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South America is not a region you would expect to find on the verge of an arms race. But it is. After the end of military rule and the stagnation of the 1980s, most countries have spent the 1990s rebuilding their economies under civilian democracies and forming regional alliances based on trade rather than security. But their armed forces are now pushing for modernization of aging equipment.
Some armed forces such as those of Colombia have to address specific problems of internal security. But others, particularly in Chile and Brazil, seem determined to buy equipment of a sophistication far beyond their requirements.
Most governments in the region say spending has remained stable or fallen over the past 15 years. But, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, military spending across Latin America has risen 35 percent since 1992, against economic growth of 32 percent. Spending in Brazil has doubled. Colombia and Peru also have made large increases. Chile and Ecuador smaller ones.
Concerned about regional stability, the Carter administration banned U.S weapons sales, a ban that was broken just once, in 1982, when the U.S. sold 24 F-16s to Venezuela, which had argued that Cuba was a threat. In 1997, under pressure by U.S. weapons manufacturers, who pointed out to Peru's acquisition in 1996 of MiG-29 and Su-25 aircraft from Blears, President Bill Clinton lifted the virtual 20-year embargo.
Now, fears of a new arms race developing in Latin America have been kindled by a Chilean move to buy new U.S. aircraft. President Ricardo Lagos announced a month ago that Chile would pursue the purchase of 12 F-16 fighters from Lockheed-Martin for $600 million, nearly $3 out of every $100 Chile earns in annual exports.
Brazil's air force has plans to go even further. It has requested information from Lockheed-Martin and Boeing and from the Russian manufacturers of the MiG-29 and the Su-27, as well as from the Eurofighter manufacturers. No budget has been set, but officials said the Air Force hoped to spend $3 billion to $4 billion over the next 15 years to buy fighters. In contrast, neighboring Argentina has maintained its spending practically even at below $5 million annually since 1985.
Brazil has asked manufacturers for proposals on the eventual delivery of as many as 70 fighters. But it is expected that Brazil's equity tie-up between Embraer, its aviation group, and Dassault of France, which produces the Mirage, is likely to leave U.S. manufacturers out of the running.
Brazil's need for so many latest-generation fighters is hard to identify, given that its military have stated that its stated priorities are policing and securing its frontiers.
Chile's needs are even less clear. It says the purchase of the F-16s would be a routine modernization of aging equipment, but it has since been reported that Chile has also been talking to Israel about obtaining advanced missiles and to Lockheed Martin about configuring the new aircraft to carry them.
Colin Powell, the new secretary of State, promised to look into the issue after Christopher Dodd, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, quizzed him about it at his confirmation hearing.
"I have no objection to selling F-16s per se to Chile, and I understand they need to modernize their equipment," Dodd said. But he added: "It needs to be thought through a little bit, in my view, before we end up with an arms race in this hemisphere."
In a letter to President Bush last week, Dodd and another eight prominent Democratic senators raised concerns about the sale, noting that Chilean authorities were requesting such things as AMRAAM air-to-air missiles and the LANTIRN navigation system.
"While we do not oppose providing our ally with safe, reliable aircraft for its defense, we believe the level of technology being discussed in this instance is unnecessary and potentially destabilizing," the senators wrote. There was no military threat, the letter noted, contending that the introduction of such "power-projection technologies" may "unnecessarily alarm neighboring nations."
Argentina, which has very recently completed arrangements with the International Monetary Fund for a $40 billion aid package, used the great weapons expenditures announced by its neighbors to polish its public image in the U.S. by publicly announcing that it will not try to buy new warplanes even if Chile's purchase goes through.
"We don't want to spend money we need for social welfare and better macroeconomic figures on such military gadgets," said Argentine Foreign Minister Adalberto Rodriguez Giavarini who was visiting Washington last week. He pointed out that, being a diplomat, his opinion was "not a comment on the attitude" of Chile. Nevertheless, he added that "the civilized way of maintaining peace in the region" is through free trade . . . Balance has to do not only with guns, but with the transcendence of democratic institutions, the rule of law and an independent judiciary. We believe an arms race is really a bad thing."
As a result of the gathering storm in the U.S. against the sale of F-16s, both government and opposition members of Congress in Chile are increasingly in favor of switching the purchase to Sweden's Grifen or France's Mirage, but there is no talk of abandoning the idea of buying advanced fighter-bombers.
Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com