ABSTRACT
Guatemala's military governments have not eliminated faction, they have internalized it; the militarization of politics goes with the politicization of the military. Three times since 1954, military leaders in Guatemala have led the country into civil war; and even under military regimes, those that have been most successful in containing the pressures for change have been those who recognized the need to accommodate it. Guatemala's most promising period of economic development since 1945 was accompanied by a low rate of military expenditure. Guatemala has no serious external enemies, so the mere maintenance of an inflated military establishment in the late 1970s represented a gigantic waste of money, disguised until 1977 only by the extent to which the cost was picked up by the US taxpayer. Insurgency in Guatemala began in the 1960s as a movement among disaffected military personnel; disaffected because their military experience had shown them that a military government was not responding to the needs of the people.
