Development as Militarization: Washington's Alliance for Progress and the Rise of the Armed Forces in Bolivia

Despite being the highest per capita recipient of Alliance for Progress funds during the early 1960s, Bolivia's experience within the Alliance program has been relatively neglected by historians. The revolutionary government had been implementing Alliance-like reforms since 1952, and the Kennedy administration saw the country as a test case for the thesis that structural reform was necessary for economic and social development. Under the strong influence of the Cuban Revolution, however, Bolivia's leftward drift posed a dilemma for US officials, who sought a way to encourage both economic development and anticommunist progress. Their solution - military-led development -became so successful that it was looked upon as a model for the region. My paper follows the Kennedy administration's initial encounter with the Bolivia's revolutionary government, traces its adoption and implementation of military-led development, and continues through the first year of the Johnson administration, during which time Washington doubled down on its commitment to the Bolivian Armed Forces as an allegedly progressive force for development. Despite fervent attempts by the Johnson administration to halt the impending coup d'etat in early November 1964, the newly-empowered Bolivian military succeeded in formalizing its role as the epicenter of the national development effort and went on to rule the country until the 1980s with Washington's belated (but nonetheless enthusiastic) acquiescence.