The Appointment of General Ricardo Trevilla in front of the Secretariat of National Defense It fully meets the demands that the next administration will have to face in the military field and of security.
A few months ago talking about the succession process in the Defense We said that “the army today is very different from what it was six years ago, in its structure, its responsibilities, its exposure and public weight.
Surely Many things will have to changebut on the main lines (guarantee the public safetyat this juncture especially the internal securitythe most vulnerable, and the national one, as well as advancing in its restructuring and modernization) must have continuity and must be understood as a substantial part of a global redesign of many aspects of the country’s security and defense.”
That continuity and change is what guarantees Trevilla. There are things, we insisted, that will surely have to be redefined, such as salaries, pension support, the equipment itself derived from the transformations and responsibilities of the sector, which must have advances and transformations in accordance with the times and demands. It is ridiculous, but while everyone agrees that the greatest risk for the country is insecurity, Mexico invests in security and defense, as a percentage of GDP, the least of all the nations of America, only above Guatemala. Countries such as Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Brazil invest in security and defense three times more than Mexico. That will be one of the great challenges that the new administration and therefore the National Defense will have to assume.
It must be understood that the only institution that can transcend the six-year term by maintaining structures, programs, training, and strategic projects throughout the national territory based on the generational movements of the institution itself, is National Defense.
The appointment of General Trevilla guarantees this continuity and transformation. Probably no one among those who aspired to head the secretariat knows better the daily functioning, the successes and shortcomings, the operational and structural parts, than Trevilla, who was during the last years the chief of the joint staff and the right-hand man of General Luis Crescencio Sandoval. And therefore he also knows what must change and how to begin to operate in different areas, especially in the coordination of security, from day one of government.
What will National Defense be like under Claudia Sheinbaum? I imagine it will be the same but different. We will have an Armed Forces with the same participation in many areas but with much less public prominence. We will have a much more intense security operation: General Trevilla was the one who designed and led the operation that arrested, for example, Ovidio Guzmán in Jesús María in January 2023. He has been in some of the hottest areas of the country such as Piedras Negras, in the era of the Zetas, and in Michoacán, when the Familia Michoacana operated there. The security strategy and coordination with García Harfuch in the security secretariat will change radically compared to today, and it would be desirable for the relationship between the army and the navy, which is very weak today, to also change. There will be greater coordination, especially in operational and intelligence areas.
The confirmation of the National Guard as an arm of the National Defense was an objective of the institution and of General Trevilla himself and if the necessary and desirable change is confirmed, the progress of this institution, the main one in the field of security in the country, can be consolidated so that it achieves the objectives it pursues and, as its commanders say, achieves the most important one: to have the absolute daily trust of the people.
In public security, the task will be joint, clearly differentiating public security from internal and national security, but the face and daily responsibility will be in the hands of García Harfuch, not the military commanders.
The Armed Forces have always participated in infrastructure construction tasks. What was different during this six-year term was that they were put in charge of many projects without there being any civilian departments responsible for them. I cannot imagine any military commander explaining infrastructure projects and developments in the future. That will be the task, for example, of whoever is responsible, the communications and transportation secretariat, in this case.
I imagine that as the army is consolidated with all the structural changes that have been made during this six-year term, including the National Guard, which was one of Trevilla’s main objectives from the joint staff, some of the tasks that have been assigned to the Defense will be left behind or transferred to civilian areas. I think the idea is clear: consolidate what we have, remove the excessive weight that distracts from the fundamental tasks, but always being the main support of its commander in chief and the Mexican State.
Finally, and not least, it should be noted that General Trevilla is an honest, upright, capable man, committed to democratic values. From there, many things can be built. For President Sheinbaum, he will be a fundamental support.
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