Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The Latin American left has always fantasized about political alliances with militarist nationalism. And this leftist fantasy is based on assumptions, whether true or not, about who the military institutions are and whom they serve. The problem is that the Army’s conception of nationalism, understood as the defense of the national territory, does not necessarily coincide with the leftist idea of nationalism, which refers to a sovereignist ideology of political rule.
The military establishments are educated in national thinking, yes, but in the sense of identifying and pursuing enemies that threaten the integrity of the national territory. Their ideological foundation can be defined based on the national security thesis. In one historical moment, the enemies to be defeated may be aggressors or foreign invaders, while in another, they may be promoters of “anti-national” ideas such as communism or anti-capitalism, as well as libertarian ideas on sexual diversity or armed groups financed with resources of illicit origin, such as drug trafficking.
Over time, the military has sometimes mixed their territorial nationalism with notions of a self-sustainable economy but always framed within the national security thesis. In contrast to military ideals, the concern of the political left has always centered on the sovereignty of political power. National security has never been its concern. Moreover, receiving support, logistics, training, and weapons from abroad is perfectly compatible with their idea of promoting the changes their country supposedly requires to ensure its economic and political autonomy and independence from outside hegemonic powers.
The tactical or strategic alliances of the left with the generals have sinned of a certain naiveté. Generals Alvarado of Peru, Torres of Bolivia, Pinochet in Chile, and Perón himself in Argentina come to mind. Their actions and political thinking always ran in parallel and never in necessary concordance with their allies in leftist political parties, trade unions, and social movements. Military thought, even if it sounds “sovereigntist and leftist”, is firstly military and always based on national security. Secondly, it is corruptible, but within the military establishment, where civilians are viewed with a combination of contempt for being manipulable and belittlement, which is not the same thing.
Salvador Allende is probably the leftist president who made the most mistakes with the military, costing him his life. He might not have been able to avoid the coup, but he could have avoided having the generals in his cabinet while they plotted how to overthrow the constitutionally elected government. But, curiously, Evo Morales made the same mistake. Morales failed despite allowing the Bolivian generals to enrich themselves at the expense of the public treasury. The difference between Allende and Morales is that the former thought he could convince Pinochet of the validity of his government project, while the latter wanted to buy the will of the generals with corruption, following the Cuban and Venezuelan example, who knew how to do it successfully.
For the Latin American left, the great “success” of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua is to have managed to materialize and prolong the alliance of their civil-military regimes in time. In all three cases, the key to success was to corrupt the military and civilians at the highest levels, through businesses emanating from their three governments and with strong ties to organized crime, not only in drugs but also in the exploitation of natural resources, such as gold in Venezuela.
While attempts by the Latin American left to forge lasting civil-military agreements have historically tended to fail, the success of the three dictatorships in this area stands out. And their longevity is rooted in the strength and continuity of the close ties between civilian political groups and the military establishments that have benefited from corruption. And the elimination of the alternation of power, creating long dictatorships, such as Somoza, Batista, etc.
López Obrador’s fantasy of building that same relationship of complicity and dependence between civilians and the military runs the risk of falling into the same mistakes of presidents of other times. The great difference between civilians and the military is that politicians are elected for constitutionally limited periods of power, while the military are, by definition, stable, permanent, and long-staying institutions with generational relays that assume the baton, with all their vested interests and acquired commitments.
The success of the three dictatorships is that the civilians last in power as long as the military is in command, and vice versa. In other words, success is based on the extinction of alternation and the abolition of free elections. Under these political conditions, a civil-military regime has a high probability of prospering. Without those conditions, it will fail because the civilian powers will have to evolve in different ways, and the military will not be able to count on the certainty their businesses require to prosper and not be legally judged for their acts of corruption.
López Obrador is particularly fascinated with the Cuban model. But he seems to accept that it is a viable model only under conditions of an iron dictatorship. It combines elements borrowed from Venezuela: it corrupts the military, cloaked under the protective mantle of the concept of national security to avoid accountability. But it does not refer to the foundational idea of national security for territorial defense but serves as a disguise to cover up corruption and is the justification for not being accountable for the abusive use of the public budget.
Despite the obvious dysfunctionality of the Cuban model as a political regime in Mexico, López Obrador wants to impose it in our country. His idea is to turn the military institution into the dike of containment to any effort of the opposition to defend the freedom of the vote and the alternation of power. López Obrador needs to avoid the alternation in power in 2024 and beyond, with the purpose of granting total impunity to the Army’s high commanders to prevent them from being prosecuted for corruption under the next government. This is how the Venezuelan-Cuban political model can work in Mexico. The same civilians should remain in power as long as the military commanders. The guarantee given to the military is that there will be no alternation. By granting this guarantee to the military, it sounds like the end of democracy in Mexico.
The continuity of the 4T in power, with AMLO behind the throne, is a matter of life or death for him. The levels of corruption of Morena and the Armed Forces are of such magnitude that the only option for them if they lose power in 2024, is to execute a coup d’état by several possible means.
In Mexico, the clarion call sounds clear and loud. And it announces: I am not leaving power. Even if they take me away, I will not leave.
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