The impact of military culture and doctrine on Colombia's counterinsurgency

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-politics'. 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 militarismo3 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 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 Reconquista 7 and la Conquista.8 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 relations trinity 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 FARC9 and the ELN. 10.;1COIN is an acronym used to represent counterinsurgency. 2COLAR 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. 3Militarismo 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. 4A 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. 5Weltanschauung is an all-encompassing worldview that permeates the depths of a person's soul. 6The 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. 7Led by the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, la Reconquista was the re-conquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim Moors. 8La Conquista was the conquest of the Americas by the Spaniards. 9FARC is a Spanish acronym for Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. 10ELN is a Spanish acronym for Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional, the National Liberation Army.;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. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).