With Venezuela mobilizing its forces along the border with Colombia, including tank columns, it looks like there could be a possible war in Latin America. Columbia could face a possible war on two fronts (Venezuela and Ecuador) along with the FARC insurgency within its own country. Despite this opposition, Colombia has developed an all-important fast deployment capability. Three mobile brigades have been consolidated with the special forces brigade into a Rapid Deployment Force.
The Colombian military now has a striking force of professional soldiers who can be deployed anywhere in the country. The U.S. has been training Columbia’s special forces and this is a huge advantage. A lot of countries in South America have very poorly trained militaries, and a few good men can defeat huge numbers of drones just carrying guns and playing soldier. Right now, Colombia has at least 150,000 soldiers. Venezuela’s military, by comparison, is poorly trained.
Last March, around 500,000 Venezuelans started a four-month military training programme today to turn them into members of the country’s territorial guard. The huge recruitment drive is part of President Hugo Chávez’s plan to create a people’s army that would answer directly to him in the event of civil unrest or an armed conflict. However, these people aren’t real soldiers. It’s all just for show. In battle, they’d be slaughtered.
Any comments on the possible war in South America?
What would they be fighting over and what would either side expect to gain? Posturing, indeed.
It will be interesting to see how the Venezeualan people respond to how this progresses. Chavez has been running his mouth off for so long, trying to scare his people into believing that a US invasion is imminent as an excuse for beefing up their military. I’m curious to know how many of them buy it, and how they’ll respond when his scare-mongering is revealed as such. How is he going to keep his people distracted once bogeyman Bush is gone?