Whirlpool

In every generation the United States has been drawn into the Latin American whirlpool, where it becomes obsessed with small nations like Nicaragua and defiant dictators like Manuel Noriega. Then, just as suddenly, we are released and forget the region. Has the end of the Cold War liberated the United States from the whirlpool of recurring interventions in Latin American politics? To answer this question, Robert Pastor draws on more than fifteen years of formulating and writing about U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean. In this timely book, he maintains that the collapse of communism is less important in permitting the United States to escape the whirlpool than are the new trends of democracy and freer trade in the region. After a personal reminiscence of the Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos and his lessons for inter-American relations, Pastor provides an overview of U.S.

Latin American policy under Presidents Carter, Reagan, and Bush and an analysis of the distinctive role played by Congress. Next he looks at the recurring challenges faced by the United States in this century - how it has tried but often failed to manage succession crises, stop revolutionaries, promote elections, and encourage development in the region. Finally, Pastor offers a series of far-reaching policy recommendations based partly on a redefinition of sovereignty. In the post-Cold War era, the United States still needs to cut the Gordian security knot that connects instability, intervention, and massive refugee flow and, at times, drugs and terrorism. To solve these problems and exit the whirlpool, Washington should renounce unilateral intervention and take the lead in establishing a new system to collectively defend democracy and forge a freer trade area.

This new hemispheric democratic community would also give the United States an advantage in the economic competition against Japan and Germany, and it could serve as a model for a new relationship between the rich and poor nations of the world.