The past two years have brought a number of thoughtful surveys of U.S. -Latin American relations; those by Abraham Lowenthal, Henry Molineau, and Lars Schoultz are the most notable. To these Jan Knippers Black adds her Sentinels of Empire, an emotional, well-argued indictment of U.S. policies and actions of the past two decades.
Black asks a series of critical questions: “Why would the United States, which claims to seek peace and stability in the Western Hemisphere, commit itself to the support of intransigent elites in the least-developed countries, thereby making nonviolent change impossible, and violent change inevitable? Why would the United States, while purporting to seek democracy for Latin America, conspire with ambitious generals in the more highly developed countries to undermine and topple elected governments? How are we to explain a pattern of actual U.S. policy toward Latin America that runs counter to the founding principles of our own nation and that systematically defeats the goals of stated policy?” (pp. 8-9).
She discovers the answers in the basic premises of U.S. policy: “(1) [W]hat is good for U.S. business is good both for the United States and its client states, and (2) the United States must control the states within its sphere of influence in order that it not be viewed by allies and enemies alike as a ‘paper tiger’” (p. 13). In harsher words, for all the rhetoric, U.S. policymakers care little for what Latin America wants or needs, nor do they consider the repercussions of their actions on Latin America over the long term.
Latin American militaries were the crucial allies in carrying out U.S. policy. Black sees a convergence of interests. The militaries, without a “legitimate” function (literally defending national borders) and panicked by the threat of communism, intervened to take over governments throughout the region in the 1960s and ’70s. The United States, seeking to preserve its citizens’ economic holdings and maintain its hegemony, encouraged and financed their rule.
This is an angry, breathless survey. It is clearly written and well organized. It lacks the elegant, indignant prose of E. Bradford Burns’s At War in Nicaragua, but is nonetheless an efficient indictment of U.S. policies and actions. Black’s conclusion that the United States should support revolution, for in the long run it engenders stability (as in the case of Mexico), should prove grist for the mill of any course on U.S.-Latin American relations.
