American military interventions in Mexico
Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero
During the 1846 war between Mexico and the United States, the Americans had the opportunity to wrest a larger proportion of territory from the defeated country and they did not do so. Even so, despite the open request of conservative and liberal groups that asked for Mexican integration into North America, or for the American military to remain there as long as possible. There will always be doubts about the reasons that inhibited the Yankees; later it seems that moderation prevailed to contain the territorial voracity of the American Union.
Some historians grant the main reason for American containment of Mexico to be the fact of the American Civil War, undoubtedly the most violent war of the 19th century. Is this trigger pointed out by General Ulysses Grant still valid in the event of a military intervention by the United States in Mexico right now? According to Friedman, Garreau and Huntington, the question is more than valid. Savage American liberalism does not protect anyone; including themselves. The US military intervention in Mexico would unleash another US civil war and the possibility of absolute decline of North America.
Throughout the 20th century, in various critical situations for Mexican governability and with greater elements of power in favor of the United States, no Yankee president intended to start a war against Mexico; there were always all kinds of threats and warnings, but blood did not flow again despite extreme situations. The interventions have been surgical and, rather, have sought the stabilization of the Mexican government in power.
It is true that Donald Trump is changing the paradigm of power in the United States and seeks to rearrange the North American hegemony for a total defense against China. However, if the fear of the BRICS were true and real, all of Mexico would be an American aircraft carrier as Panama became in the nineties and even ships of that type break down without proper maintenance.
Apparently, Trumpism is diminishing in its outbursts and harsh reality forces it to find plausible strategies. Perhaps the unscrupulous American interventions that have been in the news in recent decades are coming to Mexico: kidnappings of high-ranking figures, armed commandos, spy flights and infiltrations of all kinds. Something that President Sheinbaum has surely known about for a long time; but, for which she must also prepare well.
There is a North American attempt to kidnap the Mexican presidency as was done during the government of José López Portillo, whom, later, they were also unable to control. When Salinas de Gortari faced the triumph of Cardenismo in his election, the technocrats abandoned the government to the fate of the United States and, once again, they refused to take control. The American power elite (globalist, transnational or nationalist) ends up coming to an understanding with the Mexican nomenklatura and the set of authoritarian enclaves that remain. Mexico is not Panama, rather, the republic ends up being the Catholic wife of the American Henry VIII that will never be able to behead; Above all, because American enrichment is not even competent to take care of the small house.
The threatening tone of Trumpism is increasingly less like Operation Barbarossa. However, it is important to find common ways to reduce the influence of the drug-trafficking barbarism that is turning Mexico and the United States into Failed States.