Security and Violence in Latin America in the Second Half of the 20th Century Militarism in Latin America and the Cold War

Abstract

This article explores the National Security Doctrine and its reformulation, the Low Intensity Conflicts (LIC), as strategies based on the US territorial and political need to impose their power at the expense of the possibilities of Latin America’s self-management, which have prevailed due to an old creole militarism and a fragmented classist society whose vertical and destructive power relations are rooted in the construction of nation-states. This Latin American class-system and imperial historicity has led to the destruction of communities, cultures and exploitation of resources and people, through impunity exercised by Terrorist States and the institutionalization of structural violence. The violence experienced in times of war, the institutionalization of terror, the manipulation of the masses, the displacement of thousands of people, the institutional genocide, the encompassing of all the tools of progress, and the absolute failure of nation-states to inculacate socio-cultural cohesion and promote peace, entails the construction of a culture of violence in Latin America. Despite the intercontinental measures and the application of the policies of Iron Fist or the War on Drugs, the results have been negative and the consequences have deepened the networks of organized crime, violence, the economic crisis of the states and distrust in the political structure altogether. Therefore, violence in Latin America cannot be measured regionally or combatted unilaterally, on the contrary, it must be managed locally with an interdependent effort by states and communities.