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[I don’t think you can compare japan, an industrial power to Mexico a 3rd world country.]

Japan was essentially a Third World (i.e. developing) country at the time of Pearl Harbor. It was like a midget trying to play pro basketball. That is why Uncle Sam spent 2/3 of its war effort in Europe but lost 300K men there (vs 100K against the Japanese fighting mostly alone in the vast expanses of the Western Pacific) despite every major European Allied power fighting Germany at once.

Mexico hasn’t been led by generals seeking personal glory via territorial gain for over a century. But if that ever came to pass, it could arm up to much greater extent than prewar Japan. Of course, for that to happen, the government would have to exterminate the cartels. For now, there’s no danger of that. The thing with Spanish-speakers is you never know when they’re gonna go all Fidel Castro or Augusto Pinochet on you, with mass graves of the people who stood in the way to match. Between the Reconquista and the Spanish Civil War, peninsular Spain has shown itself quite capable of ruthless and decisive action in the course of civil conflict, so it’s not as if the Indio admixture of Latin America is the decisive factor here.

Not bad for a nation that was still in the Feudal age in the 1850s. Within fifty years they were able to kick Russian butt all over the place, and ninety years had conquered Korea, half of China, and attacked the British, Dutch, French and later the US.