Puertegan People's Armed Forces

The Puertegan People's Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Populares de Puertego) are the of Puertego responsible for the defense of it and its people.

The commander-in-chief of the nations armed forces is the president of Puertego Matthias Torres though it is managed by the Puertegan Ministry of Defense which is headed by the minister of defense and operated out of the ministry headquarters in San Lina. Commander-in-chief of the Puertegan People's armed forces is considered to be the most powerful position in the nation's military.

History
The modern Puertegan People's Armed Forces began during the 1992 civil war with it serving as the army of the White Flag Communist Party, when the armed forces were first formed, they were made as a highly trained and disciplined elite army intended to defeat the Red Flag Communists with their superior training and equipment purchased and donated by foreign governments. This strategy worked for them at first until Hugo Martín ended up getting most of their powerful tanks and artillery destroyed in his disastrous push leaving the army vulnerable to the attack by the Red Flag Communists that took place in the Great Push South after the army threw up the best defenses they could muster in such a short period of time resulting in them winning the battle against the red flags but barely, after this battle there was a standstill in the front as both sides needed to recover with the white flags going on a mass conscription of the lands they controlled turning the Puertegan People's Armed Forces from an elite and highly trained army into a large though sub standard trained and disciplined army having to rely on massive human wave tactics in an attempt to overwhelm their enemies, this point is also when the armed forces introduced commissars in order to maintain what order and discipline they could among their new recruits. This new tactic proved to give the army an working if brutal and slow path to victory with the civil war continuing until 1997 where paramilitaries aligned with the white flags took San Lina and forced the red flags to go to the negotiating table. While the modern Puertegan People's Armed Forces has introduced better equipment and training than what they offered during the civil war their army is still largely based on the model they adopted after their victory in the Great Push South with it being much more focused on quantity rather than quality and the commissar system still in place in order to maintain moral across the ranks.

Role
The official role of the Puertegan People's Armed Forces is the protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation. It also serves to protect the government of Puertego from all threats foreign and domestic. The armed forces are also responsible for maintaining public order in times of unrest by any means they deem necessary and assisting the civilian government primarily in matters of drug control and aiding civilians in areas afflicted by natural disasters.

However, many foreign critics of the Armed Forces have criticized the role of the Puertegan Armed Forces of not actually being to protect the Puertegan people and is instead simply to protect the security of the party in politics and suppress movements calling for democratic reform as well as to facilitate corruption in the higher ranks of the military and allow them to get rich from said corruption. These critiques aren't unfounded in their accusations as the Puertegan military is exceptionally corrupt, rife with embezzlement, black market dealings, and nepotism, corruption in the military is so prolific that international research bodies won't accept Puertegan numbers for how many vehicles they own claiming they are unreliable due to many of them getting sold by high-ranking officers on the black market.

Budget
The official budget for the Puertegan People's Armed Forces is supplied entirely by the central government with it being more than doubled in 2025 from $40.9 billion the previous year. It is estimated that the armed forces lose as much as $18 billion of their due to the rampant corruption in their ranks. The budget is divided so that half of funds go to the army, the navy and air force receive 20% each and the remaining 10% is held in reserve by the army in case any sudden emergency expenses come up that need to be paid with any remaining at the end of the year being equally distributed to the branches.

Personnel
The Puertegan People's Armed Forces have an active force of 450,000 soldiers with an additional 5,920,000 in reserve that can be called upon to serve at any time, the nation has an estimated 1,630,000 paramilitary personnel as well creating a total force of around 8,000,000 soldiers. The nation has an active conscription policy with all citizens being required to serve in a branch of the military for at least 2 years and any attempt to try and get out of conscription resulting in a lengthy prison sentence however any able-bodied citizen aged 18-59 can be called on to serve in the army once again if the nation is in an emergency such as an invasion.

Command Structure
The command of the Puertegan People's Armed Forces is almost entirely placed in the hands of the president though most regular military decisions are made by the Minister of Defense such as the purchasing of equipment, training regiments, and troop movements. Below him is the commend structure of the non-civilian military structures among the three branches though unlike many other modern-day militaries the Puertegan People's Armed Forces still utilize commissars in order to try and keep the soldiers motivated and loyal to the nation and the White Flag Communist Party.