ABSTRACT
The political, economic, and social turmoil of Latin America in the late 2010s and early 2020s has brought renewed attention to the role of the armed forces. A wave of social protest and political unrest in 2019 led many leaders in the region to call on their militaries to restore order and publicly back their presidencies. Following this, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic led presidents across the region to turn to the armed forces as first responders, and in the realms of decision-making, public security, and logistics. This chapter evaluates whether or not Latin American militaries have experienced mission creep in the wake of the 2019 protests and the pandemic, as well as these events’ impacts on civil–military relations and democracy. It argues that in most countries, military roles in the early 2020s have not changed significantly: the armed forces have long been arbiters of civilian political conflict and regularly involved themselves in humanitarian and health missions like those carried out under COVID-19. However, presidents are more reliant on their militaries than at any moment in the recent past, raising the spectre of past praetorianism.
