Imagining the outside danger inside: the critical geopolitics of security and the armed forces in Latin America (1960-2018)

Abstract

In this chapter we intend to respond to several questions regarding the security discourse and the role of the armed forces in Latin America: (1) Is the intervention of the armed forces in the internal security of a state only typical of dictatorial political regimes? (2) Why would the new criminal challenges derived from globalization require the use of the armed forces in the fight against them in Latin America and not in, for example, the European Union? (3) Why do discourses on security in Latin American states repeatedly claim that the armed forces should have a significant role in governance? To address these questions, we will analyse three examples that are characteristic of the aforementioned time periods: the Argentinian National Security doctrine of the 1970s, the Democratic Security policy in Colombia of the 2000s and the New National Defense Guidelines in Brazil of the 2010s. It is important to note that these cases are by no means exceptional, as the doctrine of national security was adopted by almost all of Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s and presently the fight against organized crime is carried out by the armed forces across the continent.