From day one of his presidency, it has been apparent that Argentina’s President Javier Milei wants the Argentinian regime to be a willing member of the US-NATO axis in international affairs. Milei has demonstrated this with a variety of overtures toward the State of Israel and by his repeated meetings with the dictator of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
This all positions Burenos Aires as a reliable supplicant and friend of Washington. Or, as I summed it up back in June:
[Milei] displays no particular affinity for anti-interventionist foreign policy, and he’s certainly no threat to the established US-dominated geopolitical order. Milei is, and will likely continue to be, a reliable ally of the American security state. More succinctly, we might say that Milei is a “CIA-approved head of state.”
It should be noted that there is no reason why Milei is required to take these positions. Milei could easily stake out a position making Argentina a “non-aligned” country that refuses to participate in US and NATO meddling in Eastern Europe. Milei’s regime could easily choose to not take a position in the multiplying conflicts between Washington-Tel Aviv and half a dozen other states.
After all, Buenos Aires is 12,000 km (7,600 mi) from Tel Aviv, and it is nearly 13,000 km (7,900 mi) from Kyiv. The idea that Buenos Aires must choose a side in either of these two conflicts is absurd. Moreover, Argentina has a small economy and is an economic basket case so, frankly, the Argentinian military is tactically irrelevant to any global conflict. Support from Milei and Buenos Aires for the US and NATO serves only a diplomatic function—to help Washington manufacture legitimacy for its endless international interventions.
But that is apparently now not enough for Milei who has now signaled that he wants to increase military spending and to increase the strength and prestige of the Argentinian military establishment.
In a speech last month to supporters of the Argentinian military, Milei laid out his vision for what he called “a big Argentina, a strong Argentina, a powerful Argentina.” (And lest there be any question about mistranslation, these are his words: “queremos una Argentina grande, una Argentina fuerte, una Argentina potencia.”)
What exactly does it mean to have a big, strong, and powerful Argentina?
With these words, Milei is not talking about increasing the power and prosperity of the private sector. He doesn’t mention that in his speech. Rather, he means more power for the regime, and that means a lot more government spending. In the speech, Milei brags about buying 24 F-16 fighter jets, and modernization of the TAM tanks. Milei wants higher salaries for government bureaucrats (i.e., military personnel) and he insists that these government employees “deserve” more “respect and recognition.”
Given that Argentina has not been involved in any significant international conflict since the nineteenth century—and faces no real international threats on its land or maritime borders—one might wonder what the regime could possibly need new tanks for. Milei hints at this moments later when he reminds the audience he wants to “join NATO as a global partner.”
(In fairness, it should be noted that Milei’s position is just a continuation of the status quo. In this aspect of his policy agenda, Milei does not appear to be any more pro-NATO than his predecessors of the past 25 years. Indeed, Argentina has been one of the more pro-US regimes in South America for decades.)
Where we do find an alarming new direction, however, is in Milei’s apparent intent to use his intended strong and powerful military against domestic “threats.” According to Milei:
Until now, the Armed Forces have been entrusted with the task of purely and exclusively protecting against potential external threats. ... [I]t is imperative that we rethink these old paradigms. Argentina cannot be oblivious to this new reality; it is time to modernize and adapt to these new threats. That is why we are modifying the Internal Security Law so that the Armed Forces can support the Security Forces in exceptional situations, without having to resort to the extreme option of declaring a state of siege.
That last sentence is the most ominous: “we are modifying the Internal Security Law so that the Armed Forces can support the Security Forces in exceptional situations.”
Were an American president to say such a thing, it would be a signal that the regime is going all-in on embracing a police state. In a civilized country, there are legal barriers against the use of the military against the domestic population. The US has many such legal barriers, the chief example of which is the Posse Comitatus act. The US regime frequently ignores these limitations, of course. Washington now routinely uses its military-intelligence apparatus to spy on Americans, and worse. Yet, it’s better to have the legal pretense of limitations on domestic military operations than nothing at all.
In Argentina, Milei says he wants to break down these barriers in his quest to fight domestic enemies. This plan is, essentially, the “Argentina edition” of the Patriot Act, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Militarism within the Argentinian Context
It is important, however, to not excessively compare the US situation with the Argentinian one. To this day, much of the public’s view of the military in Argentina is influenced by the human rights abuses of the military dictatorship during the so-called Dirty War from 1974 to 1983. During this period, with the help of the American CIA, the regime in Argentina “disappeared” and tortured thousands of dissidents.
Since then, the Argentinian military establishment has suffered from a notable lack of prestige among much of the Argentinian public. Public views of the military are not uniform among members of the public, however. In Argentina, skepticism of military power is generally associated with “the Left” while support for the military establishment is seen as “rightist.”
Milei apparently can’t break free of this stereotype. For example, in his speech last month, Milei claimed the military is being “emptied out” (”vaciamiento”) and “for decades” has been relegated to an “undeserved” low-status position.
When he says “for decades” this is likely a reference to the last forty years during which military spending in Argentina has been well below what it was in the days of the dictatorship. According to SIPRI’s database on military expenditures, military spending increased sharply when the junta came to power, and declined sharpy after the junta was deposed.
Since 1990, however, military spending (in constant 2022 dollars) has been largely unchanged. Contra Milei, the military in Argentina is hardly withering away, but even if it were, we can’t say it has suffered any more than the average Argentinian household. Indeed, because it has access to taxpayers’ dollars, military personnel have done well for themselves compared to the long-suffering private sector.
Moreover, what evidence does Milei have that military spending is insufficient? Argentina has not been invaded, nor have terrorists carried out military operations against the country.
(In nominal terms, military spending is higher now than during the 1990s, although the incessant devaluing of the peso has meant military spending has fallen in real terms.)
Milei’s claim that the military has not been treated with proper respect suggests he thinks the military has somehow been treated unfairly since the days of the dictatorship. This unfounded position is likely to create a closer association—in the public’s eyes—between Milei and the old Argentinian Right which tends to agree that the Left in Argentina is inordinately obsessed with rehashing the old crimes of the military 45 years ago.
This latter position among rightists is not entirely unwarranted, but Milei’s apparent decision to commit himself to a larger, more powerful, and more costly military risks reviving and confirming the Latin American Left’s position that libertarian or free-market candidates are on the side of militarism and human-rights abuses. This association has dogged Chilean “classical” liberals for decades after dictator Augusto Pinochet—quite by accident and against his personal ideological leanings—supported a turn toward economic freedom as a last-ditch effort to escape Chile’s inflationary downward spiral. Ever since then, the Left in South America—which loathes free markets, of course—has insisted that any candidate that supports free markets is a secret Pinochet clone who wants to bring back the juntas of the bad old days.
Unfortunately, Milei seems to be playing right into the Left’s hands on this. All his rhetoric about overpaid government bureaucrats is conveniently forgotten when he speaks of military officers, and his talk about cutting back military spending apparently does not apply to funding new efforts to waging war on domestic enemies.
With this latest policy turn, the evidence continues to mount that Milei is more a typical conservative or “rightist” than he is a free-market libertarian in any meaningful sense. It’s the usual conservative formula: “government spending is bad unless it’s for my friends at military headquarters.” America has suffered under this bait-and-switch brand of conservative politics since 1945. Milei may be the latest example abroad.
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