National Security: What Can We Learn from Recent Events?

El Mostrador, September 12, 2022

The lack of priority and understanding from the Government regarding the issue of national security is concerning, as well as the delicate and relevant nature of this matter for the country. National security is an enabling public good; without it, no activity aimed at the well-being and development of individuals can be carried out. The security of the country must be viewed as an integrative, state-level, permanent, and relevant challenge. We urgently need to come together to design a supraministerial and multi-agency national security architecture.

Sunday, September 4, 2022, marks a milestone in the history of Chilean democracy. More than 12.5 million Chileans went to the polls and delivered an impressive and surprising verdict. Over 7.8 million Chileans provided the greatest support and political, democratic, and moral legitimacy to no option, party, or person that has ever been subjected to a popular consultation in Chile’s history. Far beyond the 61.86% obtained by the Rechazo option, the true lesson learned is that nothing holds greater legitimacy than the Rechazo vote against the proposed Constitution from the Convention, which had strong and clear support from the Executive and the ruling party. President Boric was elected in the second round with 4,620,890 votes, which pale in comparison to the votes obtained by Rechazo. The first lesson learned: the Government, in the face of such a defeat, entered a period of political fragility and weakness.

Now to the second lesson. The option of doing nothing in the face of political weakness is not viable, as our presidential system, unlike parliamentary regimes, lacks effective mechanisms to handle such situations. The tremendous defeat necessitates a strategic withdrawal and the implementation of significant strategic and tactical changes. It is not possible to continue doing the same things, nor with the same people, and expect different results from the defeat suffered. The second lesson, therefore, relates to the timeliness and depth of the changes; however painful they may be, the President must ensure the well-being of the country, its functioning, and security.

The third lesson is perhaps the most important. It concerns the quality and direction of the changes. Two options are presented. The first is to choose the best star players, who know and master their craft, and who will improve results wherever they are placed, or to seek individuals with great spirit, capability, and enthusiasm who can lead a change in direction, a new way of doing things, and new goals. Here we faced a shameful disaster. The opportunity for change was well-timed. It reflected the profound blow dealt to the President, the Government, and the government program, as they were respectively the head of the campaign, key actors in the campaign, and a program whose execution was linked to the Apruebo option by the same Government. The depth of the change was less than expected, but space and time must be allowed to evaluate the new actors. The disaster lay in the quality and direction of the change. Indeed, the long and embarrassing wait to materialize the cabinet change was due to a common-sense error and a poor assessment of the situation in which the Executive found itself.

By far, the main concern of Chilean society is security, and several of the following priorities are also linked to the public good of security. We are talking about security in the broadest sense: the security of individuals, property, institutions, the absence of the rule of law, and the exercise and validity of state sovereignty in certain parts of the national territory. Crime, drug trafficking, terrorism, insurgency, illegal immigration, attacks, threats to police and the judiciary, and a very long list of other issues.

Days before the plebiscite, the president of the Communist Party, Guillermo Teillier, called to “defend the Apruebo” in the streets. Two days after the electoral defeat, there was an attempt to appoint a communist militant, Nicolás Cataldo, as Undersecretary of the Interior, responsible for the police and national intelligence, who also has a dismal record of insults and slurs against Carabineros de Chile. Common sense clearly failed. After calling for the defense of a plebiscited option “in the streets” instead of accepting the verdict of democracy, it is not possible to place a communist militant, especially one with a history of attacks on the institutions he is supposed to lead, in charge of the country’s security.

However, the lesson was learned with the messy cabinet change, and we see with relief that in the changes of undersecretaries, there are some signs of common sense, such as the appointment of Gabriel Gaspar to the key position of Undersecretary of Defense, the leftist politician who knows the most about defense and national security. There are still some challenges to common sense, such as an Undersecretary of International Economic Relations who does not believe in free international trade and an Undersecretary of the Armed Forces who has only filled his public office with party-affiliated advisors. But it seems that lessons have been learned from the events of these days, and things are looking better.

The lack of priority and understanding from the Government regarding the issue of national security is concerning, as well as the delicate and relevant nature of this matter for the country. National security is an enabling public good; without it, no activity aimed at the well-being and development of individuals can be carried out. The security of the country must be viewed as an integrative, state-level, permanent, and relevant challenge. We urgently need to come together to design a supraministerial and multi-agency national security architecture. We need to converge all the capabilities of the State and all instruments of national power, articulated by the Executive, to achieve the comprehensive security of Chileans and the State of Chile. It is a pending, arduous, and urgent task that grows in importance each day.

In a time of learning from hard lessons, but also of opportunities, it is the right moment to start by understanding that national security is very relevant, specialized, and achieving it is an urgency that must be at the top of the priorities. The political weakness of the Government after the electoral defeat is perceived by interest groups that have already begun to test the waters to see if there is space to “defend agendas in the streets.” If the opportunity, depth, and quality of the change that must be made in the national security system are not understood—changes that obviously do not involve tattoos, cavities, flat feet, or the height of our Carabineros—the Government will face serious security risks, and national coexistence will suffer and become even more strained.

To conclude, the final lesson: politics must serve national security, as it is a public good that we all consume and that, in its absence, affects the most disadvantaged more severely. We are not recommending that national security be placed above politics and politicians; we are indicating that politics and those who practice it must be accountable to national security in the same way they are concerned about other important issues, such as inflation, employment, economic growth, and the defense of national interest.

Richard Kouyoumdjian
Vice President, AthenaLab

Source: El Mostrador