The banner hanging by a freeway overpass in the Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, read: “we offer a good salary, food and medical care for your family. Do not suffer mistreatment and hunger. We will not feed you cup-o-noodles.” The banner was a familiar recruitment pitch aimed at the young men in the city. Except the Mexican military did not put the banner on display; it was Los Zetas, an exceptionally violent drug cartel comprised of former members of Mexico's special forces, who aimed their message at members of the Mexican Army who were patrolling the streets of Nuevo Laredo. The reference to “cup-o-noodles” was a taunt about the notoriously poor basic rations military recruits are given when they enter basic training. Similar scenes have played out in numerous Mexican cities. Since 2006, nearly 70,000 Mexicans have been killed in drug-fueled violence and over 12,000 Mexicans remain missing. All of this has occurred in the shadow of 50,000 Mexican soldiers deployed on city streets to stem the killings and disappearances. Desertions among the Mexican military are common and the army continues to be plagued by accusations of corruption and human rights abuses.

To understand the Mexican military of the present, it is important to understand its past. Thomas Rath's succinct and solid account of Mexico's critical period of institutionalizing civil-military relations is therefore essential reading. In providing a much needed account of Mexico's postrevolutionary journey to develop a professional military under civilian authority, Rath provides a tonic to the conventional wisdom that the Mexican military's retreat from an active role in politics was smooth and inevitable. In fact, we are still witnessing the legacy of Mexico's postrevolutionary political and military reforms with the tasking of the Mexican military to tackle drug cartels and gangs. This cannot be given an appropriate context without grappling with how the struggle between politician and soldier unfolded in the aftermath of the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

Rath argues that this struggle is “markedly incomplete” and in his book he “seeks to challenge the dominant story of successful, top-down demilitarization that was promoted by the postrevolutionary regime. … The process of demilitarization that Mexico experienced occurred after 1940, the traditional endpoint of histories of state formation” (2). His argument is woven throughout the book and he is constantly mindful of the fits and starts of a process of building a professional military in the aftermath of social and political upheaval. He demonstrates the debates and even paradoxes of a military that must play a role in demilitarizing the society and political system that it serves.

The book's early chapters are dedicated to how the military barracks during the revolution were perceived by Mexican society “not as bulwarks of respectability but as epicenters of vice, promiscuity and prostitution” (23). The task of the new civilian and military leadership was to “inculcate new masculine habits of sobriety, self-discipline, cleanliness and physical fitness” (23). Other important pieces of postrevolutionary military reforms were aimed at limiting commanders’ political and even economic influence in the states and towns where they were posted. This severely undercut the authority, legitimacy, and power of the federal government. Nonetheless, even national politics in Mexico were subject to the power and influence of generals who became federal politicians in subsequent postrevolutionary governments. As Rath argues in later chapters, more serious attempts to limit military influence were made after 1940. Even Mexican military officers began to echo the rhetoric of their civilian leaders by seeing themselves as separate and distinct from activist militaries in the region: “While officers in the countries of Central and South America stain their reputations with dishonorable acts, the Mexican Army shows itself before the eyes of Mexicans and foreigners … to be a bastion of loyalty and respect for the commander in chief” (82).

Each chapter is a self-contained examination of a period in Mexico's process of demilitarization. Several of the chapters begin with small vignettes that highlight this process, whether it is a scene from a play or a newspaper cartoon. Such use of vignettes is not only useful to draw in the reader but is entertaining as well. Regrettably, Rath does not do this with all his chapters. Rath spends the longest portion of the book on the critical presidency of Miguel Aleman who began to more seriously tackle the structural issues that required reform in civil-military relations. This chapter is well done and continues to demonstrate the uneven path to institutionalizing a professional military class that was less active in politics and society.

The weakest chapter is the most curious one. Chapter 3, “Heaven Gave You a Soldier for Every Son: Conscription and Resistance in Mexico in the 1940s,” attempts to take on what Rath describes as inaccurate “neo-Gramscian” interpretations of Mexico's draft in state formation. This is the only time in the book that he identifies a particular methodology in the literature on the subject of Mexican demilitarization. Why? What are the other interpretations and why does neo-Gramscian theory only fail in the analysis of Mexican conscription? There are very few answers in the chapter; the events and episodes detailed in the chapter are not given any context. The term “neo-Gramscian” only reappears in the conclusion of the chapter and the analysis is only given three scant paragraphs.

Those who are not familiar with Mexican history or the social science on civil-military relations will find themselves concerned with the lack of definition of “demilitarization.” The concept is treated as a given, which is a shame because it is also as contentious as the history that Rath is examining. The concept could mean the reduction of “militarism” in society or the decline in the spread of martial values throughout society and politics. There appears to be a slight nod in the direction of a definition in the brief final chapter: “If the revolution achieved anything, surely it was the postrevolutionary army's subjection to state control and its extrication from rebellions and praetorianism” (167). Nonetheless, the concept could have been given more clarity by Rath and appeared earlier in the work. But this does not significantly detract from an excellent book.

Rath's book will find a wide audience among academics, policymakers, and even general readers interested in Mexico. As this review was being written, the Mexican marines captured Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, known as “Z-40” and the leader of Los Zetas. The task of capturing major drug kingpins is rarely done by Mexican law enforcement and continues to be the main task of Mexico's military. Rath's argument that the process of Mexican demilitarization is “markedly incomplete” appears as prescient as ever.