ABSTRACT
Since the last military dictatorship at the beginning of the 1980s, the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic have undergone a far-reaching transformation. The memory politics of truth and justice and the legal action taken against the culprits, together with the defeat in the Malvinas War, all played a key role in that transformation. This pattern aptly called ‘the traps of the past’ meant that Argentina’s post-authoritarian transition differed from that of other countries in the region, like Chile, Brazil and Uruguay. Accordingly, this chapter focuses on describing the process that led to the peacekeeping operations and roles of the armed forces, with the accent being placed on how the military themselves limited the expansion of their functions as regards homeland security. This had to do with the greater involvement in peacekeeping operations and the emergence of a generation of servicemen interested in the professionalisation of the military and in gaining public recognition. To this end, an analysis is performed on the Northern Integration Operation in 2018. This operation leveraged the decade of experience gained in the UN peace mission in Haiti through the participation of the armed forces in the exercise of sovereignty in national territory, without them becoming involved in homeland security. So, it was possible to de-politicise the Argentine armed forces and bringing them to accept their new professional, non-political role.
