Author Topic: Creeping Military Politicization Puts Mexico and Brazil at Risk  (Read 205 times)

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rebewranger

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July 3, 2022 

Creeping Military Politicization Puts Mexico and Brazil at Risk

It would be a tragedy if Latin America were to return to first another cycle of military involvement in politics or even a return to military rule, followed by another multi-decade effort to get the soldiers back in the barracks.

by Richard M. Sanders

Are Latin America’s armed forces again becoming politically active after decades in which they have largely stayed in the barracks and confined themselves to their normal professional role? We are seeing some ominous signs from Mexico and Brazil—the region’s two largest countries—and, ironically, it is these countries’ elected presidents who are involving the military in their political projects. Mexico’s Andres Manuel López Obrador (generally known as AMLO) is an avowed leftist and opponent of Mexico’s elite. Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain, is the scourge of the Left. Yet despite their ideological differences, both have sought to pry their nations’ armed forces away from neutrality.

 Mexican political leaders had worked for decades to separate the armed forces from political life. Traditionally, Mexico’s military has been respected but kept relatively small and restricted to classic security activities. This has included combating the relatively small Zapatista rebellion in southern Mexico and, beginning under AMLO’s predecessors Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto, engaging in anti-drug operations.

When AMLO ran for the presidency in 2018, he campaigned against the military’s role in the counternarcotics effort. This was part of his larger approach to the drug issue, which he argued could not be solved through punitive means but only by increasing social welfare spending—a policy which he termed “abrazos, no balazos” (hugs, not gunshots). This policy, of course, appealed to his leftist constituency which was historically suspicious of the military.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/creeping-military-politicization-puts-mexico-and-brazil-risk-203316
« Last Edit: July 03, 2022, 06:12:47 pm by rangerrebew »

rebewranger

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Re: Creeping Military Politicization Puts Mexico and Brazil at Risk
« Reply #1 on: July 03, 2022, 06:15:17 pm »
I'm comforted by the fact politicization can't happen in America!  It could ruin our military, too. :3: