Latin American wars

Major International Wars

Compared to other major regions of the world, Latin America has suffered very few large-scale international conflicts. (Civil wars and guerrilla insurgencies are another matter.) There is a considerable body of social science literature suggesting that warfare has a "make or break" effect on the political cohesion of nation-states. That is, as Charles Tilly (1975, p. 42) put it, "War made the state and the state made war." Thus, one might infer that the low occurrence of warfare in Latin American history might explain the relative weakness of state authority in most of those countries. Below are listed the major international armed conflicts that took place in Latin America after independence from Spain, which in nearly all cases was between 1816 and 1826. Minor border conflicts are not listed. The first country listed under the "combatants" column is the aggressor or instigator of the conflict.