What should the strategic relationship between the United States and Latin America be in the next 10 years? This paper will try to provide an agenda for answering this question by trying to clarify some of the issues involved. It seeks to promote responsible dialogue on regional security matters based on realistic assessment of the national interests involved and the impact they have on one another.

United States defense relations with Latin America over the last 40 years have revolved around two strategy frameworks: one East- West and the other North-South. During this time the United States has attempted to integrate Latin America into its East-West global strategy, subordinating Latin American interests to the overall requirement of containing Soviet power.

The Malvinas (Falklands) war of April-June 1982 has generated little attention among international scholars largely because neither its causes or consequences are. assumed to have great power significance.

The thesis of this article is that the timing of the Malvinas invasion, and the subsequent miscalculation that the United States would tacitly assist Argentina, were partly shaped by U. S. policies. Although the principal motive for the invasion was to vindicate a claim stretching back to the early 19th century (U.S. House 1982c: 50-51; Etchepareborda, 1983:48-58), the abruptness of Argentina's actions was conditioned by Reagan administration overtures towards a grand “anti-Communist” alliance (Maechling, 1982:75-82; Sunday Times, 1982: 63); an increase in the frequency and prestige of high-level contacts between the U.S. and Argentina between 1980-1982; the cultivation of official links between Galtieri and high-ranking U.S. national security officials (U.S. House, 1982d: 67; Hastings and Jenkins, 1983:46); the intense, personal diplomacy of former Secretary of State Haig during the conflict (Hastings and Jenkins, 1983: 104-113); and by covert efforts by Argentina to extend and strengthen U.S.-Argentine ties (Cardoso et al., 1983: 60-61).

North American political scientists and foreign policy observers spend a good deal of time lecturing Brazil on its proper role in world affairs. Brazilian diplomats and foreign policy specialists are occupied with formulating appropriate responses to the well meaning, but basically inaccurate, attempts of the Americans to push Brazil into global leadership (Política e Estrategia, 1983).

With the coming change in government on March 15,1985, the debate will again erupt. Will Tancredo Neves reformulate Brazilian foreign policy? Can Paulo Maluf redefine his country's role in world affairs? My own sense of the evolution of Brazilian foreign policy is that the concern is irrelevant. Brazil's world view, for some decades, has manifested a high degree of coherence and even predictability, if one listens to what Brazilian foreign policy elites say as well as what they do.

During 1981 and early 1982 - the first year and a half of Reagan's first term in office - Colombia, under the leadership of Liberal President Julio César Turbay Ayala (1978-82), surfaced as one of the staunchest U.S. allies in the turbulent Caribbean Basin. That Colombia would endorse the broad outlines of Reagan's policies came as no surprise to anyone, for the country had pursued a consistently pro-North American foreign policy throughout the post-World War II period. What did surprise many observers was the extent to which President Turbay abandoned his country's traditional low-profile approach to Caribbean and hemispheric affairs and replaced it with an activist foreign policy closely identified with the Reagan Administration.

Colombia is structurally dependent upon the United States in economic, technological and military terms. While the country's industrial capacity has grown substantially in recent decades, the economy still relies heavily on agro-exports-, coffee alone accounts for two-fifths of the country's foreign exchange earnings.

The Latin American and Caribbean countries are facing a serious financial crisis. External debt in the region is over $360 billion, and seven South American countries are among the ten largest debtors in the world. Interest payments alone required, in the years of 1982, 1983, and 1984, more than 35% of total regional exports of goods and services, a percentage which reached the extreme level of over 50% for one country. To be sure, this problem mostly affects the largest economies, since most of the Central American and Caribbean countries apply to interest payments less than 20% of their exports. The debt problem is a reality for the entire region, and it makes it difficult for all the countries to obtain new external financing.

Schooling is thought to be of great importance in Latin America and elsewhere in the developing world. The World Bank (1980, 1981), Colclough (1982), Psacharopoulos (1981, 1983), and others emphasize strongly the critical role of schooling in increasing productivity, equalizing income distribution, improving health and nutrition, reducing fertility and in pursuing other objectives.

In part because of such emphasis, there have been considerable and increasing resources devoted to schooling in recent decades in Latin America and in other developing regions. There also have been numerous studies that attempt to evaluate what determines investment in schooling and what are the private and social rates of return to schooling. The latter group of studies generally finds that such returns are fairly high, suggesting that expanding schooling indeed should be a high priority activity.

May 10, 1981, not only ushered in a political surprise for France, as well as for its European and American allies, but sent positive shockwaves throughout that part of the Caribbean which is still French. On that date François Mitterrand came to power in the Metropole of France at the same time that the Départements d'Outre-Mer (DOM or overseas departments) of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Guiana rejected his candidacy with a unanimity as stunning as it is rare in West Indian politics. Ever since the DOM have been coping with Socialism in France, decentralization in the Caribbean, and an unprecedented antilleanization of local culture, institutions, and politics. The result has been a paradox of heightened social liberalism combined with intensified political violence; but paradox has always been at the heart of the French Antilles.

Events Since 1979 have steadily softened the long-dominant tone of rivalry in Brazilian-Argentine relations; and the two countries have established mutual levels of confidence, and institutional mechanisms, sufficient to support increased degrees of cooperation. The mutual understanding, formally confirmed during a landmark visit, in May 1980, by Brazilian President Joâo Figueiredo to Argentine President Jorge Videla, in Buenos Aires, is attributable to the pragmatic perception, in both capitals, that accumulated, but unaddressed, small grievances could mount into major, unnecessary points of attrition capable of sapping more important efforts.

Should the United States go to war with Cuba? If not, what should be the policy of the US government toward Cuba? What should be Cuban policies toward the United States and the Soviet Union? Should Cuba increase or decrease its worldwide commitments and should it emphasize formal or informal foreign policy instruments? These have been the central questions affecting US-Cuban relations during the past quarter century. This essay endeavors to address some of the aspects they raise for US-Cuban relations for the remainder of the decade.

At the Vatican, on 2 May 1985, representatives of Chile and Argentina signed a treaty to end the Beagle Channel dispute, the last major territorial conflict between the two nations. The treaty was a tribute to the professionalism of the negotiators of both countries as well as of the Vatican mediators, and it represented a major foreign policy triumph for President Raúl Alfonsín, head of Argentina's democratically-elected civilian government. Alfonsin's position on key issues, such as sovereignty over the islands within the channel, contrasted sharply with those of his military predecessors. According to Vatican officials, it was Alfonsin's flexibility that laid the groundwork for resolution of the issue (New York Times, 1984a). Chilean willingness to accede to fundamental Argentine demands was also crucial to resolution.

This essay discusses the Central America policies of the Reagan administration, focusing on the evolution of what has been described as a “two-track” approach to the region. The essay disputes this characterization, describing the emergence of an unstable equilibrium between different policy objectives and their proponents, underlining important differences between official rhetoric and specific initiatives, and evaluating the outcomes of those initiatives. The discussion emphasizes the complexity of the domestic and international context of the crisis and of the policy arena, underlining the failure of the administration's attempt to impose its own unilateral solution.

The Subject of military rule in Latin America has been a familiar topic of inquiry for many years, but its treatment has been quite selective. While there is voluminous literature on the causes of military coups, very little has been written on military withdrawal from power. Both the example of Brazil's “apertura” (political opening) and the Argentine case under review here are still too recent to expect to find a large quantity of critiques. Even historical experiences of military defeat have gotten poor coverage, such as the fall of the Peruvian regime from 1975-1980. This study will analyze causes of the breakdown of military rule in Argentina, concentrating on the two year period of 1980-1982.

The title of my essay, invoking, as it does, the justifiably famous Japanese cinema verité production of Rashomon, might well strike a discordant note. My aim, however, is to clarify, not to confuse. The film describes a variety of eyewitnesses to a murder, each one of whom, infused with different motives, “saw” the event differently from the other eyewitnesses. This is little more than a modern-day version of Walter Lippmann's observations on the ideological, interest-laden nature of the formation of public opinion in modern society, but it serves us well in introducing the topic of this essay.

What I am suggesting with respect to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and what I hope to demonstrate, is that we are now experiencing a similar paradox in the sociology of knowledge.

Since the Late 1960s, due to détente and rising nationalism in Latin America, the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries have succeeded in expanding diplomatic relations with most countries in the Western Hemisphere (Blasier, 1984; Fichet, 1981). For an increasing number of Third World nations, the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) countries of Eastern Europe have become a source of trade, credits, technical assistance and political support. Hence, many Third World countries view CMEA agreements as a means of strengthening their negotiating position vis-á-vis the United States and other developed countries. In turn, the CMEA countries have stepped up their commercial activity irrespective of the nature of the governments of the recipient countries. In the case of Latin America, CMEA ability to provide such funding is restrained by their own economic limitations, by geographical distance and by the shortage of foreign exchange. These factors discourage risky commitments in a region that is peripheral to essential security concerns of the CMEA countries.

The Caribbean Basin surged into political prominence shortly before the inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1981. Growth throughout the region had collapsed under the weight of the second round of oil price hikes, recession in the United States and other industrialized countries, falling commodity prices, and rising interest rates. Public policy responses in most countries compounded these difficulties by failing to adjust rapidly enough to the external situation or to adopt the structural reforms needed to ensure broadly based growth on a sustainable basis. In the eyes of the administration, improving the economic situation was central to defusing the security threat it perceived in the political developments of several countries in the region.

Societies and regions affected by political turmoil are subject to intrusions by states which, either directly through surrogates, or in association with local anti-status-quo groups, seek to capitalize on internal vulnerabilities. Seldom do conflicts remain isolated from the external milieu, even if fundamental causes of political turmoil are local or domestic in character. In effect, protracted conflicts, such as those sweeping Central America since the late 1970s, offer opportunities for interventionist powers to project themselves into regions where, historically, a less aggressive posture was taken. With little doubt, the view that local actors can best determine the outcome of conflict situations, such as the one in Central America, is naive and fundamentally inaccurate, no more than a pious expression of neoisolationist sentiments directly at odds with reality.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the development policies applied to Latin American countries in the post-war period, particularly those designed to develop manufacturing production for the domestic market through tariff protection. The paper will try to find out whether such policies (1) brought about reasonably high rates of growth; (2) distorted the structure of domestic prices and hindered the later development of manufactures exports; (3) provoked persistent balance of payments disequilibria, thereby forcing the countries to borrow abroad in large quantities; and (4) weakened the countries' capacity to resume development in the future, once the current debt crisis is overcome.

Advancing conclusions, the first and fourth questions can be answered with a relatively high degree of confidence: inward-oriented policies promoted a high rate of growth during the three decades spanning 1950 to 1980, but narrowed the import coefficient to a degree that will force the countries to depend almost solely on export promotion to resume their development in the future.