The United States and Latin America's Armed Forces: A Troubled Relationship

Abstract

W hen Commodore David Porter resigned from the US Navy to accept the post of commander-in-chief of Mexico's nascent naval forces, he began a tradition of US involvement with Latin American armed forces that has endured to the present day. Porter's decision was supported by President John Quincy Adams, who hoped that it would both strengthen the US influence in Mexico and act as a curb on possible Mexican efforts to seize Cuba, a prize which the president coveted himself (for details, see Long, 1970). These objectives signaled another enduring heritage: efforts by the United States to use ties with Latin American military institutions to promote agendas that were frequently unrelated to, or even at variance with, national interests in Latin America. This would be especially true whenever the United States perceived itself as competing with other nations for influence in the region. In 1826, the rival was Great Britain; in this century, it was first Germany and then the Soviet Union, but, in all cases, the bottom line was the same: a determination to make Washington's influence paramount.