Latin American men of military age crossing the border
Watered down sauce doesn't taste as good
In the last few weeks you may have come across numerous tweets on X showing groups of young illegal migrants labeled as "men of military age” crossing the United States southern border. These X posters often mention Venezuela, Haiti, Syria, China, and Cuba as the countries of origin for these men.
I'm not quite sure what these X posters are trying to imply. Are these young men supposed to be sleeping cells for a future attack on the United States by their countries of origin? Are they supposed to start a criminal wave based on their presumed military qualities?
Of course these posters might just be trying to create a climate of fear around massive immigration, and saying "military age" is just a convenient way to reinforce that fear. Yet something caught my attention when seeing those posts with the words "Venezuela", “Cuba“, "Haiti" and "military age" next to each other and I decided to take some time to elaborate on why it caught my attention and whether it makes sense to call these immigrants men of military age.
First, let's start with a clear definition of “military”. A military force is a highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Guerrillas don't count. Bands of armed men under the orders of some strong man don't count.
Now let's delve into the military history of Venezuela, Haiti and Cuba1 to see what their military performance has been like in the last couple of centuries. From the time of the Latin American wars of independence to the present the only war in which any of these three countries actively participated and emerged victorious is the Ogaden War where Cuba aided the Ethiopian army, which was bolstered by Soviet materiel and advisors, to defeat the weak Somali forces. Not a great feat of military prowess.
The fact that a country doesn't participate in wars doesn't necessarily imply that its population lacks any military qualities. But in the case of these countries they've managed to display a high degree of incompetence several times during their history: a series of defeats of Haitian forces at the hands of the smaller Dominican army during the middle of the 19th century; the pathetic defeat of the Cuban army at the hands of revolutionary guerrillas during the 1950s; the embarrassing performance of Venezuela's government and military during a couple of episodes of gunboat diplomacy at the turn of the century.
You might think that factors other than bravery and discipline affect the combat performance of these Latin American soldiers, and you would be right. However those other qualities, such as capacity for planning, strategic thinking and just plain economic capacity to produce the resources needed to conduct war, are probably also lacking in these countries.
A first indication that Venezuelans, Cubans and Haitians simply lack these military qualities comes from the market. There is a market in military capabilities, and just like it happens in the market for bananas, consumers prefer good bananas to bad bananas. In this case consumers are military contractors and bananas are Latin American mercenaries.
So where do the good Latin American mercenaries come from? Colombia, Chile, El Salvador and to a lesser extent Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, Panama. No Venezuelans, no Haitians and no Cubans.
Prince told the House Oversight Committee that in contrast, Blackwater’s employees are “Americans working for America, protecting Americans.”
This statement would come as a surprise—and a slap in the face—to the thousands of Latin Americans… whom the company has hired to fill its contracts in Iraq since the war began. [a Blackwater affiliate] has recruited Iraq security guards from countries throughout Latin America, including Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama, as journalist Jeremy Scahill has reported.
Latin American mercenaries have been employed in the Middle East during the last few decades, in places like Iraq and Yemen, and they overwhelmingly come from the countries I just mentioned, not from the countries of origin of the so-called men of military age now crossing the U.S. border.
A second indication that this is not the case is evident when examining the recipients of the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration in the United States Armed Forces2. For this analysis, since Venezuelans have only recently become a sizable population group among U.S. Hispanics, consider Puerto Ricans as a proxy population for Venezuelans3, and possibly Cubans as well.
During World War II, Korea and Vietnam a total of 883 Medals of Honor were given. Out of that total 38 were awarded to Hispanic Americans4, with 28 to Mexican Americans, 4 to Puerto Ricans and 6 to other Hispanics.
Now consider that according to the 1970 U.S. census, taken during the Vietnam War, the American population of Mexican descent was 5,073,000 while the population of Puerto Rican descent was 1,454,000 (US-side, with more than 2 million living in PR). This means that Mexican Americans represented 2.5% of the total U.S. population, while Puerto Ricans accounted for either 0.7% or more than 2%, depending on whether only state-side Puerto Ricans are considered.
Their shares of Medals of Honor is 3.2% and 0.5% respectively. So for Mexican Americans their share is higher than their share of the general population, though this is to be expected considering it was a much younger population, while for Puerto Ricans (also a younger population) it was much lower than expected.
And most of those Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients served during the early and mid-20th century. Since the end of the conscription era only 30 Americans have received the Medal of Honor and among them only one, the Mexican-American Leroy Petry, is Hispanic.
Aiming for the stars
From USA Today5:
Hispanics are the fastest growing population in the military, making up about 16% of all active-duty military, according to the Department of Defense. However, Latinos make up only 8% of the officer corps and 2% of general/flag officers, according to a 2019 report by the Congressional Research Service.
Another indication that Venezuelans and Cubans would not make good military men comes from the numbers of two-stars and higher commissioned officers that have served in the United States armed forces.
The figures I found for each nationality are as follows: 11 Mexican-Americans , 4 Puerto Ricans, 2 Spaniards, 1 Colombian and 1 Cuban.
Once again, this number is relatively low for Puerto Ricans when compared to Mexican-Americans, and particularly low for Cuban-Americans, who only became a sizable Hispanic group in the United States starting in the 1960s and 70s, but one might expect them to be well represented among high ranking commissioned officers during the last three or four decades.
This is strong evidence that Cubans and Venezuelans will not excel in military roles. But what about Haitians?
Haitian-Americans now number slightly over one million people, representing approximately 0.3% of the U.S. population. And yet the number of Haitian commissioned officers in the US armed forces is remarkably small, and I couldn’t find any Haitian recipient of a Medal of Honor. The highest-ranking officer of Haitian descent that I could identify is Rudy Moise who attained the rank of colonel in the US Air Force6.
If you want to keep the peace, train for war
In a sense, there exists another market for military capabilities where Latin American armies compete to sell their services. Despite being an imperfect market with a single buyer, it also provides insight into the relative value of the military capabilities of different Latin American populations. This market is the United Nations’ lead peacekeeping operations.
From a Latin American country's perspective, participating in a UN peacekeeping operation offers valuable experience for its armed forces and an opportunity to showcase its logistical and military capabilities.
Moreover, there are minimal costs for participating countries, since funding comes from all UN member states. Therefore, the only apparent cost for participating countries lies in the risk of being involved in any of the few regrettable scandals that have occasionally tarnished peacekeeping operations, which could negatively impact their reputation.
From the point of view of the UN's Department of Peace Operations (DPO), enabling countries with limited or no prior involvement to participate in peacekeeping operations helps to legitimize the DPO and its operations. This approach also avoids the potential mistrust that may arise from an excessive involvement by global superpowers.
As we are about to see, the small country of Uruguay has had a large involvement in peacekeeping operations relative to its size, but this is a good thing from the DPO’s perspective. As long as participating countries steer clear of controversies, the UN should be pleased to accept peacekeeping contingents from any Latin American country, particularly those that have previously contributed less.
The following is a list of all Latin American countries7, detailing the number of troop contributions each has made to United Nations' peacekeeping operations.
The list is ordered by population size, with Brazil first and Uruguay last, making it easier to compare the number of troop contributions with similarly sized countries and identify any unusually low or high contributions.
The three most significant outliers in terms of low troop contributions are Mexico, Venezuela and Cuba. Not shocking.
The case of Venezuela is particularly striking considering that from 1948, when UN peacekeeping missions began, until the 1990s, it was one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America due to its oil wealth - it’s only contribution was to ONUCA in 1990). This is not an issue of lack of resources.
Argentina and Chile have even established peacekeeping training centers to assist in training not only their own forces but also those of other countries, further contributing to global peacekeeping efforts.
Just fear?
You might view my efforts to argue for the low military qualities of Venezuelans, Cubans and Haitians as unproductive. And from a certain point of view you would be right. While a few overtly concerned American conservatives think there is something sinister about these men of military age, the least of any American's worries should be their actual military capabilities. It’s just a matter of fear; ignore the tweets.
But there’s another angle to this story.
The United States' status as a global superpower can be attributed to several factors, key among them its enormous economic weight and large population. Yet clearly another significant factor is its formidable military capabilities that allow it to project power on a global scale.
If we assume that American elites - military, political and economic elites - understand that for the United States to maintain its global superpower status despite China and India's four-fold larger populations they need to increase the U.S. population fast through massive immigration, then looking the other way while millions of Latin Americans cross the border seems reasonable from their point of view. The population living south of the Rio Grande significantly outnumbers that of the north.
However, there’s a catch. The American armed forces are not solely the product of an enormous budget and a prolific military industry. They also arise from a key element: a population that has fought, mostly successfully, the wars necessary to assert American power around the world. It’s their secret sauce if you will.
Regardless of the cause, different populations have different military capabilities, and it appears that, in an attempt to maintain its status, America - or more precisely, its elite - might be diluting one of the essential elements that propelled it to superpower status.
It’s beyond the scope of this short post to argue why Puerto Ricans serve as a good proxy for Venezuelans and Cubans. However, if there is significant interest in the topic, I will consider writing an additional post to address that issue in detail.
I'm not including medals awarded in 2014 (posthumously) as the government at the time felt that the number of Hispanic recipients was somewhat low. Medals to Puerto Ricans were increased 100%, while medals to Mexicans were increased 46%, aligning with the underrepresentation I mentioned previously.
Quoted from: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2020/05/23/latino-hispanic-military-high-ranking-commissioned-officer-positions/4668013002/
The De Russy brothers who served as officers of the United States Army during the Civil War were not Haitians but French colonists from Saint Domingue.
I excluded Costa Rica, as it does not have a standing army. Also, Panama’s only contribution was to UN’s operation UNEF II, before it dissolved its own army. I did not count police personnel as contributions. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_involvement_in_international_peacekeeping