Frederick M. Nunn’s Reply^*

George S. Fraser once wrote that “there are certain works, which, in the attitudes they express and the problems they deal with, have a peculiar affinity with the spirit of our time.”¹ It is with this in mind that “Professional Militarism in Twentieth-Century Peru: Historical and Theoretical Background to the Golpe de Estado of 1968” examines the pre-1968 military literature of Peru. The purpose of the essay is clear: “to show that most of the essence of Peruvian professional militarism . . . was produced by decade upon decade of traditional theories first introduced into Peru by French training officers between 1896 and 1940, and nurtured by their pupils since that time.”² There is a difference between this purpose and Professor García’s understanding of it.

Concerned as he has been with the internal factional qualities of the officer corps and the mechanics of post-1968 policy-making,³ he sees the essay more as a “search for the long-term origins of the Peruvian military ideology which governed Peru’s policy-making after the 1968 coup.”⁴ Later he makes his intellectual viewpoint more explicit: “Political scientists have long known that the policies of governments are often best explained as the outgrowths of factional and bureaucratic infighting over control of policy.” This critique, then, is based more on what he sees as the significant subject for research and analysis than on what the essay really is—a history of the ideas that were influential in the development of professional militarism in twentieth-century Peru. He may be, as Don Q. put it to Pepe Seco, “confusing the beads with the rosary.”⁵

Sometimes it seems that political science wrenches the present from history in an attempt to analyze and interpret it laboratory-style, then put it all back together. This often results in a prismatic view of present and past. A prism can only refract however; it can not reflect. Whether this tendency of political scientists is due to inability to comprehend history and ideas, behaviorist problem-solving determination, or sheer methodological parnassianism, it certainly makes for differences of opinion as well as interest.

With this in mind, a response to Professor García’s critique is in order. His treatment of the ideas of Einaudi and Villanueva is essentially sound, but he assumes that their warnings against “premature labeling of the regime as ‘leftist’” went unheeded until the post-1968 regime “veered to the right in the mid-seventies.” Those familiar with the historical development of the Peruvian military profession needed no such warning, for they resisted the temptation to succumb to a strictly functional definition of the 1968-1975 Velasco presidency. Instead they relied on a structural definition, stressing content rather than appearance. Julio Cotler’s conclusion of 1971 is illustrative: “The present-day Peruvian military elite,” he wrote, “comes from the intelligence services [and] comprises a group averaging fifty years of age, that is to say its members belong to the generation affected by the professionalization . . . of the armed forces. . . . for that reason it is not strange that repeatedly they refer to the necessity to modernize the country, justifying that necessity with words that appear to come from the textbooks of [pre-World War II] developmentalist Japanese militarism: ‘internal security is achieved through economic development; a strong army cannot exist in a weak country’.”⁶ I certainly know of no serious-minded scholar who had proposed a leftist definition of “developmentalist Japanese militarism.”

That which is leftist is often leftist primarily in the eyes of the beholder. Military political action is all too rarely examined in terms of military priorities; it is usually linked to civilian parties, social and economic interest groups, and outside influences. If generals nationalize mines, oil fields, and plantations, then they must be leftist; if they sell off state enterprises, thus denationalizing portions of the economy, then they must be rightist. So the arguments go. Seldom do observers attempt to view the generals as military professionals first and ideologues second. This is unfortunate, for it leads to snap judgments such as those made about Peru.

It is true, as García asserts, that a few Peruvian officers “contemplated structural reform.” They, therefore, might pass as leftist to some observers. George Philip called them “military radicals.”⁷ Contemplation and implementation however, are not synonymous, and even if they were they would be so within an authoritarian, hierarchical structure such as that which characterized SINAMOS, the ill-fated attempt to mobilize (partially) and control (totally) popular participation in the Velasco regime’s socioeconomic programs. In my opinion SINAMOS, agrarian colonization, and the rectification of Peru’s “dependent status” do not constitute “a great deal of evidence” that some officers “contemplated structural reform.” SINAMOS constituted a corporatist model that might be traced to the Incanato (if one were disposed to do so); agrarian colonization schemes were derived from French colonial military theory and practice. Arguments for development and against dependence are new primarily in terminology.

“Structural reform,” like “leftist,” can mean different things to different people; SINAMOS, agrarian colonization, agrarian reform, and economic nationalism constitute policies of structural reform to some scholars. To those unfamiliar with, say, Rerum Novarum (1891) or Quadragesimo Anno (1931), the Velasco regime’s workers’ profit-sharing legislation appears solely the Peruvian translation of a Yugoslavian law. That it may be in phraseology and certain specifics. The insistence, however, that the Peruvians had no ideas of social justice they could call their own and therefore had to rely for inspiration on a Yugoslavian import, actually belittles any argument in favor of their reformist zeal and commitment to structural reform. The Yugoslavian law apparently fit well; it was expedient and it was acceptable to the brain trust of the Velasco regime as a way to secure support from below at the expense of a potential source of political opposition to military collectivist schemes—the Peruvian business community.

What led many observers to assume that there were sharply defined factions within the officer corps, I have suspected for some time, was the inordinate number of “instant revolutionaries” who adhered to the few who really deserve the sobriquet “military radical.” On numerous occasions in 1969, 1972, and 1975 Peruvian officers averred to me, “yo soy revolucionario.” It was easy and proper for them to say so, but I do not think the regime can be explained by listening to such declarations any more than (as García alleges) I assume it “must be explained as the product of some coherent set of principles.. . .” I do, however, believe that the military intellectual background to the golpe needed examination.

The fact that military thought and self-perception is traditionally narrow and limited explains rather well, I think, what García calls the “factional and bureaucratic infighting,” clashes of opinion and improvisation that occurred after 1968, but my primary concern remains what officers thought prior to the golpe, what led them to believe they should assume responsibility for the conduct of national affairs on a scale never before experienced in Latin America.

The drill field is not at all like the political arena, and once officers enter the latter it is not surprising that they may march to tunes slightly different from those to which they once stepped. The bulk of my research and writing on military-civilian relations and French and German military professionalism in South America indicates that this is the rule rather than the exception. All officer corps contain factions, cliques, lodges, and the like. The French officer corps during the Third Republic is a classic example. Therefore I would pose no argument for the monolithic nature of an officer corps or the regime it spawns, unless it be one based on overall conformity of thought and self-perception.

There were indeed a few officers who advanced structural reform (broadly defined and interpreted). Yes, they temporarily acquired some leverage over some of the “policy-making apparatus.” But they did fail in their efforts and they did lose out to another faction, indicating either the weakness of their position(s), distinct minority status, incompatibility of their schemes with military thought and self-perception, or the inapplicability of their programs to Peruvian reality—or all four.

Professor García closes by proposing as “a more fruitful explanation” of what he sees as “contradictions of the regime,” (and I assume he means specifically the 1968-1975 period), “an exploration of the history of factions within the Peruvian military and the linkages between these and the civilian groups to which they were tied.” George Philip’s monograph has begun this exploration modestly, making the terrain just a little less mysterious than it may now appear.⁸ I look forward to seeing more thoughtful, detailed work on this subject in order that the mechanics of professional militarism be as clearly understood as are the ideas and theories that characterize it.