Chile and Peru agree to standardize their defense expenditures
Chile and Peru have agreed to standardize their defense expenditures. This agreement was reached in a meeting that took place in Lima, Peru, where the Chilean Defense Minister accepted an ad hoc model of standardized and transparent measurement of defense expenditures presented by Peru. Peru based its proposed model on the defense agreement that Chile and Argentina have, which includes the standardized measurement of their military expenses in addition to the exchange of information and the eradication of any hypothesis of conflict from either country's defense doctrine.
This process was first initiated in May, 2010, at the first bilateral meeting in two years between Chile and Peru in Santiago de Chile. At this meeting, both countries' defense ministers met and agreed to develop a way to standardize their defense expenditures and to carry out joint exercises for humanitarian tasks. Jaime Ravinet, Chilean Defense Minister, said that the idea is to commit countries to a mechanism of transparency that enables the calculation of defense expenditures in a diligent way.
Rafael Rey, Peru's defense minister, said that President Alán Garcia has a special interest in moving forward with this initiative since it would contribute to shifting economic resources towards helping the most disadvantaged people in the region, instead of spending money in acquiring arms, “which does not help, but kills.” Moreover, Rey also manifested that addressing defense expenditures with Chile is not due to Chile’s own military expenditures but rather to a special concern over defense and military build-ups in the region.
The only condition that Chile presented at the meeting was that this initiative be developed under the South American Defense Council (SADC)’s multilateral framework. In fact, the SADC’s Santiago de Chile Declaration (March 2009), among others, introduced an initiative to overcome differences in military expenditure. The 2009-2010 Action Plan established by the Declaration seeks greater sharing of information about defense expenditures and economic indicators of defense. Following up on this, the SADC, in May 2010, approved the Declaration of Guayaquil, which set up a working group, led by Argentina, Chile and Peru, “to develop a methodology to address technical and design elements of the system for measuring defense expenses in our countries … in order to promote the issue of transparency in defense expenses.” Not surprisingly, the three countries were chosen because of their experience and work on this issue.
Bilaterally, a mechanism to standardize defense expenditures between Chile and Peru would be a great step forward in generating trust and cooperation between the two countries. This is especially important considering the unresolved territorial disagreement that both countries still maintain. Peru and Chile maintain a maritime border dispute over sovereignty in the waters near the Peruvian-Chilean frontier. The lack of agreement over these waters’ jurisdiction has led the Peruvian government to submit the case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where it is under consideration.
Regionally, establishing a methodology to measure and standardize military expenditures would be a great success for the SADC and a great incentive to continue working regionally to build confidence and cooperation among countries in the region. The upcoming IX Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas, to take place in November in Bolivia, will be a great opportunity to see if the South American countries can act as a bloc and together as a defense multilateral forum.