Military cooperation with the United States in the Post-Cold War: implications to the military reforms and the security policies of Colombia and Mexico

Abstract

The objective of this work is to analyze comparatively the main characteristics of the military cooperation of Colombia and Mexico with the United States of America (USA) since the Post-Cold War until 2018. The question this researchaims to answer is: how the military cooperation between Colombia, Mexico and the USA has been characterized since the Post-Cold War? The hypothesis for this question is that this cooperation has been characterized by 1) utilization of the American assistance to support the military reforms of each state and 2) approximation of the security policy of these two countries in response to the USA demands of security. Since the 1990s, the relations of security cooperation that the USA has been fostering with Latin American countries has, on one hand, influenced their security policies and,on the other, encouraged them to use these relations to benefit their military institutionsand, in this manner, increase their security level. The choice of the Colombian and Mexican cases is due to the fact that they are the major individual recipients of American assistance in Latin America and Caribbean and two of the main supporters of the USA security policy to the region. Therefore, the comparative analysis of the main characteristics of the military cooperation between these two countries and the USA in the mentioned period contributes to a greater understanding of the military relations among this country and the Latin American states. (AU)