The military in Latin America

A recurring theme in this report is that anti-democratic interventions by the armed forces, whether fully-fledged ‘old-school’ coup d’etats, or the more recent phenomenon of more limited or stealth interventions, have all been carried out at the request and invitation of different civilian factions. In short, the military have almost always been ‘invited in’ by civilians.  The ‘military problem’ is, at the end of the day, a civilian problem.