Washington’s “Two Track Policy” to Latin America: Marines to Central America and Diplomats to Cuba
Global Research, May 28, 2015
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/washingtons-two-track-policy-to-latin-america-marines-to-central-america-and-diplomats-to-cuba/5452255
http://www.globalresearch.ca/washingtons-two-track-policy-to-latin-america-marines-to-central-america-and-diplomats-to-cuba/5452255
Everyone,
from political pundits in Washington to the Pope in Rome, including
most journalists in the mass media and in the alternative press, have
focused on the US moves toward ending the economic blockade of Cuba and
gradually opening diplomatic relations. Talk is rife of a ‘major shift’
in US policy toward Latin America with the emphasis on diplomacyand
reconciliation. Even most progressive writers and journals have ceased
writing about US imperialism.
However,
there is mounting evidence that Washington’s negotiations with Cuba are
merely one part of a two-track policy. There is clearly a major US
build-up in Latin America, with increasing reliance on ‘military
platforms’, designed to launch direct military interventions in
strategic countries.
Moreover,
US policymakers are actively involved in promoting ‘client’ opposition
parties, movements and personalities to destabilize independent
governments and are intent on re-imposing US domination.
In
this essay we will start our discussion with the origins and unfolding
of this ‘two track’ policy, its current manifestations, and projections
into the future. We will conclude by evaluating the possibilities of
re-establishing US imperial domination in the region.
Origins of the Two Track Policy
Washington’s
pursuit of a ‘two-track policy’, based on combining ‘reformist
policies’ toward some political formations, while working to overthrow
other regimes and movements by force and military intervention, was
practiced by the early Kennedy Administration following the Cuban
revolution. Kennedy announced a vast new economic program of aid, loans
and investments dubbed the ‘Alliance for Progress’ to promote
development and social reform in Latin American countries willing to
align with the US. At the same time the Kennedy regime escalated US
military aid and joint exercises in the region. Kennedy sponsored a
large contingent of Special Forces ‘Green Berets’ – to engage in
counter-insurgency warfare. The ‘Alliance for Progress’ was
designed to counter the mass appeal of the social-revolutionary changes
underway in Cuba with its own program of ‘social reform’. While Kennedy
promoted watered-down reforms in Latin America, he launched the ‘secret’
CIA (‘Bay of Pigs’) invasion of Cuba in 1961and naval blockade in 1962
(the so-called ‘missile crises’). The two-track policy ended up
sacrificing social reforms and strengthening military repression. By the
mid-1970’s the ‘two-tracks’ became one – force. The US invaded the
Dominican Republic in 1965. It backed a series of military coups
throughout the region, effectively isolating Cuba. As a result, Latin
America’s labor force experienced nearly a quarter century of declining
living standards.
By the
1980’s US client-dictators had lost their usefulness and Washington once
again took up a dual strategy: On one track, the White House
wholeheartedly backed their military-client rulers’ neo-liberal agenda
and sponsored them as junior partners in Washington’s regional hegemony.
On the other track, they promoted a shift to highly controlled
electoral politics, which they described as a ‘democratic transition’,
in order to ‘decompress’ mass social pressures against its military
clients. Washington secured the introduction of elections and promoted
client politicians willing to continue the neo-liberal socio-economic
framework established by the military regimes.
By
the turn of the new century, the cumulative grievances of thirty years
of repressive rule, regressive neo-liberal socio-economic policies and
the denationalization and privatization of the national patrimony had
caused an explosion of mass social discontent. This led to the overthrow
and electoral defeat of Washington’s neo-liberal client regimes.
Throughout
most of Latin America, mass movements were demanding a break with
US-centered ‘integration’ programs. Overt anti-imperialism grew and
intensified. The period saw the emergence of numerous center-left
governments in Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay,
Paraguay, Honduras and Nicaragua. Beyond the regime changes , world
economic forces had altered: growing Asian markets, their demand for
Latin American raw materials and the global rise of commodity prices
helped to stimulate the development of Latin American-centered regional
organizations outside of Washington’s control.
Washington
was still embedded in its 25 year ‘single-track’ policy of backing
civil-military authoritarian and imposing neo-liberal policies and was
unable to respond and present a reform alternative to the
anti-imperialist, center-left challenge to its dominance. Instead,
Washington worked to reverse the new party- power configuration. Its
overseas agencies, the Agency for International Development (AID), the
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and embassies worked to destabilize the
new governments in Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Paraguay and Honduras.
The US ‘single-track’ of intervention and destabilization failed
throughout the first decade of the new century (with the exception of
Honduras and Paraguay.
In
the end Washington remained politically isolated. Its integration
schemes were rejected. Its market shares in Latin America declined.
Washington not only lost its automatic majority in the Organization of
American States (OAS), but it became a distinct minority.
Washington’s
‘single track’ policy of relying on the ‘stick’ and holding back on the
‘carrot’ was based on several considerations: The Bush and Obama
regimes were deeply influenced by the US’s twenty-five year domination
of the region (1975-2000) and the notion that the uprisings and
political changes in Latin America in the subsequent decade were
ephemeral, vulnerable and easily reversed. Moreover, Washington,
accustomed to over a century of economic domination of markets,
resources and labor, took for granted that its hegemony was unalterable.
The White House failed to recognize the power of China’s growing share
of the Latin American market. The State Department ignored the capacity
of Latin American governments to integrate their markets and exclude the
US.
US State Department
officials never moved beyond the discredited neo-liberal doctrine that
they had successfully promoted in the 1990’s. The White House failed to
adopt a ‘reformist’ turn to counter the appeal of radical
reformers like Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan President. This was most
evident in the Caribbean and the Andean countries where President Chavez
launched his two ‘alliances for progress’: ‘Petro-Caribe’
(Venezuela’s program of supplying cheap, heavily subsidized, fuel to
poor Central American and Caribbean countries and heating oil to poor
neighborhoods in the US) and ‘ALBA’ (Chavez’ political-economic
union of Andean states, plus Cuba and Nicaragua, designed to promote
regional political solidarity and economic ties.) Both programs were
heavily financed by Caracas. Washington failed to come up with a
successful alternative plan.
Unable
to win diplomatically or in the ‘battle of ideas’, Washington resorted
to the ‘big stick’ and sought to disrupt Venezuela’s regional economic
program rather than compete with Chavez’ generous and beneficial aid
packages. The US’ ‘spoiler tactics’ backfired: In 2009, the Obama regime
backed a military coup in Honduras, ousting the elected liberal
reformist President Zelaya and installed a bloody tyrant, a throwback to
the 1970s when the US backed Chilean coup brought General Pinochet to
power. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, in an act of pure political
buffoonery, refused to call Zelaya’s violent ouster a coup and moved
swiftly to recognize the dictatorship. No other government backed the US
in its Honduras policy. There was universal condemnation of the coup,
highlighting Washington’s isolation.
Repeatedly,
Washington tried to use its ‘hegemonic card’ but it was roundly
outvoted at regional meetings. At the Summit of the Americas in 2010,
Latin American countries overrode US objections and voted to invite Cuba
to its next meeting, defying a 50-year old US veto. The US was left
alone in its opposition.
The
position of Washington was further weakened by the decade-long
commodity boom (spurred by China’s voracious demand for agro-mineral
products). The ‘mega-cycle’ undermined US Treasury and State
Department’s anticipation of a price collapse. In previous cycles,
commodity ‘busts’ had forced center-left governments to run to the US
controlled International Monetary Fund (IMF) for highly conditioned
balance of payment loans, which the White House used to impose its
neo-liberal policies and political dominance. The ‘mega-cycle’ generated
rising revenues and incomes. This gave the center-left governments
enormous leverage to avoid the ‘debt traps’ and to marginalize the IMF.
This virtually eliminated US-imposed conditionality and allowed Latin
governments to pursue populist-nationalist policies. These policies
decreased poverty and unemployment. Washington played the ‘crisis card’
and lost. Nevertheless Washington continued working with extreme
rightwing opposition groups to destabilize the progressive governments,
in the hope that ‘come the crash’, Washington’s proxies would ‘waltz
right in’ and take over.
The Re-Introduction of the ‘Two Track’ PolicyAfter a decade and a half of hard knocks, repeated failures of its ‘big stick’ policies, rejection of US-centered integration schemes and multiple resounding defeats of its client-politicians at the ballot box, Washington finally began to ‘rethink’ its ‘one track’ policy and tentatively explore a limited ‘two track’ approach.
The
‘two-tracks’, however, encompass polarities clearly marked by the
recent past. While the Obama regime opened negotiations and moved toward
establishing relations with Cuba, it escalated the military threats
toward Venezuela by absurdly labeling Caracas as a ‘national security threat to the US.’
Washington
had woken up to the fact that its bellicose policy toward Cuba had been
universally rejected and had left the US isolated from Latin America.
The Obama regime decided to claim some ‘reformist credentials’ by showcasing its opening to Cuba. The ‘opening to Cuba’
is really part of a wider policy of a more active political
intervention in Latin America. Washington will take full advantage of
the increased vulnerability of the center-left governments as the
commodity mega-cycle comes to an end and prices collapse. Washington
applauds the fiscal austerity program pursued by Dilma Rousseff’s regime
in Brazil. It wholeheartedly backs newly elected Tabaré Vázquez’s
“Broad Front” regime in Uruguay with its free market policies and
structural adjustment. It publicly supports Chilean President Bachelet’s
recent appointment of center-right, Christian Democrats to Cabinet
posts to accommodate big business.
These
changes within Latin America provide an ‘opening’ for Washington to
pursue a ‘dual track’ policy: On the one hand Washington is increasing
political and economic pressure and intensifying its propaganda campaign
against ‘state interventionist’ policies and regimes in the immediate
period. On the other hand, the Pentagon is intensifying and escalating
its presence in Central America and its immediate vicinity. The goal is
ultimately to regain leverage over the military command in the rest of
the South American continent.
The
Miami Herald (5/10/15) reported that the Obama Administration had sent
280 US marines to Central America without any specific mission or
pretext. Coming so soon after the Summit of the Americas in Panama
(April 10 -11, 2015), this action has great symbolic importance. While
the presence of Cuba at the Summit may have been hailed as a diplomatic
victory for reconciliation within the Americas, the dispatch of hundreds
of US marines to Central America suggests another scenario in the
making.
Ironically,
at the Summit meeting, the Secretary General of the Union of South
American Nations (UNASUR), former Colombian president (1994-98) Ernesto
Samper, called for the US to remove all its military bases from Latin
America, including Guantanamo: “A good point in the new agenda of relations in Latin America would be the elimination of the US military bases”.
The point of the US ‘opening’
to Cuba is precisely to signal its greater involvement in Latin
America, one that includes a return to more robust US military
intervention. The strategic intent is to restore neo-liberal client
regimes, by ballots or bullets.
Conclusion
Washington’s current adoption of a two-track policy is a ‘cheap version’ of the John F. Kennedy policy of combining the ‘Alliance for Progress’ with the ‘Green Berets’.
However, Obama offers little in the way of financial support for
modernization and reform to complement his drive to restore neo-liberal
dominance.
After a decade
and a half of political retreat, diplomatic isolation and relative loss
of military leverage, the Obama regime has taken over six years to
recognize the depth of its isolation. When Assistant Secretary for
Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roberta Jacobson, claimed she was ‘surprised and disappointed’ when every Latin American country opposed Obama’s claim that Venezuela represented a ‘national security threat to the United States’,
she exposed just how ignorant and out-of-touch the State Department has
become with regard to Washington’s capacity to influence Latin America
in support of its imperial agenda of intervention.
With
the decline and retreat of the center-left, the Obama regime has been
eager to exploit the two-track strategy. As long as the FARC-President
Santos peace talks in Colombia advance, Washington is likely to
recalibrate its military presence in Colombia to emphasize its
destabilization campaign against Venezuela. The State Department will
increase diplomatic overtures to Bolivia. The National Endowment for
Democracy will intensify its intervention in this year’s Argentine
elections.
Varied and
changing circumstances dictate flexible tactics. Hovering over
Washington’s tactical shifts is an ominous strategic outlook directed
toward increasing military leverage. As the peace negotiations between
the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas advance toward an accord,
the pretext for maintaining seven US military bases and several thousand
US military and Special Forces troops diminishes. However, Colombian
President Santos has given no indication that a ‘peace agreement’
would be conditioned on the withdrawal of US troops or closing of its
bases. In other words, the US Southern Command would retain a vital
military platform and infrastructure capable of launching attacks
against Venezuela, Ecuador, Central America and the Caribbean. With
military bases throughout the region, in Colombia, Cuba (Guantanamo),
Honduras (Soto Cano in Palmerola), Curacao, Aruba and Peru, Washington
can quickly mobilize interventionary forces. Military ties with the
armed forces of Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile ensure continued joint
exercises and close co-ordination of so-called ‘security’ policies in
the ‘Southern Cone’ of
Latin America. This strategy is specifically designed to prepare for
internal repression against popular movements, whenever and wherever
class struggle intensifies in Latin America. The two-track policy, in
force today, plays out through political-diplomatic and military
strategies.
In the immediate
period throughout most of the region, Washington pursues a policy of
political, diplomatic and economic intervention and pressure. The White
House is counting on the ‘rightwing swing’ of former
center-left governments to facilitate the return to power of unabashedly
neo-liberal client-regimes in future elections. This is especially true
with regard to Brazil and Argentina.
The ‘political-diplomatic track’
is evident in Washington’s moves to re-establish relations with Bolivia
and to strengthen allies elsewhere in order to leverage favorable
policies in Ecuador, Nicaragua and Cuba. Washington proposes to offer
diplomatic and trade agreements in exchange for a ‘toning down’ of
anti-imperialist criticism and weakening the ‘Chavez-era’ programs of
regional integration.
The ‘two-track approach’,
as applied to Venezuela, has a more overt military component than
elsewhere. Washington will continue to subsidize violent paramilitary
border crossings from Colombia. It will continue to encourage domestic
terrorist sabotage of the power grid and food distribution system. The
strategic goal is to erode the electoral base of the Maduro government,
in preparation for the legislative elections in the fall of 2015. When
it comes to Venezuela, Washington is pursuing a ‘four step’ strategy:
(1) Indirect violent intervention to erode the electoral support of the government
(2) Large-scale financing of the electoral campaign of the legislative opposition to secure a majority in Congress
(3) A massive media campaign in favor of a Congressional vote for a referendum impeaching the President
(4) A large-scale financial, political and media campaign to secure a majority vote for impeachment by referendum.
In
the likelihood of a close vote, the Pentagon would prepare a rapid
military intervention with its domestic collaborators seeking a
‘Honduras-style’ overthrow of Maduro.
The
strategic and tactical weakness of the two-track policy is the absence
of any sustained and comprehensive economic aid, trade and investment
program that would attract and hold middle class voters. Washington is
counting more on the negative effects of the crisis to restore its
neo-liberal clients. The problem with this approach is that the pro-US
forces can only promise a return to orthodox austerity programs,
reversing social and public welfare programs , while making large-scale
economic concessions to major foreign investors and bankers. The
implementation of such regressive programs are going to ignite and
intensify class, community-based and ethnic conflicts.
The ‘electoral transition’
strategy of the US is a temporary expedient, in light of the highly
unpopular economic policies, which it would surely implement. The
complete absence of any substantial US socio-economic aid to cushion the
adverse effects on working families means that the US client-electoral
victories will not last long. That is why and where the US strategic
military build-up comes into play: The success of track-one, the pursuit
of political-diplomatic tactics, will inevitably polarize Latin
American society and heighten prospects for class struggle. Washington
hopes that it will have its political-military client-allies ready to
respond with violent repression. Direct intervention and heightened
domestic repression will come into play to secure US dominance.
The ‘two-track strategy’ will, once again, evolve into a ‘one-track strategy’
designed to return Latin America as a satellite region, ripe for
pillage by extractive multi-nationals and financial speculators.
As
we have seen over the past decade and a half, ‘one-track policies’ lead
to social upheavals. And the next time around the results may go far
beyond progressive center-left regimes toward truly social-revolutionary
governments!
Epilogue
US
empire-builders have clearly demonstrated throughout the world their
inability to intervene and produce stable, prosperous and productive
client states (Iraq and Libya are prime examples). There is no reason to
believe, even if the US ‘two-track policy’ leads to temporary
electoral victories, that Washington’s efforts to restore dominance will
succeed in Latin America, least of all because its strategy lacks any
mechanism for economic aid and social reforms that could maintain a
pro-US elite in power. For example, how could the US possibly offset
China’s $50 billion aid package to Brazil except through violence and
repression.
It is important
to analyze how the rise of China, Russia, strong regional markets and
new centers of finance have severely weakened the efforts by client
regimes to realign with the US. Military coups and free markets are no
longer guaranteed formulas for success in Latin America: Their past
failures are too recent to forget.
Finally the ‘financialization’ of the US economy, what even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) describes as the negative impact of ‘too much finance’
(Financial Times 5/13/15, p 4), means that the US cannot allocate
capital resources to develop productive activity in Latin America. The
imperial state can only serve as a violent debt collector for its banks
in the context of large-scale unemployment. Financial and extractive
imperialism is a politico-economic cocktail for detonating social
revolution on a continent-wide basis – far beyond the capacity of the US
marines to prevent or suppress.
No comments:
Post a Comment