Mexico steps up military weapons purchases

The arms race in Mexico started by former president Felipe Calderón is still ongoing, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) .

The organization specialized in arms transfers reports a purchase increase of 17% in the 2015-2019 period in comparison to 2010-2014 . The figure represents 70% of the total imports registered in Central America and the Caribbean from 2015 to 2019.

In that period, Mexico was the second client in the conventional weapons market in all of Latin America only after Brazil . On a global scale, it was on spot 36 before Belarus and Kuwait . Mexico’s military expenses between 2015 and 2018 were for a total of USD $25.4 billion . “The increase is linked to the use of armed forces in the war against drugs ,” explains to EL UNIVERSAL Diego López da Silva , a researcher of the SIPRI’s program about military expenses . “ Drug cartels are perceived as the biggest threat to security in Mexico and we see that the equipment it is purchasing is somehow related to this threat.”

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The U.S. concentrated 64% of the war shipments to Mexico, followed by Spain (9.5%) and France (8.5%.) U.S. sales are characterized by their variety , from Cessna-208 Caravan airplanes and S-70/UH-60L helicopters to Cessna-U206 training airplanes and RIM-162 ESSM ground-to-air missiles. French and Spanish transfers have less influence and do not depend on a single supplier. Hence, Mexico is looking for alternative suppliers mainly of light airplanes and air transport systems.”

Da Silva asserts that the imported equipment is new and is not focused on privileging a single sector; during the Vicente Fox administration , there was a stress on the modernization of the air force . “What the purchase of land vehicles, training airplanes, and helicopters tell us is that they are materials with multiple uses, surveillance, operations, in urban or rural areas, as well as exterior defense or for interior matters; they are very flexible,” he explained. Although in terms of numbers, the most imported equipment in Mexico are armored vehicles: 200 M-1152A1 unites arrived from the U.S. in 2016, which would join the 250 SanCat delivered by the end of the Felipe Calderón administration .

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The air section is the second most imported.

Another characteristic of the purchases are the maritime transfers of tracking, monitoring, and operation equipment, such as low-frequency radars for the detection of submarines CAPTAS-2 from the French armory, the Swedish naval cannon SAK-70 Mk, light hybrid torpedos Mk-54, and the Harpoon-2 anti-ship missile systems, the latter sent by the U.S.

The naval material is focused on equipping the units developed under the cooperation program with the Dutch firm Damen , which approximately three years ago received the request to modernize the Mexican naval fleet .

So far, the project has resulted, in the construction, at the Navy shipyard in Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, of the ARM Reformador vessel (POLA-101), which, according to the Dutch firm, has the most advanced technology in Latin America.

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