Mexico's Military Considered

Usually, I focus my military blogging on the military of the United States and its main potential military adversaries. This post, however, is devoted to an almost opposite perspective, the military of Mexico, the immediate Southern neighbor of the United States.

Basic Statistics - The U.S. v. Mexico

The population of the United States is currently about 333 million. Mexico's population is about 128 million (about 38% of the United States).

The GDP of the United States is currently about 21,430 billion U.S. dollars per year (about $64,354 U.S. per capita). Mexico's GDP is about 1,269 billion U.S. dollars per year (about 6% of the United States and about $9,914 U.S. per capita).

The U.S. spends about $778 billon on its military every year, which is 4.4% of its GDP and 38% of total military spending by all countries in the world combined.

Mexico spends about $7.1 billion on its military every year, which is about 0.6% of its GDP and less than 1% of what the U.S. spends on its military. So, the U.S. spends about 12.7 times as large a share of its GDP on the military as Mexico.

As of 2019, the U.S. had 1,367,030 active duty military personnel (including active duty Coast Guard personnel to assist in making the numbers comparable). It also has reserves in all four military services and the coast guard, and the Army and Air Force National Guard. This is 4,105 active duty military personnel (including the Coast Guard) per million people.

Mexico has 277,150 active duty military personnel in all parts of its military, in addition to 81,500 reserve forces. This is 2,165 active duty military personnel per million people.

The U.S. spends $570,000 U.S. per active duty soldier. Mexico spends $25,618 U.S. per active duty soldier.

The U.S. has a large nuclear arsenal which Mexico lacks entirely.

Mexico's Military Aircraft

Overview

Like the United States, Mexico has both an air force and aircraft that are part of its navy.

The Mexican military has 53 armed fixed wing aircraft. 

Only six Mexican military aircraft have meaningful air to air combat capabilities, and only seven Mexican military ships and boats (discussed below) have anti-aircraft missiles (and obviously can't "chase" a fast moving squadron of incoming enemy aircraft). The Army's anti-aircraft grenade cannons would only be effective against low altitude aircraft.

Only twelve Mexican military aircraft and three Mexican military ships and boats (discussed below) could conceivably sink a surface combatant or large commercial ship at a distance of more than twenty miles. Three more Mexican military ships could do so at shorter ranges. 

The rest of Mexico's armed aircraft are suitable only for dropping "dumb" bombs in uncontested airspace or perhaps in the case of eight more of them directing machine gun or unguided rocket fire at a target at close range.

The Mexican military has no missile or rocket or grenade cannon armed attack helicopters. It has no armed drones (by air, sea, underwater, or on land). It has no heavy or long range bombers. It has no stealth aircraft and only six aircraft that are capable of supersonic flight. 

It has no heavy lift helicopters. It has no heavy fixed wing military transport aircraft (comparable to the U.S. C-5 or C-17 or the Airbus A400M). It also has (as discussed below) no significant sea lift capabilities relative to the scale of its Army and Marine forces.

It has no cruise missiles, no medium or long range missiles (other than those on its Maritime patrol aircraft), and no nuclear weapons of any kind. So far as I know, Mexico has no military surveillance satellites.

Specific Resources.

Mexico's air force has: 

* 6 Northrop F-5E fighter jets. The original F-5 was designed for the U.S. Navy in 1962 and was in due course replaced by the F-14, then by the F-18, then by the F-35C. The F-5E design for export sales dates to 1972. It is a single pilot supersonic jet fighter that can reach bursts of speed up to Mach 1.63, and has a 140 mile combat radius with a full load of missiles and bombs. It has a ferry range of about 1,600 miles, with drop tanks in lieu of weapons, traveling at a slower the cruising speed Mach 0.8 to conserve fuel. It can operate at very high altitudes (51,800 feet).

The F-5E has relatively modern, although not state of the art, fighter aircraft radar. It has two 20mm cannons. It can carry 2 or 4 modern guided missiles (air to air, or air to ground), or pods with up to 38 unguided 70mm rockets or 8 unguided 127mm rockets. And, it can carry, in addition, up to about 5,200 pounds of unguided "dumb" bombs (if it is carrying only 2 relatively light air to air missiles). It can take off from a 2000 foot runway with two air to air missiles, but not a full load of bombs. 

The F-5Es are the only aircraft in Mexico's military that can used modern missiles for air to air combat, and the only supersonic aircraft in Mexico's military. Some reports suggest that only about half of them are operational.

* 33 Pilatus PC-7 light attack aircraft. This is a modified 1978 two seater general aviation training aircraft from Switzerland which can carry about 2,300 pounds of unguided "dumb" bombs or unguided rockets spread over six hard points. It has a top speed of 256 miles per hour and a cruise speed of 106 miles per hour. It has a range of 1,630 miles (a combat radius of 815 miles), and a maximum altitude of 33,000 feet. Since all of its munitions are unguided, it needs to get close to the target to drop its payload, bringing it within range of anti-aircraft guns. 

In addition to these armed aircraft, the Mexican air force has:

* 4 full sized commercial passenger jets used for VIP transport, 

* 5 C-130 intra-theater transport planes, 

* 12 smaller fixed wing military transport planes, 

* 124 small and medium sized utility/transport helicopters, 

* 5 unarmed fixed wing reconnaissance aircraft, 

* 100 Israeli Elbit Hermes 450 surveillance drones, that are about 550 pounds, have a 20 foot wing span, and can stay aloft for 17 hours at its 80 mile per hour cruise speed, at altitudes up to 18,000 feet, and

* 147 training aircraft (fixed wing and helicopters combined).

The Mexican Navy has:

* 6 Spanish CASA CN-235 Maritime patrol/search and rescue aircraft. These have six hard points, each of which can carry an AM-39 Exocet anti-ship missile with a 120 mile range, or a torpedo.

* 8 Spanish CASA C-212 Maritime patrol aircraft. These have two hard points that can carry a combined 1100 pounds of weapons, typically machine gun pods or unguided rocket pods.

* 17 small fixed wing transport planes (general aviation aircraft sized)

* 54 small and medium size utility/transport/search and rescue helicopters, 

* 5 unarmed fixed wing reconnaissance aircraft, and

* 63 training aircraft (fixed wing and helicopters combined).

Mexico's Warships and Military Boats

Overview

Mexico's Naval ships and boats are pretty much completely separated between a Pacific Navy Force and a Gulf and Caribbean Force, which is only rebalanced on rare trips through the Panama Canal.

The Mexican Navy has 7 ships with torpedos and/or anti-ship missiles capable of sinking a warship or large commercial ship (four of which have anti-air missiles). But, only three of these ships can sink another warship or large commercial warship at a range or more than about 20 miles with anti-ship missiles (while every U.S. Navy cruiser and destroyer has missiles that can sink warships at longer ranges than that, and every U.S. Navy aircraft carrier has aircraft that can do that). 

All seven of these ships and 24 more offshore patrol vessels of 1,000 tons or more, have helipads and also have grenade cannons and/or 2-3" naval guns. Three of these offshore patrol vessels have anti-air missiles, so there are a total of seven ships in the Mexican navy with anti-air missiles.

Eleven more offshore patrol vessels have grenade canons and a 3" naval gun but no helipad. 

There are 98 more coastal patrol vessels and interceptors with machine guns or grenade cannons, but no naval guns or missiles or helipads, and 16 search and rescue boats with machine guns.

The Mexican Navy has no submarines and no significant anti-submarine warfare resources. 

It has no aircraft carriers or helicopter carriers (although it has 31 ships with helipads for one or two small or medium sized helicopters). 

It has no battleship, cruisers, or destroyers. Just four surface combatants in the Mexican Navy are as large as the smallest surface combatant in the U.S. Navy (the littoral combat ships). 

The Mexican Navy's fleet is much more comparable to the fleet of the U.S. Coast Guard, with just a handful of heavier surface combatants, and the Mexican Navy has a mission much closer to that of the U.S. Coast Guard. It does not aspire to be a "blue sea navy."

Detailed Inventory Of Ships and Boats

* 4 Allende class frigates. The U.S. Knox class destroyer escort design from 1965. 3226 tons and 522 feet. Crew of 288. All four have 5" naval guns, torpedos and a helipad. One has Sea Sparrow anti-aircraft/anti-missile missiles.

* 1 Reformador class frigate. This is a Dutch 2005 design. 2575 tons and 298 feet. Crew of 20 to 80. Torpedos, a helipad, and modern anti-air and anti-ship missiles.

* 2 Huracan class missile boats. This is an Israel 1980 design. 498 tons and 202 feet. Crew of 53. A helipad and modern anti-air and anti-ship missiles.

* 8 Oaxaca class patrol vessels. Mexican 2003 design. 1680 tons and 282 feet.77 crew and 39 Marines. Helipad, 3" naval gun and grenade cannons.

* 3 Sierra class corvettes. Spanish 1998 design. 1366 tons and 231 feet. 75 crew. Helipad, 2" naval gun and modern anti-air missiles.

* 4 Durango class patrol vessels. Spanish 2000 design. 1300 tons and 267 feet. 74 crew and 55 Marines. Helipad and 2" naval gun.

* 4 Holzinger class patrol vessels. Variant of Uribe class. 1022 tons and 224 feet. 73 crew. Grenade cannons and helipad.

* 5 Uribe class patrol vessels. Spanish 1982 design. 998 tons and 220 feet. 54 crew. Grenade cannons and helipad.

* 11 Valle class minesweepers. U.S. and U.K. Auk-class design from World War II. 890 tons and 221 feet. 100 crew. 3" naval gun and grenade cannons.

* 20 Azteca class coastal patrol vessels. British 1976 design. 148 tons and 112 feet. 24 crew. Grenade cannons.

* 10 Tenochtitlan class coastal patrol vessels. Dutch 2001 design. 239 ton and 140 feet. 18 crew. Machine guns.

* 68 Polaris II class patrol interceptors. Swedish 1991 Combat Boat 90 design. 15 tons and 52 feet. 3 crew and 21 marines. Grenade cannons, machine guns and naval mines.

* 5 search and rescue motor lifeboats. U.S. 1997 design. 18 tons and 47 feet. 4 crew and 30 passengers. Optional machine gun mount. All on Pacific coast.

* 11 Defender class search and rescue boats. U.S. 2002 design. 2.7 tons. 4 crew and 6 passengers. Machine guns. All on Pacific coast.

Mexico's Amphibious Forces

Mexico has about 25,000 Marines, often included on ships as boarding parties on patrol vessels, and four tank landing ships (with a combined capacity of 1,384 marine and their equipment) which are as follows:

* 2 of the Papaloapan class. These are a U.S. design from 1968. 4,793 tons and 522 feet. Each has a crew of 213 and carried 421 marines. It is armed with machine guns and has a helipad.

* 2 of the Montes Azules class. This is a Mexican design from 2011. they are 3,666 tons and 327 feet. Each has a crew of 89 and carries up to 181 Marines and 1800 tons of cargo. It has two landing craft. It is armed with a grenade cannon and a helipad. These are part of the Pacific Naval Fleet and usually used for disaster relief missions.

Mexico's Army

Mexico has about 130,000 active duty Army soldiers (exclusive of the air force and the Marines), which is only modestly less per capita than the number of active duty Army soldiers per capita in the United States that are not deployed abroad, and about 65,000 reserve Army soldiers. Army soldiers make up about half of the active duty military personnel in Mexico, with the remainder being in the Air Force, Marines, or Navy (a larger share of the total than in the United States where the Army is 35% of the total).

The Army's equipment is a mishmash of different designs from different countries. Mexico's Army has: 

* 120 light tanks (8 tons with 90mm main guns) (by comparison, a U.S. M-1 main battle tank weighs 74 tons and has a 120mm main gun), 

* a handful of mobile armored vehicles with 75mm howitzers or 81mm mortars, 

* about 1231 armored personnel carriers with anti-tank guided missiles (with a 2-3 km range), 

* about 1500 armored personnel carriers with grenade cannons or heavy machine guns (only a minority are optimized against IEDs), and 

* about 5,500 armored Humvees with grenade cannons or heavy machine guns. 

It has two kinds of grenade cannons optimized for anti-aircraft duties. 

It has a variety of infantry carried and towed unguided anti-tank guns from 105mm to 125mm. 

It has a large number of towed 105mm to 155mm howitzers, and 60mm to 120mm mortars.

Apart from short range anti-tank missiles mounts on armored personnel carriers, the Mexican Army has no missiles of any kind. It has no anti-aircraft missiles, no missiles serving in an artillery role, no missile defense systems, no artillery shell or rocket defense systems, and no cruise missiles, and no nuclear missiles.

The Mexican Army has no heavy tanks and no heavy howitzers or mortars that are integrated into an armored vehicle.

Analysis

Despite its meager military capabilities, Mexico's armed forces are not necessarily unwise given its missions.

Mexico knows that it is no match for its Northern neighbor, the United States, and doesn't even try to have a military defense to a U.S. invasion. The Pacific Ocean and the U.S. Navy in that ocean, guards it from outside invasions from Asia and Oceania.

Belize and Guatemala on its small southern land border have tiny militaries with even fewer resources. Belize has fewer than 1,500 troops. Guatemala has about 18,000. Neither of these countries has armed aircraft with any air to air combat capacity, or naval forces in their respective theaters that could rival even Mexico's modest fleet. The same can be said for Mexico's other close Central American neighbors.

Mexico has decided that it simply cannot afford and doesn't wish to engage in foreign wars and military engagements.

With a minimal risk of invasion, the Mexican armed forces exist primarily to respond to armed drug cartels and criminal gangs, to smugglers and fishing violators, to put insurrections (mostly by indigenous populations with no foreign proxy war resources of money or military assets, or by students and unions), and to provide civilian law enforcement at sea, and to provide disaster response in times of disasters or other exigent circumstances. 

Basically, the Mexican armed forces, collectively, have a mission similar to the U.S. Coast Guard, Army National Guard, and Air Force National Guard, made more burdensome mostly by the failings of law enforcement in Mexico to address organized criminal violence. This homeland security mission for Mexico is much less expensive than the expansive military missions that the U.S. has undertaken.

Many Mexican armed forces missions are ones that the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force are prohibited by statute and long standing custom and tradition, from conducting.

Options For Upgrading Mexico's Military

If Mexico wanted to make its military more capable against sovereign state class threats, there would be some obvious places to begin at an affordable cost.

The least expensive and most consequential option would be to convert some of its existing Army and Navy utility helicopters, on proven existing designs, to missile, rocket and canon armed helicopter gunships, along the lines of the AH-1 Cobra variant of its UH-1 helicopters, or the AH-60M variant of its UH-60 helicopters.

In ground based conflicts, this could provide a powerful and robust (and better targeted than existing methods) means to devastating enemy armored forces and entrenched defenses.

In sea based conflicts, an existing frigate or missile boat or patrol vessel with an attack helicopter could be very effective against the highest end threats from criminal organizations and neighboring countries navies (other than the U.S.) that Mexican forces are likely to encounter at sea, effectively creating a mini-aircraft carrier strategy that can respond to emergent events much more quicky than the fastest ship.

Another inexpensive option would be to modify some of its light bombers and maritime patrol and training and light transport aircraft to carry advanced avionics and long range modern aircraft based missiles (air to air, and air to ground) and/or "smart bombs", while refraining from trying to buy more than a handful of advanced modern jet fighters (if any), as attaining meaningful air to air combat capabilities is much more expensive. Even an upgrade to smart bombs would multiply the effectiveness of the force by reducing the number of sorties per target, allow bombs to be dropped from safer locations in terms of altitude and distance from the target preventing casualties from ground based anti-air fire, and would reduce collateral damage when bombs are dropped.

If there is a felt need for any anti-submarine capability a small number of P-8 maritime patrol aircraft and some surface ship drones to gather reconnoissance might make sense.  This planes can cover a huge territory, monitor sensors dropped in the ocean and on drones (perhaps also via patrol vessels), and can launch rapid strikes with torpedos launched from the plane when a target is identified.  

Armed drones would make sense as a replacement for much of its existing light bomber resources. They cost less, do the same job and don't present the same risk of casualties.

Buying missile artillery like the U.S. military HIMARs system would provide benefits similar to smart bombs over howitzer and mortar based artillery, which have short ranges and comparatively low accuracy.

Buying modern ground based anti-aircraft missile batteries like the Soviet S-400, would be another that would cost somewhat more, but not that much more, and is probably the most cost effective way of discouraging enemy air intrusions into Mexican air space. Mexico can't afford the air to air fighter fleet necessary to have that effect.

To the extent Mexico wants to replace old ships with new ones, ships like its 500 ton Israeli missile boats make far more sense than blue sea frigates or cruisers or destroyers or non-coastal patrol vessels. These boats are very capable offensively, have small crews that are less expensive, and are less expensive than full sized blue sea surface combatants. And, Mexico doesn't no a far off coast capability.

Just two or three small diesel-electric coastal attack submarines could also be an investment to provide robust anti-surface combatant capability and a moderate but not entirely cheap price.

Finally, investing in IED resistant armored vehicles to the U.S. MRAP standard, before they become necessary due to an actual IED threat, could discourage one from ever arising.