Military

The asinine assertions of Chavez’s ‘authoritarianism’ can be easily refuted, but the purchase of submarines and aircraft are harder to explain. Military hardware is military hardware whichever way you look at it, and at first sight it is not easy to see why a country like Venezuela needs jet fighters, submarines or helicopters.

The recent trip by President Hugo Chávez to Russia has been seen as part of the arms race in which the Bolivarian leader is engaged. However, facts indicate that Venezuela is far behind Washington's two main allies in the region, Colombia and Chile, in the purchase of weapons.

An interview that is essential reading on the Venezuelan armed forces and some of the debates that are occuring (which stepped up quite a bit in April this year when Chavez told all those in the military who did not support the slogan "homeland, socialism or death" to leave).

Opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have often liked to imply that under his rule Venezuela is engaged in a large scale military buildup, has increased military spending, and spends more than previous Venezuelan governments and other Latin American countries have. However, a detailed look at the numbers shows that this is yet another myth.

“It is not possible [to accept] the continued massacre of our campesinos ”, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declared on August 6, “The chiefs of police must respond to these acts... if they feel incapable they must resign.”

They call it ‘co-responsibility’. Elizabeth Núñez explores a peculiarly Venezuelan attempt to integrate civilians with the armed forces.

Much confusion surrounds the Venezuelan military reserves, partly because of the controversy they cause. For the government, they are a critical part of the Venezuelan process because of the role they play in deterring, or in the worst case fighting, a war of invasion by the US.

Hilary Wainwright had only a few days left in Caracas after the 2006 World Social Forum. She wanted to understand for herself the rare radicalism of the Venezuelan military. How did they themselves understand the central role they played in civilian society? What were they like as people?

Venezuela is undergoing, if not a revolution, a process of radical change, and the military is right in the center of it. How could this been happening, many skeptics ask, when the military, especially in Latin America, is usually an agent of the status quo? Others, less skeptical, ask: Is Venezuela the exception, or is it the wave of the future?

The U.S. State Department accused Caracas of embarking on a unilateral arms race, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisting that Chávez’s actions threatened the stability of other Latin American nations. If any country can be accused of igniting local arms races, surely Washington is a prime candidate for such a distinction.