Soft Training, Hard Repression: U.S. Military Training and Democracy

With Diego Martin

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Abstract

We study the effect of U.S. foreign military training on the behaviour of officers upon returning to their home countries. We exploit quasi-experimental variation in the assignment of commanders trained at the School of the Americas, a U.S. facility that trained close to 2,000 Latin American military personnel per year for four decades. Our estimates show that SOA-trained commanders eroded democratic institutions and increased civilian-directed operations, including forced disappearances, with no operational gains against armed groups. We also analyse declassified SOA training manuals and find no explicit instruction to target civilians, but evidence that the manuals blurred the doctrinal boundary between counterinsurgency and civilian control. Latinobarometer surveys show that exposed cohorts are more supportive of democracy and trust less in the military. These findings document a human capital channel through which foreign military assistance can undermine institutions it is designed to strengthen through increased civilian repression.