Latin America: The Arms Siphon

The countries of Latin America spend only about 13% of their budgets on arms and defense, compared with 25% for European NATO nations and 55% for the U.S. Even that is high, since it siphons away millions of dollars needed for urgent social programs. Besides, the money does not really go for defense as such; there has only been one major war and few major threats in the area in the past 50 years. It goes for big, fancy hardware that the armed forces feel they need to buck up their morale, enhance their prestige and encourage enlistments. Now Latin Americans are suddenly showing a new and, to the U.S., disturbing interest in not just having big equipment but in producing it as well.

Last week two French air force generals were in Rio de Janeiro discussing the feasibility of building a Brazilian factory for manufacturing French Mirage-type supersonic fighters. In Argentina, President Juan Carlos Onganía is considering a similar factory that would turn out French-style AMX tanks. Peru, which recently closed a deal with France for twelve Mirage jets, is building a 14,000-ton tanker in order to gain know-how for producing warships. Meantime, in the past year or two, Latin Americans have been adding steadily to their arsenals. From the U.S., Brazil bought 50 M41 light tanks and Argentina 24 subsonic Douglas A-4B jet fighters. When the U.S. balked at selling its southern neighbors any supersonic fighters, Chile simply went to Britain and bought 21 Hawker Hunters.

While France has been tempting Latin American governments by offering generous credits for arms purchases, the U.S. has gone out of its way to encourage more sound spending and discourage unnecessary arms purchases. To make its point, the U.S. has cut military aid to Latin America 15% in the past two years (to $65 million) and refused export licenses for any supersonic jets sold in the area. When the Latin Americans took their military orders to Europe, Washington finally gave in, and two weeks ago permitted U.S. plane-makers—mainly Northrop, with its hot F-5 supersonic “Freedom Fighters”—to make what deals they could.

In the end, what Latin Americans really need, as proved by the recent Communist guerrilla uprising in Bolivia and the death there of Guerrilla Tactician Che Guevara, are the basic bread-and-butter weapons of a fighting man: rifles, mortars, machine-guns, helicopters and spotter planes. Unfortunately, these are not the stuff that flashy parades are made of.