Militarizing the Border

Militarizing the Border PDF Author: Miguel Antonio Levario
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 160344758X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
As historian Miguel Antonio Levario explains in this timely book, current tensions and controversy over immigration and law enforcement issues centered on the US-Mexico border are only the latest evidence of a long-standing atmosphere of uncertainty and mistrust plaguing this region. Militarizing the Border: When Mexicans Became the Enemy, focusing on El Paso and its environs, examines the history of the relationship among law enforcement, military, civil, and political institutions, and local communities. In the years between 1895 and 1940, West Texas experienced intense militarization efforts by local, state, and federal authorities responding to both local and international circumstances. El Paso’s “Mexicanization” in the early decades of the twentieth century contributed to strong racial tensions between the region’s Anglo population and newly arrived Mexicans. Anglos and Mexicans alike turned to violence in order to deal with a racial situation rapidly spinning out of control. Highlighting a binational focus that sheds light on other US-Mexico border zones in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Militarizing the Border establishes historical precedent for current border issues such as undocumented immigration, violence, and racial antagonism on both sides of the boundary line. This important evaluation of early US border militarization and its effect on racial and social relations among Anglos, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans will afford scholars, policymakers, and community leaders a better understanding of current policy . . . and its potential failure.

Militarizing the Border

Militarizing the Border PDF Author: Miguel Antonio Levario
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 160344758X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Get Book Here

Book Description
As historian Miguel Antonio Levario explains in this timely book, current tensions and controversy over immigration and law enforcement issues centered on the US-Mexico border are only the latest evidence of a long-standing atmosphere of uncertainty and mistrust plaguing this region. Militarizing the Border: When Mexicans Became the Enemy, focusing on El Paso and its environs, examines the history of the relationship among law enforcement, military, civil, and political institutions, and local communities. In the years between 1895 and 1940, West Texas experienced intense militarization efforts by local, state, and federal authorities responding to both local and international circumstances. El Paso’s “Mexicanization” in the early decades of the twentieth century contributed to strong racial tensions between the region’s Anglo population and newly arrived Mexicans. Anglos and Mexicans alike turned to violence in order to deal with a racial situation rapidly spinning out of control. Highlighting a binational focus that sheds light on other US-Mexico border zones in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Militarizing the Border establishes historical precedent for current border issues such as undocumented immigration, violence, and racial antagonism on both sides of the boundary line. This important evaluation of early US border militarization and its effect on racial and social relations among Anglos, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans will afford scholars, policymakers, and community leaders a better understanding of current policy . . . and its potential failure.

Militarism in Mexico

Militarism in Mexico PDF Author: Jeffrey S. Cole
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
Mexican society is becoming militarized due to the increased use of the Mexican military in domestic affairs. This militarization is the result of three factors: the internal focus of the military, the drug war, and corruption. The internal focus of the Mexican military is based on doctrine. Mexico's drug war began in 1986 when U.S. President Reagan convinced their government that the trafficking of drugs constituted a National security threat. Corruption is pervasive in Mexico due to the combination of seven decades of authoritarian rule by the hegemonic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the associated effects from transnational drug trafficking. The army represents the last publicly respected institution in Mexico. During the past three years, almost the entire law enforcement apparatus to combat drug trafficking has been replaced with military soldiers and numerous key political appointees and governmental positions have been filled with Mexican generals and colonels. There are few national interests more profoundly consequential to the United States than the political stability and general welfare of Mexico. The militarization and changing civil military relations in Mexico is an important aspect in U.S. Mexico relations and must be considered impossible policy changes.

Myths of Demilitarization in Postrevolutionary Mexico, 1920-1960

Myths of Demilitarization in Postrevolutionary Mexico, 1920-1960 PDF Author: Thomas Rath
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469608359
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
At the end of the Mexican Revolution in 1920, Mexico's large, rebellious army dominated national politics. By the 1940s, Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was led by a civilian president and claimed to have depoliticized the army and achieved the bloodless pacification of the Mexican countryside through land reform, schooling, and indigenismo. However, historian Thomas Rath argues, Mexico's celebrated demilitarization was more protracted, conflict-ridden, and incomplete than most accounts assume. Civilian governments deployed troops as a police force, often aimed at political suppression, while officers meddled in provincial politics, engaged in corruption, and crafted official history, all against a backdrop of sustained popular protest and debate. Using newly available materials from military, intelligence, and diplomatic archives, Rath weaves together an analysis of national and regional politics, military education, conscription, veteran policy, and popular protest. In doing so, he challenges dominant interpretations of successful, top-down demilitarization and questions the image of the post-1940 PRI regime as strong, stable, and legitimate. Rath also shows how the army's suppression of students and guerrillas in the 1960s and 1970s and the more recent militarization of policing have long roots in Mexican history.

The Impact of President Felipe Calderón’s War on Drugs in the Armed Forces: The Prospects for Mexico’s “Militarization” and Bilateral Relations (Enlarged Edition)

The Impact of President Felipe Calderón’s War on Drugs in the Armed Forces: The Prospects for Mexico’s “Militarization” and Bilateral Relations (Enlarged Edition) PDF Author: George W. Grayson
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1304056961
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 103

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Book Description
As if combating vicious narco-syndicates were not a sufficiently formidable challenge, the Mexican government has assigned such additional roles to the Army and Navy as overseeing customs agents, serving as state and municipal security chiefs, taking charge of prisons, protecting airports, safeguarding migrants, functioning as firefighters, preventing drug trafficking around schools, establishing recreational programs for children, and standing guard 24-hours a day over boxes of ballots cast in recent elections. This expansion of duties has sparked the accusation that Mexico is being "militarized." A creative outreach program includes parades and other ceremonial extravaganzas, pilots encourage adults and children to hop into the seat of a helicopter; other wide-eyed youngsters grasp the controls of anti-aircraft weapons; admiring onlookers are invited to shake hands and have photos taken with nationally prominent military athletes; in Veracruz and other ports, residents are given tours of ships...

The Modern Mexican Military, a Reassessment

The Modern Mexican Military, a Reassessment PDF Author: David F. Ronfeldt
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description


The Blood Contingent

The Blood Contingent PDF Author: Stephen Neufeld
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826358055
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
"In the pursuit of the modern, the armed forces served as instrument, model, and metaphor for national progress. I examine in this book how the military experience, as representative of the process, failed or fulfilled aspects of the broad national transition towards hegemony and sovereignty. This is the first work combining personnel records and military literature with cultural sources to address the setting of military life for soldiers and their families rather than politics or officers. In connection with nation formation and identity, this book moves away from studies of the army as an institution to broaden understandings of inculcations and the limits and fault lines of building Mexico as a nation. More social and cultural in historical outlook, I examine the creation of political cultures rooted in or derived from the personal experiences of the lower ranks. In doing so, the book removes some of the privileged view that official narratives emphasize in order to explain the making of a bureaucratic institution from the bottom up, and to more clearly describe how this process both encouraged the development of nationalism and limited it in important ways. In this fashion I build on the works of scholars whose focus has centered more on officers, education, and political conflicts"--Introduction.

Militarizing Mexico

Militarizing Mexico PDF Author: Roderic Ai Camp
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drug control
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Book Description


Always Near, Always Far

Always Near, Always Far PDF Author: Jose Francisco et al Gallardo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
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.

The Mexican Armed Forces in Transition

The Mexican Armed Forces in Transition PDF Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428916199
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description
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.

Generals in the Palacio

Generals in the Palacio PDF Author: Roderic A. Camp
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195073002
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
While there is considerable literature on civilian-military relations worldwide, there is as yet no study of the Mexican military. Despite their intense desire to remain unexamined, Camp's portrait of the Mexican military from 1946 to 1990 takes us inside their world to examine their values, relationships, backgrounds, education, and promotion patterns, and considers these findings in the context of Mexican society and politics. Camp provides fresh empirical data for testing claims concerning civil-military relations worldwide.