Suchergebnisse

The principal trends in US foreign policy in Central America during the nineteen eighties are described. The Central American crisis, which has most acutely affected such countries as San Salvador and Nicaragua, has deep social roots and the military dictatorships ruling there now for many years are largely responsibile for the appearance of its most severe form — civil war. As long as the military dictatorships ensured stability, the United States treated this region as a peripheral sphere. It was the deepening of this crisis situation at the end of the nineteen seventies and the beginning of the eighties together with the victory gained by the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua which urged the Reagan administration to unprecedented US involvement. From the outset this administration, true to its conservative doctrine, put its faith in military type actions as one of the principal instruments to bring about a change in this situation. The military aid programmes for local regimes have been substantially increased and the network of military bases in the region has been extended. The US assessment of the situation in Central America has always been based on the assumption that the chief instigators of this crisis are the left wing forces, supported and inspired by the socialist countries with the object of widening their sphere of influence. Hence also the cornerstone of US policy has been to recognise the regional conflict as a direct threat to US national security. The new strategy involved principally the neutralisation of the left wing, including the change of the regime in Nicaragua and its organisation as far as possible on a formally democratic system of government operated by the centre parties. To attain this end they not only support military actions (always seen as the major lever) but also economic aid is increased, elections are arranged (El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala), regional inter-government cooperation is promoted together with diplomatic isolation of Nicaragua and undermining of the government of that country. Also the possibility of direct military action has not been ruled out.