Introduction

Abstract

Pion-Berlin introduces the themes that will be addressed in this book. He argues that military missions will succeed or fail depending on whether or not there is a good fit between the armed forces’ organizational strengths, and the tasks at hand. Latin American militaries are conservative organizations that find it hard to innovate. And so, Latin American democratic governments have to work with the military organizations as they are, drawing on their core, pre-existing strengths, trying to match those with suitable missions. Governments are not deploying their armed forces because they are necessarily the best at what they do. In fact, they may be the only ones that do what they do, when civilian agencies are not available. The choices are pragmatic, defined by the gravity of the problems, the available solutions at hand, and the opportunity costs to not using the military when needed.