call a meeting of Defense, Justice and Home Affairs Ministers in order to analyze the threats posed by transnational organized crime, as well as other new threats to regional security and, at the same time, it entrusted the CDS Centre for Strategic Defense Studies (CEED-CDS) with the initiation of studies on these risks and threats to support the work of the future meeting, which was confirmed by the UNASUR Chancellors Meeting. In compliance with these CEED-CDS requirements, it included first and foremost in its work plan the preparation of these studies, for which it proceeded to elaborate a methodology that incorporates the country s views into a common pattern, distributed among the Member States, with the purpose of consolidating an official piece of information about the main definitions regarding the policies and doctrines of each of our countries, in matters related to security, defense, risks, threats, and cooperation mechanisms, which allows Página 1-13

2 to analyze the different conceptions and common aspects to be considered in the definitions requested to the CEED by the CDS and the UNASUR Chancellors Meeting. This PROGRESS REPORT brings together an initial approximation to the definitions corresponding to the fields of Security and Defense, from the answers contributed by the countries, analyzed from a regional perspective, in order to identify the main problems, agreements, differences and critical issues to be solved so as to achieve shared definitions of security and defense, and regarding the risks and threats perceived in the region, and the recommendations for their handling. REGIONAL CONTEXT 1. South America is undergoing a quality change in its security and defense contexts. Traditionally, national approaches, together with a hemispheric vision, have predominated in the formulation of defense policies, threats identification and state actions to fight them. Currently, governments have specified their interest in a regional strategic perspective, admitting the necessity to move towards common political definitions and systems of security and defense, as well as cooperative and complementary actions in these fields. 2. Significantly, governments agree there has been a change in the central themes of concerns regarding security and, particularly, defense, about a cooperative vision, based on trust and a concurrence of interests, for the creation of strategic scenarios not based on hypothesis of wars and Página 2-13

3 situations of confrontation between states, but on the perspective of what could be called a South American security community. 3. This trend towards the coordination of common interests and policies moves forward in a context of regional integration in which several political and conceptual visions and definitions about security and defense coexist, corresponding to the particular processes of the different countries and to the perceptions of risks and threats from their respective national situation; full acknowledgement of this diversity as a base for common strategic policies and actions is fundamental. 4. For the formulation of lines of agreement and regional consensus, it is necessary to consider that most countries are immersed in processes of revision and redefinition of their security and defense policies and systems, concurrent with reforms and restructuring of the sectors of defense and the Armed Forces; this is a propitious time for the rapprochement of institutional conceptions, practices and structures, as well as to internalize the cooperation mechanisms in each of the countries and to standardize the procedures they have reached a consensus on. Página 3-13

4 DEFINITIONS OF SECURITY AND DEFENSE The handling of security and defense matters in the countries of the region is dealt with in a conceptual and an institutional dimension. In the diverse experiences, we can observe the coexistence of different political definitions, with different levels, applications and fields of state action and, at the same time, specific military and non-military systems and practices are used in institutional settings; it can be repeatedly verified that the conceptual differences have not hindered the development of cooperation actions in the institutional dimension of defense. Recommendation: For the future development of coincident positions and political consensus, these should be processed from the conceptual developments as well as from the institutional experiences, from which we can derive lines of cooperation in several fields of action and progressive rapprochements in the definition of regional security and defense problems and the corresponding cooperation mechanisms. From a wide concept of Security that deals with aspects of defense and public security, the institutional development and practices of the countries have progressively distinguished its scopes in different ways, characteristic of each national process. Currently, public security and defense have specific legal frameworks in most of the countries of the region, in which their respective scope are legally established, hierarchized and regulated. Página 4-13

5 Recommendation: Systematize the definitions, the objectives, the legal frameworks and the institutional functions of defense and public security in the Member States, in order to conduct comparative analyses and proposals of repetition of successful experiences and good practices for the definition of coincident systemic models, which are propitious for the exchange, the interaction and the cooperation, differentiated according to their specific areas of correspondence. Public security, regardless of the several ways it may be known as, such as homeland security or public safety, is related to the social peace, the State s institutional stability, the control of the public order and the guarantees of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, that vary according to the political approach and the development objectives of each State, in relation to which their objectives and perceptions of risks and threats are formulated. The conduction and management of Public Security activities tend to lay the primary responsibility on specific ministries or other specialized authorities, other than the National Defense. For the performance of this state function, in its particular missions and responsibilities, public or homeland security systems are established, with political and technical coordination organisms, whose main operational element are the police or other internal order control bodies. Página 5-13

6 Each country, regardless of the name or the model of police and homeland security forces adopted according to its institutional tradition, has an institutional structure whose actions are limited to the national territory, which is regulated by its own legal framework and which has a specific budget for the performance of its functions. As an exception, the participation of the Armed Forces is considered, as a subsidiary to public security actions, authorized by responsible political authorities and delimited by contingency laws; said participation shall not modify the nature of the scope or its institutional instruments, which are distinct and different from those corresponding to the national defense. Recommendation: i. Systematize the coincidences and the differences between the countries of the region with respect to the public security in its relation to the Defense, mainly those related to the subsidiary participation condition of the Armed Forces in public or homeland security tasks, in order to contribute to a more rigorous definition of this security field, in its political and institutional dimension, for the purposes of regional cooperation and the possible standardization of organization and management models. Generally, Ministries of Defense have no competence on public security issues, reason why they do not have direct information available to them. Should it be necessary, consultations shall be remitted to the Ministries of Public Security and other organisms responsible for that area, according to the special characteristics of each country. Página 6-13

7 ii. Consequently, as the South American Defense Council is not in charge of handling public security issues, which are also subject to definition and management by authorities other than the Ministries of Defense in most of the countries, it is necessary to make progress in the study of a possible regional cooperation mechanism as regards public security that differs from the Defense s, which could be a Public or Homeland Security Council. Defense constitutes a fundamental function of the State that is connected to the protection and the maintenance of its sovereignty and to the integrity of its population, territory and institutions; as such, it covers security issues related to the foreign sphere, as an strategic setting of the States foreign policy, and it takes shape as the specific and exclusive space for the use and the organization of the State s military force, based on risks or threats related to its own integrity and its independent and sovereign existence. When it comes to Defense, as it is related to its functions and the classical missions and roles of the military instrument for the protection of the sovereignty and the integrity of the State s constituent elements, coincidences are greater among the countries of the region as regards the objectives and the institutional means for their fulfillment. Progressively, national laws have incorporated the principles of management, responsibility and political government, civil leadership and democratic control of the Armed Forces, as a military instrument, subject Página 7-13

8 to defense policies and incorporated into an institutional system with political decision hierarchies and specific operational action, under the responsibility of the Ministries of Defense. Thus, in the structural sense and as regards the existence of defined defense systems, the countries defense models are closer to political authorities of decision and management, as well as a single military organization, with a tendency towards the joint action of its components, equipped with a budget that strictly corresponds to the functions and the missions anticipated in their legal and institutional frameworks. In the region, as regards Defense issues, no interstate confrontations or conflicts are currently recorded that compromise their classical functions, while the disputes held between some countries are subject of initiatives for its diplomatic and legal, but not military, handling. From the Defense s classical point of view, the countries objectives are more explicit and coincident, while there are differences in the policies and the practices related to the characterization of insecurity and violence phenomena associated with transnational organized crime and other new threats, and associated with the procedures and the means to fight them, which is necessary to process in order to consensually establish the ways, levels and areas of cooperation in the region, distinguishing between those corresponding to the Defense scope and those concerning the conditions and structures of the public or homeland security. Página 8-13

9 Recommendation: Systematize the coincident elements in defense policy and the national defense models present in the countries of the region, highlighting the functional, structural and operational similarities that may support the joint action and the interoperational capacity, as well as the differences to be considered in the specific cooperation mechanisms. The regional security coordinates the defense, on the understanding that the maintenance of the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of each country requires a stability and balance scenario in the interstate relationships, translated as international or regional security, which requires the States willingness to cooperate in their strategic environment. To the extent in which the risks and threats to the States sovereignty and integrity may come from outside its own frontiers, defense is related to the aspects of security that are associated with the local, regional and international setting, making up a privileged area for the interstate cooperation in integration processes, with the purpose of protecting the stability and the strategic security of the region as a common space. Cooperation and regional integration in the defense sector have progressed based on the recognition of and the respect for the national differences and special characteristics, while the formulation of coincident elements is explored in order to reach consensus that make regional concurrence in the formulation of common defense policies and the construction of cooperation and strategic complementarity spaces possible. Página 9-13

10 As regards defense, the South American region is undergoing a situation that enables a continued progress towards higher states of complementarity and integrity, from the fact that the UNASUR Member States follow common legislative trends, with progressively coincident functional and structural aspects. The interest for making progress on the coordination of policies and actions is evident towards the construction of a regional mechanism of cooperative defense, which tends to take shape based on measures of trust and strategic convergence within a conception of common dissuasive defense and other instruments of understanding, including a common South American defense thinking and the regional use of military means based on several ways of interrelation, complementarity and interoperational capacity, aimed at reaching and maintaining the regional security conditions. Recommendation: Purge the CDS responsibility issues, incorporating them into a cooperation agenda on defense policies, military policies, and coordinated and progressively joint actions, faced with the prospect of establishing a regional defense system. For that purpose, gradual and simultaneous progress could be made towards wider consensus at three levels: Strengthening and expansion of political cooperation agreements; Página 10-13

11 Conduction of concrete collaboration actions in specific areas; and Progressive creation of a common regional defense and security doctrine. The purposes of a possible conformation of a subregional defense system are associated with the characterization and the hierarchization of threats and risks of regional dimensions and impact, which require cooperation and joint action by the countries in order to fight them collectively. The new transnational or transborder threats deserve a segmentation analysis on its impact and relevance in the areas of public security or defense, in order to be able to establish distinct strategic objectives in each field and define the corresponding means, instruments and institutional mechanisms. In this respect, it is necessary to deepen conceptual and political consensus, which support cooperation policies and actions in order to face the corresponding problems according to the type of phenomenon, differently from the defense and/or the public security, identifying the means of combat as well as the competent authorities and organs for its handling. Objectively, in many cases, despite the existence of common definitions, UNASUR s defense agenda has shown its evolution through cooperation and complementation in several situations in which the Armed Forces of two or more countries of the region were present simultaneously; this is Página 11-13

12 proof of a positive agenda in the Defense sector of the regional organism, where understanding and mutual respect stand out in the search for common interests and objectives. Recommendation: Progress on the characterization of risks and threats, assessing their regional impacts, with the aim of differentiating and hierarchizing the different levels and spaces of cooperation regarding security and defense among the countries of the region, the possible formulation of common strategies and co-ordinated actions in each of the fields and the determination of their execution organs. General recommendations: 1. Complete the systematization and the analysis of the information provided by the countries through the coordination of the CEED with the national centres for its completion, validation and improvement, in order to consolidate a strategic information base and to make progress on the creation of the conceptual tools that can serve as foundation for the rapprochement of the visions and the strategic objectives expressed on the CDS political decisions. 2. Collect, for future formulations regarding doctrine, the advances provided by the UNASUR 1 Exercise as regards joint missions of the Armed Forces, complementarity and interoperational capacity; by the Seminar Página 12-13

13 The participation of the Ministries of Defense and the Armed Forces in case of natural disasters and the Exercise included in the charter on natural disasters, on this field; and by the South American Seminar Visions on conceptual defense approaches for the identification of coincidences and differences in the conceptualization of security and defense; the characterization of risks and threats and the definitions of regional defense and security. Página 13-13