Having budget allocations
2. Specific Areas Organization
The organization will be designed on the basis of strategic areas, each managed by a Joint Command. Joint commands will develop operational strategic reviews and forecasts and will elaborate doctrines for the use of the military instrument for their strategic areas.
Intermediate commands will be eliminated as they lack a practical purpose, and administrative and
bureaucratic structures will be reduced to the minimum.
Furthermore, priority will be given to the organization of combined weapon groups or task forces groups over units in the pure sense.
These criteria do not exclude the creation of other single-service, joint or combined Operational Strategic
Commands or territorial commands, pursuant to the National Defense Act.
Deployment and Infrastructure Wherever possible, units will be grouped in different geographical areas.
The Armed Forces will share the use of facilities, enhance the utilization of installed capabilities and cut down on infrastructure and utility costs.
Deployment decisions will take into consideration the geographical size of the country at the continental and
coastal levels, its maritime and fluvial spaces, the low density of population in distant areas as well as the characteristics of certain insular areas.
Moreover, the consolidation of units into fewer quarters/bases will be considered. Such facilities will be
complemented by others to be established in case of necessity, but priority will be given to fast deployment capabilities.
Units from the three services that will become part of a certain Operational Strategic Command will be located in contiguous areas to the command post.
Personnel structure
The personnel structure will be broken down into hierarchies, ensuring a proper distribution of command and technical personnel (engineers, physicians, etc.), but aiming at reducing the latter to the minimum.
As regards recruitment of technical personnel, individuals who have
graduated from the National Education System will be given priority, so as to avoid incurring into costs derived from training those officers in the Military Education System.
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Our National Congress is empowered to approve the number of military personnel in the Armed Forces and the number of civilian personnel, with their respective organizational and
budgeting structures.
The Armed Forces personnel are organized according to the following categories:
. Full-time active-duty personnel: As defined in Act 19101
. Active-duty personnel incorporated for a specified term: Those who serve within one of the Services for a specified period of time as part of the permanent staff, in order to
complement or support it. Their military condition will automatically cease at the end of such period or for specific reasons. This category also includes volunteer soldiers, as defined in Act 24429.
. Reserve personnel: Pursuant to Act 1 9 1 0 1 .
The number of reserve personnel in each service will be determined by the Joint Military Planning, paying special attention to quality over quantity.
Personnel education
The main objective in education is to achieve excellence.
Education in the Armed Forces will follow the national education system's structure and will seek to take advantage of available capabilities, thus eliminating duplication and aiming at a better insertion of its members in the general educational and cultural environment.
Personnel promotion
The policy objective in this field consists in contributing to the level of excellence mentioned before, through the following actions, and those set forth in Act 19101:
. Promotions are based on selection and vacancies.
. In relation to the above mentioned item, extending the years of active-duty, in an attempt to make more intensive utilization of the experience acquired and endeavoring to obtain the best cost-effectiveness in military personnel training.
• Addition of new requirements for prior education:
. For the promotion to Senior Officer (Colonel and equivalent ranks):
College and university level of education for such personnel who graduated from the Armed Forces academies after 1992.
. For the promotion to Senior Non-Commissioned Officer: High school degree or an equivalent level.
Part HI - Defense Policies
These requirements will become effective as of 2005.
Civilian personnel
The administrative structure of the Armed Forces will allow replacing military personnel by civilian personnel, so as to
optimize military personnel training costs in the operational field, and concentrating on the exercise of the military profession itself.
Such substitutions will be
performed following Ministry of Defense's approval.
This exchange should not exceed the total number of military and civilian personnel and the positions established by our National Congress for each Service, nor should it entail an increase in personnel spending.
Salaries
The criteria followed to determine military personnel salaries will be based on hierarchical equivalence to the other sectors of the Civil Service.
For this purpose, in addition to resources assigned to salaries (subject to funding allocations), the total savings made in each financial year as a result of personnel reduction will be assigned to progressive salary improvements.
Military retirement and pensions The present system will be
modified to follow both the capitalization
scheme and the government pension system, maiding it compatible with the national system and allowing the transfer of beneficiaries.
Defense Equipment
Fund allocation priorities will be the following:
. Firstly, to recover out-of-service equipment (including their logistic cycle) whenever feasible and acceptable, provided that they are suitable to maintain operational capabilities.
. Secondly, to upgrade available
equipment when deemed appropriate, feasible and acceptable, in order to meet the corresponding operational capabilities.
• As a last resort, to acquire new equipment. When procurement decisions are made, priorities shall be the following:
• Promoting a deterrent capability.
• Promoting standardization with existing equipment, at a joint level.
. Providing new technological developments. In these cases, priority will be given to
incorporating weapon systems that may include the transfer of
technology and simulator training equipment.
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Decisions on equipment suitability and acceptability should be made in accordance with the joint military planning.
To such effect, a Technical
Committee for the Follow-up of Military Acquisitions was created under the
Ministry of Defense.
Based on the above priorities, the equipment policy should not be
interpreted as excessive arms increase causing an imbalance with respect to the regional and world situation or with other requirements of the country.
In brief, the criterion followed to equip the Armed Forces responds, within reasonable limits, to such operational capabilities as are required for the joint attainment of National Defense
objectives.
Logistics and Production for Defense articles
The Senior Logistics Board
(described in Chapter 17) will endeavor to rationalize, standardize and classify all Armed Forces and logistic equipment.
An involvement of the private industry in the production of Defense articles will be encouraged. Dual technology research in areas of interest both for Defense and for the civilian sector will also be promoted, and
partnerships with other countries will be sought to this end.
However, the Ministry of Defense is considering actions aimed at maintaining and acquiring essential and indispensable logistical capabilities, difficult to attain in times of crisis and whose permanent local availability should therefore be ensured.
Budgeting and management control
This area is essential for the proper conduct of Defense issues, according to the criteria and mechanisms described in Part V, and for a more rational allocation of funds. In order to improve efficiency in this field, policies have been set with the following objectives:
• To foster the use of compatible and interoperable information systems by the three Armed Forces, the Joint Staff of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense.
. The final implementation of the Planning, Programming and
Budgeting System (S3P) consisting of an information system suitable to meet the requirements mentioned above.
3. Resource rationalization