In December 1948, Costa Rica’s president José Figueres Ferrer stood in front of a military fortress in San José and did something no head of state had done before: he swung a sledgehammer at the wall and announced the country’s armed forces were being permanently disbanded.

Figueres had just won a brief civil war and could have used his new army to consolidate power. Instead, he handed the fortress over to become a national art museum and redirected the entire military budget toward education and healthcare.

The following year, the abolition of the armed forces was written directly into Costa Rica’s new constitution, making it permanent rather than a temporary political gesture. It has held for over 75 years, even as neighboring countries cycled through coups and civil wars.

Today Costa Rica has no army, navy, or air force — only a small domestic police and coast guard — and consistently ranks among the most stable democracies in Latin America.