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When Should the U.S. Intervene in Latin America?
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13683 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1988 |
3,081 Words |
| Author
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William Ratliff
William Ratliff, a research fellow at Stanford University's
Hoover Institution, has visited Cuba four times in the past
fifteen years, talked with Castro, and authored many books and
articles on Cuba. In 1988 he drafted the Cuban American
National Foundation's policy statement, "Towards a New U.S.-
Cuba Policy." |
It's hard to make much headway these days in discussions of U.S. intervention in Latin America. Most people don't give a hoot about Latin America as long as it doesn't become another Vietnam. Those who are interested make up an elite group, usually on university campuses, in politically active churches, in the media, or in the government. But if you try to discuss the subject with them, passion often overwhelms thought, wishful thinking overpowers reality, ideology closes the open mind, and myths and self-interest crowd out truth.
Part of the problem in discussing intervention is definition. What is it? Intervention is the purposeful involvement of one state in the affairs of another, which could mean anything from funding an opposition newspaper to military invasion. Any decision to intervene must be made on a case-by-case basis, though there is a broader framework within which to work.
The temptation to intervene in Latin America today comes from challenges that may be classified as East/West and North/South. The American people and their leaders must deal with both on a constructive, long-term basis.
The East/West challenge is the hemispheric branch of America's global conflict with the Soviet Union. Remarking on war and peace in Central America last December, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias said: "The United States knows the Sandinistas are on the side of the Soviet Union. That is the whole problem." More broadly, this problem includes Soviet trade, intelligence, and other activities, as well as the actions of the region's communist regimes--Cuba and Nicaragua--and allied guerrilla forces like the FMLN in El Salvador. Latin Marxist-Leninists pose a particular threat because of their ties to the Soviet bloc, their belief that the United States is the "Evil Empire," and their conviction that their revolutions must have no borders.
The other basic challenge is North/South; that is, our relations with the nations of this hemisphere, which are aggravated by the East/West conflict but in large part are independent of it. North/South issues, which can threaten the stability and development of the region and tempt intervention, arise over such issues as foreign debt, trade, drugs, and immigration. Our need to cooperate on economic and strategic matters must be articulated more clearly and frequently, since many in the region try to separate us from allies by asserting that our relationship to the region is simply exploitative and
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