Op-Ed: 15 Notes on Mexico’s New Militarism

Emiliano Polo*

The hazardous compulsion for a military takeover of civil institutions in Mexico has been the trademark of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s presidency. A recent study by CIDE University found that, between 2006 and 2021, over 246 government functions, previously in charge of civilian authorities, have been handed over to the Mexican armed forces. Yet what started as a public policy, constrained to public security (militarization), has now altered the whole Mexican political system (militarism). Sustained changes in quantity lead to a change in quality; numbers have turned into something else. If we can’t stop counting, then we are not just talking about numbers anymore.

It is important to highlight two common misunderstandings about Mexico’s new militarism: this is not a security strategy, not even a failed one. This is a political undertaking; using the army for political ambition and appeals to “security” is the smokescreen and costume. Secondly, militarism is not tantamount to strengthening the armed forces. This feverish and dicey endeavor has generated a debilitating effect -weakening the army by granting them manifold public contracts without any transparency mechanism, drastically raising corruption, and bestowing them with civilian functions they will never be able to accomplish -given their essence and training-, such as public security.

The following are some political implications and conjectures about the ongoing and accelerating militarism process in Mexico:

1. Militarism implies a shift in loyalties and alliances for the armed forces: from a constitutional framework to a personal and partisanship fidelity. Militarism will upset the army’s previous and well-deserved high social esteem and approval as corruption scandals accumulate and it becomes identified as supportive of a political party or, even worse, a personal political project.
2. Where do we come from? In the past, the government had a tacit and pragmatic understanding with the armed forces. The settlement implied a high degree of autonomy (certainly also opacity and corruption) in exchange for distance from politics and the civil sphere of government -it is not surprising that Mexico is one of the few countries in LATAM that didn’t suffer a military coup in the 20^th century. The understanding and objective within the political elite was to keep the military “far away and happy”; today, we have groups in the army who are “close and angry” as they are ordered to perform tasks they are not prepared to do. Corruption seldom benefits evenly or everyone.
3. The armed forces are not a homogeneous entity. Its essence as a vertical institution will exacerbate internal divisions and resentments between the military elite, which benefits from corruption, and the larger group of soldiers in the lower ranks, on the other hand. The known corruption scandals are, and will likely remain, connected to the higher rungs of the military hierarchy.
4. Militarism is dangerous because it implies a different rationality for government action, usually exogenous from the civilian logic and considerations that should prevail in democratic systems. Government offices, many recently overtaken by military personnel, require and are hugely dependent on civil bureaucracies with high technical capabilities. For several institutions, a military command instantly turns them superfluous and futile. Military codes such as efficiency and control are not the only guiding principles in most civil bureaucracies and agencies.
5. The armed forces are not prepared (nor should they be) to deal with the public and political scrutiny that militarism entails. Their political limelight does not imply, and will not be translated, into the required political prowess to deal with the spotlights of what being a politicized army will unavoidably imply. This will open another flank to an already besieged institution.
6. Under a constitutional framework, and before militarism, civil bureaucracies and institutions provided political channels and buffer zones to protect the army, allowing it to halt and dodge political threats. Historically, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) and the Ministry of the Interior (SEGOB) worked as intermediaries, interlocutors, and shock absorbers between the army and U.S. agencies, for example. The channeling of sensitive issues with foreign governments with the lowest possible direct contact with the armed forces was a responsible civil shield for the armed forces. The Mexican army is not an appropriate institution to handle most dialogues with foreign or international security agencies single-handedly.
7. Militarism implies a certain contradiction: extending huge budgets and responsibilities while assigning incompatible tasks. This widening gap between what they are asked to do and what they can do will corrode one of their main attributes: discipline and internal rules and proceedings. Militarism implies the relaxation of military discipline to comply with a growing package of political responsibilities.
8. Within the vast array of newly assigned tasks, the natural tendency will be to focus on those representing more profits and lesser risk, such as customs control and public infrastructure construction.
9. The process is a blow to the federal system. The military expansion includes capturing local and municipal governments and agencies. Military personnel have repetitively been appointed to key local security positions.
10. Militarism has created blurry limits and confusion between state, government, and party responsibilities. The division between national security and public safety is now scrambled with the defense of a political party. For the first time in modern history, a Mexican Minister of Defense publicly supported a political party.
11. If the army identifies itself with a political party that persistently defines enemies, the military will adopt the same enemies, increasingly directing resources to political targets. Recently, the general in charge of the militarized National Guard publicly included a Supreme Court Justice in a “black list.”  
12. In the initial stages of his administration, AMLO declared that “if it were up to him, he would disappear the armed forces.” His actions have confirmed this intention. Disappearing the army meant corrupting it, annexing it as a partisan tool.
13. Militarism will probably enhance closeness, communication, and collaboration with armies in dictatorships like Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba.
14. The army’s delivery of social programs and benefits is an essential component of militarism, as it enhances its political role and responsibility. For example, the army was responsible for constructing the government bank branches that deliver monthly payments to elderly people.
15. Through the ideology of militarism, the army will become a less reliable and unstable actor. It will stop being an element of political stability and become an additional factor of political turbulence and volatility. In the past, the army self-described itself as an institution “above the government”; today, as a political actor, it places itself underneath not just the government but a political party.

Militarism is a demotion and a degradation, both morally and politically. A great shame and humiliation for an indispensable Mexican institution but, more importantly, a betrayal for the thousands of Mexican soldiers who joined the armed forces for the right reasons.

Emiliano Polo is a graduate student of global affairs at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. His research focuses on applied history and Latin American politics. He currently works in the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

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