IB History Cooperation and Tension with the USA Notes

Latin America Between Cooperation and Resistance

The Structure of US Influence

1. Geography made Latin America strategically important. Washington viewed the Caribbean, Panama Canal, sea lanes, and nearby states as essential to US security.
2. Economic links created leverage. Trade, investment, credit, technology, and access to the US market shaped national choices.
3. The Cold War reframed reform. US officials often judged land redistribution, nationalization, and neutralism through the risk of communist expansion.
4. Latin American governments sought resources. Military aid, development finance, and diplomatic support could strengthen regimes and state capacity.
5. Cooperation was rarely equal. Washington possessed greater financial, military, and institutional power.
6. Dependence did not remove agency. Governments bargained, delayed, diversified, and used superpower competition for domestic goals.
7. Relations shifted by issue. A state could cooperate on defence while resisting economic or diplomatic pressure.

Security and Military Cooperation

1. The Rio Pact formalized collective defence in 1947. It treated aggression against one American state as a regional concern.
2. The OAS followed in 1948. It provided permanent machinery for consultation and collective decisions.
3. US military assistance expanded. Training, equipment, doctrine, and officer networks connected armed forces across the hemisphere.
4. Anti-Communist governments gained support. Washington valued stability and alignment even when regimes violated democratic principles.
5. Counterinsurgency became central after Cuba. Security forces focused on guerrillas and alleged internal subversion.
6. Joint institutions enabled coordination. They also transmitted US priorities into domestic military planning.
7. Cooperation carried political consequences. Military capacity strengthened institutions that sometimes displaced civilian governments.

Development and the Alliance for Progress

1. John F Kennedy launched the Alliance for Progress in 1961. The ten-year program promised reform, growth, housing, education, and public health.
2. The program responded to the Cuban Revolution. Development was intended to reduce support for revolutionary change.
3. Latin American governments drafted national plans. US aid and multilateral lending financed infrastructure and social programs.
4. Results varied widely. Some education, housing, and health projects expanded state capacity.
5. Land reform remained limited. Domestic elites resisted redistribution and governments often lacked enforcement power.
6. Security goals increasingly displaced reform. After Kennedy, aid often prioritized anti-Communist stability.
7. The alliance revealed a central tension. Washington promoted modernization while tolerating structures that reproduced inequality.

Intervention and Regime Change

1. Guatemala became an early confrontation in 1954. The CIA supported forces that overthrew president Jacobo Árbenz.
2. Cuba produced permanent hostility after 1959. The embargo, Bay of Pigs invasion, covert action, and diplomatic isolation followed revolutionary alignment.
3. Brazil's 1964 coup received US backing. Operation Brother Sam prepared assistance for anti-Goulart forces.
4. The Dominican Republic was invaded in 1965. President Lyndon Johnson claimed intervention prevented another communist government.
5. Chile faced covert destabilization. The Nixon administration opposed Salvador Allende before the 1973 military coup.
6. Nicaragua became a major proxy conflict in the 1980s. The Reagan administration funded the Contras against the Sandinista government.
7. Intervention damaged legitimacy. It associated US cooperation with violations of sovereignty and selective support for democracy.

Mexico, Panama, and Negotiated Autonomy

1. Mexico maintained diplomatic relations with Cuba. It resisted regional isolation while avoiding a direct break with Washington.
2. The PRI government used revolutionary nationalism. Independent rhetoric supported domestic legitimacy despite deep US economic ties.
3. Mexico cooperated on trade and security selectively. It also defended non-intervention in regional diplomacy.
4. Panama challenged US control of the Canal Zone. Nationalist protest made the existing treaty arrangement increasingly unsustainable.
5. The 1977 Carter-Torrijos Treaties set a transfer schedule. Panama would gain full canal control by the end of 1999.
6. Negotiation served both states. The United States preserved canal neutrality while reducing a major source of regional resentment.

1. These cases show constrained autonomy. Persistent diplomacy could revise unequal relationships without ending interdependence.

Central America in the 1980s

1. The Sandinistas overthrew Somoza in 1979. Their revolution alarmed Washington and inspired regional movements.
2. Reagan defined Central America as a Cold War front. Military and economic assistance flowed to anti-Communist governments and forces.
3. El Salvador received extensive US aid. Washington supported the state against the FMLN insurgency despite severe human-rights abuses.
4. The Contra war pressured Nicaragua. Mining, covert operations, and economic restrictions accompanied armed attacks.
5. Congress attempted to limit support. The Boland Amendments restricted assistance to the Contras.
6. The Iran-Contra affair exposed executive evasion. Officials diverted proceeds from secret arms sales to sustain the war.
7. Regional diplomacy challenged militarization. The Contadora process and Esquipulas agreements advanced negotiated settlements.

Economic Tension and the Debt Crisis

1. US markets remained essential. Commodity exporters depended on prices, quotas, and access controlled partly by Washington.
2. Multinational corporations became political actors. Nationalization and regulation produced disputes over compensation and sovereignty.
3. The 1982 debt crisis transformed relations. Rising interest rates and recession made external obligations unsustainable.
4. The IMF promoted stabilization. Loans required spending cuts, currency adjustment, and market-oriented reform.
5. Governments faced domestic costs. Austerity increased unemployment, poverty, and protest during democratic transitions.
6. Washington backed structural adjustment. Economic cooperation became associated with reduced policy autonomy.
7. Cold War alignment did not guarantee prosperity. Security partnerships could coexist with debt, unequal exchange, and social crisis.
8. Peru charted a third path under General Juan Velasco Alvarado, who seized power in 1968 and nationalized the International Petroleum Company, an American-owned firm, without aligning with Moscow, showing that anti-US nationalism did not require Cuban-style socialism.
9. Washington briefly suspended aid under the Hickenlooper Amendment, which mandated cutting assistance to states that expropriated US property without compensation, but relations normalized once Peru negotiated a settlement in 1974.
10. The 1983 invasion of Grenada extended the intervention pattern into the Caribbean: Reagan cited the safety of American students and a Marxist coup within the ruling New Jewel Movement as justification for a operation that bypassed the OAS.
11. US support for Somoza before 1979 illustrated the trade-off at the heart of the relationship: Franklin D Roosevelt is widely quoted as calling the Somoza dynasty's founder "a son of a bitch, but our son of a bitch," prioritizing reliable alignment over the regime's domestic repression.

1. Henry Kissinger reportedly told a 1970 meeting that he saw no reason to let a country "go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people," a remark historians cite as evidence that Washington viewed democratic outcomes as negotiable when they threatened US interests.
2. Costa Rica offered a partial exception to the pattern: President Óscar Arias won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for the Esquipulas peace plan, pursued despite Reagan administration pressure to prioritize military solutions in Central America.

Historiography and Overall Judgment

1. Lars Schoultz emphasizes a culture of superiority. US policy repeatedly treated Latin American societies as objects of instruction and control.
2. Stephen Rabe stresses intervention. Anti-Communism encouraged Washington to support repression and undermine reform.
3. Hal Brands highlights strategic context. Policymakers confronted real revolutionary movements and Soviet-Cuban involvement.
4. Tom Long centres Latin American agency. Regional states could constrain, manipulate, and reshape US initiatives.
5. A dependency interpretation stresses structural power. Markets, investment, aid, and debt narrowed political options.
6. A bargaining interpretation stresses variation. Mexico, Panama, and Central American diplomacy demonstrate that outcomes were negotiated.
7. Overall judgment: Cooperation brought security, finance, and access, but repeated intervention and unequal economic power generated lasting tension.