The Ecuadorian Army: Neglecting a Porous Border While Policing the Interior

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>This article challenges two prominent explanations for military behavior: militaries, like other bureaucracies, will seek to maximize their budgets; and in the interest of maintaining professionalism, militaries will perform sovereignty missions—external defense and counterinsurgency—more intensively than policing functions. Running counter to these expectations, since 2000, Ecuador’s army has neglected its professional, lucrative mission of northern border defense, instead focusing on police work. The analysis applies organization theory to argue that the army’s minimal border defense efforts have been a way to maintain predictability for patrols on the ground, the part of the army that most directly performs the army’s core function of security. Specifically, the article traces how a contradiction has emerged in the army’s border mission. The contradiction has meant anything but predictability for the work of troops patrolling the border, compromising the mission.</jats:p>

Staying Quartered

“…So too does Ecuador, where the military's share of the national budget had declined from 10.9% to 7.3% between 1995 and 2006 and complaints about insufficient funds for border defense were common. (Jaskoski, 2012) And yet the military also enjoyed a cushion from budgetary swings because of its large ownership in enterprises nationwide (Mani, 2011). By contrast, in all three negative cases, material conditions were good and had improved.…”

“…In Egypt, many officers have benefited from military ownership in a wide range of industries (Gotowicki, 1997). (Jaskoski, 2012) And yet the military also enjoyed a cushion from budgetary swings because of its large ownership in enterprises nationwide (Mani, 2011). So Egypt constitutes a case of partial material dissatisfaction.…”

Performance of the South American Defense Council Under Autonomy Pressures

“…The problem of intra‐regional cooperation presented by the paradox of autonomy is particularly severe in terms of security and defense policy. The protection of territorial integrity is a central factor, and national armed forces are important actors in the decision making of states in which the veto on some external matters has been constituted as a formula of compensation to guarantee civil control over the military forces (Coletta, ; Jaskoski, ). The paradox of autonomy puts in direct conflict national interests that make the leadership face decision dilemmas.…”

Ungrateful predators: capture and the creation of Cofán violence

“…Currently, the border is marked by poverty, lack of infrastructure, trafficking of arms and drugs, heightened criminal activity (including kidnapping), and de facto control by militant groups, especially the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) (Walcott ). In her study of Ecuadorian border politics, Maiah Jaskowski () notes the lack of police presence as well as a debilitating policy contradiction: to prevent Colombian armed actors from entering Ecuadorian territory while avoiding conflict with them at all costs.…”