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Mexico
Population 112322757
Budget$ 6456000000
Manpower 250000
Aircrafts 469
Fighters 3
Helicopters 159
Attack helicopters 0
Fleet 154
Aircraftcarriers 0
Submarines 0
Nuclear weapons 0

Informations

Mexico's military history includes all armed conflicts that occurred within its territory from the time of the arrival of Europeans (1519) to the present. Mexican military history is full of small-scale rebellions, foreign invasions and indigenous uprisings. Also, coups de tat by disgruntled military officers are common. The establishment of Mexico's colonial-era military didn't take place until the eighteenth Century. The Spanish crown didn't establish a standing army after the conquest of central Mexico by the Spanish in the early 16th century. However, it responded to an external threat from a British invasion and created a standing army for the first time since the Seven Years War (1756-1763). Regular army units and militias have a brief history. However, in the early 19th Century, Spain's unstable situation with Napoleonic invasion gave rise in an insurgency for independence. This was driven by darker, less-trained men who wanted to free Mexico from British rule. In 1820, the Mexican War of Independence (1810-21), saw insurgent and royalist armies fighting to the death. The stalemate was ended when the insurgent royalist officer, Agustin de Iturbide, persuaded Vicente Guerrero, the guerrilla leader of the rebels, to join a united movement for independence and form the Army of the Three Guarantees. The military of the royalists had to make a decision about whether to support Mexico's independence. The state became weaker after the Spanish state collapsed and was replaced by a monarchy under Iturbide, and later a republic. The Roman Catholic Church and military fared better in independence. Mexico's nineteenth century history was dominated by military men, especially General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. He led the Mexican army against Texas insurgents who wanted independence in 1836, and then the U.S. invasion (1846-48). Mexico briefly had civilian heads after the 1855 overthrow of Santa Anna and the establishment of a government composed of political liberals. Benito Juarez's Liberal Reforms sought to limit the power of the military, the church, and wrote an 1857 constitution that enshrined these principles. The Conservatives were large landowners and the Catholic Church. Most of the regular army rebelled against the Liberals, waging a civil war. The Conservative military was defeated on the battlefield. The Conservatives tried another way, and supported the French invasion of Mexico (1862-1865). The Mexican military loyal to the liberal republic was unable to stop the French invasion. They did, however, temporarily halt it with victory at Puebla on May 5, 1862. Mexican Conservatives supported Maximilian Hapsburg's installation as the Emperor of Mexico.



He was supported by both the French and Mexican armies. The U.S. military assistance flowed to the republican government exiled of Juarez and the French withdrew their military support for the monarchy. Maximilian was captured and executed. The Mexican army that emerged from the French Intervention was young, battle-tested, and not part of military tradition dating back to colonial and early independence periods. Liberal General Porfirio diaz, also a member of the new Mexican army, was a hero in the Mexican victory over France on Cinco de Mayo 1862. In 1876, he rebelled against the civilian liberal government and was elected president from 1880 to 1911. During his presidency Diaz professionalized the newly formed army. The Mexican military, by the time Diaz turned 80 in 1910, was an ineffective and aging fighting force. In the first chapter of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), rebel forces defeated the Federal Army and won decisive victories against their regime during revolts. Diaz resigned on May 11, 1911. But Francisco I. Madero (on whose political behalf rebels rose up against Diaz), demobilized the rebel forces, and maintained the Federal Army. This one decision cost Madero the presidency and his own life. Madero was killed in the coup detat in 1913 when Army General Victoriano Huerta took the presidency. In the aftermath of the coup, civil war broke out. Huerta's Federal Army was defeated by revolutionary armies one after the other, and Huerta was forced to resign in 1914. The Federal Army was dissolved. A new generation, most of them with no military training but natural soldiers, fought each other in a civil conflict of the winners. In 1915, the victor was the Constitutionalist Army led by Venustiano Carranza (civil leadership) and General Alvaro Obregon (military leadership). Mexico's revolutionary military men would continue to rule the country after the revolution, but the military men who became presidents brought the military under civilian control. They systematically reduced the military's power and professionalized it. Since 1946, the Mexican military has been under civilian control. There have not been any military generals in Mexico since 1946. Mexico's civilian control over the military contrasts with other Latin American countries. Mexico was among the Allies in World War II, and one of only two Latin American nations that sent combat troops to the Second World War. Recent developments in Mexico's military include the suppression of the 1994 Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Chiapas), control over narcotrafficking and border security.

Source: Wikipedia