DCAF’s Activities in Support of Effective and Democratically Transparent Defense Planning

Анотація

The Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) focuses on democratic oversight of and guidance for the defense and security sector. Increasing transparency and efficiency in defense planning and spending thus do not generally fall under DCAF’s purview in the strict sense, and are addressed only within the larger context of defense institution building. The defense budgetary process in a given state—from its formulation by the executive, its enactment into law by the legislature, its implementation, and ultimately its auditing and evaluation—is circumscribed by a number of parameters, and requires that the different actors have competencies in dealing with democratic processes and multiple constituencies that are never called upon under authoritarian systems. On the contrary, the legislature in authoritarian states is often content to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”—that is, to leave the responsibility for things military with the military and/or the security services, as such matters “cannot be understood by lay persons anyway.” In a similar vein, within their ministry itself the defense planners may decide to leave their task essentially in the hands of the “commissars” of the presidential apparatus, as this is the place where power is concentrated and monopolized in such systems. As an important consequence, defense planning in transitional states is fraught with problems that are all too familiar: an executive which has first to learn about transparent planning cycles and gain self-confidence in the implementation thereof; a legislative power which needs to learn about guidance and oversight mechanisms; and national media and institutions of civil society which need to change their expectations from commenting on the successes of authoritarian leadership to the assumption of the responsibility for public oversight. On the other hand, defense planners in democratic societies often take a transparent and accountable defense planning cycle for granted, which may cause misunderstandings in cooperative programs with their counterparts from transitional states. The “logic” of the national security planning process involves extraneous parameters that are not simply “givens,” but that themselves presuppose transparent and accountable decision-making processes. These processes take into account such notions as national interests; threats, risks, and challenges to the national interest; the identification of opportunities and mechanisms to address them; and documents on the perception of security-related issues (a national security policy document, a defense strategy). They are also subject to the objective availability of resources, which depends on the economic

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