Mexican President Obrador wants to disband the military.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Reuters. 

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said that he wants to disband the Mexican military and replace it with his new National Guard. Reuters. Obrador says he would also like to declare Mexico a pacifist country and that the country's defense should be left in the hands of "all". Orbrado admitted that such a proposal would face resistance and isn't likely to happen. Obrador's pet project is the National Guard, which has drawn its members from the military and police forces across Mexico. The National Guard already has 75,000 troops with a full size expected to be around 150,000. The force has already been deployed to the US and Guatemalan borders to help control the migrant crisis.  

My Comment:

I doubt that this is a serious proposal but the headline was crazy enough that I wanted to comment. Disbanding a country's military is always an huge move and doing it during the middle of a huge drug war is bizarre to say the least. 

To be fair it's not like Obrador hasn't offered up a replacement. His new National Guard is essentially an army and it will eventually be big enough to fight the drug cartels. Even now it's a significant force that could go toe to toe with the cartels. 

I never know what to think about Obrador (AKA Almo). On the one hand he's a pretty strong leftist and I disagree with a lot of what he says. On the other hand he seems like an authentic person. He gave up his personal airplane and often meets with the people in public. Most importantly he is actually playing ball with President Trump. 

That shouldn't be too surprising though because even though Almo is a leftist, he's a nationalist as well. He cares more about his people than most anything else. In that way he's a lot like President Trump. 

I don't think that the proposal will go anywhere. Disbanding the military would obviously anger the military even if they get folded into the National Guard. I also think that the threats against Mexico are strong enough that they probably need to keep a strong military. However, it does give a strong insight into Almo's personality and beliefs.