DEFENCE-VENEZUELA:
Russian Subs on the
'Scope
By
Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, (IPS) - The
announcement that
Venezuela is buying five
Russian submarines
triggered alarm that a
conventional arms
build-up is occurring in
a country that has
adopted the defence
doctrine of asymmetric
war, or one involving "
all of the people."
The submarines will cost
more than one billion
dollars, in addition to
the three billion
dollars the Hugo Chávez
administration has
already spent on Russian
arms in the last two
years. The Venezuelan
government has also
bought three radars from
China, and this week
announced it would
import military
transport planes.
The weapons systems
Venezuela has acquired
include 24 Sukhoi-30
fighter-bomber aircraft,
55 Mi-17 and Mi-35
helicopters, 100,000
AK-103 assault rifles
and a factory to produce
these Kalashnikovs and
munitions. Several of
the airplanes are
already overflying
Venezuelan territory.
"The United States is
constantly threatening
us. We need to defend
our revolution,"
President Chávez, who is
openly politically
hostile to Washington,
said during a visit to
Moscow in late June.
Chávez, who took office
in 1999, has accused the
United States of
refusing to supply
ammunition and spare
parts for the F-16
fighters Caracas
purchased a quarter of a
century ago, and for its
Hercules C-130 transport
planes. Both military
aircraft are
manufactured in the
United States.
The Russian news agency
Interfax reported
Venezuela's order for
five Varshavyanka class
submarines, known in the
West as Kilo 636. The
subs are powered with
diesel fuel and equipped
with six torpedo tubes,
18 torpedoes, 24 mines
and eight surface-to-air
missiles.
An improved version, the
Amur 677 submarine, is
quieter and can perform
vertical cruise missile
launches to reach
targets hundreds of
kilometres away.
Venezuela is said to be
considering buying an
additional four of this
class.
"Why submarines?" said
Chávez in response to
critics, "Because we've
got a huge sea, (we need
them) to protect the
oilfields in open
waters, and because the
North American empire
has aggression plans
(against us) and has
carried out this kind of
attempt years ago, when
a (U.S.) aircraft
carrier entered
Venezuelan territorial
waters."
In contrast, Rocío San
Miguel, head of Control
Ciudadano para la
Seguridad y Defensa, a
non-governmental
organisation for social
monitoring of security
and defence matters,
said that the submarines
"don't fit in with
Venezuela's marine
vigilance needs, which
are all land-based or on
the surface, and include
customs, the
environment, tax and
sanitary regulations,
and the fight against
the drugs trade."
Acquiring the submarines
"will annoy our
neighbours, and may
upset geopolitics in the
Caribbean," she said.
Colombia, for one, has
pending issues with
Venezuela over
demarcation of
territorial waters along
their northern border,
in the Caribbean and the
Gulf of Venezuela, San
Miguel told IPS.
For decades, Colombia
and Venezuela's military
academies have included
simulations of war
between their two
countries in their war
games.
Retired General Fernando
Ochoa, who was Defence
Minister in 1992 when
Chávez led a bloody and
unsuccessful attempted
coup, said that "because
of the decline of his
prestige, and because
nobody believes in a
U.S. invasion, Chávez
needs to recover
popularity the way
Galtieri tried to do, by
creating animosity with
a nearby country."
In 1982, former
Argentine dictator
Leopoldo Galtieri
ordered a military
invasion of the Malvinas/Falkland
Islands in a bid to slow
the downfall of
Argentina's own regime
that took power in 1976.
The result was a war
with the United Kingdom
and defeat at the hands
of the second most
powerful navy in the
world.
According to Ochoa, this
is the reason behind the
acquisition of "heavy
war matériel, although
it's inconsistent with
the asymmetric war
theory, for which light
weaponry rather than
high-technology
submarines or aircraft
are needed."
Asymmetric warfare is
that between a
nation-state and a
non-state actor. Chinese
theoreticians Qiao Liang
and Wang Xiangsui call
it "unrestricted"
warfare, defining it as
any kind of struggle
against an
overwhelmingly superior
power, combining
political and military
action and involving the
civilian population.
Preparing "all of the
people" to take part in
the defence of the
country led Chávez to
re-establish the Reserve
a couple of years ago.
The Reserve, made up of
tens of thousands of
civilians, is the fifth
component of the
Venezuelan armed forces,
together with the army,
the navy, the air force
and the national guard,
a military body with
police functions.
General Gustavo Rangel,
until now the commander
of the Reserve, was
sworn in on Wednesday as
Defence Minister, "which
will propagate the new
doctrine of security,
civil-military unity and
the war of resistance,"
said retired Colonel
Héctor Herrera, of the
pro-government
Bolivarian
Civil-Military Front.
Rangel replaces General
Isaías Baduel, the man
responsible for
returning Chávez to
government in April 2002
when a civil-military
coup removed him from
office for two days.
Baduel is now retired.
The press disclosed that
Baduel led the "professionalist"
faction of military
officers who agree that
conventional weapons
should be acquired,
while General Albert
Muller, the coordinator
of the presidential High
Command, follows
Chávez's outspoken ideas
and favoured the "war of
all the people."
"There are pressures
within the military
commands related to the
change to a new defence
model, because it
removes a number of
privileges. Personally,
I'm opposed to
professionalising the
armed forces," said
Muller, a leftwinger who
was called out of
retirement by the
president at age 70, two
decades after hanging up
his uniform.
Venezuela's armed forces
"must strive for the
defence of all of the
people, in a war of
resistance waged by the
people against a foreign
invader," Muller
emphasised.
Political scientist
Alberto Garrido told IPS
that "although Chávez
agrees with Muller that
a war with the U.S.
would be asymmetric, the
unpredictable
geopolitics of the
region and the domestic
military reality force
him to be cautious."
The president's strategy
appears to be "to
prepare for a combined
conventional and
asymmetric war. A
conventional war would
not be effective against
the United States, but
would be a valid
approach to war with a
neighbouring country,"
he said.
"This was outlined by
Baduel when he put
forward the hypothesis
(a year ago) of a war
caused by the conflicts
spilling over from
bordering countries,"
Garrido said.
San Miguel pointed out
that Venezuela is a
signatory to the Geneva
Conventions of 1949 and
its additional protocols
of 1977, which protect
the civilian population
and ban the involvement
of civilians in warfare,
"because if they assume
the role of combatants,
lethal force can be used
against them," she said.
The announcement of
Venezuela's acquisition
of the submarines caused
no major tremors in the
rest of the Americas.
Washington did not
discuss the subject with
Russian President
Vladimir Putin when he
visited U.S. President
George W. Bush at his
summer residence, while
Chávez was still in
Russia.
Until he ended his term
in Venezuela two weeks
ago, Washington's
ambassador in Caracas,
William Brownfield,
often repeated in his
public statements that
"the United States has
never invaded, is not
invading at this moment,
and will never invade
Venezuela."
Colombia has made no
public statement on
Venezuela's action.
A pact between Chávez
and Colombian President
Álvaro Uribe keeps
sensitive issues
affecting the two
countries out of their
public speeches.
European and Latin
American diplomats in
Caracas acknowledge in
private that an arms
build-up in Venezuelan
will necessarily lead
Colombia to take steps
towards some kind of
equilibrium.
According to Ochoa, the
hypothesis of a conflict
with Colombia would
require the neutrality
of the United States,
"without which such an
adventure would be
unacceptably
irresponsible."
In Brazil, naval
commander Admiral Julio
Soares de Moura was
insouciant. "I wouldn't
say that Venezuela is
engaging in an arms
race, I think it is
reequipping itself, or
renewing its arsenal. I
don't think it poses any
risk. Brazil and
Venezuela have cordial
relations," he said.
San Miguel insisted that
Venezuela lacks a
detailed assessment of
the threats to its
security which could be
used to draw up
contingency plans for
national defence. "It
appears as though the
president talks and
everyone falls into
line. There's no one to
say 'No' to him." |
