To Intervene Or to Not Intervene
In Chapter 4 of Democracy in America, Smith and Sells explore the various ways in which the United States has intervened in Latin America in the past in hopes of abating the cold war concerns about the rise of communism globally and in Latin America. Smith and Sells explain that the partnership between the United States and Latin American military rulers was forged to eliminate communist parties, instate control over labor, and exclude the soviet union from becoming involved in Latin America. This partnership, more accurately deemed intervention, took different forms in different countries including economic, military, and political assistance. These interventions were not always successful and often left the region worse off than when the United States initiated its activities in the area. These concerns are echoed by Schoultz in Human Rights Violations in Latin America, which explains that United States intervention has the tendency to support corrupt and inhumane governments in Latin America.
These articles pose the question of how the United States might react to current problems in Latin America like those recently discussed in a CNN article. Venezuela is currently in the midst of an economic crisis that has lead to food and medical supply shortages. Smith and Sells noted that United States intervention economically tended to weaken the government of the country receiving assistance by creating a reliance on aid. The Schoultz article notes that the United States has previously given economic assistance to Venezuela, which was the fifth least oppressive Latin American State given aid. Because Venezuela was offered assistance in the past and did not commit human rights violations, the findings presented in the reading suggest that brief low-level assistance, either in the form of humanitarian or economic aid could be helpful to Venezuela and could help repair its economy. However, CNN notes that the current economic problems in Venezuela were caused by government overspending. This poses the question of whether or not the United States should help Venezuela’s government directly or through humanitarian aid channels. Personally, I think that in cases like those of Venezuela, the best option is to provide humanitarian aid directly to the people in need. This would sidestep the concerns of unintentionally providing support to or legitimizing failing governments and avoid possible criticism that the United States could possibly be supporting a repressive government.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/americas/trump-latin-america/index.html
You discussed that you wanted the United States to provide humanitarian aid to Venezuela rather than financial aid to the government. I think this does side step the things you discussed: unintentionally supporting a repressive regime and putting money in the hands of an over spending government. But is it really the role of the United States to provide humanitarian aid to every country with economic crises? And to what extent/in what manner? Your article was interesting. These next four years will be a complete turn from the last 8. I definitely agree with your assumption that the United States would behave differently now than they did in the Cold War.
While the United States supported dictators and authoritarian regimes during the Cold War, I think it is most striking that the United States also acted to prevent the rise of democracy in Latin American states (ex. Allende in Chile). With the Brazilian military coup in 1964, the United States supported a military-led government by not intervening and not addressing it. However, this instance reflected a beginning of coups in the region which led to more authoritarian regimes. The United States has executed poor decision-making in regards to intervening in Latin America in the past, which helps explain the lack of interventions in the late 20th Century and early 21st Centuries. With the crisis in Venezuela, I believe the United States will not intervene. Regardless of whether Venezuela has committed human rights violations, the United States is involved with numerous conflicts and crises right now. Since the United States has somewhat backed off from intervening in Latin America, I believe that Venezuela will turn to other Latin American countries for assistance. Since the crisis in Venezuela is severe, political stability may also be at stake. Nice post, I liked how you brought in current events in context with the readings.
You brought up a valid point regarding how the most viable assistance would be humanitarian aid. Of course, there is also issues with countries developing dependency on this kind of aid as well. Especially if the domestic government is unable to reestablish provisions of basic goods and services on their own. The main concern is if the new administration will be willing to extend aid to Venezuela, particularly given the proposed cuts to the State Department. However, given Venezuela’s oil reserves, the administration may be more interested in maintaining a stake in the country.
While I completely agree that we should provide humanitarian aid rather than financial aid, I don’t believe that the United States should constantly be involved in helping every country. One of the reoccurring issues with provide aid is that it breeds corruption, which many Latin American countries already face. Also, it seems like the aid that the United States has provided hasn’t made any significant impacts in Latin America. Your post made think more extensively about this topic which brought up a few question. Why should the U.S. help a repressive country? Also, how effective is foreign aid/does it actually work?
I think humanitarian aid is a double edged sword. While it does help people that are in need, it does also relieve various failing governments of providing services to their people. So, in Syria, we should provide aid. Places like Venezuela, we probably shouldn’t. That will promote regime change .