The Communist Challenge in the Caribbean and Central America.

The Communist Challenge in the Caribbean and Central America 

SINCE THE 1950s, Latin-Americanists in the United States have permitted their suspicion of "McCarthyite" rhetoric to abet their naivete in regard to the modus operandi of the Soviet Union abroad, with the result that they have felt themselves justified in dismissing claims of Communist subversion in "their" countries. In The Communist Challenge in the Caribbean and Central America (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1150 17th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036; $24.75), Howard J. Wiarda and Mark Falcoff, with Ernest Evans and Jiri and Virginia Valenta, write with a distinct purpose in mind. "The Soviet Union is emerging as a serious presence in Latin America that must be assessed factually, prudently, and realistically. It will do us little good as a nation for our policy either to overstate or to understate the Soviet role. . . . Our purpose here . . . is to provide a reasoned, calm, dispassionate, and, we think, realistic analysis and assessment."

The contributors to this volume believe that the Soviet Union--since the 1950s but more particularly since the 1970s--has been what Howard Wiarda calls a "rising presence" in Latin America: an area the Kremlin nevertheless considers to be of "secondary importance" to its overall global strategy. Through the 1950s, the USSR contented itself for the most part with giving limited aid to scattered Communist insurgencies in the region--"its commitments, activities, and enthusiasms for Latin America were not very great." Following its completely unlooked-for receipt of Cuba-on-a-platter at the very end of that decade, Moscow began to search eagerly for other revolutionary heroes similar to Castro, in the hope that they too might prove capable of delivering to the cause of world socialism something for nothing, or almost nothing. Thus, while in Washington the State Department was determinedly muttering about "no second Cubas," the Soviet Union was busily trying to provide it with a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth Cuba. The defeat and death of Che Guevara in Bolivia, however, made the Soviets wiser, quieter, and much more subtle maneuverers, as Mr. Evans and the Valentas argue in their contributions:

Instead of concentrating all its efforts on aiding guerrilla movements that had not proved successful, the Soviets turned to a long-term strategy of strengthening their diplomatic representation in as many of the countries of the area as possible, building up their bilateral economic relations, quietly increasing their military presence in Cuba, establishing good relations with as many governments as possible, strengthening cultural ties, and using Latin America's rising nationalism and anti-Americanism to its own advantage to construct broader anti-American coalitions. This strategy . . . corresponded, during virtually the entire decade of the 1970s, to a decline in the U.S. presence and interest in the region, to a period of "benign neglect" of Latin America by the United States, and to a period when the United States was perceived in Latin America to be a declining and weakening world power. Hence, it was viewed as prudent by the Latin American countries to . . . "diversify their dependence" by opening up stronger ties with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Since the invasion of Grenada by the United States in 1983, the authors believe, the Soviet Union has found reason to re-evaluate its activities in Latin America. Perhaps they have concluded that challenging the U.S. in its own backyard is ultimately not worth the battle. Wiarda, Falcoff, et al. believe that we are seeing "indications" that the USSR is more interested nowadays in courting India, pressuring Pakistan, and trying to disentangle itself from Afghanistan, than in furthering its aims in Latin America, although they provide no real evidence of this and find "especially worrisome" the buildup of Soviet military power in the Caribbean Basin.

According to Cole Blasier, president of the Latin American Studies Association, the Soviet Union, while it does not yet have great influence in Latin America, nevertheless does possess the means to acquire it. In assessing a prudent American response to the situation, Mark Falcoff suggests that history shows that massive aid programs may be irrelevant to the prevention of future Cubas and Nicaraguas; "in fact," he says, "one might make almost the opposite case." He points out that President Carter's attitude of magnanimity toward the Sandinista regime was completely counter-productive--"the new rulers in Managua were not 'forced' into the arms of the Soviet Union--they were already there even before taking power, and nothing the United States did thereafter was capable of wrenching (or coaxing) them free"--and speculates on the reasons why the Sandinistas found it worthwhile deliberately to antagonize Washington; concluding simply that "what the Soviet Union has to offer revolutionary governments is really a praxis for dictatorial rule, not a formula for economic development." While abolishing poverty in backward countries may be a worthwhile goal, Falcoff suggests, what the U.S. should do to combat Soviet influence in Latin America is to state precisely the nature of its objection to Soviet penetration in the region, and to reconsider its approach to public diplomacy in the area.