Building civilian militarism: Colombia,internal war,and militarization in a mid-term perspective

Introduction

All of us should be ready to disarm our minds and hearts. (Rodrigo Londoño, quoted in El Frente, 2016)

The above statement was made as a key point during a speech by Rodrigo Londoño, the head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), during the signing ceremony for the peace agreement between the FARC and the Colombian government on 26 September 2016, and it draws attention to Colombia’s need for change following decades of war (El Frente, 2016). This historical accord had succeeded in bringing an end to the Western hemisphere’s longest and most violent internal war at that time, a war that had left more than 200,000 dead, 6 million displaced, and deep wounds within Colombian society (Grupo de Memoria Histórica, 2013). After four years of intense dialogue between the warring sides in Havana, Cuba, it had proven possible to resolve their main differences and to discuss sensitive topics related to the structural causes of the conflict.

As is common in such a process, both the peace talks and the ceremony itself were characterized by numerous ups and downs despite active support both within Colombia and abroad. This was partly due to the fact that some sectors of Colombian society were unsure whether this final episode had been achieved in a satisfactory fashion, owing to mistrust towards the FARC and a strained atmosphere encouraged by various right-wing elements (El Espectador, 2017). In the middle of the signing ceremony in Cartagena (Colombia), one event did not go unnoticed. As the FARC leader was making his speech, a thunderous sound interrupted the orator and his audience. A Colombian Air Force fighter flew over the event, derailing protocol for a few seconds. Restoring calm after chaos, the FARC leader commented: ‘this time, [the aircraft] comes to salute the peace, not to drop bombs’ (Semana, 2016).

This was not a trivial event, as aerial bombardment of FARC positions had formed the spearhead of the Colombian state’s efforts to push the insurgent group to agree to negotiations in the first place. Nonetheless, the overflight was seen as an inconvenient act – and proof of Colombian militarism (Duque, 2016). Intentionally or otherwise, the episode recalled images of the Chilean Air Force’s bombing of the presidential residence during the coup d’état against President Salvador Allende in 1973 (see Webel, 2016: 61). Although nothing comparable occurred in Colombia that day, and the ceremony was concluded in a satisfactory manner, a few days later a significant majority of Colombians voted in a plebiscite against the peace accord.

This was an astonishing result. Both at home and abroad, there was uneasiness over the fact that more than half of the voters had rejected the peace accord despite its relevance for Colombia after more than five earlier failed peace processes during the preceding 30 years (Brodzinsky, 2016). The result was partly due to the fact that many voters were unhappy with the terms of the agreement, a sentiment that had been exacerbated by right-wing sections within Colombian society, who felt that the accord had given the FARC political privileges that might end up leading the country towards a socialism like that of Venezuela under Hugo Chávez (Gómez, 2017). Many citizens also believed that it had been and was still possible to defeat the insurgent group by military means rather than through negotiations (Noticias Uno, 2017). Above all, mistrust of the FARC and the peace agreement seemed to be a response to anxieties within Colombian society over the unexpected outcome, which were partly the result of a long process of familiarization with violence as a mechanism for solving problems and excessive faith in military solutions. These developments had reached their peak during President Alvaro Uribe’s term of office (2002–10), during which a rather bellicose and triumphalist perspective had been promoted within Colombian society.

In my view, this excessive faith in military solutions should be seen as part of a long-lasting and subtle process of militarization orchestrated by political leaders and reinforced by the military over the years. Such a process had been made possible by a normalization of the presence of the military in everyday life, a development that was itself a byproduct of the country’s chaotic sitation and the use of counterinsurgency forms of warfare, which would lead to unexpected consequences for Colombian society and the post-conflict situation.

In this article, I will describe and analyze key elements related to the central role of militarism and militarization in the Colombian context, where violence and insecurity have been omnipresent for decades, using a medium- and short-term historical perspective. I outline the concept of ‘civilian militarism’ as increased military presence within society and the promotion of militaristic values within society without the abandonment of formal civilian control. First, I will discuss how the main conceptual framing regarding militarism, militarization, and security applies to the Colombian case. Second, I will describe and analyze the origin of civilian militarism in the context of the struggle between Colombia’s traditional political parties, along with the militarization of the police and the intertwining of its role with that of the army as a legacy of that time. Third, I will briefly examine how various presidential programs began to use the concept of security in the 1990s and thereafter to frame violent problems in terms of security and insecurity in a conscious effort to mask military responses, while viewing mandatory military service as a tool for bolstering support for militarism among everyday people in more recent years. A short conclusion then completes the article. Some of the article’s arguments are supported by interviews and fieldwork carried out between 2008 and 2016 in several regions of Colombia, including semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups with officers, soldiers, and local communities about conflict, the military, democracy, and their expectations.

A conceptual toolbox for the Colombian case

Although it is not easy to select, define, and apply concepts like militarism/militarization and security in the Colombian case, this is a necessary task. A recurrent history of internal violence and insecurity, a somewhat unusual approach to the following of international norms, and the absence of conventional conflicts, mid-range civil–democratic institutions, economic stability, and a vibrant civil society since the 1950s have left the Colombian case a complete puzzle for many academics (Bushnell, 1993; Torres, 2015). I do not regard Colombia as an exceptional case, however, because the country shares many features with its Latin American neighbors and other countries that have experienced domestic armed conflict. What is unusual here is that even though Colombia is not an authoritarian state, in the streets, in the countryside, and even in people’s behavior there is a militaristic atmosphere that appears to be imperceptible to the majority of the population – one that has been wrapped up in the banner of security concerns – though there may be some parallels in the case of Israel (Grassiani, this issue).

Militarism and militarization have been interpreted and conceptualized in a number of different ways, and the most refined approaches have been produced for countries of the global North (Enloe, 2016; Mann, 1987; Shaw, 2013; Stavrianakis and Selby, 2013). Although such approaches may not correspond closely to the realities of the global South (Eriksson-Baaz and Verweijen, this issue), it is possible to tailor the concepts to the situation in such countries. Stavrianakis and Selby point out that empirical studies have shown that ‘militarism is characteristic of global North and global South alike’ – indeed, ‘[the concept] is of global relevance and applicability’ (Stavrianakis and Selby, 2013: 3, 11). Nonetheless, how might we define and apply these concepts in the context of a country such as Colombia that has the characteristics of a democracy under a constant state of exception and conflict? How are we best to explain diffused and subtle manifestations of militaristic traits within society? How might we apply these theoretical tools in their original meaning to different empirical realities?

First, it should be noted that the word ‘militarism’ generally carries negative connotations in everyday and mass media discourse. This can be seen, for example, in comments made by one author in the context of the Cold War: ‘Ours is a sick society. One symptom of the sickness is the spread of militarism and militarization around the globe’ (Thee, 1977: 296). Accordingly, no country or society likes to be labeled militaristic. For this reason, Colombian elites have heralded the country’s tradition of civilian government and made constant efforts to ensure that Colombia is seen as a formal democracy abroad (Carbó, 2001), avoiding any association with militarism.

Recently, militarism has been identified as a term with a multiconceptual scope, one that has a number of different emphases. These include glorification of military values, a propensity towards the use of force to solve problems, increases in the military apparatus, the influence of the military in the civil sphere, and the impact of military relations on society as a whole (Stavrianakis and Selby, 2013: 11–13). The concept of militarism can thus be seen to have considerable utility and flexibility in terms of capturing different facets of phenomena that involve the use of and justification for the application of force and violence in the social realm, particularly in the context of perceived threats.

In this analysis I will move back and forth between conventional and more recent approaches, first considering militarism as the ‘growing role of the military [understood as the military establishment], the use of force as an instrument of prevalence and political power, and the increasing influences of the military in civilian affairs’ (Thee, 1977: 296). Also, as Cynthia Enloe has suggested, militarism is a package of ideas that justify military priorities and the influence of the military in political, economic, and cultural affairs. These are made manifest – in our case – in the belief that soldiers deserve special praise, hierarchies of command are natural, the use of force is superior to other forms of conflict resolution, having enemies is a normal condition, and the institution of the military is the sole institution that can fight them (Enloe, 2016: 11).

Over the years, many of these features of militarism have become evident in Colombia. As I will show, violence and insecurity have made people more willing to accept a militaristic atmosphere, partly out of fear of being killed or harmed (see Médecins Sans Frontières, 2006). This is perhaps somewhat similar to the current situation in the UK regarding acceptance of ‘liberal militarism’ (Basham, this issue), but with the big difference that in the British case military actions have taken place abroad. In addition, for pragmatic or perhaps closed-minded reasons, Colombia’s civilian authorities have involved the military widely both in the country’s conflict and in the social arena over the last half-century without ceding control to them. In this context, many presidents have in some way sponsored militarism – in a development that I refer to as ‘civilian militarism’ – as a strategy to prevent their being defeated by other armed actors that have been struggling for political power during the internal war.

Militarism can be present only in a society that is undergoing a steady process of assimilation of militaristic traits into social structures and individuals, a process known generically as ‘militarization’. This latter term is defined as a ‘process by which any person, any group, or any society absorbs the ideas and resultant practices of militarism’ (Enloe, 2016: 11). Militarization is undoubtedly a relevant concept for the present analysis, given that many militaristic features have been introduced into Colombian society over the short and medium terms, becoming almost imperceptible in the context of the country’s internal war. In Colombia, the use of military power – understood as the deployment of weaponry and military means by state forces – along with other military strategies and actions, including the most extreme case of aerial bombardment, is not only normal but also highly desired by politicians and citizens alike, even though this has negatively affected already-fragile civil rights and liberties, particularly in the most remote areas of the country. All of this has been made possible by civilian leaders’ administration of constitutional norms that have been enthusiastically embraced in recent years as a way of fighting against the specter of a ‘failed state’, a category about which there was considerable anxiety within political circles at the turn of the current millennium (Bejarano and Pizarro, 2003).

The other concept that is central both for this special issue and for the present analysis is that of ‘security’ – a term whose meaning is often elusive, particularly since the end of the Cold War, when its meaning became increasingly elastic and almost any issue could find itself falling under the label of ‘security’ through the logics of ‘security as a speech act’ and ‘extraordinary politics’ as developed by the Copenhagen School (Stritzel, 2011). For Swati Parashar (this issue: 124), security was ‘the byproduct’ of the relationship between the state and militarism. As a concept and practice, security continues to be linked to the state as the main seeker of internal order and stability in countries experiencing major upheaval; however, since it is generally shaped by elite pressure, the pursuit of security tends more to impact upon rather than improve the lives of common people (Bellamy and McDonald, 2002: 373–374). Thus, security is a constant search for a ‘reasonable level of predictability’, both at the local and at the international level, against ‘durable disorder’ (Hettne, 2010: 33), and in the particular case under consideration here, security is also used as a rhetorical device or cover for militarism.

Internal chaos, state of exception, and civilian militarism

Colombia’s internal war began many years before the eruption of the Cold War in Latin America. Its roots can be traced back to the mid-19th century and political and social – particularly religious – differences between the followers of Colombia’s traditional political parties, Liberal and Conservator, which produced successive waves of violence with varying levels of intensity during the 20th century, the bloodiest of these taking place during the 1940s and 1950s, when extremely barbaric acts were commonplace. In this latter period, political elites urged the intervention of the military to help to control the mayhem, even going so far as to call for the institution of a military dictatorship, led by General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla between 1953 and 1957 (Torres, 2015: 174–179). This process was a classical manifestation of militarism as that term has been understood historically in Latin America, whereby the military assumes political power and extends its influence across society under the justification of saving the country from chaos (Loveman, 1999). The dictatorship succeeded in reducing the intensity of the ongoing violence through two strategies: first, through a progressive involvement of the military in the country’s internal chaos to combat violent groups; second, through a process of negotiations with the largest factions, particularly the guerrillas of the Liberal party. Nonetheless, when General Rojas set out to implement an independent political project detached from Colombia’s traditional political parties, political elites that enjoyed popular support forced him out of office. At this point, Colombia’s political parties succeeded in establishing a solid relationship with their supporters, an alliance that prevented any subsequent attempts by the military to intervene in politics during that period (Torres, 2000).

After the dictatorship of the late 1950s, a new political pact – known as Frente Nacional (National Front) – established a consociationalist arrangement between the country’s traditional political parties (Hartlyn, 2008). Colombia’s political elites were conscious of the military’s relevance for efforts to deal with remnants of the overwhelming violence in the country. However, they sought to maintain a clear distinction between areas of action for civilians and those for the military to prevent any possible insurrection by the armed forces over the following years. Under this strategy, promoted by President Alberto Lleras Camargo (1958–62), Colombia’s political elites would be exclusively responsible for the political sphere, while the military would be in charge of maintaining ‘public order’ – in other words, the re-establishment of peace and order throughout the country. The doctrine, however, also granted the military unlimited autonomy in its response to internal problems. This arrangement would establish a precedent for future civil–military relations in the second part of the 20th century: ‘subordination with autonomy’ (Leal, 2006).

In 1959, with the Cuban Revolution, the Cold War materialized in Latin America. From then on, Washington would press governments in the region to shift the role of the military from preparedness for conventional war to internal activities to confront the communist threat (Veneroni, 1973). Such a shift had taken place in Colombia some years before, however, owing to extensive use of the military to confront internal problems through counterinsurgency activities and a hardline response to outbreaks of violence (Ortiz, 1985). Accordingly, it was easy for successive Colombian governments to adopt all of the guidelines that came from the United States, particularly given the close diplomatic and military relationship between the two countries that resulted from Colombia’s participation in the Korean War (1950–53) and the Suez Crisis (1957).

Indeed, in the early 1960s, many factional armed groups and remnants from the previous wave of violence shifted their political orientation and began to embrace left-wing ideas, becoming what would later be known as the FARC. Along with the emergence of other insurgent groups such as the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), this development acted as a confirmation for the political and military elites that communism had deep roots in Colombia (Pizarro, 1996). Accordingly, the Colombian government accepted the USA’s offers of support and began to focus on efforts to confront these emerging challenges, which threatened to undermine the stability and rule of Colombia’s traditional political parties (Rueda, 2000). Across Latin America this was a common scenario, not too dissimilar from militarism in many African contexts, as Rita Abrahamsen (this issue) notes – characterized by external dependence, a focus on the maintenance of internal order rather than the waging of conventional war, and the capacity of the military to contain emerging social pressures. The distinguishing feature of militarism in Latin America from the 1960s to the 1980s was the so-called National Security Doctrine – a set of measures that were implemented to confront communism locally, with US support, through counterinsurgency activities, the persecution of apparent left-wing supporters, and – most importantly – the establishment of military regimes in which the armed forces were in charge of everything, thus spreading the military’s hierarchical values into civilian society (Loveman, 1999: 236).

In contrast, in Colombia, where a strong tradition of subordination of the military to civilian control had strengthened the position of the country’s political parties, it was possible to avoid an intervention by the military in the political arena and to maintain a nominal electoral democracy during this period. However, Colombia’s civilian authorities unfolded a militarism that pursued the same goals as other Latin American regimes under the logic of the Cold War and US alignment, granting considerable power to the military and implementing measures to militarize society in order to contain communism in all stages of its possible development.

For Francisco Leal, this was possible owing to the familiar legal concept of the estado de sitio (state of exception). In the Colombian context, the ‘state of exception’ was rooted in a constitutional directive that emanated from the Colombian Constitution of 1886, which allowed the president to temporarily limit or abolish political and civil rights in the event of extraordinary situations of insecurity or violence that might threaten the structure of the state (Leal, 2006: 69–71). Moreover, under such circumstances, any president could enact laws or decrees considered necessary for restoring the rule of law. The declaration of a state of exception was used systematically from the late 1940s until the promulgation of a new constitution in 1991, and it proved useful for militarizing various societal arenas and governmental institutions to confront emerging threats, diminishing civil rights without causing a break with the constitutional order. Thus, formal democratic elections did not cease to take place, nor was democratic freedom erased. However, successive presidents made an appeal to exceptional conditions during periods of chaos to delineate a militarism that oscillated between ‘exceptionalist’ and ‘nation-statist’ (under civilian control) in order to mobilize resources, human power, and institutions towards the internal front (Mabee and Vucetic, this issue).

Thus, owing to the extensive influence of the country’s political parties, militarism retained its civilian nature in Colombia, with separate roles for the civil and the military. However, the civilian authorities implemented a number of measures that implied a militarization of Colombian society, some of which remain evident today. One of the most relevant examples in everyday life was a process of militarization of the police whereby its roles and missions were mixed with those of the army.

During the peak of the violence in the early 1950s, Colombia’s police forces (i.e. law enforcement) had a civilian nature and were responsible to subnational authorities. During the partisan struggle between the Liberal and Conservator parties, however, local authorities used them to prosecute their opponents. One of the first measures of the military dictatorship was the initiation of a process of nationalization of the police forces, which were attached to the Ministry of War in 1953 as the fourth branch of Colombia’s armed forces (Llorente, 2005). With this step, the police corps began to progressively acquire a military character in terms of training, hierarchy, chain of command, and military jurisdiction, along with uniforms and equipment that were similar to those of their army counterparts. Later civilian governments opted to preserve these features, arguing for their utility in the maintenance of public order. Nonetheless, in 1960 the National Police was separated from the military as an independent force but remained subordinate to Ministry of War, which was headed by an active military officer, usually the top-ranking officer in the military hierarchy, implying a militarized structure and response (Leal, 2016).

In the following years, the National Police managed urban security; however, owing to Colombia’s internal war, from the mid-1960s its role and missions were intertwined with those of the military at the request of the civilian authorities – a situation that continues to the present day. Thus, the police and the military carried out similar missions despite the differences in their legal status (Cifuentes, 1994). Among these were urban and rural foot patrols, checkpoints, and surveillance activities. Moreover, in the context of the war against an internal enemy, and under the justification of preventing possible terrorist attacks, both types of forces could ask for identification papers, search one’s belongings, and even detain any citizen, regardless of gender, age, or ethnicity. During such procedures, all individuals were regarded with equal suspicion, except those who were seen as wealthy.

Similarly, between the 1970s and 1980s, police officers began to be equipped with uniforms and equipment similar to those of the army, a development that has only increased in recent years. As a result, it became extremely difficult for the ordinary citizen to differentiate between the police and the army, particularly in sensitive areas (Vargas, 2002). Colombia’s citizens have been exposed to a militaristic deployment across the country that has become normalized, with militarization of the police and routine activities of the army everywhere, even in the most ordinary neighborhoods. The legacy of this process is that now no one seems to find such episodes disturbing, and the joint police–army is the unique visible state actor. According to my own field observations, in order to avoid being considered suspicious, ordinary citizens have learned to modify their behavior in public, avoiding confrontations with the authorities, walking in straight lines, and keeping their hands and faces in full view at all times. This is an example of how people can progressively come to accept militarism in their everyday lives, in this case owing to a situation of domestic armed conflict.

Security, war euphoria, and the road towards extreme civilian militarism

Latin America began the 1990s with a number of expectations. The Cold War had ended, and several internal conflicts and dictatorships in the region were drawing to a close. Although Colombia enacted a new constitution in 1991, its internal war continued, despite a negotiation process that led to several insurgent groups such as M-19, Quintin Lame, and the Workers Revolutionary Party of Colombia (PRT) laying down their weapons. At this time, the government began a crackdown on the biggest drug barons of the Medellín and Calí cartels, including Pablo Escobar. This task was assigned to the police, who were supported by US security agencies. Meanwhile, the military continued its campaign against the main insurgent groups throughout the country, particularly the FARC and the ELN (Torres, 2015: 289–320).

Owing to the challenges of the country’s internal war, the presidential authorities’ promotion of militarism through the ubiquitous presence of the military in Colombian society became increasingly apparent – not only as a result of the participation of all branches of the armed forces in efforts to confront threats across the country using military power, or propaganda aimed at convincing the population of the advantages of a hardline approach, but also through the granting of numerous civilian tasks to the military. These developments were partly made possible by widespread fear, unease, and the limited perspectives of the country’s political elites.

In the early 1990s, the concept of security began to appear as part of governmental discourse in Colombia in the context of the intensification of the War on Drugs that was being sponsored by the US government. Prior to this, problems generated by insurgent groups, drug-trafficking, criminal activities, and other threats to the peace and predictability of Colombian society (see Hettne, 2010) were regarded as ‘violence produced by’ and as problems that affected ‘public order’. The National Strategy Against Violence, the first presidential strategy launched by President Cesar Gaviria (1990–94), highlighted the principal concerns regarding problems of ‘violence’ in general terms (see Presidencia de la Republica, 1991). However, threats would be managed as matters of ‘military security’ to maintain the state’s survival or preserve the domestic order (Herring, 2007: 130–134), as had been the case during previous years.

Although this policy proved ineffective, it was subsequently refurbished under the title ‘Security for the People’, which purportedly called for an integrated approach to the problem of violence in order to protect the population. Nonetheless, this was an evidently military program that allowed an increase in both the human resources and the numbers of hardline actions directed against diverse types of violent actors, whose activities were on the increase, particularly the FARC and the ELN (Leal, 2006: 125). From the perspective of the presidency, then, military force was to be used as an instrument of dominance and political power against threats, which reduced the possibilities for a multidimensional treatment of problems and represented a shift away from any human security perspective (Bellamy and McDonald, 2002).

The second half of the 1990s was marked by chaos in Colombia. Between 1996 and 1998, the FARC carried out a consistent and forceful military offensive against governmental forces across the country, particularly in its southern regions, achieving important victories, attacking military bases, and even defeating one of the Colombian army’s elite units (Ortiz and Vargas: 2015: 283). Thus confronted by a range of political challenges, President Ernesto Samper (1994–98) granted total autonomy to the military to conduct a counter-offensive against insurgent actions. The initiative included a 10% increase in the numbers of military personnel over the previous period (to a total of 131,021), the creation of two mobile counterinsurgency units, and the funding of an autonomous air wing for the army, independent of Colombia’s air force (Dávila et al., 2000: 151). Above all, the president authorized the military to take control of some subnational governments (towns and villages), arguing reasons of security (El Tiempo, 1997). The results of the initiative, however, were limited, partly owing to poor coordination between the political and military spheres.

During this period, the concept of security began to be used on a daily basis by politicians, academics, and journalists. An examination of specialist journals such as Análisis Político and Colombia Internacional, as well as the newspaper El Tiempo, reveals constant references to ‘security’, though with varying definitions of the term. Despite calls for an integrated response to the continuing chaos, the government continued to focus on a military approach to the challenges it was facing, partly owing to the partial collapse of institutional structures in many parts of the country.

At this point, both politicians and the general public were deeply concerned about the intensity of the internal war and the possibility of the government’s defeat. Accordingly, President Andres Pastrana (1998–2002) adopted a combined military and political strategy in an effort to resolve the conflict. On the one hand he initiated a peace process with the FARC, while on the other he implemented the National Strategy for Coexistence and Citizen Security, an ambitious initiative that sought to involve citizens in security, both as a way of increasing their support and as an end in itself (Sanguino, 2016: 82–83). The most noteworthy facet of this program, however, was the restructuring of the military through the provision of new hardware, particularly helicopters and lightweight combat aircraft, along with the recruitment of new troops and the retraining of existing personnel, partly thanks to Plan Colombia, a military program sponsored by the USA that began in 1999 (Torres, 2015: 340–343).

Following the failure of negotiations with the FARC in 2002, the full military apparatus was deployed, now with more power than ever before. The campaign included a field testing of the new Rapid Deploy Force (FUDRA) and all heavy equipment, as well as bombing raids carried out by Mirage and Kfir aircraft in spectacular actions to recapture the area in Colombia’s southern jungles in which the negotiations had taken place (Bedoya, 2002). The military deployment enjoyed considerable popular support owing to widespread belief that the FARC had acted in a deceptive fashion and had no intention of ending the conflict by political means. One of Colombia’s hawkish intellectuals had earlier summed up the situation by saying that ‘Colombia’s only alternatives are either to win or to lose the war’ (Apuleyo, 2001).

As Victoria Basham (this issue: 40) puts it, in a situation full of threats and fear, militarism can thrive ‘precisely because militarism becomes a normalized feature of a chaotic world’. In such circumstances, and at the height of the ‘war euphoria’ that resulted from disappointment over the failure to achieve an elusive peace, Alvaro Uribe was elected to the presidency in 2002 on a platform based on ‘security’ – meaning a ‘war’ to resolve the issues of Colombia’s internal war, particularly the conflict with the FARC. Uribe’s political campaign had been characterized by an unprecedented openly bellicose discourse that was supported by the majority of voters at the polls, who elected Uribe in the first round of the elections. The following passage provides a useful description of Uribe’s political perspective:

The tradition of civilian rule should force us to recognize that the recovery of all public liberties depends on the recovery of order, and that order is based on the legitimate use of authority. In Colombia, we have an expression for this: fighting for security. (Uribe, 2002: 53)

Enjoying high levels of popular support, Uribe was able to implement a process of civilian militarism under the banner of ‘Democratic Security’ – a political program that advocated an intense militarization of the country to re-establish the state’s presence throughout Colombia’s various regions, with an emphasis on strengthening the armed forces and using military power to reduce the FARC’s combat capabilities via an increase in the number of troops and their deployment in the insurgents’ historical bulwarks, albeit under effective civilian control. In addition, Uribe raised taxes and increased the military budget, which reached 5–6% of Colombia’s gross domestic product, invoking the justification of exceptional combat needs (Otero, 2010). The institution of the military also took on an increasingly central role in the country as a whole, as an instrument of the ‘iron hand’ perspective that was now gaining support throughout Colombian society. Social acceptance of militarism was assisted by a ‘friend–foe’ tension that was promoted intensively by the president, who regarded any critic of either Democratic Security or himself as an enemy (see Echavarría, 2010).

Despite the inflammatory language that caused it to be rejected by some sectors of society, the effectivity of the Democratic Security agenda on the ground helped Uribe to win a second term of office in the 2006 elections, in which he promised a total victory over the FARC. This would prove elusive, however, because the group modified its tactics and returned to classical guerrilla operations (Dávila et al., 2016: 538–542). In response, Uribe and Minister of Defense Juan Manuel Santos authorized airstrikes on high-value FARC targets in 2007. With the systematic killing of a number of FARC leaders, this tactic became the spearhead of the government’s approach (Esquivel, 2016: 32–45). The aerial tactic proved effective both in securing popular support for the subsequent election of Santos as president in 2010, on the promise of a hard line against the FARC, and in later efforts to get the FARC to agree to peace negotiations with the government, which took place between 2012 and 2016. The peace talks, however, were not without their critics – particularly among Uribe’s more hawkish supporters – and some sectors of Colombian society continue to maintain a pro-military and bellicose stance and have not accepted a negotiated end to the internal war.

In recent years, thanks to a presidential initiative, one of the most important ways of consolidating the military’s presence within Colombian society has been to honor military personnel – particularly those who perform mandatory military service, partly because these have strong ties to ordinary people, which is useful for legitimizing military actions and giving them a more democratic sheen. Through such an approach, the image of the military and the military service has undergone significant modification, resulting in increased support for civilian militarism among low-income sectors of Colombia’s population. For decades, being a soldier had been seen more as a punishment than as an honor in Colombia, partly because of the inherent risk of active duty in the context of an internal war (Rodriguez, 2008).

Colombia’s existing military service program was established in the early 20th century. At that time, the majority of the troops came from rural areas. It was only in the 1970s, when the population density shifted to urban areas, that men from the cities began to form a significant proportion of the troops. Since 1993, with Law 48 on recruitment and mobilization (Republica de Colombia, 1993), the military service has been modernized, and it was declared compulsory and universal for all male citizens – though this goal was never realized, as members of the upper and middle classes were able to use bribery and the provision of false information to evade military service, in many cases thanks to institutional corruption. Thus, over the years, the burden of military service has fallen on the shoulders of low-income citizens (Las2Orillas, 2015).

When Uribe became president, in cooperation with the military high command, a campaign was launched to increase support for the troops through programs called ‘Soldier from My Town’ and ‘Touristic Caravans: Life Colombia, Travels Across Her’. The latter invited people to travel by road across dangerous zones that had been cordoned off by the army to prevent possible insurgent attacks, and at regular intervals a fully equipped and combat-ready soldier would be posted. People passing close by would honk their car horns, and the soldier would respond by giving the OK sign. A seemingly simple action, this established an important link between the general public and soldiers, and military service began to be seen as an honorable duty (though this did little to improve the numbers of recruits from the upper or middle classes). Interviews conducted with former soldiers revealed that, after military service, both they and their families were in favor of military actions to defeat insurgent groups. The procedure thus proved an easy and effective way to gain support for the Democratic Security agenda and its militaristic approach among marginalized sectors of Colombian society.

Conclusion

A clear conclusion of this article is that the fact that a country has democratic traits does not necessarily entail restraints on militarism. On the contrary, it is possible for elected civilian leaders to implement a strong process of militarization in the face of real or imagined challenges or threats, and this can be legitimized within the wider society through the steady and progressive introduction of militaristic values and actions in the political and social realms, whereby they become viewed as both legitimate and desirable (Basham, this issue). Colombia in the second half of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st century presents an extreme case of such a development. The process was assisted by the country’s internal war, which gradually inclined the population toward a militarism advocated by civilian leaders who called for decisive action against insurgent groups and other threats.

Colombia’s civilian militarism was built up over the years, reaching its epitome in the Uribe government. In some ways it proved its effectiveness in pushing the FARC to agree to negotiations during the Santos presidency, but also produced a sort of ‘silencing effect’ – a hyper-militarized self-confidence within society regarding how to address challenges that may prove problematic both in the upcoming peacebuilding scenario and in the context of relations with neighboring countries, particularly Venezuela.

In other words, in Colombia, framing counterinsurgency in terms of security facilitated civilian militarism – where the banner of ‘security’ meant ‘war’ – effectively collapsing distinctions between war and security in practice and enabling a highly militarized society. As an analytical concept, militarism appears to be a more flexible and holistic concept than security for understanding social relations and behavior in which violence and force are present. Nonetheless, as we have seen throughout this article, a discourse based on security was used to avoid talking about militarism in the Colombian case, owing to the latter term’s negative connotiations in the political realm, where it is closely associated with authoritarianism. In terms of practices, despite all the talk of security in Colombia, a number of measures implemented over the years have marked militaristic features.