On “Korea and the Arsenal of Democracy” and “Allies, Partners, or Puppets?: American and Chilean Armies, 1961–69”

Stephanie Crider (Host)
You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I’m speaking remotely today with Hugo Harvey-Valdés and Michael Fitzpatrick. Both were authors of articles featured in the Historical Studies forum in the Winter 2024–25 issue of Parameters.
Dr. Hugo Harvey-Valdés, full professor and researcher at the University of Los Americas Santiago, held a variety of field and academic positions during 27 years of active military service before retiring in December 2020. He is the author of “Allies, Partners, or Puppets: American and Chilean Armies, 1961–69.”
Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and supports the Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency. Fitzpatrick wrote “Korea, Germany, and the Arsenal of Democracy.”
Welcome to Decisive Point. Thank you for joining me.

Michael Fitzpatrick
Thank you for having me.

Hugo Harvey-Valdés
I appreciate the invitation. Thanks a lot for having me.

Host
What drew you to study these particular aspects of US foreign military policy?

Fitzpatrick
I was drawn to this subject because I think the relationship between the US and its allies is so important to the crafting of contemporary foreign policy. I think, in the last several presidential administrations, Americans have really tried to reconsider their alliance relationships. And, I think that the actual mechanics of these relationships are often understudied in the historiography.
And, I think that this is such an important subject and an interesting subject because I see a lot of overlap between the West German situation in the 1970s and the South Korean situation. The strategic outlook in both of those regions is very similar. And yet, American policy and American actions in those countries—and the result of American policy and action in those countries—is often radically different. And so, this creates an interesting opportunity for study and an interesting opportunity for comparison.

Host
Hugo, what was your inspiration?

Harvey-Valdés
When I was working on my doctoral dissertation that was about President [Eduardo Frei Montalva’s] foreign policy between 1964 and 1970, I analyzed many declassified documents from the United States and Chile, which showed that Chile was not above its state—I mean that Chile didn’t follow the US guidelines in foreign or domestic policy. Despite the millions of dollars that Frei Montalva received from economic aid plans and that supported his presidential campaign in his first years in office.
Then, I asked myself, “If the politicians developed independently, why would the military have faithfully followed US demands?”   
Furthermore, in my own exchanges and training with the US Army, I never felt any intention to influence or ideologize my military thought.
Therefore, I realized that there was a need to reassess prevailing narratives that have depicted the relations between American and Chilean armies during the Cold War, especially during [the] Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

Host
Michael, give us an overview of US military involvement in Korea and Germany. What were the strategic priorities in each case, and what time frame are we talking about here?

Fitzpatrick
So, the time frame of the article is actually quite broad. I started looking at the immediate post-war and the onset of the Cold War through to the current day. But particularly, I like to focus on the period of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, which I think is a very dynamic period in the three-party alliance. The strategic priorities, generally, are very similar, I think, between South Korea and West Germany. Both countries were divided. East and West in the case of Germany [and] North and South in the case of Korea. The American allies in each country, their allied nations, were confronted by kind of aggressive neighbor states on the border, who looked to, at some point in the ambiguous far future, to try and end this artificial division and bring Marxist Leninism to these divided situations.
So, for the United States, deterrence is an incredibly important component of their strategic outlook in these regions. Third, in the case of both divided situations, both sides of the division were backed by outside superpowers. The United States backed West Germany and South Korea, China backed North Korea, and the Soviet Union backed East Germany.  And so, there was a tremendous amount of outside military aid, economic aid—support that flowed into these divided situations—which only exacerbated inflamed tensions. So ultimately, I would argue in both cases that the US pursues a policy of deterrence, and they focus on maintaining the status quo in each country—that they prefer the status quo situation rather than some kind of very violent attempts to realize it.
The issue for American foreign policy, and I would love to talk about this more, is that in Germany the status quo for most of the period that we’re talking about is a pretty positive one. Germany remains democratic. It remains committed to the kind of government that’s created in the aftermath of World War II and is committed to a very specific interpretation of the aftermath of World War II. But in South Korea, particularly once you get into the 1960s and ’70s, the situation is undemocratic. There are significant problems in South Korea. And so, American commitment to the status quo in South Korea actually becomes very problematic to South Korean politics.

Host
How was US military assistance to Chile in the 1960s different from Korea and Germany?

Harvey-Valdés
US military assistance to Chile, during the 1960s, contrasted a lot with its relationships with Korea and Germany. While the US involvement in Korea and Germany included three kinds of relations—extensive long-term military alliances, operational developments, and joint technological developments—US and Chilean interactions remained just educational and professional. Military exchanges with Chile involved mainly training and limited equipment transfers.
In fact, when the United States sold weapons to Chile within the Mutual Assistance Pact, in order to give stabilization within the region, similar equipment was transferred to neighboring countries [such] as Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia. Furthermore, US policy toward Chile was a joint effort complementing civilian-driven economic initiatives like the Alliance for Progress.

Host
What determined whether the United States treated a country as an ally, partner, or puppet?

Harvey-Valdés
The distinction between what was considered an ally, partner, or puppet rested on the degree of autonomy first and then, the mutual benefits perceived by both countries. In Chile’s case, the relationship reflected mutual professional interests rather than a mere subordination. My research shows that Chile maintained significant autonomy in decisions regarding military cooperation, and these were always made by civilian authorities [and], thus, aligned with Chilean foreign policy.
Chile’s refusal to fully support US policies during the Cuban Missile Crisis and then, during the Dominican Republic intervention in 1965, reinforced this position as a sovereign partner, rather than being a recipient or a puppet state. The nature of the relationship was based on the willingness and then capacity of recipient nations to exercise independent decision making.

Host
Was military aid meant to build independence or was it a tool for American influence in Korea and Germany?

Fitzpatrick
The historian’s answer is that both, I think, are true at different times as we look through the timeline. Ultimately, for the US, I think, military aid is a tool for independence, generally, and it’s a tool to secure deterrence. I think that, especially for Army planners in the Pentagon itself, military aid was necessary in order to produce the strategic outcomes that they were looking for. And, American influence was secondary to that—or a vehicle—in order to get the situation that they were looking for. Like I said, I think in both cases, but especially in South Korea, there was a desire to maintain the status quo. Using American influence to achieve that strategic outlook was something that was sometimes palatable, but I think that there’s significant variation from period to period.
For example, in Germany in the 1950s, US aid was an important tool to the remilitarizing German Bundeswehr, which began to rearm in 1954. After that, American arms sales were important because they could keep Germany in the Western sphere. They could rapidly militarize, remilitarize, especially the German land army. Of course, weapon sales to the West German army were profitable for American companies, using that as a tool to try and support the US’s own deterrence and production posture. But ultimately, I think, also, in the 1950s, there’s still a concern about democratic backsliding in West Germany and the fear that a revived army could, in fact, follow some of the mischief, we’ll call it, of the German armies of the previous decades. I think in that case, it’s definitely a tool for American influence and American influence towards the promotion of democracy.
That only goes away in the ’60s and ’70s when it becomes clear that backsliding is not going to occur and when the German military begins to establish more independence. Interestingly, though, I think in the 1960s and ’70s in South Korea, you see almost the exact opposite trend where, in South Korea, American arms initially, after the Korean War, especially, ends in 1953, are used to kind of maintain that position of American influence and maintain the American commitment to South Korea. By the 1970s, American planners are far more interested in preserving Korean independence—preserving Korean autonomy.
There’s a period of strong democratic backsliding in South Korea. In [1963], the democratic government is replaced by the dictatorship of Park Chung-Hee. And in 1972, his dictatorship transforms from, kind of a, we’ll call it a light authoritarianism to a pretty hardcore authoritarian regime.
American pressures for democracy and some of those, you know, kind of core national values, seemed like they would be apt and fitting for the difficulties of the Korean context. 

Host
Is there anything else that you want to tell us about how US support influenced democratization efforts?

Fitzpatrick
I think that in Germany, in particular, American military support was one tool used to prevent the resurgence of Prussianism and militarism and Nazism. Even before rearmament in 1954, American connections to German officers, the former officers of the Wehrmacht, were critical, I think, in trying to secure a democratic future and in offering a lot of these officers the possibility of a democratic future and suggesting to them that if they were to abandon some of the old ideologies that there would still be a viable place for them in the future of Germany. And so, I think that this military relationship with the Germans played such an important role in democratization and sustaining it through the period of remilitarization.
And yet, I think it’s the opposite story in South Korea, where the US presence in South Korea not only rejects the value of democratization, sometimes even at the same time it’s being pushed in other countries, it’s being pushed in Western Europe, it is being rejected in South Korea. And instead, the US presence often either supports or legitimizes or enables the dictatorial and often brutal regimes of the South Korean government.
And in that case, the US is more interested in deterrence and is less worried about the dangers of the Korean government or the possibility of rampant Korean militarism, which has not historically been an issue for East Asia in same way that German militarism is for Western Europe. And so, Americans are, I think, a lot more willing to sit by and watch the South Koreans repress their people, for example, with the implementation of the Yushin Constitution in South Korea in 1972, which I would argue is a direct consequence of the Nixon Doctrine and Nixon’s strategic revision in 1969, or the Gwangju Massacre in 1980 in the city of Gwangju, as dictator Chun Doo-Hwan kind of establishes his regime. And, a little bit more than tacit American support for the execution of the suppression of the Gwangju democracy movement leads to almost another decade of dictatorship in South Korea.

Host
The impact of US military training in Chile, did it strengthen democracy or push Chile toward authoritarianism?

Harvey-Valdés
The evidence shows that US military training did not push Chile to any kind of [regime]. Rather, it made it mainly reflected professional military objectives aligned, again, with Chilean foreign policy. In fact, during the ’60s, there were many political events unfolding in Chile, an intervention by the United States—or [to] a lesser extent, the Soviet Union—did not change their course. There are many critics that argued that programs and institutions, such as the [The School of the Americas,] had politically indoctrinated Chilean officers, leading to the 1973 coup. But, Chile sent two or three officers to this school for training each year—until the first large group that was sent in 1968. However, this large group, [consisted of] just 50 second lieutenants that took part in a tailored course that lasted one month and that was very different from other countries or armies that came from the Caribbean area.
All these officers were just lieutenants by 1973. So, they didn’t have any power or much influence in any decision-making processes. Probably the only place where a military officer could be idealized would be in war colleges. But Chilean government voted against the creation of the Inter American Defense College because Chile had a war college since 1896.
So, the first officer that was sent to the Inter American Defense College was in 1967. My research offers another perspective that says that a small fraction of the officers that were sent to the United States for training were sent to attend controversial courses, I mean, counterinsurgency, internal security training, [and] counterintelligence. And it was just 2.5 percent of the whole personnel. So, that shows that this ideological influence is more like rhetoric, or some is historiography, made with some second intentions.

Fitzpatrick
I really liked your point about the War College and the role of institutions, especially multinational institutions, in developing new cultures and outlooks and being a place where democratization or values changes might be able to happen.
I think it’s so interesting in the South Korean context, you also have, it would be my guess, more South Korean officers traveled, to American war colleges. South Korea, in 1946, with their own remilitarization, establishes their own domestic defense institutions. And South Korea, through the Cold War, very much preferred rather than rely on American defense institutions to rely on their own domestically located alternatives.
And now, most of these institutions were just totally created in the mold of their American counterparts. So, they have an army war college, which almost totally resembles the American war college. They develop, in 1980, Korean Army TRADOC (Training and Doctrine Command), which totally reflects the US Army TRADOC. And in fact, many of these organizations even use American teaching materials.
But importantly, to your point about the role of multinationalism and democratization. A lot of these are [set up so that] Korean nationals, only, attend these institutions. And so, they provide an insulating effect for officer corps as they are promoted and trained up. It’s no surprise in South Korea that the two later dictators come out of the army.
The dictators themselves, Park Chung-Hee and Chun Doo-Hwan, come out of the army. They’re supported by members in the army and other people who retire and become politicians but are almost totally isolated as they come up through the ranks of the Army, I think, from exposure to some of these, American institutions.

Harvey-Valdés
Probably the Chilean experience [demonstrates] that Latin America is not a homogeneous whole. Therefore, US foreign policy in a system probably should consider each country’s political dynamics and particular historical context to ensure long-term cooperation. Historical examples from Chile underline the technical military training alone—that’s not assurance, political alignment, nor redeeming evidence. Instead, effective partnerships could require understanding national identities, domestic politics, and institutional cultures. Probably for contemporary US policymakers, this historical case has underscored the importance of flexible, respectful, and mutually beneficial relationships rather than overly prescriptive or paternalistic approaches, thus preventing strategic misunderstandings or resistance to cooperation.

Host
What lessons do Korea, Germany, and Chile offer about the limits of US military influence?

Harvey-Valdés
It’s difficult to make recommendations of this kind, especially when we are facing an international order change. But in general, there are geopolitical conditions that no political context can overlook or change. For example, in Chile, policymakers understand that no matter how many trade relations we have with China or how much we want to look like Europe, the United States will always be to the north, and Chile will always be within its [sphere of] influence.
In that sense, I think that the United States probably should consider to have a more sustained interest in Latin American countries because usually when the US realizes that something is going on or happening in its backyard, it’s already too late, and its policies tend to be somewhat aggressive.

Fitzpatrick
I think that the US has a lot of influence that its military can wield, in [some] cases, more influence than we often give credit for in terms of the political situation. As I argued before, I think the US really helped to build democracy in important ways in the early period in German history, in the early part of the Cold War and abdicated that power in South Korea for most of the Cold War. And so, I think for policymakers, an important lesson from these two situations, I think, is the role that American military officers can play in the development of countries’ domestic politics and domestic social relationships.
This can be an affirmative role if Americans want it be, for example, in the case of Germany—trying to rebuild that nation’s politics. But even if American officers don’t want to take a role, as they didn’t in South Korea, they wanted to try and maintain the status quo and focus only on the military and strategic concerns. The forces deployed there nevertheless have an influence, and the focus on the military relationship does not necessarily get American officers out of influencing domestic politics and domestic issues. And so I think policymakers, even when the goal is not to try and change politics and change the regime and change the nature of society in a country, need to be cognizant of the fact that their very presence in a place may have that effect no matter what and how that presence can be used and channeled to reinforce American values, rather than perpetuate anti-American circumstances.

Host
Going forward, should the United States take a different approach when building alliances, and what might that look like?  

Harvey-Valdés
Well, I consider it essential to approach these kinds of issues from a multidisciplinary perspective, integrating approaches from history and from international relations. I think that the study of these topics [demonstrates]demonstrates the value of primary sources and declassified documents, allowing scholars to reinterpret the specific episodes of the Cold War, which have always been oversimplified, misunderstood, or ideologically framed, especially within Latin American historiography.
I think that such [an] empirical basis would provide a solid foundation to critically challenge and debate existing theories in international relations, then enabling the scholars to test and reassess theories against historical realities.

Fitzpatrick
I see lot of similarities between the 1970s and today. I think one of the big underpinnings of my work, both this article and some of my larger work, is that I think that we can draw a lot of lessons from the 1970s and bring them into our current era. And in terms of alliance building, I definitely see that for Europe, the 1970s was a period where, especially, West Germany sought to assert a stronger independence from the United States and looked to develop a coequal relationship with the United States within the context of the NATO alliance and Western security. And ultimately, Americans were forced to accept that and to nurture that and, actually, this has developed into a very positive military relationship by the 1980s in the late Cold War.
And, now I see very similar dynamics in the European Union, more broadly. And American policymakers have the opportunity to either try to fight this trend and hold back the tsunami or re-channel it into something that is productive for both partners. And so, I think trying to figure out what Americans want from Europe, what are our strategic interests, what can be our overlapping military interests, and then using that to develop new technologies and doctrines which are going to help both sides could lead to a very productive outcome in the future.
And, in very similar ways, I also see the 1970s threatening to repeat themselves in South Korea with their own constitutional crisis and political turmoil in Seoul. And, if you look at some of the protests and some of the demonstrations, you see the symbols of the American alliance displayed quite openly. I think that for South Korea, the American relationship is still very important.
South Koreans still feel they need the alliance with the United States and that they desire an alliance with the United States. We’re two very close allied partners. And so I think developments that happen in the United States are not going to stay in the United States, and there is a strong possibility that our alliance is going to work both ways. There’s a strong possibility that what happens in the United States is going to flow back into South Korea and vice versa.
And so I think, in that case, officers traveling to Korea and working with Korean counterparts should again think about what American values are important to assert and important to demonstrate to our allies—with the understanding that whether they want to or not, South Korean partners will look to Americans for inspiration or support or camaraderie and will look to maintain that very close relationship.

Host
Hugo, Mike, thank you so much.

Harvey-Valdés
Thank you. And thanks to the US Army War College, and it was a pleasure to have this moment.

Fitzpatrick
Thank you.

Host
Listeners, you can read the genesis articles at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 54, issue 4. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.