Mexico offers an example more relevant to the experience of today’s third world countries. Mexico had a long history of military rule and intervention until the 1920s. The military’s activism was final checked by several tactics. First, a strong, mass-based party-the PRI-was organized to give civilian rulers a large number of followers who would turnout in the streets if the party’s rule was threatened by the military. Next, the military was given a prominent role in the PRI, but not so large that it could dominate the party. It was one of four party “sectors”; the other three were effective counterweights to the military’s influence. Year later, when the military’s treat was over, the military sector was eliminated. Above all, the military knew in those early years when it might have been tempted to intervene that such an act would be met with violent resistance and perhaps civil war. Such knowledge meant that the costs of intervention were much higher than they would be where the military would face little resistance. In addition, senior officers were given “silver cannonballs” to get them out of the military and away from politics. Some were retired and given civil service or public sector positions; others were pensioned off to large and sometimes remote ranchos. By early in the 1930, the once politically active Mexican army was in the barracks for good.