Colombia counterinsurgency vs. Venezuela mix

Phil Gunson and Pablo Bachelet:

Colombia's military recently had one of its defining moments in a raid that killed a senior leader of the FARC, a resilient guerrilla group that had never before lost a member of its top leadership in combat.

At about the same time, U.S. officials and military analysts say, Venezuela fumbled an effort to rush troops and tanks to the border with Colombia in response to Colombia's deadly March 1 attack on a FARC camp in Ecuador.

The Colombian raid triggered a mostly diplomatic and short-lived crisis. But it also showed the contrasting security philosophies of Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chávez and Colombia's conservative President Alvaro Uribe.

Colombia, with U.S. help, has assembled a nimble infantry-based and intelligence-reliant counterinsurgency force capable of striking at guerrilla units and leaders deep in the jungle, military analysts say.

The Venezuelans have done just the opposite: They have spurned all contacts with the U.S. military and instead opted mostly for big-ticket purchases of Russian fighters, attack helicopters and submarines while also forming, training and arming reserve and militia units loyal to Chávez.

The result is that Venezuela's military is impressive on paper but also in many ways a paper tiger, according to defense experts, shaped more to preserve Chávez's grip on power than to fight an effective war.

Colombia, said John Cope, with the Institute for National Strategic Studies of the National Defense University, has become ''an extremely good, professional force,'' while the Venezuelan army is ``trying to figure out the ins and outs of an approach to a military organization that puts a high emphasis on civic action and humanitarian issues . . . which means they're probably not spending an awful lot of time training.''

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In sheer manpower, Colombia has an edge. Jane's Sentinel Security Assessment places the Colombian armed forces, not including the sizable police force, at 263,000, more than double Venezuela's 115,000.

Colombia's forces are modeled on the U.S. military, with seven army divisions, three naval units and eight air commands coordinated by five geographically based joint commands. According to Jane's, the idea is to ensure closer cooperation between the different branches of the military.

In a process that began before Uribe took office in 2002, the Colombian military has shifted its focus on counterinsurgency and counter-drug-trafficking, putting together helicopter-based and other highly mobile battalions and special forces units.

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Chávez has promoted the concept of asymmetrical warfare -- essentially preparing reserves and militias for a guerrilla war against a stronger invader, presumably U.S. troops.

But his regular armed forces are regarded as logistically challenged, and U.S. officials believe the army struggled to move several tank units toward the Colombian border after Chávez gave the order on March 2. Venezuela has nearly 200 tanks.

There are also doubts about the military's equipment maintenance. A foreign military officer who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of his job said the gun-sights on some of the tanks had been rendered inoperable by attempts to service them without help from foreign technicians.

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Chavez may have some equipment advantages in air power, but that could quickly disappear if the US came to the aid of Colombia. In terms of morale, Colombia would appear to have significant advantages. Venezuela has not fought a war in over 100 years while Colombia has been engaged in conflict with FARC for around 40 years. It has more trained and battle hardened troops and better leadership. Despite all its hadwared Venezuela would be hard pressed to get into action.