Latin American Armies 1945-1998:
Main Events and Conceptual Approaches

Giovanni E. Reyes

University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
GSPIA; Ph.D. Program
Pittsburgh, September 1998

Contents:

1. Introduction (3)

2. 1945-1960: Consolidation and Professionalism (6)

3. 1960-1985: The National Security Statement (10)

4. 1985-To the present: The Aim of National Stabilization (15)

5. Conclusions (18)

6. Bibliography (20)

1. Introduction

The objective of this document is to present a summary of the main events and theoretical interpretations of Latin American Armies (LAA) that have developed since the Second World War. The particular aims are: (a) To define the major historical periods of the LAA in their institutional development after 1945; (b) To identify the principal social and political conditions of those periods and the effect on LAA; (c) To discuss the main theoretical approaches used to explain the role of LAA, their principal authors, and how these concepts changed over time. These theoretical perspectives will refer to the armies’ structure, functions, the social repercussions of the armies’ activities and their political positions.

This document refers to the Latin American region as a whole, even though many of the bibliographical references include authors who base their concepts on specific countries. The conclusions will summarize the common arguments and conceptual perspectives presented as well as their applications to the present conditions of the Latin American region.

Following this introduction, this document contains four sections: (a) The era of professionalization of the LAA 1945-1960; (b) The stage of the national security doctrine: 1960-1985; (c) The era of the national stabilization statement: 1985-to the present; and (d) Conclusions. The historical division presented in this paper is based on the works of Abraham F. Lowenthal, J. Samuel Fitch (1986), and V. Bushuev (1976).

The theoretical approaches presented here can be categorized into two main sociological theories: structural-functionalism and the theory of conflict. According to the first approach, armies are guardians of the national sovereignty, and providers of social cohesion and stability. Their influence is important for the consolidation of national institutions, and the legal foundations of the political and social system. The structural-functionalist approach was developed based on the works of August Comte. More recent authors include Thomas Merton, and Andrew Cherlin (Coser, 1987: 17). This theory establishes, among its main principles, that social systems are formed by major social institutions and their relationships, and that systems will tend to maintain their coherence and their reproductive mechanisms, without radical and rapid changes. LAA have been one the major institutions maintaining social conditions and the permanency of the region’s political systems. Several authors use the assumptions of this theoretical model, they include Guillermo A. D’Onnell (1973); and Lyle McAlister (1981).

The theory of conflict focuses analytical attention on conflicts in society. Modern conflict theory was developed by Karl Marx, George Simmel, and Max Weber (Coser, 1987:19). The main assumptions of this conceptual perspective are: social systems distribute scarce and valuable resources unequally, the resulting inequalities and inequities create conflicts of interest among the various strata and classes in the system, these conflicts of interest eventually generate overt conflicts between those who control valuable resources and those who do not, and in the long run, these conflicts result in the reorganization of social systems. Latin American societies have dominant social groups who control the economic and political power, and marginal groups who do not derive benefits from the economic and social system. In this context, armies play a key role in the maintenance of the dominant groups within and among countries in Latin America. LAA have on many occasions received support and direct control from the United States government and military. Authors working with the conflict theory elements include: Gabriel Aguilera (1991); Edelberto Torres Rivas (1989); V. Bushuev (1976); August Varas (1984); and M. Vellinga (1976).

LAA maintain a real political power in the sense that they can intervene directly or indirectly, with substantial influence in the political decision processes within the Latin American countries. Other components of real power are the business sector and the representatives of the United States’ interest in the region (Torres Rivas, 1989). From this perspective national politicians elected to form the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of government, represent only the formal political power (Aikoff, 1982).

Exceptional cases in Latin America are Costa Rica and Panama. In both cases the national armies have been eliminated as social institutions. Costa Rica prohibited the functions of its national army in 1948 after a bloody conflict in which the more liberal forces won. Panama eliminated its national army in 1993, with the support of the United States which in December 1989 invaded the country, and captured the Panamanian head of state, general Manuel Noriega.

2. 1945-1960: Consolidation and Professionalism

The year 1945 marked the end of the Second World War (WWII), and the beginning of an important period of consolidation and professionalization of the LAA. The end of the war affected the social and political conditions in Latin America in general, and the armies’ functions in particular, in three major aspects.

First, the end of WWII created the conditions for more democratic procedures in Latin America. This circumstance provoked the interruption of several dictatorial regimes in the region, and thus encouraged political elections. The LAA who have been directly involved in governments left the formal public power to elected citizens. This situation was particularly evident in Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, and Guatemala. In the cases of Colombia and Guatemala, the installation of an elected regimen was obtained after bloody confrontations between civil populations and the military regimes. The elected Guatemalan government took office in 1944, and the Colombia president in 1949 (Torres Rivas 1989).

A second repercussion of the end of WWII was that following the Treaty of Yalta among Winston Churchill, Franklin Rooseevelt, and Joseph Stalin, the communist parties in Latin America developed the political capacity to participate in national elections, or at least to have influential positions in the national parliaments. This phenomena was evident in Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and Uruguay. However, with the intensification of the Korean war, the beginning of the Cold War era, and the rise of MacCarthism in the United States, communists parties suffered severe repression from the armies in the region. The most notable cases were Bolivia, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, and Argentina (Bushev, 1976).

A third effect was the US supported political repression in the region. While the repression was directly executed by the police and military forces within each country, the US remained a key factor in the consolidation of the LAA into a more cohesive social institution with more professional expertise in national security activities. This professional training was developed mainly in the base of the South Command in Panama, and in some US military basis, such as South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia (Aguilera, 1991).

For the time being, most armies left the governmental power to civilians, while consolidating its structure as a social institution and developing its professional expertise. This process of professionalization was developed mainly within the context of military procedures, as a first stage in increasing the overall professional level of the military. In the coming decades military personnel focused on the need to obtain college degrees, in areas such as engineering, psychology, economics, and law (Philip, 1985).

During the period from 1945 to 1960 the armies in many countries of Latin America developed increased access to financial resources of the governmental sectors in the region. With this financial support and the US assistance, the armies reinforced their social and political influence. These was the case with Nicaragua, Colombia, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru (Varas, 1984).

In several instances, however, the armies gained control over the formal political power, due in part to social instability, the influence of the US, and in some cases, weak leadership from the elected civil representatives. Examples of these occurrences include Peru in 1957, Guatemala 1954, Bolivia 1953, and Ecuador 1959.

National armies typically supported populist regimes, as was the case in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. Populist regimes were characteristic of Latin American development during the fifties. These regimes established political alliances with urban workers, and gave substantial economic benefit to the business sectors in each country. These regimes almost always excluded the rural sectors from the political process. The governments supported the process of regional industrialization through the import substitution model. The armies were beneficiaries of these political economic measures in three ways: the armies exercised more control over the national populations especially in the countryside, they reinforced their professional training, and they were incorporated into the business sector. The relationship with the business sector will be developed more during the sixties and seventies, with very important political implications in the region.

Among the authors who studied the role of the army during this period is Lyle McAlister (1981). This scholar supports the idea that when the armies do not have a significant degree of professionalization only very few army officials will take control over the complete military institutions and even entire nations. Those military men that were successful in doing so were referred to as caudillos. The influence of these leaders was significant and widespread especially during the fifties. Examples of caudillos are: Emiliano Zapata and Francisco Villa in Mexico, Augusto Cesar Sandino in Nicaragua, Rojas Pinillos en Venezuela, and to some extend Velasco Alvarado in Peru, and Velasco Ibarra in Ecuador.

McAlister (1981) also argues that the most prominent members of the Latin American armies tend to interact with the civilian authorities rather than to be against them. In the case of Mexico we can see the development and consolidation of the corporative-state, and the case of Nicaragua, in which the model of the bureaucratic authoritarianism dominated from the fifties until 1979.

Winfield Burggraaff (1972) is another author of the LAA during this period. He maintains the thesis that caudillos are important authoritarian forces which play necessary roles for populations in periods of great social confusion, and when the weakness of civilian authorities can represent a lack of effective political power in terms of the aspirations of the majority of society. Burggraff also confirms the methodological trend during the studies of this period in which more empirical data was used.

The Mexican case is studied by Edwin Lieuwen (1968). His main argument is that the insurgent army during the Mexican Revolution, 1908-1917, was the determinant condition not only for the popular leaders to obtain political power, but also for the consolidation of the official party in the Mexican political power that has ruled from 1929 until the present day. Lieuwen reinforces his argument when he points out the central axis of power that the Mexican army represents in the conformation of the public representation in Mexico since 1917.

3. 1960- 1985: The National Security Statement

During the period 1960-1985 the influence of US government in Latin America increased. The principal event at the beginning of this period was the triumph of the Cuban revolution on January 1st, 1959. Since 1960 the US government reinforced its response to the Cuban revolutionary government acting in Latin America in two main directions: First, the support of the armies and the aim to increase their professionalization in name of the "national security". The objective was to defeat the Latin American guerrilla movements especially those of Nicaragua beginning in 1963, El Salvador 1969, Guatemala 1961, Colombia 1964, Venezuela 1967, Uruguay 1970, and Argentina 1972 (Schmitter, 1981).

The second main activity of the US government was to develop the initiative: Alliance for the Progress. This program began under the Kennedy administration in 1961. During the sixties the attitudes toward the Cold War were reinforced. The US viewed Cuba as a Soviet threat especially after the crisis of October 1962, when the Soviets attempted to establish missile basis in Cuban territory.

The guerrilla movements were strong in Latin America especially in Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. These insurrect movements tried to articulate the social and political exclusion of many social sectors from the political processes in the region. The guerrilla movements derived their base support from the civilian population. This support however was not always reliable, as we can see from the failure of Ernesto Guevara’s effort to establish a permanent guerrilla movement in Bolivia (North, 1983).

In several cases, in this period LAA regained political power, examples include Uruguay 1972, Chile 1973, Argentina 1976, Honduras 1972, Peru 1976, El Salvador 1972, and Guatemala 1963. LAA exercise their repressive methods in the name of the doctrine of national security of each country and with the critical support of the US government. Nevertheless, on July 19 1979, the Sandinista movement took power in Nicaragua. The US government almost immediately instituted a commercial embargo, and a military harassment campaign against that nation using territories in Costa Rica and Honduras.

Several dictatorial and authoritarian regimens were established during the period 1960-1985. The most important cases were in Chile with Augusto Pinochet as head of state from 1973 until 1990; Paraguay with Alfredo Strossner, as head of state of this country during the period 1954-1988; and Fidel Castro in Cuba from 1959 until today.

Democratic regimens were consolidated in Venezuela, Mexico and Costa Rica. Three main events affected the social and military conditions in Latin America and marked the end of this historical period. First the decrease in the Cold War tensions when in March 1985, Mikhail Gorvachev took power in the Soviet Union. A second factor was the near total defeat of guerrilla movements in all Latin American countries, with the exceptions of the insurrect movements of the National Liberation Army in Colombia, and the Shining Path in Peru. Third, Latin American governments faced the need to carry out economic adjustment plans, mainly in order to pay their external debts (Aguilera 1991).

In many cases the most prominent members of LAA became members of the business sector, while other members of the army were carrying out activities in executive functions in the public sector. By this time, in addition to their military degrees, military personnel had obtained university education in careers such as economics, law, and managerial sciences.

With this broad base of preparation, military members had become part of the technostructure. Also during this period, bureaucratic authoritarianism was consolidated. This form of government was a determining factor in the social and political conditions of Paraguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Honduras (Malloy, 1987).

During the sixties, the studies concerning the LAA began to take on a different perspective: Instead of general or regional studies, they began to focus on the particular situation of each Latin American country. Several scholars developed their work during this period. John Johnson (1972) maintains, for example, the argument that the military intervention in the government does not necessarily always have a negative or regressive political significance, that is to say that military regimes did not always impose unjust measures on the majority of the population within each country. Military interventions, in Johnson opinion, can provide stability encouraging international investment, and by this means, employment and better social conditions.

Robert Potash (1969) studied the case of Argentina basing his findings primarily on empirical data. He concludes that the Argentine army began a strong professionalization process at the beginning of the sixties significantly affecting the internal structure of the armies. These changes in turn, provided the army’s functional and cohesive basis in order to invigorate its political influence in the country. The army for example, took direct control of the Argentine government in 1976.

Alfred Stepan’s study of the Brazilian case (1971) was based mostly on empirical data. Stepan corroborates Potash’s findings concerning the Argentine army, in the sense that he claims increased access to university education provides armies with more internal cohesion as an institution, and generates more powerful political influence. Stepan emphasizes the fact that Brazilian military personnel occupied very important positions in high bureaucratic levels. This author sustains the argument that the public influence of the military at the governmental level affects the social conditions in society generally characterized by more repression and eventually more stability. This effect on society is very important in understanding the role of the LAA in the implementation of the economic adjustment plans during the late eighties.

Victor Villanueva (1973) is another author offering useful insights into the case of the development of LAA as institutions. As a retired official of the military, he focuses on the army of his own country Peru. Villanueva’s main results and reflections lead to the conclusion that military control over public power is important in Latin America in order to carry out reformist tasks, both sociological and economic. Villanueva based his conclusions on the Peruvian case of Velasco Alvarado, a reformist general who took power through a coup d’état in 1968. Alvarado regimen was responsible for establishing a more progressive tax system, and an important movement of land reform.

Another author, Guillermo O’Donnell (1973), maintains a particular perspective of LAA: Until the middle of the seventies most of the studies of LAA were developed in terms of regional orientation or by specific country case studies. O’Donnell on the other hand, studies LAA in a comparative manner taking into account the prevalent conditions in several Latin American nations. He argues that the military is primarily responsible for the establishment of bureaucratic authoritarianism in Latin

American societies. Military personnel are generally from middle class backgrounds like that of bureaucrats. This fact is likely to enhance the degree of public cooperation between the army and the public sector officers. O’Donnell corroborates the Kenneth Galbraith’s thesis of the technostructure as an axis of political power in societies.

The specific influence of the national security doctrine, and US government support to reinvigorate the LAA in Peru and Brazil was studied by Luigi Einaudi and Alfred Stepan (1971). These authors discuss why armies with essentially similar organizations, structures, and procedures, in countries with comparable social and economic problems, and subject to the same kind of foreign doctrinal influences forged national security doctrines to develop more intense political roles. Comparisons are made between the Peruvian situation after the Velasco Alvarado regime, and Brazil after Getulio Vargas and his reformist and populist political measures.

Edelberto Torres Rivas (1989) and Wiarda (1986) studied the cases of Costa Rica and Mexico. They conclude that LAA at least in the case of Mexico are capable of forming a very important sector of the corporativist style of the Mexican government especially with the same political party in power for more than six decades. Torres Rivas also sustains that the lack of armed forces in Costa Rica can be replaced by foreign military assistance, as it was observed during the eighties when US used Costa Rican territory to attack the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

Analyzing empirical data, Robert Putnam (1977) relates measures of a series of independent variables, such as socioeconomic development, political development, characteristics of particular military institutions, and foreign assistance and training, to the dependent variable, "military intervention", defined as when armed forces exercise controlled violence over civil populations. Putnam’s major findings determine that social mobilization is strongly and negatively related to military intervention, but that economic development is positively correlated. One of the main controversial points in Putnam’s work is the lack of clarity that the author uses to differentiate among the wide variety of armies and political roles of the phenomenon of military interventions.

4. 1985-To the present: The aim of National Stabilization

Especially during the eighties, the main social conditions in Latin American countries were characterized by the critical necessity to decrease the external debt, the almost complete defeat of the guerrilla movements, and the need to carry out the economic adjustment plans. At the beginning and middle of the eighties, many of the Latin American military governments lacked credibility due to human rights abuses. This was the case of the Central American countries, as well as Peru, Argentina, and Chile. Taking into account these elements it was necessary for Latin American countries to maintain regimes with political legitimacy, mainly because the structural adjustment plans enacted important social costs.

It was observed that the implementation of the economic adjustment plans caused severe recession and lack of opportunities for the majority of the population in Latin American countries. The implementation of economic plans caused critical social unrest, that was contained and suppressed by the action of police and the armed forces. An example of this circumstance was the two days of riots in Caracas, Venezuela in February 1989. The army’s operation resulted in an official death of 213 persons. Similar situations occurred in El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, and Guatemala. In this social and political scenario the primary objective of the army was to establish an environment of national stability, in order to attract especially international investment, and generate economic growth. Only then would it be possible to allow for more equitable economic distribution of benefits in the Latin American social system (Torres, 1989).

The US policy orientation in military and economic terms is neo-Keynesian (demand-side economics), ultranationalist (US Manifest Destiny), and anticommunist. The objective of the state is highly specialized: the provision of "security" through the administration of violence (Ritter, 1992: 170). Since military structures, doctrines, and techniques are among the most easily transferred technologies in the contemporary world, continental military professionalism has become the most homogenizing bureaucratic trait. In this sense, military modernization, especially along counterinsurgency lines and the concept of the "internal enemy," has meant the transnationalization and denationalization of the officer class. This in itself is a fundamental structural limitation on the sovereignty of the Latin American nation-state.

Malloy (1987) concludes that when the military regimes of the sixties and seventies left the scene in the eighties, they left behind a dual legacy that is shaping the democracies that have now come to power. First, their leaders demonstrated more profoundly than ever before their ultimate incompetence to rule. The old-time military regimes and personalist dictators of Latin America had made no special developmental claims. Their sole source of legitimation had been brute force and the power to coerce populations. Hence, their frequent failures in economic matters had not undermined their clams to legitimacy. The new militaries promised much more and based their claims to legitimacy on those promises. They would have done away with politics and made decisions based upon rational, bureaucratic criteria. They convinced themselves, and exhorted the masses to believe, that only in this way could the obstacles to rapid economic growth be overcome.

In a particularly unique orientation, Liisa North (1983) analyzed the Chilean case. She studied the brutally repressive role of Chile’s military rulers. Emphasizing the political and institutional history of Chile’s armed forces, North stresses the interplay of long-term trends and immediate situation variables in helping to account for the Chilean tragedy. For the events of the Chilean case during the period 1980-1990, the US governmental support was crucial, also US transnational companies obtained benefits from the new Chilean economic facilities to attract foreign investments, and to repatriate profit capitals.

Alain Joxe (1983) also studied the Chilean case, and he disputes the conventional view that the Chilean army had not involved itself in politics before the eighties. According to Joxe, the Chilean army has had a "latent and permanent participation" in the political process as the middle class’s principal agent in shaping and protecting the social, political and economic systems for its benefit. Although the Chilean military has not taken office directly very often -in 1891, 1924, 1931-32, and in 1973-, Joxe argues that each military takeover in Chile counts for ten somewhere else, because the army does such a thorough and effective job each time in rearranging the system to protect vital middle-class interests.

The phenomenon of political and military interventions was studied by Martin Needler (1986). He seeks to explain the frequency and timing of coups d’état and to ascertain whether there is any overall trend with regard to their effects on social and economic policy. He concludes that coups occur more often than not when economic conditions are deteriorating; that they increasingly tend to occur against constitutional regimes, often just before or just after elections; that their redistributive effects on economic and social policy, if any, are regressive; and that, though their incidence is cyclical, the secular trend is descending.

Jose Nun (1971) argues that armies in Latin America have usually acted as representatives of changing middle-class interests, compensating for that class’s "inability to establish itself as a well-integrated hegemonic group." Meanwhile, Samuel Huntington elaborates this insight, portraying armed forces across the world as "doorkeepers to the expansion of political participation in a praetorian society; their historic role is to open the door to the middle class and to close it to the lower class."

Finally Philippe Schmitter (1981) suggests that military regimes do affect public policies, but not as much as they claim or their critics assert. However, lumping together all "military" regimes and distinguishing them form all "civilian" regimes may be profoundly misleading. As Guillermo O’Donnell hints, certain social circumstances may produce regimes, whether civilian or military, that resemble each other much more than they do other civilian or military regimes under different socioeconomic circumstances.

4. Conclusions

a) Especially before and during the fifties, the consolidation of the LAA and its internal cohesion as social institution, as well as its political influence in the region was developed through the caudillo functions. In this sense, LAA gained legitimacy from the societies and were able to carry out in many cases direct functions within the governmental power;

b) Most of the theoretical interpretations of LAA after the WWII underlines the importance of the US support of the Latin American armed forces. Through this support and in several cases direct intervention, the US tried to impose its political and economic interest in the area. This kind of support and intervention increased after the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959;

c) The US response to the perceived Soviet threat from Latin American countries was developed mainly during the period 1960-1985 through the national security doctrine. In the name of combatting the communist threat and the guerrilla movements, LAA developed important repressive activities in Latin America to preserve its own interest as armed forces, and to interact with other powerful political forces, such as the business sector and the local politicians in each country;

d) The military interventions were not always necessarily a means toward a more regressive social and political situation. In several cases, LAA took political power in order to carry out reformist economics measures, in any case LAA will respond to their interest and their class position within the specific political scenario and the main political forces contained within;

e) The repressive activities from the LAA were carried out in two stages: the national security doctrine during the sixties and seventies, and the national stability statement since the middle of the eighties. In both cases the major aim is to legitimize their political power in order to maintain economic and social structures that exclude the majority of the Latin American population from the economic benefits of the prevalent social system;

f) Increasingly the military personnel have been involved in bureaucratic tasks in the governmental sector, and several prominent members of LAA have become part of the business sectors. These two features in the social participation of LAA members enhance their ability to affect public policy, to carry out managerial tasks, and to maintain their political alliance with the more powerful economic groups within the region. This particular perspective was developed primarily during the seventies and eighties;

g) During the fifties several authors considered LAA as institutional means to maintain the regional stabilization. During the sixties and seventies LAA were seen as repressive organizations trying to protect their own interest, the international US hegemonic position in the Western Hemisphere, and to share benefits to the regional political elites. During the eighties several authors considered LAA as institutions that allowed for the establishment of a more stable economic scenario, and in particular cases, even reformist movements of the governmental sector. In any case LAA are important actors in the political arena of Latin American countries, with the present exceptions of Costa Rica and Panama, countries which have eliminated their military institutions.-

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