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Tracing the U.S. government's efforts to shape the armed forces of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean from 2000 to 2014, this narrative concentrates on the Army but also discusses Air Force and naval forces, including the Marines and the Coast Guard. Police forces in those regions are also covered. Mexico's ongoing struggle with drug cartels is discussed extensively. Venezuela and Cuba receive considerable attention. This study is the first to examine in detail the armed forces of countries such as the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Sections on Haiti and Panama, countries supposedly without armies, reveal the decisive role the U.S. has played in determining their military policies. The text weaves the histories of these armed forces into the broader context of the politics, economics and international relations in the region. A clear and brief introduction to the relations of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean with the United States is provided.
Foreign capital and free trade policies have provoked fierce conflicts in South America in recent years. People in Colombia and Peru engaged in often violent clashes to defend their livelihoods against the encroachments of the free market and the impositions of Wall Street. Farmers organized to save their lands from foreign mining corporations, and cities fought to save their water from contamination. Native Americans blocked highways to preserve ancestral lands, while students paralyzed universities and called for reforms to higher education. The shift toward socialism in Venezuela, led by President Hugo Chavez, was bitterly opposed by privileged groups. Governments tried to quell the turmoil through repression, political maneuvering and propaganda. This book provides a dramatic account of the struggles.
After the September 11, 2001 (9/11), attacks on the United States, homeland defense became the primary issue in U.S. defense policy. At the same time, it was clear that homeland defense would have to become a trilateral continental issue, and, thus, would have to include Canada and Mexico. Because the United States and Canada already had developed a relatively close relationship during and after World War II as a result of their common interests and efforts in NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and NORAD (North American Air Defense), it became important to begin to understand the Mexican armed forces and their capabilities. This monograph, written from a Canadian prospective, is a significant step in that direction. Because interaction among the U.S., Mexican, Canadian, and other hemispheric armed forces is likely to increase, within or outside a continental economic and/or security architecture, better mutual understanding of the structure and inner workings of the not well understood Mexican armed forces is indispensable. Thus, the purpose of this monograph is to provide a long-overdue appraisal of the Mexican armed forces, with the intention of acquainting those in Canada and the United States and other countries in the Western Hemisphere with the Mexican armed forces. This monograph will demonstrate that the armed forces are professional and well respected in Mexico, and that many Mexicans depend on these forces for medical services, physical and human development, and disaster relief. Additionally, the authors expect that this monograph will contribute to a more universal understanding of the history, structure, and doctrine of the Mexican forces, and of the changing nature of civil-military relations in Mexico. This is not only desirable, but likely necessary, as we move further into 21st century interdependence.
This book is a collection of essays written or edited by the author across thirty-five years of scholarly research and teaching contact with the military forces of Latin America. The central thesis is that the region's armed forces have been an escort to modernity within a heritage of freedom that is different from that found in North America, yet equally valid within the broad Judeo-Christian context. The opening section positions Latin America in the post-Cold War era and examines the emerging national security trends in the region. Next comes a section on U.S. policy which stresses the tendency of analysts to confuse Cold War era security issues with the age of gunboat diplomacy. The third section explores the turbulent Carribean region and its entrapment in Cold War jousting between the superpowers. Next comes a long section of showing Colombia's model defense of democratic institutions against multiple challenges. The fifth section sketches European influence on Latin American military behavior. The unifying theme is that Latin America is a hybrid region featuring the values of the Englightenment in Mediterranean Europe grafted unevenly opon huge indigeneous societies. Then comes a section which evaluates the era of romantic leftist revolution during the latter half of the Cold War in Latin America. The final section contains unique coverage of U.S.-Latin American military relations. The author's thesis is that Latin America is the world's least militarized region, and that the academic world in North America and Western Europe have demonized the region's armed forces in a politicized resurrection of the Black Legend. Comprehensive bibliographic entries allow the reader freedom to judge and choose.
This powerful narrative recounts the tumultuous time in Honduras that witnessed then-President Manuel Zelaya deposed by a coup in June 2009, told through first-person experiences and layered with deeper political analysis. It weaves together two perspectives; first, the broad picture of Honduras since the coup, including the coup itself, its continuation in two repressive regimes, and secondly, the evolving Honduran resistance movement, and a new, broad solidarity movement in the United States. Although it is full of terrible things, this not a horror story: this narrative directly counters mainstream media coverage that portrays Honduras as a pit of unrelenting awfulness, in which powerless sobbing mothers cry over bodies in the morgue. Rather, it’s about sobering challenges and the inspiring collective strength with which people face them. Dana Frank is a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of Baneras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America from Haymarket Books. Since the 2009 military coup her articles about human rights and U.S. policy in Honduras have appeared in The Nation, New York Times, Politico Magazine, Foreign Affairs.com, The Baffler, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, and many other publications, and she has testified in both the US Congress and Canadian Parliament.
During the Cold War, Mexico successfully bucked the tide of US backed military dictatorships that swept Latin America. Ironically, after communism has disappeared as a political force, Mexico's army is mired in multiple counterinsurgency battles, has been infiltrated by narcotics traffickers at the highest ranks, is endemic with corruption, and is increasingly dependent on US weapons, training, and ideology. In 16 chapters, written by 11 experts in military affairs, including two full generals (one retired, the other a political prisoner, who smuggled out his three chapters in this volume via his son on visiting days), a complex and comprehensive picture of the Mexican Armed Forces is presented. The book discusses in great length, over 250 oversize pages, with a wealth of charts, graphs, footnotes and a fold out map, the history, mission, and the constitutional context of Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero; the growth and institutionalization of paramilitaries; the relation between militarization and economics; the military budget; the drug war; and the problematic relationship between the US and Mexican militaries. A crucial text for anyone wanting to understand what is really going on south of the border.