Mexican Army

The Mexican Army (Spanish: Ejército Mexicano) is the combined land and air branch and largest of the Mexican Armed Forces; it is also known as the National Defense Army.

It was the first army to adopt (1908) and use (1910) a self-loading rifle, the Mondragón rifle. The Mexican Army has an active duty force of 267,506 (2014 est.).

Mexico has no major foreign nation-state adversaries. It officially repudiates the use of force to settle disputes and rejects interference by one nation in the affairs of another. Although it has not suffered a major international terrorist incident in recent decades, the Mexican government considers the country a potential target for international terrorism.

History

Antecedents

Pre-Columbian era: native warriors

In the prehispanic era, there were many indigenous tribes and highly developed city-states in what is now known as central Mexico. The most advanced and powerful kingdoms were those of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan, which comprised populations of the same ethnic origin and were politically linked by an alliance known as the Triple Alliance; colloquially these three states are known as the Aztec. They had a center for higher education called the Calmecac in Nahuatl, this was where the children of the Aztec priesthood and nobility receive rigorous religious and military training and conveyed the highest knowledge such as: doctrines, divine songs, the science of interpreting codices, calendar skills, memorization of texts, etc. In Aztec society, it was compulsory for all young males, nobles as well as commoners, to join part of the armed forces at the age of 15.