The fragility of the Argentine defense system is inserted in a subregional context that favors the displacement of the defense agenda against the rise of public security issues linked to transnational threats, such as drug trafficking, whose combat involves the military institution. Given this scenario, based on a qualitative methodology, this article works on the problem of Defense in Argentina, focusing on the role of the Armed Forces. In this way, the question about the pertinence and usefulness of the debate about whether or not the Forces should intervene in public security is being addressed, sustaining the premise about the inconclusiveness of this debate in the face of a reality that has proven to be ongoing, essentially because of the increasingly consistent empirical anchoring that exists in relation to the proposal to involve the Armed Forces in the fight against drug trafficking