The old militarized humanitarianism: contradictions of counterinsurgent infrastructure in Cold War Guatemala

Abstract

ABSTRACTDebates about the ostensibly new militarized humanitarianism engage narrowly with historical and geographical precedents. Rarely taken into account is Kennedy-era counterinsurgency in Latin America which had much in common with the whole-of-government approach of the United States and its allies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. This article addresses this gap in the literature by documenting counterinsurgent nation-building promoted by the US government in Latin America during the Cold War. Specifically, this article examines the tensions and contradictions that emerged as US and Guatemalan military and military-led organizations opened an agricultural frontier through the elaboration of infrastructure. Diplomats, army officers, and politicians organized a transnational institutional infrastructure that redirected flows of resources and knowledge. Military experts harnessed these flows to create development infrastructure – roads, hospitals, schools, airstrips, and more – that provided settlers with conditions to invest in land and rendered landscapes and populations legible to the state. Finally, a promotional infrastructure was created to persuade Guatemalan and international publics of the military’s contributions to national development at a time when counterinsurgency itself threatened national stability. This article concludes by reflecting on the implications of this racialized counterinsurgency for analysing contemporary imbrications of humanitarianism and militarism and for reckoning with histories and legacies of the Guatemalan civil war.