352 Age of Uncertainty before, underlying assumptions of the Bolivarian dream were coming under challenge. Ironically, these doubts were spreading just at a rime when political and diplomatic coordination could provide Latin America's leaders with a potent and practical weapon for confronting and shaping global prospects in the century to come. And in the opinion of many, the ultimate challenge was to preserve and sustain the autonomy of Latin American culture against the faceless and inhuman forces of the global marketplace. In the eloquent words delivered in mid-1993 by Fernando Solana, Mexico's former secretary of foreign relations: Above all, we seek the defense of our sovereignty. We are aware of the global-ism that characterizes telecommunications, information, and business. Ai the same time, we do not want to see any dilution of our nationality [nuestra mexicanidad], of our distinct and special culture, of our capacity to take decisions and to shape the destiny of our resources and our territory. We firmlv believe that cultural and philosophical diversity enriches the world. It is the alternative, the idea of a homogeneous world with uniform customs and means of confronting challenges, that would mean the true End of History. Here was a quest without end. Come what may, citizens and leaders of Latin America would continue their struggles for identity, empowerment, and dignity. Conclusion: Structure and Change in U.S-Latin American Relations The evolution of U.S.-Latin American relations reveals patterns of continuity, consistency, and change from the 1790s to the 1990s. Long-term historical trends also provide a basis for looking ahead to the future. The purpose of this chapter is not to prescribe policy nostrums, however, but to reexamine fundamental questions: What have been the driving forces behind U.S. policy toward Latin America? What have been the key determinants of Latin America's response? What has been the nature of the inter-action? And, by extension, what are likely to be major factors in shaping U.S.-Latin American relations in years to come? Looking Back: Summation As postulated at die outset, the dynamics of U.S.-Latin American relations complied closely with what I have interpreted as prevailing rules of conduct in the global arena. Transformation in these rules reflected changing global realities and gave sharp definition to three distinct chronological periods: the Imperial Era, stretching from the 1790s through the 1930s; the Cold War, lasting from the late 1940s through the late 1980s; and the current era, what I have called the Age of Uncertainty, starting in the 1990s. Each of these epochs contained its own rules of the game—codes that informed not only U.S. behavior toward Latin America but also the Latin American response. This conceptual framework shapes and supports the fundamental contentions of this book: that U.S.-Latin American inter-actions revealed structural regularities, that these regularities followed principles of logic, and that these regularities 354 Conclusion Structure rind Change in U.S -Latin American Relations changed over time in understandable ways. United States-Latin American relations have responded not to cultural whimsy or psychological capnee but to objective realities and governing norms in the international scene. During the Imperial Era major powers promulgated an operative code of conduct that sought to maintain a balance of power among themselves and to preserve their sovereignty. Each of these powers acquired colonial possessions that ultimately figured in the calculus of power, and each therefore controlled a clearly defined and widely recognized sphere of influence. The United States entered this contest in the early 1800s as an aspiring challenger and soon began to advance its claims by acquiring territory mostly from Spain (Florida) or from ex-Spanish colonies (Mexico). United States politicians, publicists, and theologians justified this expansionist policy on the grounds of "manifest destiny," with its presumptive mission to extend the reach of political democracy throughout the hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine and its subsequent corollaries established rationales for restricting Europe's presence in the New World and securing the U.S. sphere of influence. Since curtailment of European power in the Caribbean area was of paramount importance, the island of Cuba became an object of special imperial desire. At the end of the nineteenth century Washington shifted its overall strategy from territorial expansion toward the promotion of economic and commercial interests, adjusting its political tactics toward the installation of protectorates and the periodic use of military intervention. In contrast to most European powers, the United States rarely created formal colonies, with the conspicuous exceptions of Puerto Rico and the Philippines, while continuing to proclaim its dedication to democratic principle. FDR's Good Neighbor policy represented a culmination of U.S. imperial strategy, not a departure from it, as Washington managed to consolidate its sphere of influence through commercial exchange, hemispheric diplomacy, inculcations of Pan-American solidarity, and the cultivation of goodwill. Confronted by this steady rise of U.S. power, Latin America had several plausible responses at its disposal. One enshrined the Bolivarian dream of continental unification, a theme that would appear and reappear in varying guise over time; another sought extrahemispheric protection; still others included aspirations for subregional hegemony, entertained mainly by Argentina and Brazil, and reliance on legalistic codes of international behavior. Expressions of cultures of resistance, with special emphases on national self-determination and the rejection of American society and values, were not quixotic manifestations of collective enw; thev offered meaningful counterinterpretations to North American claims of manifest destiny, exposing ideological tensions that would persist in decades to come. As cultivated by the weak against the strong, doctrines of resistance constituted a substantial power resource for Latin America and its leadership. Beginning in the late 1940s, the Cold War led to major rearrangements of the global arena. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged from the ashes of victory in World War II to dominate a bipolar world. Locked in a nuclear standoff, the United States and the USSR would engage in a geopolitical and ideological rivalry that interpreted the Third World as a global batdeground. Reflecting the intensity of this struggle, the rules of this international game acquired remarkable transparency and clarity. Within Latin America, by now established as a U.S. sphere of influence, Washington pursued relentless but coherent policies—banishing or outlawing what it regarded as suspect forces, supporting friendly governments, and ovetthrowing allegedly dangerous regimes. The anticommunist crusade pervaded virtually every facet of U.S. policy toward the region, from the cultivation of moderate labor movements in the 1960s to the promotion of counterrevolutionary guerrilla movements in the 1980s. For Washington, the Cold War was an obsession. These circumstances left Latin America with a limited range of strategic alternatives. The most daring and dangerous was the quest for socialist revolution, an effort that could succeed only with the protection of an extrahemispheric supeipower—meaning, in practice, the Soviet Union. The fate of revolution thus became hostage to big-power politics. A second alternative, pursued with energy and verve by an unseemly assortment of dictators, was to join the anticommunist crusade. This tactic offered the great advantage of defining one's rivals as enemies of capitalism, democracy, and therefore the United States, whose power could then be brought into play. A third kind of option was to seek an independent path, a "third way," often through political affiliation with the Non-Aligned Movement or economic membership in the G-77. While this alternative made some significant strides, as in the Contadora Group's efforts to mediate the Central American conflict of the 1980s, it usually drew expressions of wrath or disdain from the United States. In a bipolar world, there was not much room for maneuver. In the late 1980s the end of the Cold War brought another transformation to the international arena. The distribution of global power became multilayered and complex—unipolar in the military sense, where the United States remained supreme, and multipolar in the economic sense, where Europe and Japan (and other burgeoning regions) vied for global preeminence. In this Age of Uncertainty, there existed no coherent or recognized rules of the game. Around the world, patterns of conflict and major-power behavior became disturbingly unpredictable. Within the Western Hemisphere, by contrast, U.S. hegemony was uncontested and complete: there were no significant extrahemispheric rivals, and the power differential between the United States and Latin America reached unprecedented heights. As U.S. interests shifted from military security toward economic and social concerns, domestic constituencies came to have conspicuous impacts on U.S. foreign policy: the business community promoted free trade, environmentalists pushed for biological diversity, a disparate coalition supported a sometimes hysterical crusade against ll- 356 Conclusion licit drugs, nativists joined an equally hysterical crusade against undocumented immigration. Largely in response to such domestic political pressures, but always in the name of democracy, the United States took military action against Panama in 1989 and Haiti in 1994. In this post-Cold War context, Latin America had even fewer options than before. There was no way to avoid or evade the fact of U.S. power. There were no extrahemispheric patrons immediately at hand. Revolution was out of the question. In a world without established codes, international law and multilateral organization would have little serious impact. Essentially, the alternative for countries of Latin America was economic— to adopt the growing emphasis on liberalization and "free trade." Thev could seek to implement this strategy in one (or more) of several wavs: by expanding commercial ties with Europe and Japan as well as the United States, as Chile did; by seeking an institutionalized relationship with the United States, as Mexico did; or by resuscitating dreams of subregional unification, as Brazil attempted to do through MERCOSUR and SAFTA. There still lingered traces of popular resistance to U.S. power, as shown by the Chiapas uprising in January 1994 and street demonstrations at other times, but these were relatively few and far between. The Age of Uncertainty was perhaps not the end of history, as some analysts surmised, but it may have signaled the triumph of neoliberal ideology. In dialectical fashion, however, this very triumph would soon engender intellectual and cultural ferment. Looking Back: Analysis The central thesis of this book is that the dynamics of U.S.-Latin American relations reflected prevailing rules of the international game within each historical period, and that these dynamics underwent change in accordance with alterations in the rules of the game. Trailsformations in these operative rules, or codes, came about in response to change in three factors: the number of major powers, the nature of power resources, and the goals of international policy (Table 4). The number of powers determined whether global contests would be multipolar, as in the Imperial Era; bipolar, as in the Cold War; or multilayered, a combination of unipolar and multipolar, as in the Age of Uncertainty. The nature of power resources varied in complex ways: military capacity ranged from conventional forces to thermonuclear capability to a combination of the two, though military prowess lost much of its practical utility after the end of the Cold War; economic capacity ranged from commercial penetration to direct investment to financial linkages, all employed in varying degrees over the time spans in question. The principal goals of international rivalry evolved from the acquisition of territory (either as colonies or possessions) to the cultivation of political affinity (especially during the Cold War) to the development of economic cooperation and alignment (in the post-Cold War era). Structure and Change in US-Latin American Relations 357 Table 4. Global Contexts for U.S.-Latin American Relations Imperial Era Cold War Ane of Uncertainty Factor 1790s-1930s 1940s-198Ös 1990s- Distribution of power Multipolar Bipolar Unipolai/multipolar Policy goals Territorial, Geopolitical, Economic, social commercial ideologic J1 Rules of the game Balance of power Global Undetermined containment Throughout these transformations the invocation of ideology played an important but essentially subordinate role in these contests. The United States proclaimed its "manifest destiny" as the diffusion of democratic politics, European powers embarked on civilizing missions, the Soviet Union insisted that its goal was the socialist liberation of downtrodden peoples. During the early twentieth century, too, racist doctrine helped to rationalize the U.S. tendency to impose protectorates (or military governments) on countries in Central America and the Caribbean. Ideological claims provided essential and significant justifications for big-power actions, though they rarely determined the course of such policies. In its broad international contexts, the conduct of U .S.-Latin America relations was essentially derivative. Notwithstanding the Monroe Doctrine, the Western Hemisphere was not an isolated arena; on the contrary, the doctrine itself can best be understood as a challenge to European powers. The United States sought to impose a sphere of influence in the Americas not so much for its own sake but as a power resource for dealing with extrahemispheric rivals. The evolving drama of inter-American relations plaved out on a broad international stage- Explaining U.S. Policies Within these global schemes, there were significant sources of variation in U.S. conduct toward Latin America. Four factors, or variables, helped determine patterns and changes in U.S. behavior over time: (1) the relative importance of Latin America vis-á-vis other world regions, (2) perceptions of extrahemispheric rivalry, (3) definitions of U.S. national interest, and (4) the relationship between state actors and social groups in policy formation. These factors were closely interrelated. The historical record demonstrates that Latin America commanded considerable attention from the United States throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but that there was significant variation in the relative degree of importance ascribed to the region. During the Imperial Era, Latin America was a cultural policy concern for Washington: it was the region where the United States expressed its own imperial ambitions and sought to eradicate all vestiges of European power. By the iate 1920s 358 Cm i elusion and throughout the 1930s, when the United States appeared isolationist in respect to Europe and the rest of the world, Latin America came to occupy "first place" in the nation's diplomacy. During the Cold War, the dynamics of East-West competition transformed Latin America into an arena for struggle, a prize in the superpower contest, a status it shared with the Third World as a whole: Latin America commanded special attention from Washington because of geographical propinquity and alleged "security" interests, but it was less unique or privileged in this sense than at previous times. Once the Cold War ended, Latin America occupied an ambiguous position in the eyes of Washington. In wavs that were reminiscent of the imperial contest, the region came to constitute a sphere of U.S. influence, uncontested at last, a place where the United States could exercise its hemispheric hegemony for the purpose of confronting a complex and multipolar world; but attention to Latin America became selective as well, more focused on Mexico and the Caribbean than on South America, more attuned to social and economic interactions than to broad geopolitical concerns. In summary, Latin America was alwavs important to the United States, but its relative degree of importance varied across these three historical periods—roughly speaking, from vcrv high to high to rather mixed. Washington's view of Latin America depended upon its rivalry with extrahemispheric powers. The basic rule was straightforward: the greater the perception ot extrahemispheric threat, the greater the attention to Latin America. During the Imperial Era, the United States was explicitly and consciously engaged in an effort to banish European influence from the Western Hemisphere: in a multipolar world, Britain and Germany were the most powerful rivals, though other Continental powers—Italv, Holland, France—also played meaningful roles. During the Cold War, the United States steadfastly pursued its policy of "containment," seeking to prevent the Soviet Union—and/or its allies or puppets—from gaining influence in the Americas. The perception of danger was greatlv exaggerated, as a result of anticommunist hysteria, but it had profound political meaning: Washington saw itself as the leader of a worldwide crusade, and it formed policies in accordance with this sense of purpose. With the end of the Cold War, extrahemispheric influence in the Americas virtually vanished. For the first time in history Washington had no rivals (real or imagined) in the hemisphere, though it confronted a multipolar challenge on the global scene. By the 1990s the United States had finally realized its ambition of the 1790s: to create a zone of uncontested influence within the Western Hemisphere. A third key factor behind U.S. policy concerned prevalent definitions of national interests. At the most general level, these interests were constant: the accumulation and expression of international power. Yet the content of U.S. national interests varied oyer time. During the Imperial Era, the United States pursued two goals: territorial expansion and commercial influence. The overall purpose was to achieve rank as a major Structure and Change in U.S.-Latin American Rdatiam 359 power. During the Cold War, as one of two rival superpowers, the United States sought geopolitical and ideological advantage in a worldwide struggle. And in the contemporary period, the United States has been attempting to consolidate economic hegemony in the Americas, partly as a tool for bargaining with other powers in a multipolar world. In light of increasing interdependence, Washington has also been attempting to protect the United States from unwelcome social influences, such as illicit drugs and undocumented migration. In long-term perspective, the primary impetus behind U.S. policy thus shifted from territorial and commercial motivations from the 1800s to the 1930s, to ideological and geopolitical purposes from the 1940s through the 1980s, to economic and social concerns from the 1990s onward. Throughout this sweep of history the United States steadfastly professed its intention of fostering democracy throughout the Americas, often invoking notions of hemispheric solidarity and the existence of a "Western Hemisphere idea.'1 The promotion of democracy supplied a useful, sometimes crucial, rationalization for the application of American power. In this particular respect, the post-Cold War era came to bear an exceedingly strong resemblance to the pre-Cold War period. No longer able to appeal to anticommunism for ideological orientation, Washington now proclaimed the extension of democracy as its guidepost in foreign affairs. Bill Clinton's earnest pronouncements about democracy had more in common with the lofty declarations of Woodrow Wilson than with the Machiavellian calculations of Cold Warriors. United States efforts to promote democracy had been conspicuously unsuccessful in the Imperial Era, however, and there was not much sign that Washington had learned manv lessons from this history by the 1990s. A fourth factor shaping U.S. policy concerned the relative roles of salt elites and social actors. During the early nineteenth century, when the United States embarked on territorial expansion, the government apparatus defined and implemented American foreign policy. It was statesmen of the time—Jefferson, Adams, Polk, and others—who steadfastly pursued the acquisition of land; and while they enjoyed considerable popular support in this enterprise they did so largely on their own initiative. Later in this era, from the 1890s through the 1930s, state elites operated in close collaboration with the business community, especially banking interests. Intent upon the extension and consolidation of economic influence, rather than the expansion of physical boundaries, governmental elites and financial representatives developed joint strategies that ranged from diplomatic pressure to military intervention. This partnership was especially evident in Central America and the Caribbean, where private bankers assumed control of outstanding national debts, thus eliminating the primary motivation for European powers to meddle in the hemisphere, while the U.S. government backed up the bankers with American military force. Though its goals may seem nefarious in retrospect, this was a smooth and effective public-private alliance. 360 Conclusion The Cold War brought governmental elites to a supreme and unchallenged position in policy-making. In light of the bipolar U.S.-Soviet rivalry, international strategy derived from a geopolitical and ideological calculus stressing the containment and curtailment of communist influence. Application of this doctrine was the preserve par excellence of professional bureaucrats, career diplomats, and seasoned politicians. Business interests (and organized labor) occasionally played a strong supporting role: United Fruit promoted U.S. intervention in Guatemala, ITT clamored for action in Chili, the APL-CIO trained and supported anticommu-nist labor leaders. Yet investors and financiers tended to have subordinate parts in policy formation during this period: U.S. interventions in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Grenada came about as a result of ideological and geopolitical considerations, not for economic reasons. State elites dominated the policy arena throughput the East-West conflict. For better or worse, one consequence of this monopoly was a clear, even rigid, consistency in U.S. policy. Termination of the Cold War brought a sudden end to this bureaucratic stranglehold. No longer governed by a geopolitical calculus, no longer guided by a coherent doctrine, foreign polity became vulnerable to the interplay of domestic interests. Ethnic groups with growing importance in the electoral arena—Cuban Americans, Mexican Americans, African Americans-—came to have a crucial impact on America's policies toward Castro's Cuba, the NAFTA agreement with Mexico, and the Cedras regime in Haiti. Popular condemnation of drug trafficking and undocumented migration helped stiffen governmental resolve to halt these flows, while business interests avidly supported promotion of the Washington consensus on free trade and on economic policy. Such influence was not so much a deliberate and voluntary partnership, as in the 1910s and 1920s, as a result of grass-roots mobilization and electoral blackmail. By the 1990s pressure groups were able to penetrate (if not to capture) specific issue-areas in foreign policy. Washington fell into a decidedly reactive mode, responding not only to the outbreak of international crises but also to the clamor of domestic interests. As a result, and in sharp contrast to the Cold War, U.S. policy acquired a decidedlv ad hoc, makeshift quality. Table 5 summarizes the determinants of U.S. policy toward Latin America for each time period and demonstrates that a combination of factors—the relative importance of Latin America, the presence (or perception) of extrahemispheric rivals, the definition of national interests, and the composition of policy actors—had a determining influence upon the resultant set of strategies and policies. Even in schematic form, Table 5 serves to emphasize two central points: first, that there was an underlying logic behind the construction of U.S. policy within each historical period, and second, that there was an underlying logic to the transformation of U.S. policies between these periods as well. Structure and Change in U.S.-Latin American Relations 361 Table 5. Principal Determinants of U.S. Policy Determinant Imperial Era 1790s-1930s Cold War 1940s-19SOs Aae of Uncertainty 1990s- Importance of Latin Growing to very High Ambiguous America high Extra he mi spheric European Soviet Union — rivals powers Primary goals Spheres of An ti communism Economic gain, social influence exclusion Policy actors Government + Government Government + business alone interest groups General strategy Territorial, com- Political penetra- Economic mercial incor- tion integration poration Understanding Latin American Responses As U.S. strategies underwent long-term change over time, so did Latin America's capacity to respond. There were continuities as well. A central premise of this analysis has stressed the presence and significance of power inequalities. From the mid-nineteenth century onward the United States was stronger than all countries of Latin America—economically, militarily, and politically—and by the early twentieth century the United States became more powerful than the region as a whole. The conduct of inter-American relations reflected and reasserted this fundamental asymmetry in myriad ways. Interaction took place not between equal partners but between the strong and the relatively weak. Individually and collectively, Latin American countries were constantly confronting a more powerful and better endowed adversary, a sometime ally engaged in a quest for constant advantage, a hemispheric neighbor smitten by global ambitions, an expansive power proclaiming the virtues of democracy: the Colossus of the North. To counter the United States, and to pursue its own destiny, Latin America over time developed a cumulative total of six distinct strategic alternatives. One was the Bolivarian notion of collective unification. Though it never took full institutional form, the idea persisted over time and could claim some notable success—in the insistence on principles of self-determination and nonintervention from the 1890s to the 1930s, in the formulation of economic doctrines in the 1940s and 1950s, and in the settlement of Central American conflicts in the 1980s. A second broad strategy consisted of a search for support, protection, and patronage from extrahemispheric powers—especially the United Kingdom in the nineteenth century and the Soviet Union during the Cold War (and, to a much more modest extent, Europe and the Asia-Pacific in the current era). A third strategy entailed a quest for subregional hegemony, visions 362 Conclusion entertained by Argentina and Brazil in the nineteenth century and by Brazil in the contemporary era. A forth stressed the uses of international law and/or international organization, the principles of which could protect weaker countries from predatory or arbitrary actions by the strong; relatively successful during the Imperial Era, these efforts foundered during the Cold War and show little prospect for realization during the contemporary age.1 A fifth strategic alternative, especially plausible during the Cold War, sought South-South solidarity with other nations of the so-called Third World. Sixth was the quest for social revolution, especially socialist revolution, that also reached its peak during the period of East-West confrontation. Beyond these assertions of defiance and autonomy there remained, of course, another kind of option—-alignment with the United States, either in deference to Washington's power or in pursuit of tactical advantage. During the Imperial Era Brazil sought an alliance with the United States as a matter of grand geopolitical strategy, while client rulers in Central America and the Caribbean accepted Washington's tutelage as a matter of political survival (and personal profit). The Cold War offered association with the United States as a strategic opportunity for the authoritarian right, which, with notable success, invoked the cause of anticommunism to justify its claims on power. And now, during the Age of Uncertainty, Mexico has most categorically thrown itself into the arms of the United States; other countries of the region, from Costa Rica to Argentina, seem prepared to follow this same course. It should be noted, however, that leaders and peoples of Latin American have not always chosen affiliation with the United States out of admiration, loyalty, or affection—but because it has appeared to suit their purposes. This implies a portent for die future: if reliance on the United States does not produce the anticipated results for Latin America, or if other plausible options emerge, the public display of inter- American harmony that characterized the early 1990s may not endure forever. Strategic alternatives became available in differing degrees and combinations at different periods of time (Table 6).2 During the Imperial Era, leaders of Latin America could entertain a fairly broad array of choices, achieving a substantial measure of success in the area of international law (partly as a result of diplomatic unity). The Cold War narrowed the range of maneuver, pressuring Latin American countries into alignments with either the United States or the USSR, though courageous and enterprising leaders pursued an independent path, often in collaboration with other Third World countries, and were able to help mediate conflicts in Central America and elsewhere. During the present era, ironically, the inventory of options appears to be even more restricted: whether they want to or not, most Latin American leaders have little choice other than to implement policy prescriptions of the Washington consensus and to seek economic accommodation with the United States and the advanced industrial nations of the North, including the European Union and Japan. In summary, the display in Table 6 demonstrates yet another basic Structure and Change in U.S.-Lntin American Relations 363 Table 6. Stratégiu Options for Latin America Strategy Imperial Era 1790s-1930s Cold War 1940s-1980s Age of Uncertainty 1990s- Collective unity Extrahemispheric protection Sub regional hegemony International law/ organization Social revolution: N on socialist Socialist Third World solidarity Alignment with United States Attempted (political integration) Attempted (Europe) Attempted (Brazil, Argentina) Success till Mexico Attempted (Brazil + client rulers) Attempted (economic integration Attempted (USSR) Attempted Bolivia-' Cuba, Nicaragua Attempted (NAM, G-77) Successful (authoritarian right) Unlikely Attempted (Asia, Europe) Possible (Brazil) Attempted (Mexico + others?) —: not available or not feasible ' The Bolivian Revolution of 1952 had socialist tendencies, among others, but soon gave way to close cooperation with die United States. thesis of this book: Latin America's reactions to the United States reflected just as much logic and regularity as did LLS. policies. Both the United States and Latin America were forging reasonable responses to their prevailing environments. The dynamics of their interaction, as well as of their policy initiatives, revealed regularity and structure. Yet another essential component of Latin America's response to the United States took the form not of practical policy measures but of cultural interpretations of reality. Latin American politicians, pundits, and intellectuals developed a series of ideological and attitudinal outlooks. During the Imperial Era, leaders and representatives of Latin America forged cultures of "resistance." During the Cold War, many expressed resentment of the United States by subscribing to Marxist beliefs. And in the post-Cold War period an era most notable for its absence of ideological contentiousness, many Latin Americans have taken part in inchoate protests against the conventional wisdom; others have been forging cultures of "accommodation" that recognize realities of U.S. power but also sustain the value and integrity of Latin America's social identity. Differentiating Latin America Some countries of Latin America, in some situations, were better prepared than others to confront the United States. Variations in capability 364 Conclusion reflected the impact of four related factors: (1) size and strength, (2) geographical proximity, (3) links to extrahemispheric powers, and (4) intellectual and cultural resources. In terms of population size, economic output, and military capability, some nations of Latin America were stronger than others. Argentina and Brazil possessed resources that Honduras, Haiti, and Cuba did not. Such capacities enabled these countries not only to avert outright U.S. inter-ventionism but also, at times, to entertain visions of continental grandeur and subregional hegemony. In the nineteenth century Argentina and Brazil each nurtured notions of challenging, or at least offsetting, die rise of U.S. power, and in the twentieth century Brazil has continued to see itself as the natural leader of South America. The resulting proposition borders on the circular: differential levels of power meant differential capacity to resist pressures from the United States. Size and power also exercised a deterrent effect: while the United States displayed recurring willingness to launch military invasions of small countries, Washington never considered sending troops into Brazil. Geography supplied a second key determinant. Countries surrounding the Caribbean Rim-—Mexico, Central America, the islands of the Caribbean—were much more likely to feel the weight of U.S. power than were South American nations. From the 1790s onward, and especially from the 1890s through the 1990s, policymakers in Washington ascribed particular importance to the greater Caribbean Basin—because of maritime routes, commercial ties, financial investments, natural resources, geographical propinquity, and (for all these reasons) national security. From the start, Washington was more predisposed to project its power in this area than in South America. Exceptions to this rule occurred mainly during the Cold War, when all countries of Latin America became squares on a global checkerboard; hence U.S. support for the Brazilian coup of 1964 and, even more conspicuously, for the Allende overthrow of 1973. With the ending of die anticommunist crusade, the United States reduced its interest in South America and refocused its attention on the Caribbean Basin. Geographical location did much to shape the tenor and tone of bilateral and continental relations: the closer to the United States, the greater the degree of attention from Washington—and the greater the consequent level of conflict. A third factor concerned linkages with extrahemispheric powers. For historic and economic reasons some countries, such as the ABC nations of South America, enjoyed close and significant ties to Europe, especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As Simon Bolivar anticipated in the 1820s, these connections furnished a significant amount of diplomatic and political leverage in dealing with the United States. During the Cold War, Cuba and (to a lesser degree) Nicaragua turned toward the Soviet Union in search of protection. This was a high-risk strategy, however, since it ran directly counter to anticommunist ideology and to Washington's persisting quest for undisputed hegemony within the hemi- Structure and Chanjie in U.S.—Latin American Relations 365 sphere. (Latin American nations did not have the hixnrv enjoyed by other Third World countries, such as Egypt, that were able to play the superpowers off against each other: located within the putative "backyard" of the United States, Latin American countries would generally have to follow Washington's lead—or move into the rival camp.) And with the end of the Cold War and the virtual withdrawal of extrahemispheric powers, this alternative collapsed. By the late 1990s Latin America was making earnest efforts to develop ties with Europe and Asia, but the resulting links were likely to be more cosmetic than substantive. Ultimately, Latin America would still have to confront the United States. Yet another differentiating factor among Latin American countries was cultural tradition. This was an amorphous concept, to be sure, one that embraced intellectual resources, educational institutions, and historical legacies. Yet in actual practice it was a factor that provided some countries, such as Mexico and Cuba and Nicaragua, with the capacity to construct powerful cultures of resistance that ultimately laid the ideological foundations for social revolution. In different form, it was a factor that shaped the cosmopolitan and European outlook of such distinguished jurists as Chile's Andres Bello and Argentina's Carlos Calvo, who devised legal doctrines of national sovereignty and nonintervention. And it was a factor that, still more recently, permitted the rise of subtle and complex cultures of accommodation in the wake of the Cold War. In this respect there was a countervailing factor at work. Because of traditions of continental solidarity, dating back to Bolivarian dreams of unification, intellectual and cultural achievements in any one part of Latin America quickly became assets for the region as a whole. Jose Marti spoke not only for Cuba but for what he called "nucstra America"; Victor Raul Haya de la Torre sought reform not only in Peru but across the entire continent; Cesar Augusto Sandino became a martyr not only for Nicaragua but for all revolutionary activists; Fidel Castro and Salvador Allende fired political imagination not only in their own countries but throughout the region; in different ways, Raul Prébisch and Fernando Henrique Cardoso charted paths of economic development for all of Latin America; and writers of the left and right, from Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Carlos Fuentes to Jorge Luis Borges, gained renown as interpreters and representatives for Latin America as a whole. Each national struggle had regional dimensions, each voice became the clamor of a continent at large. A defining paradox of Latin American nationalism was its ability to transcend national borders, especially insofar as it focused on the paramount challenge of common concern: the overweening power of the United States. In retrospect, the determinants of U.S. policies and of Latin America's options combined to establish the dynamic structure of interactions between the United States and Latin America. During the Imperial Era, the United States was attempting to incorporate all or parts of Latin America into its own sphere of interest, through either conquest or 366 Conclusion commerce, while Latin American leaders engaged in various forms of resistance. During the Cold War the United States attempted to penetrate into Latin American societies and governments, to purge them ot undesirable political and ideological elements and thus rid the hemisphere of putative threats to national security; right-wing Latin Americans responded by exploiting the resultant opportunities, leftists reacted with calls for revolution, reformists attempted to identify intermediate paths. And in the 1990s the United States has sought to integrate Latin Amenca into its economic community, and at the same time to repel unwanted social interactions. Confronted by this ambivalent message, Latin American leaders have responded by seeking selective cooperation with the United States—choosing to cooperate on economic matters, in other words, but to retain freedom of action in other areas. In so many ways, the Age ot Uncertainty was proving to be the most complex of all eras. Looking Ahead: What Now? The principal outlook for the future of U.S.-Latin American relations flows directlv from this book's central argument: it will be conditioned by the nature, form, and implicit rules of global politics. As the post-Cold. War world continues its search for a "new international order," if one is ever to appear, it is the worldwide pattern and conduct of international relations that will determine the shape and substance of inter-American relations. As in previous eras, hemispheric affairs beyond the year 2000 are likely to be cast within a global framework. As from the beginning to the present, U.S.-Latin American relations will be intimately linked to trends and developments in the global arena. More to the point, the underlying codes for hemispheric interaction will be essentially derivative from the international rules of the game. In many senses the Age of Uncertainty bears more resemblance to the Imperial Era than to the Cold War. Like the late nineteenth century, the end of the twentieth century displays a complex and multipolar distribution of power, at least in the economic arena. In the absence of established rules of the game, the current environment places fewer constraints on big-power action than did the Cold War. And the countries of the South, or Third World, have little power and few strategic options. Their major concern at present is not so much that they will be colonized, however, as the fear that they will be neglected and abandoned. During the Cold War, especially in Asia and Africa, developing countries at least could entertain hopes of taking advantage of the superpower rivalry, of playing off the United States and the Soviet Union against one another. Such leverage no longer exists. A principal difference between the Imperial Age and the present is the fact of uncontested U.S. hegemony within the hemisphere. During the earlier period, as shown in Pare I, the presence of European nations Structure and Change in U.S.-Latin Amernan Rrlatitms 367 established a multipolar distribution of power within the Americas. It was a complex contest, a long-term struggle in which the United States sought consistently to banish or reduce European influence in order to construct its own sphere of influence. That struggle no longer prevails. With the implosion of the Soviet Union, the withdrawal of extrahemi-spheric powers, and the triumph of neoliberal ideology, the United States now stands supreme within the hemisphere. As a result, there are few constraints on Washington. In the post-Cold War world, the United States can intervene at will. It has done so in Panama and Haiti; it will probably do so again. It is poindess to hazard specific prognostications about the future of U.S.-Latin American relations. In a global environment without established rules of the game, almost anything could happen. To anticipate possible trends in the twenty-first century, however, it should be useful to identify key factors at both the global and hemispheric levels that seem most likely to affect the shape of future developments. The most critical variable in the worldwide arena concerns the eventual distribution of power and associated forms of alignment and conflict. As sketched out in chapter 9, there are several scenarios currently in plav One envisions single-power hegemony of the Lmited Stares; another foresees multipolar competition; a third predicts a long and violent clash of civilizations that would, at times, be reduced to a battle between "the West and the rest," Other outlooks stress the possible formation of rival-rous economic blocs—in Europe, the Americas, and the Pacific Rim— arrayed in an economic and political contest tor supremacy; or the potential creation of a North-North axis that would, with various exceptions, exclude the countries of the South; or, most optimistically, the formation of an open, benign, and equitable global community that would serve the interests of peoples and countries throughout the world. (Still another scenario is, of course, continuation of the current state of confusion and uncertainty.) The resolution of these possibilities will come not so much from the Western Hemisphere, or from Latin America, as from interactions and arrangements among the major global powers. The global structure of power will determine the conduct and tone of inter-American relations for generations to come. Unequivocal U.S. hegemony will leave Latin America with little choice but to accept (or to protest) hemispheric- preeminence of the United States. The most feasible policy would be to curry Washington's favor. Intensification of multipolar competition, by contrast, should make it possible for Latin American countries to cultivate meaningful relationships with extrahemispheric powers (and thereby reduce, if not directly challenge, the impact of U.S. influence). A clash of civilizations, if ever such a nightmare should come to pass, would probably mean that Latin America would have to cast its lot with Europe and the United States ("the West," in opposition to "the rest"). This could prove a hazardous venture. For Latin America as a 368 Conclusion whole, the most desirable worldwide scenario would entail the construction of a global community, open to all, governed by uniform rules and regulations according to multilateral consent; the least desirable outcome would be North-South separation consigning poor and powerless countries to marginal oblivion. To be sure, individual countries of Latin America might stand to gain from U.S. hegemony or even North-South separation, but most of the presumed advantages would doubtless prove to be short-term and illusory. Conflicting incentives of this kind have, however, hindered continental prospects for collective action. A subsidiary question concerns the extent to which economic blocs, if they appear, will be open or closed. Closed blocs would limit countries of Latin America to dealing with the United States; at least in principle, open blocs could permit them to cultivate economic and political relations with other ma)or powers of the world. Similarly, the creation of loose and informal blocs might leave latitude and flexibility for countries of Latin America, rigid, highly institutionalized blocs would be more likely to curtail their freedom of action. Once again, however, decisions on these matters are not likely to originate from Latin America; they will emerge from tacit understandings among the major world powers. Within the Western Hemisphere there is every reason to anticipate the perpetuation, and perhaps the accentuation, of U.S. hegemony. In this event, a kev determinant of U.S. policy toward Latin America will be the relative importance of the region within the overall global arena. This value will depend largely on U.S. relationships with major extrahemi-spheric powers and its own position in the world system. The more important Latin America is for purposes of U.S. policy, the more attention the area will receive; the less important the region, the less the attention. Here again, Latin America must contemplate a bitter irony: having long endured excessive attention and meddling by the L'nired States, in the post-Cold War environment it faces the unsetding prospect of neglect. Whatever the ultimate shape of the international system, the character of U.S.-Latin American diplomacy will depend largely upon the U.S. management of social issues. For the foreseeable future, inter-American economic relations will probably generate positive feelings m die United States, since Latin America will be depicted and seen as an asset for America's recovery and growth; moreover, the negotiation of arcane treaties on trade and investment usually stays within bureaucratic circles and does not become fodder for public political battles (though this was not true for NAFTA, and it may not pertain to the future). Social and cultural relations are another matter. Continuation of illegal flows of unwelcome products and people—that is, of drugs and migrants and refugees-is likely to generate disagreement and tension. The spread of Latin American culture, from language to music and everyday fashion, mav also produce a nativist backlash. And it is in these areas, more than others, that the popular voices of American citizens tend to be loudest. The more responsive U.S. foreign policy becomes to domestic clienteles, the more Structure anil Change in V.S.-Lmin American Relations 369 likely the emergence of serious agitation over socioculrural issues—and the greater the likelihood of conflict with Latin America. To some degree this outcome seems inevitable. Largely to improve its position vis-á-vis other major powers, the United States appears intent on intensifying, consolidating, and deepening economic contact with countries of Latin America. This process will necessarily have important social consequences. Accelerations in the exchange of goods, capita], and services stimulate flows of labor and other items, including unauthorized migrants, refugees, drugs, and expressions of popular culture. In other words, increasing economic interdependence will lead to increasing socio-cultural interdependence, which often provokes volatile political reactions. To exaggerate the point: as a result of increasing economic collaboration, the United States and Latin America may find themselves on a social and cultural collision course. A central challenge for Latin America concerns collective solidarity. The more unified the countries of the region, the greater their overall bargaining power with the United States (and other world powers); the less the unification, the less the bargaining power. The principal difficulty, in the contemporary era, is that there are so many incentives in favor of pursuit of individual gain; diis is especially apparent in the economic realm, where some nations ave better positioned to form links with the United States and die North than others. The ultimate risk is that the pursuit of individual advantage will contribute to fragmentation of the hemisphere, to a two-tier system of ins vs. outs, haves vs. have-nots, that could eventually provoke serious and sustained conflict within the Western Hemisphere. Perhaps the most effective means to avoid this danger would come from the promotion of regional solidarity among nations of Latin America on their own, not under the tutelage of the United States. It is fittingly ironic that the eventual achievement of ,1 hemispheric "community of democracies," as envisioned by Washington, may require revitalization of the Bolivarian dream of Latin American unity. All in all, the end of the Cold War has exerted decisive impacts on U.S.-Latin American relations. It has altered the content of the inter-American agenda, shifted the locus of policy making in the United States, and rearranged the menu of strategic options available to Latin America. Curiously, too, it has shown the titanic East-West struggle to have been a somewhat isolated interlude, a forty-year distortion of perceptions and priorities. Yet the passing of that contest has not led to harmonious and trouble-free relations in the Western Hemisphere. Despite optimistic predictions, it has ushered in a complex and occasionally contentious period that bears substantial resemblance to the Imperial Era. The similarity involves neither direct replication or linear extrapolation; it is more a matter of legacy, ambience, and echoes from that seemingly distant time. Once again economic issues dominate the public agenda, Washington readily offers solutions for Latin America, democracy justifies interventions, and diplomacy revolves around formation of a Pan-American alliance; once "W Appendix: Statistical Tables Table Al. Major Trading Partners for Latin America: Selected Countries, 1913 Partner {% Share ofTrade) Total United Kingdom Germany France United States (Millions U.S. $) Caribbean Basin Colombia Imports 20.3 . 14.1 15 6 26.8 27.6 Exports 13.6 7.2 2.1 44.3 33.2 Cuba Imports 12.3 6.9 5.2 53.7 140.1 Exports 11.2 2.8 1.0 79.7 164.6 Mexico Imports 11.8 13.0 8.6 53.9 90.7 Exports 13.5 3.4 2.8 75.2 148.0 Venezuela Imports 25.5 16.6 9.1 32.8 77.8 Exports 9.9 19.4 34.6 29.3 28.3 South America Argentina Imports 31.0 16.9 9.0 14.7 487.7 Exports 24.9 12.0 7.8 4.7 510.3 Brazil Imports 24.5 17.5 9.8 15.7 324.0 Exports 13.3 14.0 12.2 32.2 315.7 Chile Imports 29.9 24.6 5.5 16.7 120.3 Exports 38.9 21.6 6.2 21.3 142.8 Peru Imports 26.2 17.2 4.5 28.9 29.0 Exports 37.2 6.7 3.4 33.3 43.6 Source: Division of Economic Research, Pan American Union, J]>e Foreign Trade of Latin America since 1913 (Washington, D.C.: Pan American Union, 1952), pp. 37-50. 370 Conclusion again, the implications of this relationship are profoundly ambiguous for people and governments of Latin America. And as in all historical eras, the United States devotes primary effort to strengthening its place in the global arena, Latin America copes with the fact of U.S. power, and the structure of the international system shapes the terms of U.S. interactions with Latin America. As the twenty-first century beckons, paradox and continuity abound. 371