Argentine Armed Forces

The Argentine Armed Forces comprise the Argentine Army, the Argentine Navy, and the Argentine Air Force. The first two date back to the dawn of the nineteenth century and their emergence is closely linked to the struggles for the independence of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata from Spain. In fact, the motto of the Army is “Born with the Homeland in 1810” in reference to the May Revolution, which led to independence in 1816. The Air Force, on the other hand, was created in 1945, although both the Army and the Navy had air corps before that date. Until the mid-twentieth century, military history in Argentina was produced almost exclusively by historians with military training, with a prevailing lack of interest in this subject in the university field. Especially since the 1980s, academic historians began to take an interest in the study of war and the armed forces as part of the general renewal of the historical discipline. This article will refer to some general works on institutional or operational history but will mainly review the academic production on the subject from a social, cultural, and political stance. The academic historiography referring to the Argentine Armed Forces presents marked thematic variations depending on the century, responding to specific historical processes. Numerous wars of different nature characterized Argentina in the nineteenth century: wars of independence (1810–1824); civil wars (1814–1880); wars against the aboriginal peoples (1833–1835, 1878–1885); and wars with neighboring countries, such as the Brazil War (1825–1828) and the Paraguayan War (or War of the Triple Alliance) (1864–1870). Consequently, historians have dealt with the military campaigns associated with these conflicts, the formation and professionalization of the military instrument and its links with the state. In contrast, 20th-century Argentina was practically exempt from military conflicts, except for the Falklands/Malvinas War (1982) and a limited intervention of the Navy in the Gulf War (1990). However, the armed forces played a direct role in politics, involving coups d’état and dictatorships between 1930 and 1983. Therefore, academic studies have focused extensively on their political intervention and doctrinal mutations, particularly in the Army. They have also addressed the Falklands/Malvinas War as the only bilateral conventional war of the twentieth century in which they acted. The transformations of the armed forces after 1982 have also attracted the attention of scholars in the humanities and social sciences.