Who Said the Cold War is Over? Thepolitical economy of strategic conflictbetween Venezuela and Colombia

JAMES F ROCHLIN

ABSTRACT The occasionally dangerous rivalry between Colombia andVenezuela can best be explained by the distinct developmental paths each haspursued since independence. Significant factors include the array of productiveforces in each country (eg oil in Venezuela versus illicit drugs in Colombia), therole of geographical features in relation to social forces and state structure, theextent of institutionalised conflict-resolution mechanisms, and the localisedeffects of a changing world order. The epistemological aspect is key here, sinceboth countries have strived in vain to achieve a modernist project, one thatincludes a stable state complete with the development of a sizeable middle classrather than populous extremes of poverty and extraordinary wealth, and theembrace of the nation-state as well as the cultivation of patriotism as theexclusive focus for political space and political identity. They have relied on anepistemic framework that emphasises binary thinking, zero-sum competitionand absolutist conceptions of human nature upon which to construct politicalregimes. At either extreme of this 180 degree ideological spectrum theideological battles between Colombia and Venezuela are the epitome of theinfamous ‘storms in a children’s paddling pool’ observed by Foucault inThe Order of Things.

Looking back, sometimes the old US–Soviet rivalry seemed so easy tograpple with compared to the perplexing epistemological gulfs apparent inWestern struggles in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Yet that kind ofnostalgia may obscure the gravity of ideological as compared to epistemo-logical battles. A case in point is the loudest strategic conflict in theAmericas—the contest between Colombia and Venezuela. This blast from thecold war past has entailed high political theatre and a multi-billion dollarembrace of deterrence theory.The occasionally dangerous rivalry between Colombia and Venezuela can

best be explained by the distinct developmental paths each country haspursued since independence, which has in turn resulted in ideologicalpolarisation between the two countries. Significant factors in their trajectory

James F Rochlin is professor, political science, University of British Columbia–Okanagan

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DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2011.560467 237

of development include the array of productive forces in each country (eg oilin Venezuela versus illicit drugs in Colombia), the role of geographicalfeatures in relation to social forces and state structure, the extent ofinstitutionalised conflict-resolution mechanisms, and the localised effects of achanging world order. The epistemological aspect is key here, since bothcountries have strived in vain to achieve a modernist project. That is, theyhave both strived towards a broad objective that includes a stable statecomplete with a Leviathan, the development of a sizeable middle class ratherthan populous extremes of poverty and extraordinary wealth, and theembrace of the nation-state as well as the cultivation of patriotism as theexclusive focus for political space and political identity. They have relied onan epistemic framework that emphasises binary thinking, zero-sum competi-tion, and absolutist conceptions of human nature upon which to constructpolitical regimes. At either extreme of this 180 degree ideological spectrum,the ideological battles between Colombia and Venezuela are the epitome ofthe infamous ‘storms in a children’s paddling pool’ observed by Foucault inThe Order of Things.1

As a result of the current constellation of factors these countries areunlikely to go to war or to engage for very long in policies that adverselyaffect their economies. While they are likely to contain the pernicious effectsof the conflict, both benefit from the perpetuation of ideological sparringbecause it deflects local tensions by demonising each other’s government. Weshall begin with an historical analysis that emphasises the 20th century,especially the years following the Cold War. There will be a special focus onthe factors that led Colombia’s Uribe and Venezuela’s Chavez to come tooffice, followed by an analysis of the rivalry between those two governmentsand its link to the world order. An analytical conclusion will follow.

Historical trends

During the struggle for independence from Spain Colombia and Venezuelainitially led a team effort to achieve Simon Bolıvar’s dream of a united LatinAmerica that could cope with challenges emanating from Europe and theascendant United States. Indeed, Colombia’s Jose de Paula Santander waselected vice-president of Bolıvar’s Gran Colombia in 1821. But it wasBolıvar’s Venezuela that clearly led the charge to achieve a united southernentity, with more Venezuelans losing their lives than people from any otherLatin American country in battles on its own soil and in other states it helpedliberate. By 1828 the two had fallen out, largely as a result of regionalrivalries and because of Santander’s apparent antipathy towards Bolıvar’spenchant for highly centralised politics.Here we have a first clue to what would become a more centralised

Venezuelan state in the 20th century versus Colombia’s trajectory towardshighly fragmented politics. This trend became clearer as the century playedout. Colombia’s penchant for fragmentation can be explained in part bygeographic barriers that isolated regions and led them to be economicallyself-sufficient and to view one another as rivals. The country’s Conservative

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and Liberal Parties essentially constituted parallel governments, and bothhoped in vain that the next civil war would establish their hegemony. Bycontrast, Venezuela’s rival military strongmen were able to achievepredominance for extended periods. But it would be the discovery of oil inVenezuela early in the 20th century that represented the most importantfactor in creating a strong state there.The dictatorship of the US-backed Juan Vicente Gomez, from 1908 to

1935, accelerated elements of Venezuela’s modernist project. He presidedover the beginning of a vast oil boom whereby the country became anexporter of petroleum in 1917.2 This quintessential military strongmancentralised politics to the extreme, including the obliteration of anyopposition and of the traditional Conservative and Liberal Parties of thepast century.3 Unions were also wiped out under Gomez.4 This had atremendous impact upon state formation, since a relatively strong stateapparatus was required to: 1) maintain order and repress dissent vis-a-vis anunorganised but volatile civil society that was witnessing the abrupttransition from a predominantly agrarian economy to an overwhelmingfocus on oil exportation; 2) cope with the demands of foreign and especiallyUS oil corporations, which possessed vast capital and knowledge; and 3)manage the economic and strategic policies of the US government. All thismeant a highly centralised state, a strong military, and the bureaucraticapparatus to manage the oil industry.5

The mainstay of Venezuela’s economy had shifted from agriculture to theexport of oil by the late 1930.6 With this came a vast new array of classes andsocial forces, and a fresh constellation of local political interests. As thesebecame organised, there were mounting demands for democracy. Venezuelaachieved its first democratically elected government in 1945. With the dawnof the Cold War the panorama changed for Venezuela as the country’s oilsupplies made it more important than ever for the US. American objectives inthis regard included preventing Venezuela from nationalising its oil,maintaining an environment of weak labour unions in the oil sector, andeliminating any leftist or communist influence in the country. By the end ofthe 1940s Venezuela had become the world’s largest exporter of oil, and theonly country in Latin America that permitted no restriction on the outflow ofdollars from transnational corporations (TNCs) engaged in the oil industry.7

The country had emerged as a global oil power at a juncture when worldconsumption would rise by 500 per cent between 1948 and 1972. The initialdemocratic government was short-lived, with the armed forces uncomfor-table with the transition and retaining decisive political power. A militarygovernment prevailed again between 1948 and 1958, after which time themilitary went back to barracks permanently for reasons to be discussedshortly. During the 1950s Venezuelan oil grew more precious for the US,given problems in the Middle East such as the Iranian crisis in 1954 andvarious difficulties in the Suez Canal.By the late 1950s a process of industrialisation was moving apace. New

social forces were forming in relation to an economy that was nowdominated by oil and pushing toward industrialisation. Urban social

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groups—now particularly important as Caracas had doubled in populationbetween the 1940s and the 1950s—pressed for a stronger political voice, andthe military finally yielded to democracy in 1958. This represented a decisiveturning point in Venezuelan history, as the country has remained democraticsince that date. The move to democracy meant a greater ‘government take’vis-a-vis petroleum-based TNCs, since Venezuelan civil society demandedmore social projects funded by the state. The newly elected Betancourtgovernment in 1958 raised the government take to 60 per cent from50 per cent. The centralisation, fortification and expansion of the Venezuelanstate rode on the back of the oil industry, and built upon incremental movestowards state centralisation in the 19th century. This was evident not only inthe politics and economics of the country during the 1950s, but within thecountry’s art world as well, where the debate over modern art was linked tonational identity.8

From the dawn of the 20th century to the Cold War: Colombia

While Venezuela was drawn into the global economy rather quickly in theearly 1900s thanks to its huge oil supplies, Colombia remained relativelyglobally isolated and peripheral. It slowly came into the fold beginning in1915 and into the 1920s. US interest grew in Colombia’s small oil sector andlarger mining industry. The country also rode a boom of the coffee exportmarket during this period. Colombia’s astonishing entrepreneurial talent wasobvious and began to grow in strides as the country faced the internationalmarket and made inroads towards industrialisation. The industrial sectorcomprised 8.9 per cent of the country’s GDP in 1930, rising to 16.5 per cent in1945. Global influences and ideas—particularly those associated withWestern modernity—grew considerably during this epoch of increased globalcontact. In addition, Colombia’s military matured from the Great Depres-sion through to World War II. Its armed forces grew substantially during theborder conflict with Peru in 1932–33, and this trend continued into the mid-1940s. The military began a process of professionalisation, with high rankingofficers typically being graduates of military schools. In contrast toVenezuela, the class origin of most officers was in close alignment with thewealthy oligarchs.9

The Liberal–Conservative rivalry that had punctuated the 19th centuryand erupted with the War of 1000 Days escalated again in the 1930s andreached catastrophic proportions with La Violencia between 1948 and 1958.The assassination on the streets of Bogota of the populist politican EliecerGaitan —a hugely popular Liberal who represented the interests of labourand who bemoaned rising inequity in a country infamous for it (ginicoefficients had risen from 0.45 in 1938 to 0.53 by 1951)—set into motion adecade of carnage reminiscent of the war a half century earlier. Some 100 000to 300 000 people died in La Violencia. Among other things, the episodeexemplified the utter failure and weakness of the state, the entrenchment ofviolence as the means to resolve conflict, exclusionary politics to the extreme,and the astonishing resilience of an 150-year-long pattern of political

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fragmentation and bloodshed. The social memory of almost perpetualpolitical violence has grown geometrically and has served to fuel furtherviolence, as it has, for example, in the Middle East.Amid heavy pressure from the US the ever-feuding Liberals and

Conservatives agreed to negotiate in Spain beginning in 1956 to reach apower-sharing agreement called the National Front. Implemented in 1958,it resulted in a consociational democracy whereby the Liberals would rulefor four years, the Conservatives for the next four, over a 16-yearperiod. While this meant a relative increase in state stability, the politicaldynamic of exclusion, perpetual political violence and a notoriouslyweak state continued. Inter-capitalist rivalry ended with the NationalFront, and immediately shifted to a new battlefield populated by the Leftand Right.

1958–89: illusive modernity—Venezuela

An oil boom commenced in 1944 as World War II was coming to an end andcontinued to make healthy increases until the late 1950s. The percentage ofgovernment income linked to oil rose significantly from 28.3 per cent in 1940to 65% in 1965. Hugely important during this period was the Venezuelangovernment’s foray into organising other major oil producing states topromote common interests. This required strategic and diplomatic skill onthe part of the state to an unprecedented extent. A major achievement wasthe formation of the Organixation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)in 1960, of which Venezuela was among the five founding members alongwith Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In that year Venezuela producedone-third of OPEC’s total oil production. During the same year as thatwatershed Venezuela created its first state-owned oil corporation, Corpora-cion Venezolana de Petroleo, placing it on a trajectory towards complete oilnationalisation. The state’s increasing fondness for nationalist policiesnaturally meant friction from oil companies, though they appreciated therelative politically tranquillity Venezuela could provide compared withMiddle Eastern countries.By 1970 Venezuela reached its historical peak oil production at about 3.7

million barrels daily. With the onset of the OPEC oil ‘crisis’ of 1973–74Venezuela cut production to between 2.2–2.3 million barrels daily until theend of the decade. The notion of reducing production was based not only ona quest to raise prices by trimming supply, but also upon the idea of thetransient nature of the oil industry. As Mommer notes, ‘It became anabsolute and unquestioned truth that oil, as a nonrenewable resource, wouldbe depleted within a matter of decades. . .A limited future—a postpetroleumVenezuela—seemed to lie ahead’. In 1976, a couple of years after theinitiation of the OPEC bonanza, the Venezuelan government nationalised thepetroleum sector. Lavish oil revenues allowed for increased state develop-ment and spending. Between 1970 and 1982 the ratio of the average incomeof the wealthiest 20 per cent of the population to that of the poorestdecreased from 23 to 1 to 18 to 1. As one Venezuelan analyst noted, ‘the

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material conditions of the majority of the population steadily improved,largely as a consequence of oil rents’.10

Ominously during this period the government borrowed hugely to promotesocial welfare programmes, to expand the state apparatus, and to invest inoil; it seemed as if the avalanche of petro-dollars would never end, so why notborrow money under such low interest rates and accelerate the process ofdevelopment? Total public external debt increased from US$1.7 billion in1975 to an astonishing $29.3 billion in 1980, when the country was the mostactive borrower in Latin America. Debt service as a percentage of exportsjumped from four per cent in 1976 to 27 per cent a decade later. By 1986, andwithin the context of a global economic contraction, oil production hadfallen to about 1.65 million barrels a day. The nominal price of world oil hadfallen from $32.51 in 1981 to $13.53 in 1986. Thus, debt increased, while oilproduction and prices decreased.Twinned with this was another problem that is far more complex: the

developmental distortions that tend to occur in major oil exporters of theMiddle East, Africa and Venezuela. As Terry Lynn Karl and others have sovividly shown,11 oil economies tend not to diversify, despite their expresseddesire to do so, since social forces that are linked to oil grow powerful andcan exert influence on the state to perpetuate the preponderance of thepetroleum industry. As a result the oil economy is amplified and the stateexpands—but agricultural and industrial activity remain peripheral. Further,oil states tend to over-value their currency to obtain more dollars for oil,thereby making the importation of goods and services so cheap that they hurtthe prospects of local manufacturing and agriculture. These impediments toeconomic diversification mean that, when a booming oil sector goes bust, thecountry’s political economy goes into a nosedive. For Venezuela, this meanta series of IMF rescheduling schemes beginning in 1986 before entering intoformal negotiations with the agency in 1989 to restructure its debt.The year 1989 spelled the implementation of neoliberal austerity policies.

The social programmes, job prospects, development schemes and all the hopeof the 1970s abruptly turned into a world of debt payments, cutbacks, joblosses and sharply reduced consumption. The era came to end—the quest formodernity had failed—when the ‘Caracazo’ occurred in 1989. This happenedduring the second presidency of Carlos Andres Perez (1989), when thepresident, who presided over the huge boom and spending of the 1970s, wasforced to implement harsh IMF austerity measures. Mass rioting broke out inCaracas on 17 February 1989 to protest at measures that included steep fuelincreases and rising public transportation costs. Citizens who thought the skywas the limit in the 1970s could not afford a bus fare at the end of the nextdecade. Hundreds were killed by security forces during the protest.

1958–89: illusive modernity—Colombia, subversive forces and illicit drugs

According to its own literature, key components of the Fuerzas ArmadasRevolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) emerged in 1950—during La Violen-cia—with a merging of Liberal guerrillas and communist ‘self-defence’

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units.12 In 1964 Jacobo Arenas of Colombia’s Communist Party joined with‘resistance’ forces, which included former Liberal guerrilla Manuel Mar-ulanda. The group existed in this form in 1964, and conducted its firstguerrilla conference in that year. But it did not officially assume its name until1966, when it had roughly 350 armed recruits.13 At this point Colombia’simbroglio rather belatedly shifted to a class war in the context of the globalCold War, and was steeped in the influence of the 1959 Cuban Revolution.FARC guerrillas concentrated in the departments of Huila, Cauca, Valle andTolima.The FARC represented agrarian farmers, or peasants, and placed land reform

and a redistribution of national wealth at the centre of its political agenda.Land ownership further concentrated in the 1970s and 1980s, as a result ofpopulation displacement from violence between the state and armed groupsand also as a result of increasing coca cultivation. Not only was landownership skewed towards the rich in the countryside, rural poverty wasestimated at 88 per cent in 1973.14 While gini coefficients improved from 0.55in 1964 to 0.48 in 1978, and the bottom 50 per cent saw their share of nationalwealth increase from 14.8 per cent to 18.6 per cent during those years, wealthremained highly concentrated.15 At this point the FARC was a classic LatinAmerican guerrilla group that represented peasants and the rural poor.Within a few years after the Liberals and Conservatives stopped fighting

one another, under the direction of the US they began to fight the FARC. Thecentrepiece of Washington’s intervention in Colombia during the 1960s wasPlan Laso, which aimed to reorganise the Colombian military to fight theguerrillas. It is worth emphasising that Plan Laso was the biggest US militaryaid package in Latin America until the Reagan administration’s interventionin Central America during the 1980s. As a result of Plan Laso the FARC lost70% of its arms and a significant portion of its soldiers between 1966 and1968. By 1968 the group had transformed into what it called a ‘mobile andvery clandestine guerrilla’ group.16 A decade later FARC membership hadswelled to 1000 soldiers, with the rebels building support in the countrysideand in urban regions. It is hugely significant that, by the late 1970s, the FARC

had been pushed militarily to concentrate its forces in the remote interiorjungles of Guaviara, Caqueta and Putumayo—these were exactly the regionsthat would serve in the 1980s and beyond as its lucrative base for coca growthand for its role in the enormous narco-trafficking industry.The FARC entered an entirely new era in the 1980s, when it transformed

from the classic Latin American peasant guerrilla group influenced by Castroand Che to a highly sophisticated belligerent force propelled from thebonanza it reaped from participating in narco-trafficking, extortion andkidnapping. At first the FARC served as the private security force for majorcocaine traffickers in the early 1980s. But because of an enormous ideologicalgulf between it and the entrepreneurial and right-wing cartel chiefs, the druglords proceeded to hire their own security forces and the FARC went its ownway. Since the mid-1980s the FARC has never admitted more involvement inthe narco-trafficking industry than taxing coca growers 10 per cent forprotection services and for the promotion of their interests. The FARC’s

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seventh conference in 1982 marked a major turning point for the group. In itsown words it had now transformed into an ‘offensive movement’ withnational designs.17 Its goals, later achieved, included the establishment of 48fronts, strategic flexibility and a sophisticated communication apparatus.Right-wing paramilitaries emerged as a major armed force as a result of

the narco-trafficking industry.18 By the mid-1980s they had become the majorsecurity wing of the country’s major narco-traffickers—thereby replacingcomponents of the FARC in this role. Their allegiance remained with(defending the interests of) the agricultural elite, but now ranching andtraditional agriculture took a back seat to narco-trafficking. By the late 1980sthe distinction between big farmers and ranchers, on the one hand, andnarco-traffickers, on the other, had become blurred. During the mid 1980snarco-traffickers invested their illicit wealth through the purchase of four tosix million hectares of land.19 They described themselves as defenders ofcapitalism in a country where the state was weak and there was noLeviathan.20 The paramilitaries have represented the interests of illicitnational capital, extractive corporations and have paralleled the strategicinterests of the US and Colombian governments through their combat withleftist guerrillas.A major watershed began in 1984 when the FARC launched a programme

of political development, with the creation of its political unit the UnionPatriotica (UP). This was designed to project the guerrillas’ power from thecountryside to urban areas and, most importantly, was intended to explorethe prospects for the group’s inclusion in ‘legitimate’ political structures. TheUP ran candidates in local and national elections, with its members winning14 congressional seats and numerous local positions in 1986. It was hopedthat an atmosphere of political inclusion would cement peace in the country,and would signify the illusive achievement of the institutionalisation ofconflict resolution. But that hope was ruptured completely with theassassination by paramilitary forces of some 3000 to 4000 UP members andcandidates between 1986 and 1992, including the 1990 murder of the UP’spoular presidential candidate, Carlos Pizarro Leongomez.In sum, Colombia’s National Front era suggested that conflict was

resolvable, and that the country could rid itself of the Liberal–Conservativerivalry that had torn it apart since independence in 1821. Under this view thestate would grow more powerful and aim towards the establishment of aLeviathan. This would occur within a modernist developmental frameworkwhere Colombia would work within the US strategic interests of fightingleftism and promoting transnational capital. All this would involve a stifflybinary ideological prism of right and wrong, a positivist lens, notions of clearprogress, the achievement of a democratic and centralised state, and so on.But that view did not come to grips with the underlying epistemological

dimensions of Colombian society. The essential problem was not historicLiberal–Conservative rivalry—that was simply a symptom of a widerproblem whereby violence had become entrenched as a socially acceptableway to deal with political conflict, where exclusionary politics were the norm,and where space was conceived not in national terms but through fragmented

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regions or city states. The problem was epistemological: Colombia did not playby the modern assumptions that underpinned its planned political trajectory. Itcould not conceive of institutionalising conflict resolution through the state,and continued to use violence to deal with conflict—only the actors changed,not the game. Within this context and especially since the advent of narco-trafficking in the 1980s had bolstered the armed force of belligerent groups, thestate’s progress towards the achievement of a monopoly on the use of forceremained elusive by 1990. A feudal sense of space, compounded by the absenceof the state in almost 50 per cent of the country, exacerbated politicalfragmentation. Political time seemed to constitute a nearly unending war in thecountry, weaving within the population bitter historic memories and unsettledscores. The project that had begun with the National Front failed to recognisethe epistemological dimensions of Colombian society at the time, and could notchart a feasible policy to achieve its modernist project. The result is that thealmost 130-year war between the Liberals and Conservatives that ended withthe National Front in 1958 had turned into one of the Americas’ most bitterclass wars by 1990.

Colombia—the 1990s

With the failure of the UP experiment Colombia sank into its darkest decadesince La Violencia. In the wake of the assassination of thousands of leftistswho had attempted to work through the ballot box rather than throughguerrilla movements, the message received by the FARC was that there was noway to work with or through the state. While the FARC could weaken thestate in armed combat, it could not defeat it. During its eighth conference in1993 the rebels planned a major military advance by the late 1990s and aimedto increase the number of their fronts by 15.21 By 1996 the FARC hadlaunched devastating attacks against the country’s armed forces, which werepoorly trained and organised. To the astonishment of outside observersPresident Pastrana granted the FARC a parcel in the jungle the size ofSwitzerland that the rebels insisted they needed to enter into serious peacenegotiations with the government. Armed confrontations between the FARC

and the military grew from an average of about 150 annually during 1985–90,to about 400 annually for most of the 1990s.22 By the late 1990s the FARC hadan estimated 17 000 troops organised into over 60 fronts. It had the politicalsupport of coca growers, peasants, radical students, and so on. This was thehigh point of the FARC’s trajectory, when it had enough clout to host a visitin 1999 of the Chairman of the New York Stock exchange.The right-wing paramilitaries witnessed an even stronger arc of growth

during the 1990s. According to Colombia’s Ministry of Defence, theyballooned from 93 soldiers in 1986 (the beginning of the UP) to 8150 in2000.23 They grew from disparate armed groups into a major political forcewith the formation in 1994 of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).Although concentrated in Cordoba and Uruba initially, they expandedgeographically and had a clear influence over national strategy and politics.They worked at the behest of right-wing narcotraffickers and had as their

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strategic enemies leftist guerrillas—the same enemies as the US and theColombian government. The growth of paramilitary forces over the 1990scorrelated with a sharp increase in violent human rights abuses. US datashow, for example, that human rights violations attributed to theparamilitaries grew by 100 per cent between 1995 and 1996. In 1997 theywere responsible for 69 per cent of assassinations in Colombia, and hadcaused about one-third of the country’s population displacement by 2000.24

It was noted that the spectacular growth during the 1990s of the country’stwo belligerent groups, the FARC and the AUC, were linked to the country’sillicit drug industry. The United Nations Organization for Drug Controlnotes that the number of hectares of coca bush expanded almost 10 timesfrom an estimated 37 500 in 1991 to 363 300 in 2000.25 Production ofColombian cocaine is estimate to have increased from 201 metric tons in 1994to 695 metric tons in 2000, causing a vast increase of global supply that ledthe street price of one gram of cocaine to drop by half, from an average of$74 on US streets in 1991 to $36 by 2000.26 This weakened the Colombianstate to the point that its project of modernity introduced in 1958 had totallyfaded. The narco-industry corrupted an already feeble state, empowered non-state belligerent actors, and politically isolated the country globally.The rise of guerrilla and paramilitary warfare, the expansion of the

illicit economy and the feeble nature of the Colombian state combinedto take a vast toll on Colombia’s economy in the 1990s. Capital investmentas a percentage of GDP declined from about 26 per cent in 1993 to just under 13per cent by 1999. During those same years GDP went from nearly six per centgrowth to a steep decline of more than four per cent.27 Net external debt jumpedfrom about $10 billion in 1990 to nearly $25 billion a decade later.28

Venezuela—the 1990s

Even before 1989’s Caracazo the seeds of discontent had been sown in keypower structures of Venezuela, including the military. In 1982, the year theLatin American debt crisis emerged, Hugo Chavez and two other militaryofficers, Felipe Acosta Carles and Jesus Urdaneta Hernandez founded theMovimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario 200, which began the action thatled to the 1992 coup and Chavez’s election in 1998. According to Chavez, in anow famous speech given at the University of Havana in 1994:

We had the audacity to found a movement within the ranks of the Army ofVenezuela. We were tired of the corruption, and we swore to dedicate our livesto the creation of a revolutionary movement and to the revolutionary strugglein Venezuela, straight away, within Latin America. We started doing this theyear of the bicentenary of the birth of Bolıvar.29

Not only had public support for the state eroded over perceived corruptionand mismanagement on the part of the government, its legitimacy wasfurther weakened by growing and important divisions within the military. Asa respected military analyst has noted, ‘The Venezuelan military is subject tominimal institutional civilian oversight’.30 With this context, middle and

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lower ranking members of the military—who were able to relate to the effectsof the politico-economic crisis witnessed by family and friends—began toshow growing support for Chavez’s movement. He observed that the growingmasses of poor ‘cannot buy meat; they cook banana peels. . .The basic cost ofa week’s food in Venezuela is approaching 60 000 bolıvares. The majority ofthose who work earn less than 20 000 bolıvares’.31 The fraying of the socialfabric, the economic crisis, and the perceived corruption of political leaderswho implemented neoliberal policies contributed to the coup of 1992 led byChavez. While it failed because of poor organisation, the wider significance isthat its core ideas resonated through much of society and the military.Chavez was released from prison in 1994, when his popularity continued tomount. There was a 40 per cent abstention rate in national elections thatyear, signalling escalating detachment of the population from the neoliberalgovernment.The economic portrait noted by Chavez is substantiated by the country’s

economic indicators during this period. Between 1981 and 2002 there were atotal of 12 years of negative GDP growth, and average per capita GDP growthwas 71.3 per cent during those years.32 Income distribution worsened underneoliberal arrangements, with the share of personal income among thepoorest fifth of the population falling from 4.7 per cent in 1987 to 3.7 per centby 1996, while the wealthiest 10 per cent witnessed an increase of 34.2 percent to 37 per cent. The percentage of households living below the povertyline grew from 31.3 per cent in 1989 to 60 per cent by 1998, when Chavez waselected. Exacerbating the effects of growing poverty and inequity, inflationranged between 31.4 per cent and 99.9 per cent between 1989 and 1998.33

Venezuela in the new millennium: from two pillars of power to three

There is no question that Chavez’s election in 1998 with 56.2 per cent of thevote signalled a major left turn in Venezuelan politics. The 1999 Constitutionwas the first in the country to be approved by referendum (with 72 per cent infavour). The state was restructured to enhance the power of civil society andof the president. The previous executive–bicameral-legislature–judicialstructure was transformed into five components: the executive (nowexpanded to six years in office from five), a unicameral National Assembly(legislature), a judicial branch, and two new organisations to representpopular social forces, the electoral and citizens’ branches. The name of thecountry was changed to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, signalling anew nomenclature for Chavista ideology. Here the concept of ‘Bolivarian’was resurrected to translate the euro-centric ideology of Marxism of the 19thcentury to a South American framework that incorporated Marx’s concernswith class conflict and inequity with Simon Bolıvar’s struggle to liberateLatin America from Northern domination. It is on a par with Mariatequi’swork as homegrown South American Marxism.34

Like Bolıvar, Chavez has attempted to instil unity in Latin America tocombat the power of the North.35 Chavez’s emphasis on class struggle has farmore to do with Marx than with Bolıvar, yet the latter was clearly concerned

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with achieving social equality in a way that he perceived would supersede thelevel reached in either the US or Europe:

The citizens of Venezuela, governed by a constitution that serves to interpretNature, all enjoy a perfect equality. While such equality may not have been afeature of Athens, France, or North America, it is important for us toconsecrate it in order to correct the differences that our system demands thatequality be immediately and exclusively established and put into practice inVenezuela. That all men are born with an equal right to the benefits of society isa truth sanctioned by most wise men.36

The ‘Liberator’s’ focus on a the achievement of a strong centralised stateresonates with the current Venezuelan government, and Bolıvar’s reference toSpain as a ‘wicked stepmother’ is highly reminiscent of Chavez’s creative listof pejoratives to describe the ‘Empire’ of the US.37

One key area where Chavez appears to be distinct from Bolıvar is in therealm of leadership. Bolıvar warned against the dangers of the concentrationof power in a single person: ‘If a single man were necessary to sustain a state,that state should not exist’. Further, ‘The continuation of power in the sameindividual has frequently led to the demise of democratic governments. . .Thepeople grow accustomed to obeying him, and he grows accustomed to rulingthem, whence come usurpation and tyranny. . .our citizens should properly fearthe same ruler who has long ruled them will wish to rule them forever.’38

Indeed, the 2002–03 crisis was a watershed in Venezuelan politics thatcatalysed the extraordinary polarisation now apparent in the country. Thisperiod also witnessed the emergence of the cold war-esque tension betweenVenezuela and newly elected Colombian President Uribe, as well as with theUS. The coup occurred after Chavez had replaced the head of Petroleos deVenezuela, SA (PDVSA) in February 2002 with a leftist compatriot,prompting a slow-down at the huge oil company. A heated, three-day strikeby the opposition in April 2002—and the violence that followed—culminatedin a coup late on 11 April. Chavez returned to power just three days later,when supporters in Caracas took to the streets and paralysed urbanmovement along key arteries, including the road to the airport. The poorwere not about to see their champion exiled in a coup sponsored by thecountry’s wealthy elite. The US has not admitted any role in the coup.However, CIA documents demonstrate that Washington knew of the coupseveral weeks in advance.39 Shortly after the coup commenced US AssistantSecretary Otto Reich, who had met leaders of the coup in the months leadingup to it, urged Latin American governments to support the governmentcreated by coup leaders. Chavez told Larry King, ‘I saw my assassins’ duringthe coup and alleged that the US had ordered him killed.40

In an attempted to complete the process started by the failed coup,opposition forces implemented the failed business strike of December 2002 toFebruary 2003. The failed strike included the participation of PDVSA.Leading management figures in the petroleum company resented theinstallation of Chavez loyalists to key posts in the organisation and theincreasing influence of Chavez over PDVSA, and were sympathetic to US

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strategic interests in Venezuelan oil. Oil production fell to just 200 000 barrelsa day in January 2003—about five per cent of capacity. There waswidespread sabotage committed by strikers, a;though PDVSA has neverdocumented the exact extent of this. Since Venezuela depended so much onoil, the idea was to stop oil production and therefore bring the country to itsknees, prompting Chavez’s resignation. The government responded byputting in its own inexperienced workers to bring oil production up toaround one million barrels a day by the beginning of February, and up to 2.6million barrels a day by May 2003. Despite the government’s remarkableability to take over PDVSA in the aftermath of the strike, the economycontracted by nine per cent in 2002 and eight per cent in 2003 as a combinedresult of the coup and business and oil strike.With regard to the petroleum industry, Chavez fired about 18 000 of

PDVSA’s 40 000 workers—those who participated in the strike or who werenot viewed as absolutely loyal were dismissed.41 While loyalty was indeedsecured through this process, many of those fired had over a decade ofexperience. Some experts suggest that about 70 per cent of the white collarworkers at PDVSA had opposed the strike, while around 30 per cent supportedit—a ratio that was the inverse of that for blue collar workers.42 With thepurge of those who were not perceived as complete Chavez loyalists, thegovernment managed to stabilise production and then to integrate PDVSA

even more closely into the country’s redistributive goals. In his centrepiecepolicy of ‘oil sovereignty’ Chavez raised oil rents for TNCs from one per centin 2004, to 16.6 per cent in 2005 and then to over 33 per cent in 2006. In 2006Chavez announced that those companies wishing to participate in majorpetroleum projects, such as those in the bountiful Orinoco fields that areendowed with untapped reserves of up to 235 million barrels of oil, mustenter a joint venture with PDVSA whereby the state oil company owns 60 percent of the project (boosted from the previous 40 per cent) and has thecontrolling voice in decisions affecting it. That is in addition to mandatorypayments of 10 per cent of their total investment plus two per cent of theirannual total profits for the creation and support of social programmes.43 Thiscan come in the form of social projects, such as the construction of a comedorpopular or community kitchen, through technology and knowledge transfers,the sponsorship of a local social welfare programme, and so on.44 Theaverage ‘government take’ for Venezuelan heavy oil in 2007 was 86 per cent,compared with 53 per cent for the UK, 72 per cent for Ecuador, 85 per centfor Nigeria, 87 per cent for Russia and 95 per cent for Libya.45

The company must reinvest about $5 billion annually to maintainproduction levels, let alone develop new projects such as those in its Orinocofield. Chavez indicated his clear hope in summer 2010 that the price of oilwould not fall below $80. Nominal world oil prices, in average annual prices,rose from their low of $12.28 to between about $60 and $80 a barrel between2009 and 2010. By 2008 Venezuela’s production of 3.1 million barrels dailymatched 1998 levels. One expert indicated in 2010 that Venezuela coulddouble production to six million barrels daily within five years if it wished.46

The point is that the president’s ability to concoct a vast array of social

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programmes depended on prices about five to eight times greater than whenhe came into office. The country’s oil industry has also managed to attractneeded investment in the country’s Orinoco region, which may have more oilreserves than Saudi Arabia. China, which has seen its oil imports growby almost 500 per cent between 1999 and 2010, to 4.77 million barrels daily,47

loaned Venezuela $20 billion in April 2010 to develop projects in the Orinocoand elsewhere, on top of a similar $12 billion project already in place. China,which became Venezuela’s second largest trading partner at the end of2009,48 wishes to be repaid in oil, not money.Overall, the transformation of PDVSA entailed a refashioning of one of the

now three major pillars of power in Venezuela: 1) a drastic change of staff topurge those disloyal to the president in order to diminish the likelihood ofanother devastating strike; 2) an increase in the ‘government take’ andgovernment control over the oil industry; and 3) the incorporation of PDVSA

even more closely into the social and political goals of national development,state sovereignty and technological independence. This transformation wasachieved against the backdrop of crucial shifts in the world order. Amongthese were the commodity boom of the first decade of the new millennium,the growth of China and its extraordinary thirst for oil, and a globalrethinking of the role of the state given the failure of the neoliberal model andthe success of statist models of development such as in China.A second major pillar of power has also been transformed by the Chavez

government, namely the military establishment. All this has transpired sincethe coup. It involved some changes in military staff, but most importantlyinvolved the creation of ‘militias’—decentralised armed forces loyal to thepresident himself. Arms purchases were also accelerated. Overall the natureof national security threats was redefined after the coup. Let us examine someof the transformations that occurred.Shortly after the coup it was clear to both the president and the military

that the reality of Chavez’s staying power, and of the military’s divisionsand its potential to threaten democracy, would have to be addressed. Thepresident and the armed forces had to work together, and the first steptoward this was the voluntary retirement of certain senior members ofthe military.49 But given the obvious presence of divisions within thearmed forces, and of coup attempts in 1992 and 2002, a cursory cleansingof the military by itself was perceived as insufficient.50 This meant thecreation of popular militias, and of a general trend toward a moremilitarised society.The idea for the militias was based on Chavez’s popular support, as

evidenced by the hordes of his supporters who took to the streets to demandthe president’s return during the short-lived coup. The objective was to arm,organise and provide minimal training to supporters in ‘Bolivarian Circles’(local community groups) that would answer directly to the president, not tothe military. This meant that the military would face armed opposition frommilitias should elements within the military attempt a coup. Hence, a coup isless likely. Having the militias also meant that any outside military attackfrom the US, for example, would result in armed resistance, even if the senior

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members of the armed forces sided with Washington. Thus, an outsideinvader would be greeted with the likelihood of protracted civil war, loweringthe probability of this kind of intervention. To this extent the creation ofmilitias entailed the theme of asymmetric warfare. The first officialannouncement of this came early in 2005, when the head of Venezuela’sNational Defence Council, General Melvin Lopez, announced the country’scommitment to asymmetric warfare based on guerrilla tactics and theinvolvement of the local population into dispersed networks of militarysupport.51 This idea was further developed and the ‘Milicia Bolivariana’ (theBolivarian National Militia) was officially created in 2009.52 It represented anew branch of the military that would take orders from the president butwould be administered by the Defecse Ministry. Critics claim that the moverepresents a wider militarisation of society.53

With oil revenue comprising about half the government’s budget, and withprices escalating, Venezuela purchased about $4.4 billion worth of arms fromRussia between 2005 and 2007. The president announced in April 2010 aftera visit to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that Venezuela was purchasingmilitary products in the $5 billion range. Let us place these numbers incontext. Venezuelan military spending started to increase noticeably in 2004,the year after the tumultuous 2002–03 coup and strikes. However, as apercentage of its GDP, military spending has remained fairly constantbetween 2000 and 2008, ranging between 1.2 per cent and 1.6 per cent of itsGNP. Colombia, by contrast, has spent between 3.5 per cent and 3.8 per centof its GNP on the military during those same years, in addition to about $6billion in US military assistance under Plan Colombia. Thus, in terms ofactual dollars spent and in terms of military spending as a percentage of GNP,Colombia has far exceeded Venezuela. From Venezuela’s perspective, themajor threat to the country is the two-pronged fear of general US militaryintervention and of the huge US presence in Colombia since theimplementation of Plan Colombia and the movement of US forces frombases in Ecuador to Colombia in 2009.Overall the Chavez government reacted to the threats apparent in the

2002 coup by transforming the country’s two pillars of power—the oil andthe military—and by creating a third pillar of popular forces that affect theother two. This has been on display since Chavez’s initial election, when hebecame the first in Latin America to mobilise the poor majority throughdemocratic structure: if the majority are poor, get them to vote, createpolicies that favour them, and provide them with a political voice. This hasallowed the majority poor population to alter the basic structures of thecountry’s political system to favour the poor. It has been accomplishedwithin the analytical context of entrenched class conflict, where thepresident’s empowerment of the poor is viewed as a cold war-esquestruggle to fight the local ‘oligarchs’ and the Empire (the US). What is clearis that Chavez has clearly altered the balance of power in the country, andhas done so through a ‘Bolivarian’ framework that seems synonymous withMarxist approaches, with its reliance on class analysis, dialectic andinevitable contradictions between classes and states, strong state structures,

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and heavy ideological indoctrination. It represents a clearly modernistapproach to development.

Colombia in the new millennium

There have been three noteworthy trends regarding Colombia in the newmillennium. First, and most noteworthy, has been the shift from the relativechaos of the 1990s to a more ordered environment that began to take shapein 2000 through the implementation of Plan Colombia.54 Second, the countryemerged as Washington’s key South American ally and the major site of USmilitarisation in the region. A third and related trend concerns growing USand northern interest in Colombia’s extractive sector in the context of acommodity boom, and Colombia’s newfound reputation for TNC-friendlypolicies.Given the horrendous violence, political vacuum and economic regression

of the 1990s, the Colombian population sought a more orderly environment.While Chavez appealed to the majority population of Venezuela throughredistributionary leftist policies, the US and the Uribe government won overthe majority population of Colombia—or at least the majority of the roughly50 per cent who voted in presidential elections—through the promise ofincreasing order and security. That is, the spectre of stability, order andreduced violence appealed to the Colombian population at large, regardlessof class. To this extent it was a right-wing populist appeal, and a mirrorimage of the Chavez show. The establishment of greater order and stabilitywas also related to growing transnational corporate interest in Colombia,especially in the extractive sector.Plan Colombia was approved by the US Congress in July 2000, and was

formulated shortly after Washington woke up to the implications ofColombia’s descent in the 1990s, when the Pastrana government in 1998ceded a Switzerland-sized piece of Colombian territory to the FARC. At theoutset Plan Columbia involved the planned provision of $7 billion in mostlymilitary assistance to Colombia between 2000 and 2006, although only about$4.7 was allotted during that period. The country was the third largestrecipient of US military aid until the costly US invasion of Iraq. PlanColombia is particularly significant since it incorporated a new strategicapproach featuring dimensions of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA).While that concept had been associated with US–Soviet strategic policy andwith the Middle East, the Colombian case introduced the clear associationbetween the RMA and US policy in Latin America. This occurred within abroader context in which the FARC was recast by Washington from beingcommunist guerrillas to being terrorists—demonstrating the pivotal effect of9/11 on US policy. In 2002 President Bush praised Colombia’s PresidentPastrana for fighting ‘terrorism’ in his country.55

Colombia became a theatre for the testing of the RMA to fight insurgents inLatin America. The RMA entails a synergetic combination of a number offeatures, including asymmetric warfare, the privatisation of war, complexity,shifts in organisation and identity and, as we noted above, an amplified

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element of fear and terror. With regard to asymmetric warfare, for example,the Colombian army was now trained to fight in smaller units capable offighting on any terrain, day or night. Mobility and rapidity were key. Beyondchanges to the military, the increasing potency of paramilitary forces was theclearest example of the reliance on asymmetric war by the Colombian and USgovernments. These forces grew to the tens of thousands, with some 31 000AUC forces demobilised between 2003 and 2006 in what turned out to be ashell game. They were essentially right-wing guerrillasWhile the use of paramilitary forces is emblematic of asymmetric warfare,

it is also an element of the broader theme of the privatisation of war, sincethey are officially not part of the state and they are privately funded. TheRMA also entails the blurring between crime and war, and its relation is clearin Colombia since belligerent forces are fuelled by the illicit drug trade (asthey also are in Afghanistan, for example). The privatisation of warfare isalso apparent in Colombia’s reliance on private contractors. Plan Columbialimits the use of US contractors to 600 at any given time—although there isno independent agency to ensure accountability to this figure. Finally, it isworth emphasising that the private military corporation MPRI was awarded a$4.3 million contract in 1999 by the US government to provide advice on howto structure warfare in Colombia—thus Plan Colombia was designed in partby a private entity.Ultra-surveillance and complexity are also a key part of the RMA and have

been on vivid display in Colombia. Plan Columbia has included real-timesatellite surveillance, radar surveillance, night-vision equipment and closervigilance of internet sites. For example, the Plan includes Plataforma aircraftthat come equipped with heat sensors capable of detecting human activity,even at night. An extensive ground-based radar system surrounds Colombia.But despite the creativity and technology, there are clear and sometimessurprising limits. While satellite surveillance has the capacity to spot humanactivity on the ground at a resolution of between one and nine meters, it oftencannot penetrate fog or thick jungle foliage. Further, it can have the effect ofpushing guerrillas into urban environments than cannot be surveyed.Complexity is another element of the RMA, which suggests multi-causality,as well as plural and sometimes unpredictable effects of actions. Perhaps theclearest example of this in Colombia concerns fumigation of coca crops withglyphosate. Not only are its ecological effects unclear, it has driven peasantsinto supporting the FARC since their livelihood is destroyed by fumigation.56

While one could continue at length regarding the security situation andPlan Colombia, suffice it to say here that the Plan has diminished the relativepower of the FARC. This is not to say that the FARC is broken or that it couldnecessarily be defeated in the near future. But various dimensions of the RMA

have limited their mobility, their communications and their ability to recruit.The government estimated in 2010 that FARC military members decreasedfrom around 20 000 in 2000 to 8000 in 2010. While those numbers aredebatable, most experts agree that the FARC’S numbers have diminishedmarkedly. About 22 000 members of the FARC and other leftist groups havedemobilised during that period.57 Further, the bombing in Ecuador in March

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2008 of a FARC camp, which killed second-in-command Raul Reyes, and thedeath by natural causes of FARC leader Manuel Marulanda, dealt severeblows to the rebel organisation. So, too, did the killing by Colombian armedforces of FARC strategist ‘Mono Jojoy’ in September 2010. Rather than thepower vacuum of the 1990s, when the FARC and other rebel groups appearedto be in the ascendant, the millennium saw the increasing achievement ofpolitical order and a stronger state in Colombia.While one dimension of the social order in Colombia was established

through relative progress with regard to the country’s armed conflict, therealso were improvements made with regard to a reduction in crime. Forexample, kidnappings fell from a high of 3572 in 2000 to 172 during the firstnine months of 2009. Homicides dropped by half from Uribe’s inaugural year2002, when there were 29 000 murders, to 15 817 in 2009. Basic travel alongthe country’s highways became safer, permitting people to travel by land in away they had not done for years. Moreover, the electoral system becamemore secure, as evidenced by the leftist Polo Party’s successful participationin both the 2006 and 2010 federal elections without the array of carnage andmayhem that characterised the Union Patriotica’s experience in the late 1980sand early 1990s. As with the mellowing of the armed conflict, the reduction incrime had a cross-class appeal.That is not to deny the serious problems that continue to plague the

country in this regard. For example, a respected human rights networkalleges that 532 young men and boys died in the ‘false positive’ scandal in2007–08, where innocent civilians were murdered by army members and thenfalsely identified as FARC members.58 Another scandal, the ‘para-politica’,linked key members of the country’s government—including members ofCongress, the country’s intelligence agency, and so on—to right-wingparamilitary death squads and narco-traffickers.59 More than 60 per centof global assassinations of union members occur in Colombia, with 29murders of Colombian unionists in the first six months of 2010. A total of498 unionists were murdered during Uribe’s tenure from 2002 to 2009. Therehas been a 95 per cent impunity rate regarding the 2709 assassinations ofunion members between 1986 and 2008. While murders of trade unionistsdeclined from 101 in 2003 to 17 in 2009, others kinds of crimes against labourincreased. For example, between 2007 and 2008 there was a 97.1 per centincrease in death threats and a 52.4 per cent increase in forced displace-ments.60 In other words, while murders are down, it is the same game of fear,stigmatisation, and intimidation to exclude the political role of unions.61

Thus, while improvements have been made on some fronts, as noted earlier,violence in Colombia remains a tool for historically entrenched politicalexclusion.Let us continue the discussion of the extent to which the Colombian

political economy has become more orderly. Given the carnage and chaos ofthe 1990s, we observed that the economy had faltered as the decadeprogressed. In many ways Colombia has emerged as the last bastion ofneoliberal economics in South America. Foreign investment in the countryincreased from $2.1 billion in 2002 to a decade high of $10.6 billion in 2008,

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falling to $7.2 billion in 2009. Foreign investors have appreciated thecountry’s business-friendly policies, especially in the form of low taxes and agenerally low ‘government take’. In the crucial oil sector, for example, the‘government take’ is on a sliding scale from five per cent to 25 per cent, farbelow Venezuela’s 86 per cent.62 This is significant because Colombia’s oil isseen by some TNCs as a more business-friendly alternative than Venezuela.Ecopetrol, the Colombian oil company, estimated that oil production willrise to 1.2 million barrels daily in 2012 from an average of 672 000 in 2009.63

As a percentage of exports, fuel exports rose from 30.1 per cent on averageduring the 1990s to 38.7 per cent in 2000–08, while manufacturing exportsrose from 30.1 per cent to 36.5 per cent during that period.64 On balance, the‘legitimate economy’ in Colombia is not its only source of cash. The illicitsector continued to boom in the new millennium, with the country remaininga kingpin of the global cocaine industry.65

Generally the economy grew during much of Uribe’s tenure, although thepost-2007 crisis has deeply affected Colombia. GDP growth rose from 2.5 percent in 2002 to a high of 7.5 per cent in 2007 but shrank by 0.4 per cent in2009. Leaving aside the lower figures associated with the global economiccrisis, we observe a double trend whereby Colombia became more business-friendly, especially in the extractive sector, which painted a rosy macro-economic picture. However, despite a period of growth, inequity increasedand poverty remained at high levels. Out of the country’s 44 million people20 million remain below the poverty line, with an additional eight millionliving in extreme poverty. Although the level of poverty fell from 53.7 percent of the population in 2002 to 46 per cent in 2008, the level living inextreme poverty rose from 15.6 per cent to 17.8 per cent during that period.The United Nations Habitat organisation indicated that gini coefficients rosefrom 0.58 to 0.59 between 2005 and 2008, making Colombia the second mostinequitable country in Latin America.66 Unemployment levels in Colombiaduring 2010 are among the highest in Latin America.

Conclusion

This analysis has emphasised the dimensions of political economy and ofepistemological structures as key to explaining the distinct paths ofdevelopment followed by Colombia and Venezuela, as well as the profoundstrategic tension between them. The issue of what each country has producedhas figured strongly in security matters, as has the system of thoughtapparent in both countries, and these have been strongly influenced by theworld order. Hence there is a triangular relation between the politicaleconomy of the world order, epistemological influences, and the politicalstructures of states. In the cases at hand the Spanish determined the value ofmetals and agricultural products from Latin America during the colonialperiod, and once independence was achieved both countries floundered asthey attempted to create their own political structures and to find a place inthe world economy. Spain left a pre-modern epistemological imprint onVenezuela and Colombia, as evidenced by feudal economic arrangements, a

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politically powerful Church, with divinity being the primary source ofknowledge, the spatial tendency toward city-states rather than nation-states,and so on. It wasn’t until the 20th century that both countries found a placein the global economy, and were bombarded by ideas linked to modernity.Venezuela took the lead in this regard, having connected to the global

market early in the 20th century thanks to its oil-based economy, which wasassociated with the dawn of Fordism. This fostered centralised politics and aformidable state structure, as well as a big desire to complete the modernproject with a diversified economy, a large middle class, the cultivation ofpatriotism, and an emphasis on positivism and linear progress. Progresstowards that dream has waxed and waned. It looked like Venezuela mightreach its goal during the euphoria of the 1970s, only to cascade to the despairand hopelessness of the 1980s and 1990s. The dream was revived by HugoChavez within a highly traditional modernist approach. Embracing old-school Marxism under the guise of Bolivarianism, Chavez clung to binarythought by seeking to achieve modernity through capitalism’s polar opposite.He has demonised his diametric opponent, Colombia, through the crudestbinary lens, and similarly has relied on deterrence theory to neutralise hisideological nemesis in a zero sum game. A celebration of the notions ofabsolutism, positivism, linear progress, as well as political space and identityderived from the nation state, has underpinned Chavez’s policies.Colombia, by contrast, connected with the global economy much later—it

wasn’t until the late 1970s and into the 1980s that it began to dominate theillicit transnational drugs trade. While its coffee and commodities found theirway to the global market early in the 20th century, it wasn’t until the adventof narco-trafficking that the country embraced the global economy in amanner that created a big political splash. It is Colombia’s legacy ofentrepreneurial dynamism, of a weak and absent state, and of relatedpolitical fragmentation enhanced by geographic features which help explainthe country’s role as the world’s kingpin of the cocaine trade. We noted thatit lacked some of the modern developmental features achieved by its rival,Venezuela. Colombia, for example, never achieved the centralised nation-state structure apparent in Venezuela since at least the 1970s and probablyearlier. It clung to pre-modern conceptions of territory as recently as 1998,when President Pastrana ceded to the FARC a piece of land the size ofSwitzerland. Until this millennium, it was difficult to cultivate a politicalidentity based on patriotism when the state was absent in half the country’sterritory, and when political legitimacy was contested to the extreme. Indeed,it has been the US, through President Uribe, that has boosted Colombia inthe direction of modernity since 2000. Suddenly a clearly identified set ofgoals framed the country’s political prism. These included a struggle towardsthe achievement of a Leviathan, the fortification of a centralised state presentthroughout the country, the cultivation of nation-wide patriotism, and thecommitment to stripped-down Chicago school capitalism. These wereaccompanied by absolute conceptions of good and bad and of friend andenemy, and by the same binary framework mentioned earlier in theVenezuelan case. Indeed, Colombia and Venezuela have found themselves

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on opposite ideological poles, while sharing an identical epistemologicalframework. While the perversions of a petro-state derailed Venezuela’sModernist approach, Colombia’s ideal of Modernity has been unreachable ina context of pronounced social fragmentation and violence.What are the strategic implications of the current juncture and what are

the feasible prospects for conflict resolution? Despite the billions of dollars inarms spending over the past decade, as well as the inflammatory and loudsaber-rattling, the notion of a war between Colombia and Venezuela remainshighly unlikely in the short to medium term. Their embrace of deterrencetheory has ensured that a major armed conflict would mean a costly mess forboth, and would probably result without any clear victor. Both countrieswould exhaust themselves militarily, and both would probably fall into civilwar or instability: Venezuela’s militias and Bolivarian circles would fightagainst any military power wanting to reverse the revolution; guerrilla groupsand paramilitary forces would go on the ascendant in Colombia and attemptto push their agendas militarily while the state was preoccupied by its hugeengagement in Venezuela.The close economic dependence between the two countries means that

ideological and political spats cannot last very long without the necessity ofurgent diplomatic niceties to avert economic crisis, especially at a time ofglobal financial weakness. A case in point was the rush in mid-2010 forChavez and new Colombian president Santos to re-establish diplomatic andpolitical ties to reverse the economic damage their political estrangement wasgenerating. Their position as geographic neighbours, and with a comple-mentary roster of products, spells an economic reality of correct politicalrelations between them.While economic necessity and strategic practicality demand that war must

be avoided and diplomatic channels remain open, ideological scrapping willpersist and serious conflict will doutbless appear in fits and starts. There are avarious reasons for this. First, it fosters the political trick of deflecting publicattention from homegrown problems in each country by demonising thepolitical leadership of the other country. Second, because they occupy theextremes of the modernist framework, and have assumed the role of rivalshistorically, both countries possess a deeply ingrained ideological loathing forone another that is unlikely to subside in the near future.How does their conflict fit into the wider changes we are witnessing at the

level of world order? China’s interest in Venezuelan oil in particular, and inLatin American commodities more generally, has meant a growing politicalrole for Beijing in the region. China’s role is important as a highly successfulmodel of development distinct from that recommended by an increasinglyweak US. China’s economic clout has come at a time when the US isrelatively weaker economically in Latin America, since the economic crisis inthe former has limited its capacity to buy from Latin America and to investthere. This phenomenon dovetails with a related one: there has been anassertion of the South in the new millennium, as evidenced by the rising rolesof India and Brazil. Within this context the balance of power in LatinAmerica is rapidly changing. The US remains strong, but it will continue to

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lose relative power there to China and to local Latin American nations suchas Brazil. With regard to our two countries of focus, this means Venezuelahas a more favourable context within which to resist US influence. ForColombia it means that the US will use that country as its primary militarybase for South America in a manner aimed at countering leftist forces in theAndes while addressing the rapidly growing military power of Brazil.Because the two countries under consideration here have embraced

modern epistemes and related goals, one might have thought this conflictwould be easier to resolve than if we were dealing with protagonists from twodifferent epistemological systems. Colombia and Venezuela understand oneanother, but generally their governments loathe each another. As the coldwar era has shown, the heat of ideological wars can be as pernicious as battleswith an epistemological basis.

Notes

1 M Foucault, The Order of Things, New York: Vintage, 1970, p 262.2 B Mommer, ‘Integrating the oil: a structural analysis of petroleum in the Venezuelan economy’, LatinAmerican Perspectives, issue 90, 23(3), 1996.

3 J Molina, ‘Evolution of the party system in Venezuela, 1946–1993’, Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs, 40(2), 1998, p 5.

4 J McCoy, ‘Labor and the state in a party-mediated democracy’, Latin American Research Review,24(2), 1989, p 38.

5 See, for example, TL Karl, ‘Petroleum and political pacts: the transition to democracy in Venezuela’,Latin American Research Review, 22(1), 1987, pp 67–68.

6 MT Salas, ‘Staying the course: United States oil companies in Venezuela, 1945–1958’, Latin AmericanPerspectives, issue 141, 32(2), 2005, p 149.

7 Ibid, pp 151, 153.8 M Mayhall, ‘Modernist but not exceptional: the debate over modern art and national identity in 1950sVenezuela’, Latin American Perspectives, issue 141,vol 32, #2, 2005, pp 124–146.

9 J Rochlin, Vanguard Revolutionaries in Latin America: Peru, Colombia and Mexico, Boulder, CO:Lynne Rienner, 2003, pp 94–96.

10 E Lander, ‘Venezuelan social conflict in a global context’, Latin American Perspectives, issue 141, 32(2),2005, p 22.

11 TL Karl, The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States, Los Angeles, CA: University ofCalifornia Press, 1997.

12 Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Nuestra Historia, 2004, at www.farc-ep.org/aniversario/especial40aniv/textcrono.html, accessed 2 May 2005.

13 E Pizarro Leongomez, Las Farc 1949–1966, Bogota: Tercer Mundo, 1991, pp 198–199.14 N Richani, ‘The political economy of violence: the war system in Colombia’, Journal of Interamerican

Studies and World Affairs, 39(2), 1997, p 3; and H Kline, Colombia; Democracy Under Assault,Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995, p 10.

15 J Rochlin, Vanguard Revolutionaries in Latin America, p 99.16 FARC, ‘40 anos de la lucha por la paz’, May 2004, at http://www.farc-ep.org/aniversario/

especial40aniv/text10.html, accessed 10 January 2008.17 TNC, ‘30 anos de las Farc-Ep Manuel Marulanda Velez’, 27 May 1994, at http://six.swix.ch/farep/

Nuestra_historia/30_anos_manuel.htm, accessed 19 February 2006.18 They have roots dating back to 1965, when the government legislated self-defence groups to fight left-

wing guerrillas. Their social role expanded in the 1970s and especially in the 1980s. They began todefend the interests of wealthy and middle class landowners against guerrillas, and also protectedexecutives and the infrastructure of extractive corporations. Their profile heightened with theformation in 1981 of the Muerte de Secuetradores (MAS—Death to Kidnappers).

19 Richani, ‘The political economy of violence’, p 17.20 Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, ‘Discurso del Jefe del Estado Mayor de las AUC, Comandante

Salvatore Mancuse, en el acto de Instalacion Oficial del Proceso de Negociacion entre el GobiernoNacional y las Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia’, July 2004, at www.colombialibre.org/ver_imp.php?Varid¼6425, accessed 18 October 2005.

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21 FARC, Nuestra Historia.22 A Rangel, ‘El Repliegue de las FARC: derrota o estrategia’, Fundacion Seguridad y Democracia, 2004,

p 13, at www.seguridadydemocracia.org, accessed 26 March 2005.23 Government of Colombia, ‘Los grupos ilegales de autodefensa de Colombia’, National Army, Ministry

of Defence, December 2000.24 Rochlin, Vanguard Revolutionaries in Latin America, p 167.25 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC), World Drug Report, 2006, New York: United

Nations, 2006, p 14, Table 7: ‘Global illicit cultivation of coca bush and production’.26 UNDOC, World Drug Report, 2009, New York: United Nations, 2009, pp 199, 220.27 Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadısticas (DANE), ‘Indicatores Economicos’ (economic

indicators), various years, at www.dane.gov.co, accessed 7 June 2010.28 S Clavijo (member of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Colombia), ‘Viability of the

external debt: the case of Colombia over the 2000s’, mimeo, August 2001, p 7, statistics from CentralBank of Colombia.

29 For a critical discussion of this, see D Schoen, Hugo Chavez and the War against America, New York:Simon and Schuster, 2009, p 31.

30 D Norden, ‘Democracy and military control in Venezuela: from subordination to insurrection’, LatinAmerican Research Review, 33(2), 1998, p 150.

31 Quoted in ibid, p 159.32 A Solimano & R Soto, Economic Growth in Latin America in the 20th Century, Santiago: CEPAL,

United Nations, 2005, pp 15, 10.33 Statistics from World Bank,World Development Indicators, 1991, 1997, 1998, Washington, DC: World

Bank; the International Monetary Fund, www.imf.org (accessed 12 August 2010).34 JC Mariategui, Siete ensayos de interpretacion de la realidad Peruana, Lima: Empresa Editorial

Amauta, 1998.35 Simon Bolıvar, El Libertador – Writings of Simon Bolıvar, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

There are many places where Bolıvar emphasises the concept of unity to defend against Northern, orSpanish power. See, for example, pp 3, 7.

36 Ibid, p 39.37 Ibid, p 13.38 Ibid, pp 107–108, 37.39 New York Times, 3 December 2004.40 ‘Interview with Hugo Chavez’, CNN, 24 September 2009, transcript available at http://transcripts.cnn.-

com/TRANSCRIPTS/0909/24/lkl.01.html.41 Interview by author, Dr Francisco Monaldi, Director, Energy Programme, Instituto de Empresa South

America, Caracas, 21 September 2007.42 Interview by author, Dr Steve Ellner, Professor, Universidad de Oriente, Venezuela, 23 May

2010.43 Interview by author, Pedro Leon, General Manager, New Business Orinoco Oil Belt, Petroleo de

Venezuela SA (PDVSA), 17 September 2007.44 Interviews by author, Joseph Cedillo, Senior Advisor, Social Production Enterprises and Corporate

Management, PDVSA, Caracas, 9 August 2006; and Elar Diaz, Senior Advisor, Social ProductionEnterprises and Corporate Management, Caracas, 9 August 2006.

45 ‘Government Taxes and Petroleum’, Globe and Mail, 18 August 2007.46 Interview by author, Donatello Pitts, LatAm Energy Correspondent, Caracas, 27 May 2010.47 ‘China and Venezuela’, Globe and Mail, 20 July 2010.48 ‘China and Latin American Oil’, Wall Street Journal, 23 December 2009.49 Interview by author, Professor Domingo Irwin, Departamento de Ciencia Politica, Universidad

Catolico Andes Bello, Caracas, 18 May 2008.50 Interview by author, Professor Miguel Manrique, Director, Facultad de Ciencias Juridicas y Politicas,

Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, 12 March 2008.51 ‘Venezuelan Military Organization’, Miami Herald, 12 February 2005.52 Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Ley de Reforma, Decreto 6239, Gaceta Oficial de la Republica

Bolivariana de Venezuela, extraordinario no 5933, 21 October 2009.53 Interview by author, Rocio San Miguel, Directora, Control Ciudadano, Caracas, 22 May 2009.54 For a broader discussion of the RMA, see J Rochlin, Social Forces and the Revolution in Military

Affairs; and Rochlin, ‘Plan Colombia and the revolution in military affairs’, Review of InternationalStudies, 37(2), 2011, pp 715–740.

55 United States Department of State, ‘President Bush, President Pastrana discuss trade, terrorism,’George W Bush, President, Remarks with President of Colombia at the White House,’’ 18 April 2002,at www.state..gov/p/wha/rls/rm/9542.htm.

56 See Rochlin, Social Forces and the Revolution in Military Affairs, ch 4.

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57 ‘Las Farc y la Guerra’, El Tiempo, 24 July 2010.58 As reported by the Center for International Policy, 29 April 2009, at http://www.cipcol.org/?p¼842,

accessed 12 May 2010.59 See the Colombian magazine Cambio, 27 July 2010, at http://www.cambio.com.co/paiscambio/

politicacambio/863/ARTICULO-WEB-NOTA_INTERIOR_CAMBIO-6997047.html.60 Escuela Nacional Sindical, ‘Una polıtica de exclusion sistematica’, pamphlet, May 2009, available on

group’s website, at www.ens.org.61 Interview by author, Jose Luis Sanin, Director, Escuela Nacional Sindical, Medellın, 12 August 2010;

and USO Cartagena, group meeting with Julio Carrascal, Fiscal Director, Carlos Franco, HumanRights, Enrique Marcias, pop education, Jorge Manjarres, popular education, Cartagena, 5 May 2009.

62 J Rochlin, ‘Plan Colombia and the demise of the FARC’, Review of International Studies, 37(2), 2011, pp715–740.

63 Ecopetrol figures presented in ‘Colombian Oil Sector’, Los Angeles Times, 12 May 2010.64 M Melendez, Revisiting Economic Growth in Colombia, Working Paper CSI-112, CO-P1082,

Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank, p 38.65 UNDOC, World Drug Report, 2009, esp pp 197–220.66 United Nations Habitat figures, as published by Escuela Nacional Sindical (ENS), ‘‘Informe nacional

de coyuntura economica, laboral y sindical en 2009—Balance de los 8 anos del gobierno Uribe’, 2009,available on the ENS website, at www.ens.org.

Notes on contributor

James F Rochlin is professor, political science at the University of BritishColumbia–Okanagan. His most recent book is Social Forces and theRevolution in Military Affairs: The Cases of Columbia and Mexico (PalgraveMacmillan, 2007).

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