The Argentine government announced an increase in the budget for arms purchases to "rebuild" the defense capabilities of the armed forces, which, in President Javier Milei's view, were dismantled after the return to democracy in 1983. Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni informed the press that 10% of the revenue from the privatization of state-owned enterprises will be allocated to "the purchase of armaments and capital goods for our national defense system." He added that "it is time to turn the page and inaugurate a new cycle." This increase in state investment in rebuilding the defense system contrasts with cuts to human rights policies as part of Milei's austerity plan to end the fiscal deficit. Human rights organizations denounced that as part of this adjustment, the government downgraded the Secretariat of Human Rights to a sub-secretariat, disbanded teams that survey the archives of the Armed Forces, which feed into judicial cases against repressors, and fired personnel.
Previously, Milei had condemned the atrocities committed by the military regime from 1976 to 1983, but he has a critical view of the center-left governments that preceded him in power. In his opinion, they promoted a biased view that romanticized the actions of guerrilla groups operating in the years leading up to the coup and a vendetta against the Armed Forces. Along the same lines, Adorni stated that since the return of democracy in 1983, "it was state policy to defund the military instrument with the objective of neutralizing the Armed Forces as a political actor and ensuring democratic stability." He added that "after 50 years, the result is Armed Forces that are poorly paid and insufficiently equipped to face the challenges of the present."
