Margaret Hayes, now a senior staff member of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, originally prepared this monograph for the Department of Defense. Her assignment then was to provide a candid assessment of whether Latin America is important to U.S. national security, and to what degree (p. 4). Her main conclusion—that “Latin America and the Caribbean are very important to the United States and will become even more so in the future” (p. 4)—will not startle readers of the HAHR.
Hayes has contributed a balanced, nuanced, and well-documented discussion of some of the reasons why Latin America may become increasingly important to the United States. She contends that Latin America’s evolving economies, and the region’s shifting concepts and external links, alter the nature and degree of the region’s importance for United States security. Latin America no longer has a primarily military significance for the United States that can be protected by military assistance and mutual security accords; rather, Latin America has an increasing political and economic importance that can best be cultivated by changes in United States economic policies. In contrast to many familiar discussions of United States policy toward Latin America that stipulate the region’s importance by axioms derived from proximity and tradition, Hayes carefully details the growing significance of Latin America for United States banks and exporters and as a source of valuable imports as well.
The main strength of Latin America and the U.S. National Interest is the wealth of data the author presents on Latin America’s changing economic structure and prowess. Hayes emphasizes that Latin America is far more modern and industrialized than it used to be, and that Latin America is the most advanced region of the developing world, but she also stresses the major gaps that still exist between Latin America’s needs and potential and those of the OECD nations.
In the book’s strongest chapter, Hayes emphasizes both Brazil’s remarkable growth and the serious structural, social, and political challenges it faces. A parallel chapter on Mexico, prepared by Professor Bruce Bagley, is insightful, but already out of date.
This helpful volume does have some important limits. First, although the writing is mostly clear and straightforward, in no section does the style achieve elegance or flair. Second, the author omits three important points: the significance of Latin American migration to this country; the region’s potential for helping to alleviate (or to worsen) shared global problems from nuclear proliferation to resource management; and the importance of Latin America for shaping a world ambiance in which basic values at the core of our society (particularly democratic government and the protection of individual human rights) can be preserved. Third, the book does not sufficiently emphasize the degree to which United States policy toward Central America and the Caribbean has been driven not by our “national security interests” but rather by “national insecurity,” by the fear of loss of control. Finally, the book lacks a real conclusion; it trails off at the end with a discussion of the effects of the Malvinas/Falklands war, rather than integrating that episode into a coherent argument.
