New Bolivia Paper: Into the Abyss
By Douglas Farah
The International Assessment and Strategy Center has just published a paper I wrote on the rapidly-deteriorating situation in Bolivia: Into the Abyss: Bolivia Under Morales and the MAS.
The study outlines several of the more dangerous elements of the Morales government and his ties to Venezuela and Iran. Among them are:
o The systematic de-institutionalization of the nation's fragile democratic structures, including the judiciary and independent auditing agencies;
o A complete restructuring of the military patterned after the Venezuelan model of integrating the armed forces into a host of civic and traditionally civilian roles;
o A radical restructuring of the military doctrine, endorsing the asymmetrical warfare tactics embraced and employed by radical Islamist groups and formally adopted by Hugo Chávez and the Venezuelan military;
o A complete restructuring of the nation's intelligence apparatus, advised by Cuban and Venezuelan experts on internal security;
o Growing ties to the FARC and other armed groups in Latin America;
o Permanent confrontation, insults and attacks-verbal and physical-on members of the press, leading to numerous international expressions of concern.
Of greatest concern is the little-discussed endorsement of Chavez of the a doctrine of asymmetrical warfare against the United States based on the principles pioneered by radical Islamist groups.
Since 2005 Chávez has rewritten Venezuela's security doctrine to scrub it of all outside, "imperialist" influences. To replace the old doctrine, Chávez and the Venezuelan military leadership have focused on developing a doctrine centered on asymmetrical warfare, in the belief that the primary threat to Venezuelan security is a U.S. invasion. One of the main books he has adopted is Peripheral Warfare and Revolutionary Islam: Origins, Rules and Ethics of Asymmetrical Warfare (Guerra Periferica y el Islam
Revolucionario: Orígenes, Reglas y Ética de la Guerra Asimétrica) by the Spanish politician and ideologue Jorge Verstrynge. My full blog is here.
