Explore the militarized transformation of security in El Salvador, from the civil war and the Chapultepec Peace Accords to the rise of MS-13 and Barrio 18, the 2022 state of exception, and the defense economics of the Bukele gang eradication model.
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In El Salvador, the domains of national security, institutional power, and macroeconomic stability are deeply and historically intertwined. For decades, the country's financial potential was paralyzed by high-intensity conflict, initially through a brutal twelve-year civil war and subsequently through the terror and extortion of transnational street gangs. The financial costs of this chronic insecurity have been staggering, depressing GDP growth, deterring foreign direct investment, and placing a heavy fiscal burden on the state's treasury. Under the presidency of Nayib Bukele, the nation has undergone a radical security transformation, deploying the state's military and police forces in a highly centralized, aggressive gang eradication model. This is key to understanding El Salvador's ambitious Bukele economic model and future growth path, tracing the structure, history, and financing of the defense apparatus.
To understand the contemporary security apparatus in El Salvador, one must examine the legacy of the 1979–1992 civil war. During this dark period, the Armed Forces of El Salvador (Fuerzas Armadas de El Salvador, or FAES) operated not just as a defense force but as the dominant political institution of the country. Allied with the El Salvador: A Financial History, the military ruled the nation directly or indirectly for decades, suppressing popular movements, trade unions, and peasant organizations.
During the civil war, the FAES expanded exponentially, funded by billions of dollars in military assistance from the United States, which viewed the conflict through the lens of Cold War containment. The military, alongside paramilitary death squads and militarized security forces like the National Guard, engaged in counterinsurgency campaigns that resulted in widespread human rights abuses, including the El Mozote massacre. The FAES became a highly autonomous and powerful institution, consuming a vast portion of the national budget and operating with near-total impunity. This historical experience created a deep-seated public fear and distrust of militarized policing, a sentiment that would shape the institutional reforms of the post-war era.
The signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords in January 1992 sought to fundamentally reform El Salvador’s security architecture and put an end to the militarized state. The accords recognized that sustainable peace and democracy required the subordination of the military to civilian authority and its complete removal from internal policing duties.
Under the accords, the FAES was cut in half, its doctrine was rewritten to focus strictly on external defense rather than internal security, and its highly feared military intelligence units were dismantled. Crucially, the old militarized police forces (such as the National Guard, Treasury Police, and National Police) were completely abolished. In their place, the accords established a new civilian institution: the National Civil Police (Policía Nacional Civil, or PNC). The PNC was designed to be a professional, human-rights-respecting force, composed of new recruits, with a portion of its ranks initially allocated to former FMLN combatants and demobilized military police officers to ensure political balance. The role of the military was constitutionally restricted to protecting the state's territorial integrity, with internal security designated as the exclusive domain of the civilian PNC, except under extraordinary circumstances approved by the Legislative Assembly. This post-war demilitarization was hailed as a major democratic achievement, but the subsequent rise of street gangs would eventually challenge this civilian policing model.
The post-war transition, while successful in demilitarizing politics, failed to address the deep structural issues of poverty, unemployment, and social disintegration. This vacuum was quickly filled by the rise of transnational street gangs, primarily Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the 18th Street Gang (Barrio 18). These gangs had their origins in the marginalized neighborhoods of Los Angeles, where young Salvadoran refugees of the civil war formed gangs for mutual protection.
In the mid-1990s, the United States began deporting thousands of convicted gang members back to El Salvador, a country with weak institutions and a fragile, post-war society. The deportees brought sophisticated gang organizational structures, which quickly took root in El Salvador's impoverished urban and rural communities. MS-13 and Barrio 18 grew exponentially, establishing territorial control over entire neighborhoods, municipal markets, and transport routes.
The gangs operated as highly organized criminal syndicates, utilizing violence and intimidation to extort local businesses, bus companies, and everyday citizens. This systemic extortion acted as a massive tax on the economy, paralyzing micro-enterprises and forcing hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans to flee the country, shortly before the implementation of dollarization in 2001. Successive governments attempted to combat the gangs through various strategies, including the militarized "Mano Dura" (Iron Fist) policies of the ARENA party and the controversial "gang truce" facilitated by the FMLN administration in 2012. However, these policies failed to dismantle the gangs' underlying territorial control, and El Salvador remained trapped in a cycle of high homicide rates and economic stagnation, setting the stage for the radical security realignment of the Bukele administration.
Facing a chronic and deeply entrenched gang threat, the administration of President Nayib Bukele turned to a highly militarized strategy, reversing the post-war trend of keeping the military out of domestic policing. The Armed Forces of El Salvador (FAES), which had been marginalized in public life following the 1992 Peace Accords, were brought back to the center of internal security operations.
Under the "Territorial Control Plan" (Plan Control Territorial) launched in 2019, the military was deployed alongside the PNC to secure high-crime municipalities, patrol public spaces, and set up checkpoints in gang-controlled neighborhoods. The government launched a major recruitment drive, rapidly expanding the size of the FAES to over 20,000 active-duty personnel, with plans to increase that number further. The military's role was elevated from a supportive capacity to direct participation in law enforcement and counter-gang operations.
President Bukele has actively embraced the military as a symbol of state authority and national pride, frequently appearing at military ceremonies and utilizing the armed forces to enforce executive orders, such as during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The re-militarization of public safety has been highly popular among a citizenry desperate for security, but it has drawn criticism from human rights groups and international observers, who warn that utilizing a force trained for warfare in domestic policing can lead to abuses of power and undermines the demilitarization goals established by the Peace Accords.
The National Civil Police (PNC) remains the primary civilian law enforcement agency in El Salvador, but its role has been deeply affected by the militarization of security and the consolidation of executive power. With over 25,000 officers, the PNC is responsible for crime prevention, criminal investigation, and maintaining public order across the country's 14 departments.
Throughout its history, the PNC has struggled with institutional weaknesses, including low salaries, inadequate equipment, corruption, and infiltration by street gangs. Despite these challenges, the PNC possesses specialized units, such as the elite tactical units and the scientific investigation division, which have shown high levels of professionalism.
Under the current administration, the PNC has been integrated into a unified command structure with the FAES, operating under the direct guidance of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security. This integration has improved coordination and operational efficiency, but it has also eroded the PNC's institutional independence as a civilian force. The police have been the primary agents executing the mass arrests under the state of exception, leading to a dramatic expansion of their operational powers. While the PNC's capability to arrest and detain suspects has been highly effective in dismantling gang networks, the lack of independent oversight and judicial review has raised concerns about the abuse of these expanded powers, putting the long-term institutional health of the civilian police force to a severe test.
The defining turning point in modern Salvadoran security policy occurred in late March 2022. Following a weekend of horrific gang violence that resulted in over 80 homicides, President Bukele requested, and the Legislative Assembly approved, a 30-day "state of exception" (régimen de excepción). This legal mechanism, which has been continuously renewed on a monthly basis for years, suspends key constitutional rights, including the right to administrative detention limits, the privacy of communications, and the right to legal counsel.
The state of exception established the legal framework for an unprecedented campaign of mass incarceration. It allowed the PNC and FAES to arrest any suspected gang member without a warrant, extend pre-trial detention from three days to fifteen days, and conduct mass trials where defendants can be prosecuted in groups based on geographic location rather than individual evidence.
This security campaign has resulted in the arrest of over 70,000 people, representing more than 1% of the country’s total population, and giving El Salvador the highest incarceration rate in the world. To house this massive inmate population, the government constructed the "Center for the Confinement of Terrorism" (CECOT), a high-security mega-prison with a capacity of 40,000 prisoners. The state of exception has been highly effective in neutralizing gang networks, eliminating extortion, and restoring public safety. However, this success has come at a severe cost to civil liberties, with human rights organizations documenting thousands of arbitrary detentions, systemic due process violations, and numerous deaths in custody, highlighting the tension between security and the rule of law.
The financial sustainability and economic impact of El Salvador's militarized security model represent a critical area of defense economics. Historically, El Salvador's defense spending was relatively modest, hovering around 1% of GDP in the post-war era. However, the implementation of the Territorial Control Plan and the state of exception has required a significant mobilization of public resources.
Defense and security spending has risen to approximately 1.5% to 2% of GDP, with substantial budgetary increases allocated to the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Justice and Public Security. These funds have been used to purchase high-tech security equipment, including drones, thermal cameras, armored vehicles, and advanced telecommunications systems, as well as to fund the salaries, food, and logistics for thousands of deployed soldiers and police officers.
With the country operating in a dollarized system and regulated by the El Salvador: Government Structure and El Salvador: Government Structure, the government cannot print money to fund these expenditures. Instead, it has relied on reallocating funds from other government ministries, increasing tax collection enforcement, and borrowing from domestic and regional lenders. While the security campaign has required massive public expenditures, proponents argue that this cost is offset by the "security dividend"—the economic growth stimulated by the elimination of extortion and the revitalization of commerce and tourism. However, the long-term fiscal sustainability of maintaining a massive police state and prison system remains a key concern for economic analysts.
El Salvador's security policies have long been shaped by its relationship with the United States, which remains the country's primary trading partner and home to its largest diaspora. Historically, the US provided substantial military and economic assistance to combat the leftist insurgency during the civil war and, in the post-war era, to support anti-gang programs and institutional capacity-building.
However, the Bukele administration's aggressive security model and the consolidation of executive power have strained relations with Washington. The US government and international bodies have criticized the state of exception for its human rights violations and the lack of judicial independence. In response, the US has redirected some of its aid away from state institutions like the PNC and toward civil society organizations and community-level prevention programs.
In response to this cooling of relations, El Salvador has diversified its geopolitical partnerships, seeking defense and technology cooperation from other nations. The government has purchased security equipment and surveillance systems from non-traditional suppliers, seeking to protect vital national assets like the geothermal volcano mining project. Regionally, El Salvador's gang suppression model has generated significant interest and admiration among neighboring Central and South American nations struggling with similar security challenges. Countries like Honduras, Ecuador, and Peru have debated or implemented policies inspired by the Bukele model, positioning El Salvador as a regional leader in hardline security strategies.
The dramatic transformation of El Salvador from one of the world's most violent countries to one of the safest in the region represents a historic achievement, but it presents a fundamental dilemma regarding the long-term cost of this safety. The gang suppression model has dismantled the criminal syndicates that terrorized the population, unleashing a powerful economic and social revitalization. For millions of Salvadorans, the security gains are tangible, allowing them to live, work, and travel without fear.
Yet, this security has been achieved through the implementation of a highly centralized police state, the suspension of fundamental constitutional rights, and the highest incarceration rate in the world. The long-term costs of this model are not just social and humanitarian but also financial. Maintaining a massive prison population and a highly militarized security force requires continuous, high levels of public funding, which could otherwise be spent on education, health, and economic development.
Furthermore, the concentration of power in the executive branch and the weakening of democratic checks and balances raise concerns about institutional stability and the rule of law. A system that relies on the suspension of constitutional rights and the centralization of authority is inherently vulnerable to abuse and political instability. As El Salvador moves forward, its central challenge will be to transition from an extraordinary state of exception to a sustainable, institutionalized security model that respects the rule of law and human rights while preserving the safety and stability that have redefined the country's modern era.