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The Impact of Military Culture and Doctrine on Colombia's Counterinsurgency

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The Impact of Military Culture and Doctrine on Colombia's Counterinsurgency NOTE TO USERS This reproduction is the best copy available. UMI' UNIVERSITY of CALGARY The Impact of Military Culture and Doctrine on Colombia's Counterinsurgency by Timothy S. Cake A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF STRATEGIC STUDIES Center for Military and Strategic Studies CALGARY, ALBERTA September 2009 © Timothy S. Cake 2009 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-54419-8 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-54419-8 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserves transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, pretgr, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1*1 Canada iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT 1 INTRODUCTION 4 THE CHEQUERED RECORD OF THE COLAR 7 COMMENTATORS' PERSPECTIVES ON THE COLAR'S FAILED COUNTERINSURGENCY 18 THE COLAR'S CULTURE AND ITS RAMIFICATIONS LEAD TO FAILURE 22 CHAPTER 1 - CONCEPTS OF INSURGENCY, COUNTERINSURGENCY AND CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS 25 COLOMBIA -- INSURGENCY, COUNTERINSURGENCY AND TRADITIONAL WAR FIGHTING 26 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM AND MILITARY SERVICE 29 The Roman and American Traditions of the Citizen-Soldier 30 Praetorianism - The Degradation of Cincinnatus' Military Tradition 32 THEORETICAL NOTIONS OF MILITARY PROFESSIONALISM AND CIVILIAN SUPREMACY 35 Alexis de Tocqueville's Perspective 36 Loveman's 'Politics of Anti-Politics' 38 Samuel Huntington's Position on Civilian Control of the Military 39 The Yamashita Principle of Command Responsibility 42 Pion-Berlin's Ideas 44 Bruneau's Constructs 45 THE ANALYTICAL MATRIX 47 CHAPTER 2 - THE COLAR'S MILITARY CULTURE AND ITS IMPACT ON THE COUNTERINSURGENCY 53 MILITARY CULTURE AND ITS RELATION TO IBERIAN AND LATIN AMERICAN SOCIETY 53 The Iberian Hidalgo and la Reconquista 54 The Fuero de Guerra Militar and the Iberian Military Weltanschauung 56 Caudillismo - The Latin American Notion of Heroic Leadership 57 IV EXTERNAL INFLUENCES ON THE COLAR 59 Chile's Prussianization of the COLAR 60 The United States' Factor 62 The United States' Military Leadership Doctrine 66 The United States Soldiers' Creed, Warrior Ethos and Army Values 69 The United States' COIN Doctrine 72 THE COLAR'S MILITARY DOCTRINE 77 Grand Strategy of the COLAR 77 The COLAR's Honor Code 79 The COLAR's Human Rights Doctrine 82 THE COLAR'S SPECTRUM OF NEGATIVE ACTIONS 86 The COLAR's Insolence and Insubordination of its Political Leaders 87 'Rogue Ops' Undertaken by the COLAR 108 The COLAR's Entrenched, Traditional War Fighting Methods and Resultant Operational Failures 128 MALAYA, VIETNAM AND COLOMBIA -- DIFFERENT WARS, SIMILAR CONCEPTS 139 CHAPTER 3 - COMPARISONS AND ANALYSES 151 THE POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE 151 The Mitigation of the Traditional FueroMilitar 155 ANSWERS TO RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 158 THE COLAR RE-ALIGNS FOR SUCCESS 164 Force Reallocation 166 Conversion of Regular Soldiers to Professional Soldiers 167 The Autodefensas Re-Engineered - The 'Town Soldiers' 169 COMMENTATORS' APPROACHES REVISITED 178 CONCLUSIONS 183 BIBLIOGRAPHY 193 PRIMARY SOURCES 193 SECONDARY SOURCES 198 MEDIA SOURCES 210 ABSTRACT Via the prism of professional officership, this thesis shall examine Colombian military culture and doctrine in relation to that state's ongoing COIN.1 Although I shall make a few sojourns to other times, the main period under examination will be that of the 1980s to the present. In doing so, I shall answer the following research question: has the traditional military culture of the COLAR's2 officer corps been a significant factor in its lack of final victory in the COIN? It is my position that Iberian elitist traditions and Prussian-style militarism permeated the COLAR's officer corps and have caused certain members of that establishment to follow a philosophy called the 'politics of anti-polities'. While pursuing this philosophy, these officers have often behaved like members of a privileged estate that has failed to support unconditionally its civilian masters. When ordered by their civilian leaders to abandon both their cultural heritage of militarismo and focus on traditional war fighting methods, these officers have responded with a spectrum of behaviors that varied from insolence in the media, disobedience, and sometimes extending to outright 1 COIN is an acronym used to represent counterinsurgency. 2 COLAR is an acronym used to represent the Colombian Army. This paper shall use COLAR in the broader sense to represent the Colombian Armed Forces as a whole. 3 Militarismo is a political philosophy in which the military establishment sees itself as the supreme establishment within the state. It is the antithesis of civilismo, a philosophy that envisages the military establishment as subservient to the civilian rulers of the state. Among other issues, this thesis shall deal with the question of which politico-military philosophy is paramount in Colombia. 2 interference in the political sphere. These officers have often acted like caudillos4- they temporarily leased their military expertise and coercive capabilities to the central government when and if that institution met their corporate objectives. I assert the traditional Ibero-American Weltanschauung5 and military culture have resulted in an officer corps6 with certain members who were and still are: (1) politicized, publicly insolent and insubordinate of their civilian leaders; (2) focused on corporate interests instead of the public good; (3) mired in the traditional war fighting techniques of years past; (4) inflexible in the practice of their profession, exhibiting an adamantine refusal to employ the time- proven strategies, tactics and doctrines of COIN, and; (5) behaving like aristocratic knights from the days of la Reconquista1 and la Conquista? These facets of the officer corps' traditionalist military culture have impaired the COLAR's battlefield efficacy, hampered the government's efforts to negotiate a settlement, and thus have extended the life of the insurgency. In essence, the Colombian example of Thomas Bruneau's civil-military 4 A caudillo is a charismatic individual who leads a political movement based upon their personality and heroic image. Caudillos are often, but not exclusively active or retired military leaders. Caudillismo is the practice of leadership by a caudillo - it is a cult of personality called personalismo. 5 Weltanschauung is an all-encompassing worldview that permeates the depths of a person's soul. 6 The focus of this dissertation is the officer corps because it exerts command authority over the COLAR's non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel. Using the Yamashita Principle, which appears later in this paper, I shall examine the responsibility of the COLAR's officer corps for the lack of victory over the insurgents. 7 Led by the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, la Reconquista was the re-conquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim Moors. relations trinity9 has two of its three legs broken - democratic civilian control of the military and its effectiveness as a combat force. This military culture has often diluted the COLAR's focus on COIN techniques and has led to its lack of overall combat victory against the FARC10 and the ELN.11 The research query shall be answered by: (1) providing an explanation of basic principles pertinent to the research question; (2) presenting selected case studies of the officer corps' insubordination and public insolence of the civilian government, its adherence to traditional war fighting techniques and resultant battlefield defeats; (3) offering a comparison of the case studies with the basic principles, and; (4) generating an analysis that provides sufficient information to answer the research question. 8 La Conquista was the conquest of the Americas by the Spaniards. 9 Please see the following for a theoretical discussion of the civil-military relations trinity: T. C. Bruneau and R. B. Goetze, Jr. "Civilian-Military Relations in Latin America". Military Review. (Sept.-Oct. 2006): 70-71. 10 FARC is a Spanish acronym for Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. 11 ELN is a Spanish acronym for Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional, the National Liberation Army. INTRODUCTION Colombia is of interest to the research community due to its illegal drugs trade, the actions of its paramilitary groups, and the various insurrections that have occurred within its borders. In the first half of the twentieth century, Colombia waged a war with Peru and suffered two massive internal conflicts - The War of a Thousand Days and la Violencia.
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