The Military and Government: Arms and Politics in Latin America, Edwin Lieuwen

Author(s): Ewdin Lieuwen and Lyle N. McAlister

Source: The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Nov., 1960), pp. 582-590
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2510250
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REVIEW ARTICLE

The Military and Government: Arms and

Politics in Latin America, Edwin Lieuwen*

LYLE N. MCALISTER**

Some fifteen years ago a distinguished scholar, Charles E. Mer-

riam, remarked: "The truth is that the most neglected of subjects
in the whole domain of political science is that of the organization of
military violence in relation to political government. "1 He might well
have included the domain of history. This neglect is attributable
in part to intellectual fashions; scholars were preoccupied with
phenomena which interested them more or which they conceived to
be more important. In part it was due to philosophical disposition.
Historians and social scientists of pre-World War II generations
were in a broad sense, a liberal, idealistic, and humane lot. They
were overwhelmingly concerned with institutions and processes which
they regarded as "normal" and which derived from action which
was essentially rational: constitutions, elections, economic develop-
ment, social forces, intellectual movements. Armies represented ir-
rationality, brutality and inhumanity.2 They were aberrations.
Grand Duke Alexander in a celebrated bon mot once complained
that he did not like war because it spoiled the armies. Historians
did not like armies because they spoiled history. Their military
functions were rather contemptuously relegated to military history
and their dimly perceived extra-military role in society was swept
under the rug.
Almost three decades of mobilization or partial mobilization on
a worldwide scale have, however, fostered a reluctant realization
that armies are something more than combat instruments. They are
social subsystems with a life and rhythm of their own which tran-
scend military operations and which interact in an infinity of com-
* Arms and Politics in Latin America. By Edwin Lieuwen. New York,
1960. Council on Foreign Relations. Bibliographical note. Index. Pp. xiii, 296.
$4.75.
** The author is professor of history and head of the Department of History
at the University of Florida.
1 Systematic Politics (Chicago, 1945), p. 77.
'Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism (New York, 1937), p. 32.

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THE MILITARY AND GOVERNMENT IN LATIN AMERICA 583

plex ways with civil society. This conclusion has provided the stimu-
lus for a growing volume of studies on the sociology of armies and
various aspects of civil-military relations by historians, political
scientists and sociologists.3 Indeed, in those nations which have
been actively engaged in the global conflicts of this century, the civil
and the military have become so inextricably intermixed that the
term "relations" implying the existence of two identities seems
hardly appropriate.
It is not surprising that Germany and Japan with their mili-
taristic traditions should attract the attention of students in this
area. It is rather interesting that there should be a substantial
volume of publication on civil-military relations in the United States,
a country with a strong civilist tradition.4 It is more than interest-
ing, it is rather remarkable that Latin Americanists, concerned with
a region where armies have played pre-eminent roles for a hundred
and fifty years should be so dilatory in exploiting this trend. It
8 Some important general works are ibid., the standard history of militarism;
Stanislaw Andrzejewsky, Military Organization and Society (London, 1954), a
comparative study of the interrelationship between social structure and military
organization; Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge,
1957), an attempt to develop a theory of civil-military relations with applica-
tions to the United States; Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier (Glencoe,
1960), an analysis of the military as a social system with applications to the
United States; and Michael Howard (ed.), Soldiers and Governments (London,
1957), a collection of papers on the political role of the military in a number
of countries. More specialized studies include J. W. Wheeler-Bennett, The
Nemesis of Power; the German Army in Politics, 1918-1945 (New York, 1954);
Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640-1945 (Oxford, 1955);
Gerhard Ritter, Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk. Das Problem des Militarismus
in Deutschland. (Miinchen, 1954); Otto Gessler, Reichswehrpolitik in der Wei-
mnarer Zeit (Stuttgart, 1958); Jere C. King, Generals and Politicians; Con-
flicts between France's High Command, Parliament, and Government (Berkeley,
1951); Raoul Girardet, La society militaire dans la France contemporaine, 1815-
1939 (Paris, 1953); Kenneth W. Colegrove, Militarism in Japan (New York,
1936); John M. Maki, Japanese Militarism, its Cause and Cure (New York,
1945); Yale C. Maxon, Control of Japanese Foreign Policy; a Study of Civil-
Military Rivalry, 1930-1945 (Berkeley, 1957); Takehiko Yoshihashi, The Back-
ground of the Manchurian Crisis and the Rise of the Japanese Military (New
Haven, 1958); Zbigniew Brzezinski (ed.), Political Controls in the Soviet Army
(New York, 1954); Ithiel de Sola Pool, et. al., Satellite Generals: a Study of
Military Elites in the Soviet Sphere (Stanford, 1955). A useful bibliography may
be found in Current Sociology, VI (1957), 126-128.
'Examples are Huntington and Janowitz cited above; Gregory J. Kerwin,
Civil-Military Relations in American Life (Chicago, 1948); Louis Smith, American
Democracy and Military Power: a Study of Civil Control of the Military Power
in the United States (Chicago, 1951); Burton Sapin and Richard Snyder, The
Role of the Military in American Foreign Policy (Garden City, 1954). For an
extensive bibliography see Social Science Research Council. Committee on Civil-
Military Relations, Civil-Military Relations, an Annotated Bibliography, 1940-
1952 (New York, 1954).

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 584 HAHR NOVEMBER I LYLE N. MCALISTER
would have been more appropriate if they had initiated it. This is
not to say that the extramilitary activities of Latin-American armed
forces have been ignored. Most histories of a general scope have
something to say on the subject but almost without exception the
treatment is incidental to some other objective of the author. Only
a handful have dealt with the phenomenon as a central theme.5
Moreover, the great bulk of this literature has been denunciatory
rather than explanatory, impressionistic rather than systematic, and
descriptive and narrative rather than analytical. Even political
scientists who might be expected to be particularly interested in the
political role of the armed forces in Latin America have preferred
to emphasize the formal apparatus of government rather than the
realities of the political process. In the last three or four years there
have been a number of attempts to study the Latin-American military
in a more direct and systematic fashion but these have been intro-
ductory in character or specialized in scope.6 As Professor Lieuwen
' Some older works which deal directly and at some length with civil-military
relations in Latin America are Daniel Hidalgo, El militarismo, sus causas y
remedios (Quito, 1913); Le6nidas Garcia, El militarismo en Sud-Am6rica (Quito,
1912); Luis Humberto Delgado, El militarismo en el Peru', 1821-1930 (Lima,
1930); Vicente Blasco Ibafiez, El militarismo mexicano (Valencia, 1920);
Almerio Lourival de Moura, As forgas armadas e o destino historicO do Brasil
(Sao Paulo, 1937). See also the excellent annotated bibliography in Lieuwen,
Arms and Politics, pp. 279-288.
' Examples are an excellent series of articles by Victor Alba published under
the collective title of " Armas, poder y libertad, " in Combate, I (No. 1-No.
6); Jesfis Silva Herzog, "Las juntas militares de gobierno," Cuadernos ameri-
canos, July-August, 1949, pp. 7-13; William S. Stokes, " Violence as a Power
Factor in Latin-American Politics, " Western Political Science Quarterly, V
(1952), 445-468; Lyle N. McAlister, The Fuero Militar in New Spain (Gaines-
ville, 1957); Vernon L. Fluharty, Dance of the Millions: Military Rule and the
Social Revolution in Colombia, 1930-1956 (Pittsburgh, 1957); Stanley R. Ross,
"Some Observations on Military Coups in the Caribbean," in A. Curtis Wilgus
(ed.), The Caribbean: Its Political Problems (Gainesville, 1956), pp. 111-128;
Darrina D. Turner, The Changing Political Role of the Mexican Army, 1934-
1940 (Unpublished M. A. thesis, University of Florida, 1960); Terrence Tarr,
Military Intervention and Civilian Reaction in Chile, 1924-1936 (Unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, 1960); Robert J. Alexander, "Bra-
zilian "Tenentismo," Hispanic American Historical Review, XXXVI (1956),
229-242; Charles W. Simmons, "The Rise of the Brazilian Military Class, 1870-
1890," Mid-America, XXXIX (1957), 227-240. See also the chapters on the
political roles of Latin-America armies in German Arciniegas, The State Of
Latin America (New York, 1952); Ashur N. Christensen, The Evolution of
Latin American Government (New York, 1951); William W. Pierson and Federico
G. Gil, Governments of Latin America (New York, 1957); Harold E. Davis
(ed.), Government and Politics in Latin America (New York, 1958). An indi-
cation of interest in Latin-American civil-military relations is provided by the
inclusion of panels on the subject in three recent scholarly meetings: the South-
ern Political Science Association (1958), the Southern Historical Association
(1959), and the Pacific Council on Latin-American Studies (1957).

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THE MILITARY AND GOVERNMENT IN LATIN AMERICA 585

remarks, "On the general subject of militarism in Latin America

no important books have yet appeared."7 The publication of his
study, therefore, is an event and deserves some extended comment.
Professor Lieuwen's objective is to analyze the political role of the
armed forces in Latin America past and present and to evaluate the
interrelationship of Latin-American militarism and United States
policy. The organization of the book conforms to this intention.
It is divided quite distinctly into two parts, the first dealing with
the former subject, the second with the latter.
The rise of Latin-American militarism he attributes to two in-
terrelated factors; first, the movement of military leaders into the
political vacuum created by the collapse of royal authority; second,
the subsequent withdrawal of professionals and their replacement
by irresponsibile amateurs whose objectives were political power
and personal aggrandizement. The advent of unprincipled leaders
at the heads of untrained and undisciplined armies ushered in a
period of predatory militarism in most of Latin America. Some-
times the generals supported the liberal cause, sometimes the con-
servative but they always served their own interests. Their de-
vices were the pronunciamiento, the cuartelazo and the "revolu-
tion. "
During the last half of the nineteenth century predatory mili-
tarism began to decline in the more advanced countries. A growing
political sophistication, and the arrival of foreign capital, immi-
grants and ideas contributed to greater stability while new social
and economic groups exerted a countervailing influence on the mili-
tary. Moreover, changes took place within the armed forces them-
selves. Regional and quasi-personal armies were merged into
national armies thus curbing the ambitions of regional caudillos, and
officer corps became increasingly professional reflecting the influence
of European military missions.
These trends, however, did not mark the end of militarism but
merely a change in its character. It became less personal, more
corporate and more ideologically directed. In the 1930's and there-
after even the more professionalized armies intervened frequently
in politics in connection with Latin America's social revolution.
Most often their influence was employed to support the traditional
order. A unique feature of the new militarism, however, was the
intervention of groups of younger officers, deriving from and at-
tuned to the new middle class and proletariat, on the side of reform.
Professor Lieuwen illustrates this complex and often confusing pat-
Arms and Politics, p. 279.

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586 11A1R I NOVEMBER I LYLE N. MCALISTER
tern with a series of sketches of events in twelve Latin-American
countries in which the military played determining roles in social
and economic change since the Second World War: Argentina, Bra-
zil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Guate-
mala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Cuba. These are followed by a
longer essay on Mexico where, the author feels, militarism is no
longer an issue.
Professor Lieuwen is cautiously optimistic about the future. He
believes that despite frequent setbacks the secular trend is toward
nonpolitical armies, and he groups the Latin-American nations into
three categories in terms of their progress toward civilian control of
the military. Group I is composed of those countries in which the
armed forces still dominate politics: The Dominican Republic,
Nicaragua, Paraguay, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, and Panama.
Group II includes those in which the armed forces are in transition
from political to nonpolitical bodies: Cuba, Guatemala, Venezuela,
Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, and Brazil. Group III comprises those
in which the armed forces are nonpolitical: Colombia, Chile, Mexico,
Bolivia, Uruguay, and Costa Rica.
The second part of the book examines the history of United
States military policies in Latin America since the Spanish American
War. In the early decades of the century military intervention
was undertaken to establish order in Cuba, the Dominican Republic,
Haiti, Panama and Nicaragua, and American officers created and
trained armies and gendarmeries in these countries. During World
War II and thereafter the United States embarked on an extensive
program of military aid to Latin America with the justification that
defense of the hemisphere against first, Nazi, and then communist
aggression or subversion was the mutual responsibility of all the
American states. However, there were strong elements of political
expediency in this program. The United States wanted bases in
Latin-American territory; it wanted uninterrupted and if possible
priority access to strategic materials; and it wanted stable, orderly
governments friendly to itself. The Latin-American nations, par-
ticularly those controlled or strongly influenced by their armed forces,
wanted arms and not always for hemisphere defense. Military as-
sistance was therefore really a quid pro quo arrangement.
Professor Lieuwen concludes that the results of these policies
have been unfortunate both for the United States and Latin Amer-
ica. In regard to the interventions, the armed forces created by
American officers have been misused by ambitious men to saddle
their countries with military dictatorships. In the case of military

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THlE MILITARY ANI) GOVERNMENT IN LATIN AMERICA 587

assistance programs, he belives that there is little likelihood that the

Soviets will invade Latin American and even if they should, Latin-
American armies would be incapable of sustained resistance despite
the aid furnished by the United States. Internal subversion is not
essentially a military problem. Nowhere in Latin America do the
communists possess the capabilities to overthrow existing govern-
ments by military means. Neither do the Latin-American nations
need arms to defend themselves against each other. The OAS has
shown itself capable of preventing intrahemispheric wars. In
short, military assistance is serving no genuine military purpose.
Instead, it has encouraged arms races, bolstered the prestige of the
military, and created stronger armed forces which have on repeated
occasions been employed to subvert civilian governments. By at-
tempting to buy the support of ephemeral military factions the
United States has lost the good will of broader and more per-
manently based democratic elements, thus defeating American polit-
ical objectives.
Although specialists will probably not find many new facts or
interpretations in Arms and Politics, it is a consequential book. It
focuses attention on an extremely important Latin-American phe-
nomenon which hithertofore has been treated in an incidental and
peripheral fashion; it synthesizes most of the available material on
the subject; and it presents a timely, intelligent and constructive
criticism of the Latin-American policy of the United States. It is
exceptionally well written. Scholars will find it useful and it will
be indispensable to the general reader interested in Latin-American
affairs. Its best parts are the sections dealing with the role of the
armed forces in social revolution in Latin America and with the
military assistance program of the United States. Both are well
researched and carefully constructed. Together they constitute Pro-
fessor Lieuwen 's most original contribution.
The principal shortcoming of the book is that it does not quite
come to grips with the central phenomenon, Latin-American mili-
tarism. Possibly this is attributable to the author's attempt to do
two things at once, analyze the political role of the armed forces in
Latin-America and evaluate certain aspects of United States foreign
policy. Also, in fairness to Professor Lieuwen, it should be recorded
that he had to go it alone. He did not have the advantage of a sub-
stantial body of prior research on which to draw. In any case
some important questions remain unanswered: What precisely is
the nature of the phenomenon under investigation? Can the term
"militarism" be properly applied to all the cases of military inter-

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588 HAHR I NOVEMBER I LYLE N. MCALISTER
vention in politics in Latin America? Are the dictatorships of Ra-
fael Trujillo, the activities of the G.O.U. and the more subtle pres-
sures imposed on civilian governments by general staffs in a purely
constitutional manner, of the same class and order of things? Can
the highly personalized military anarchy of the early nineteenth
century be identified and described in the same terms as the more
corporate, more ideologically motivated interventions of young offi-
cer groups in the middle of the twentieth century? Indeed, is the word
"militarism" appropriate to define the role of the military in Latin
America? Latin Americanists tend to be rather casual about ap-
plying terms devised to identify and describe institutions of Western
Europe and the United States to Latin-American civilization; for
example, feudalism, middle class, and federalism. Sometimes they
don't fit very well. Militarism means much than government by
generals. It is a system and a way of life which glorifies war, in
which the military is conceded a pre-eminent status, in which mili-
tary mores and virtues are accorded superior merit, and in which
an entire society is organized around such mores and virtues. It is
bellicose and has strong imperialistic overtones.8 For the most part
Latin-American armies have been nonmilitaristic. They have shown
few tendencies toward international adventures and, lacking mili-
tary virtues and objectives themselves, they have had little interest
in imposing them on the rest of society. Their primary char-
acteristic has been the seizure of power for nonmilitary ends. Prob-
ably the closest analogues in Latin America to the militaristic
archetype have been the program of the G.O.U. in Argentina, the
dictatorship of Francisco Solano, Lopez in Paraguay, and possibly
the Chilean army in the middle of the nineteenth century. Salvador
de Madariaga remarked that the evil which afflicted Spain in the
nineteenth and twentieth century was not exactly "militarism."
It could be more properly called praetorianism.9 The same dis-
tinction applies to Latin America. Professor Lieuwen is aware of
the problem and in several instances employs the terms "praetorian-
ism, " praetorian militarism," and "predatory militarism," but
some confusion remains. These criticisms suggest the value of a
series of comparative studies on "militarism" in Latin America.
Also it might add perspective if the comparison were extended to
other nations including "underdeveloped" areas where the military
appears, superficially at least, to have enacted roles analogous to
those of some Latin-American armed forces.
BVagts, pp. 11-13, 15; Hans Spier, "Militarism in the Eighteenth Century,"
Social Research, III (1936), 304-305.
Espaiia, ensayo de historia contempordnea (Mexico, 1955), p. 199.

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THE MILITARY AND GOVERNMENT IN LATIN AMERICA 589

A related problem has to do with the constitution of Latin-

American armies. Where, how, and from what groups have they
been recruited ? What are their attitudes, values and standards?
How do they regard themselves in relation to civil society? What
degree of cohesiveness, corporate unity and esprit do they possess?
Can generalizations be made about them ? The answers to these ques-
tions are particularly important in the case of the officer corps be-
cause, with a few exceptions such as the sergeants' revolt in Cuba,
it has been the commissioned component that has been active polit-
ically. We know the answers in a general way or at least we think
we do. In the nineteenth century officers were of upper class origin
or at least attuned to the aristocracy; more recently they have been
drawn from the middle classes. They constitute a military caste. It
is quite likely that these statements are true, but a few methodical
studies of the sociology of Latin-American armies might provide more
specific answers and contribute substantially to our understanding
of Latin-American "'militarism. "
In conclusion I would like to take issue with Professor Lieuwen
on a couple of specific points. First, I would argue that profes-
sionalism is not the antithesis of militarism as he contends and that
rise of professionalism does not necessarily portend the decline of
militarism. In speaking of civil-military relations in Germany,
Samuel Huntington remarks, "No other officer corps achieved such
high standards of professionalism, and the officer corps of no other
major power was in the end so completely prostituted,"'10 while
Vagts wrote that "one of the consequences of de-politicizing the
British officer was his turning to militarism instead, at least po-
tentially so; he became more and more inclined to place special mili-
tary interests above general or civilian interests."' Nor did profes-
sionalism prevent the most professionalized of Latin-American armies
from intervening in the political process: for example in Chile in
the 1920's, in Argentina since the 1930's and in Colombia in 1953-
1958. I think the problem may be one of definition. Professionalism
undoubtedly has contributed to the decline of "predatory militarism"
or "praetorianism" of the type which devastated Latin America in
the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. However, the de-
cline of "predatory militarism" does not mean the inevitable victory
of civilianism. Alternatives exist. The military may continue to
intervene in politics but in a more sophisticated, corporate, and
ideologically-motivated manner particularly in the event of serious
0 The Soldier and the State, p. 98.
11 p. 152.

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590 HAHR I NOVEMBER I LYLE N. MCALISTER
political or economic crises. Or a system more closely resembling
the archetype of militarism may emerge if armies become stronger,
better trained, and militarily more self-conscious.
This leads to the second issue. I am a little skeptical about the
categories into which Professor Lieuwen has grouped Latin-Amer-
ican nations according to their degree of progress toward civilian
government. There probably isn't much argument about Group I,
but the composition of Groups II and III derives from circumstances
of too recent origin to be the basis for the projection of secular
trends. I am particularly doubtful as to whether in Group III the
armed forces of Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Bolivia are non-
political. They may no longer stage cuartelazos or golpes de estado
but I am inclined to think that they still have a good deal to say
about vital national problems. Moreover, in each country political
stability is still a tender plant. Serious crises may occur at any
time and lure or thrust the armed forces back into politics.

University of Florida LYLE N. McALISTER

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