July-August 1957

Centroamérica's efforts to improve its defensive capabilities have run up against a significant barrier: Centroamérica's population is too small, and there are too few people willing to join the military, for the country to field a military large enough to deter foreign intervention. Even though the Flood decimated the population of larger countries like Mexico and the United States, those divided countries, if reunited, have populations and industrial bases far outstripping that of Centroamérica. This shortage of manpower is exacerbated by the country's terrain: the peninsula has a massive coastline that can be easily exploited by a foe with naval superiority to choose the time and place of engagement, meaning that the Armed Forces must be able to defend multiple places at once--at least long enough for reserve forces to get there and turn the tide.

For Centroamérica to adequately defend itself from threats in this ever-changing world, it simply needs more men in uniform. The Centroamerican constitution of 1953 clearly authorized the government to institute conscription if it deemed it necessary, but that requirement had never been implemented. That changed in 1957 with the passage of the Ley de Reclutamiento y Reemplazo del Fuerzas Armadas de Centroamérica de 1957 (Armed Forces Conscription and Replacement Act of 1957). Under the new law, all males in Centroamérica are obligated to spend eighteen months in the Armed Forces (including three months of basic training and fifteen months of active service) between the ages of 18 and 25. Exemptions and deferrals exist--most notably for university students to complete their degree programs and for conscientious objectors, who are allowed to complete an alternative 24-month civil service program--but are uncommon. After completing their active duty service, conscripts serve a further three years in the reserves, which can alternatively be spent in one of the Republican Guard forces.

In addition to increasing the pool of manpower available for the Armed Forces to draw from, the institution of obligatory military or civilian service is expected to cement the "Centroamerican" national identity above that of the identity attached to the conventional republics. Obligatory service will provide an opportunity for young Centroamerican men to serve shoulder-to-shoulder with men from different republics, from different ethnic backgrounds, and from different social backgrounds.

The introduction of universal obligatory service comes with its own issues in a binational and multilingual state like Centroamérica. Although the 1953 Constitution provides for both Spanish and Modern Standard Maya as "national languages", the fact of the matter is that Spanish is still the de facto official language in the day-to-day operations of the federal government. This is no different in the Armed Forces, which almost exclusively use Spanish (with the notable exception of the Yucatán Republican Guard, which uses Spanish and Yucatec Maya equally). To help minimize conscription-related language issues in the military, the new law includes a Spanish language test to ensure that the military can maintain a common language. Potential conscripts who fail the test will instead be redirected to civilian service.

((Moving to Limited Conscription and Mild Literacy Requirements))