The National Security Doctrine, Military Threat Perception, and the “Dirty War” in Argentina

It has been taken for granted that Latin American military governments of recent decades have been under the strong influence of the National Security Doctrine. However, no systematic assessment has been made about the degree to which the doctrine directly or indirectly has shaped military perceptions. This study focuses on the Argentine military government of 1976-1981, and on its identification of threats to national security, its strategies to overcome those threats, and whether these fit within the parameters of the NSD. Through content analysis of military speeches, interviews, and private memos, it is found that members of the government perceived their adversaries in vague, operational terms; that they focused on subjective agents to the exclusion of underlying objective conditions; and that they failed to appreciate the importance of political solutions to national security problems. Together, these views find only partial support within the NSD. It is concluded that the military practiced selective vision, magnifying certain elements of the NSD while losing sight of the rest, and that this selective vision was reinforced by the disjointed character of the doctrine itself.