Abstract
This thesis studies the origins of Mexico's strategic culture, understood as the expression of a distinctive historical narrative concerning its security. To do so, it focuses on the challenges faced by the country’s political leadership between 1917 and 1929, the period in which a triumphant revolution took over the reins of national government and laid the foundations of the modern state in Mexico. Accordingly, it argues that the events of those years gave rise to a singular grand strategic behaviour with a long legacy. On the one hand, the new revolutionary state resorted to diplomacy to ensure its recognition by the international community, in particular by stressing its commitment to international law. On the other hand, the military instrument was used to confront domestic challenges that threatened the consolidation of the revolutionary project ushered from Mexico City. Ultimately, this second dimension of Mexican strategic behaviour has had a lasting and dominant influence on the country’s strategic culture.In effect, the question of how to achieve internal security —that is, domestic order and the preservation of government legitimacy— has remained a dominant concern of the Mexican state for more than a century. Unlike many other polities, Mexico’s strategic culture has been shaped almost entirely by internal security challenges, rather than by external threats or traditional foreign policy dilemmas. This formative history has had a distorting effect on Mexico’s strategic culture. In exploring this issue, this dissertation seeks to answer a series of questions in greater depth: how was the military instrument used to consolidate the political order that emerged at the end of the Mexican Revolution? Can it be argued that the use of the military instrument responded to a grand-strategic framework? What have been the historical, strategic and conceptual consequences of that experience?
To address these questions, this thesis draws extensively on classic works on the Mexican Revolution, on contemporary studies of Mexican history, and on selected archival material where it sheds light on the country’s strategic performance during that period. It is best placed in the field of strategic studies, as an examination of the strategic behaviour of a political community emerging from a period of turmoil and instability. Within this, it also draws on the recent fashion for «applied history», understood as the practice of using historical knowledge, insights and methodologies to address contemporary strategic issues and inform decision-making. Finally, it also makes use of the literature on grand-strategic thought as it explores the origins of the scripts and inherited assumptions by which a nation acts in response to threats to its legitimacy or security.
| Date of Award | 1 Dec 2023 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | John Bew (Supervisor) |