Following the Chavez armaments-purchasing tour of last week, media outlets are starting to notice the arms buildup taking place in the region.
At the BBC,
Could war erupt in arms-spree LatAm?
Is Latin America gearing up for conflict? Some regional commentators certainly fear that a handful of countries are teetering on the edge of a full-blown arms race they can ill afford – either financially or diplomatically.
That fear has been stoked in the past week by the coincidental announcement of two major procurement programmes.
Firstly, Brazil confirmed on 7 September that it will buy four Scorpene attack submarines from France, and will build 50 EC-725 transport helicopters under licence.
It has also opened negotiations with French company Dassault for a large order of Rafale fighter aircraft.
Then Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned last week from a successful shopping trip to Moscow, with T-72 main battle tanks and an unknown quantity of air defence systems in the bag.
Both countries are ramping up military expenditure to levels not seen in decades.
Noticias 24 has a chart comparing the purchases by Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia and Chile, (click on photo for large version)
Thanks to Alex for the link.
This is somewhat worrying as the Su-30 is clearly superior to Colombia’s upgraded Kfir C10(which it is currently taking deliver of). However the Kfir is a superior anti-tank attack plane while the Su-30 is for air superiority. Also it should be noted that the one air combat victory the Kfir has was shooting down a Syrian Su-30. But that was mainly due to the Syrians shocking detoriation of pilot quality since the Yom Kippur War.
The planned on Rafale for Brazil is superior to both while the F-16 of Chile, admittedly long of tooth, is still considered one of the best and most verstile fighter jet in the world. Over 4,000 are currently in service so parts are not a problem and many are shuttled back to the US periodically for major servicing and upgrades. However it also is mainly an air superiority asset and could cause problems for Brazil(one of Chile’s traditional enemies, remember Arturo Pratt?).
Though not mentioned Ecuador also has a dozen Kfir C10’s and dozens of very effective low level ground support aircraft. But it currently has no plans to purchase anything else and Israel’s maintenance and training contracts have run out though both countries are negotiating.
Venzuela appears to have just enough assets to flirt with an aggressive posture throughout the region but its last attempt at mobilization was a disaster and adopting Soviet military doctrine and training could be a fatal mismatch both to the equipment available and the geography. Witness Slovenia’s territorial army’s slice and dice of the JNA in the mountain passes in ten days by simply blocking the main roads and dropping a few trees. Well, more than a few as I remember reading a German blog complaining about how much criminal damage was done to the forests.
First – Pat Patterson, Brazil and Chile were NEVER enimies!! Pratt is famous in Chile because of war agains PERU… sorry for you ignorance…
second – Why Latin America is baceme gearing up for conflict? Very simpe:
1 – Latin Amarica has one of the biggest water resourses in the world;
2 – USA is a country that don’t see any problem in invade another country, kill hundred thousands of citizens, just to steal oil – AS USA DID IN IRAQ;
3 – Is a common sense that in near future water will be so valuable as oil is today;
4 – Connect the points and you will understand why;
5 – And, South America – Colombia – was never so united in it’s hole continent history as it is right now.
Sorry, that’s the drawback of commenting early. Pratt became famous in the War of the Pacific against Peru. Likewise for Chile and Brazil being enemies though periodicially wrangling breaks out between Chile and Bolivia. The rest of what Larry has posted is utter nonsense in alluding to South America arming itself to prevent an invasion by the US. To import just 1% of the daily needs for water in the US we would need every oil tanker and pipeline in the world retrofitted to carry water. And each tanker and pipeline, magically I suppose, would have to deliver its load daily instead of weekly. But then that would also mean that we would ignore two of the largest sources of fresh water in the world. The Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes.