Strategic Invisibility

[NATO AIR]

Latin America will be more important to us in the future than Europe or the Middle East. When will our leaders start acting like they realize that more often?

Strategic invisibility
The folly of ignoring our Latin American neighbors
By Ralph Peters

No strategic arena is so readily ignored or, arguably, as little understood by the U.S. government as Latin America. Yet, no state is more vital to our security, economy and contemporary society than Mexico, while the combined populations of only two Latin American countries, Brazil and Mexico, exceed by 10 million the number of U.S. citizens and residents. Geographically, Brazil is nearly the size of the United States, Mexico is three times larger than Texas, and Argentina, with its 40 million citizens, is one-third the size of the lower 48. With growing markets, rising per capita incomes and ever-sturdier democracies, such states are natural partners for Washington. Yet, even Africa (certainly deserving of attention) enjoys richer coverage in our media and more enthusiastic government engagement.

Of course, much of Latin America — a vast and various region stretching from the Rio Grande south to Tierra del Fuego — suffers from grotesque social and economic distortions, cultural impediments to development and a fickle taste in guiding philosophies. Rising per capita income figures mask the enormous gulf between rich and poor, while corruption blights all. From the Andean Ridge northward through Mexico, crime competes with government, whether one speaks of narcotics cartels or gangs — entities that run their own foreign policies vis-a-vis the United States, frequently doing so with greater acuity than the states that produced them.

Latin America's problems can easily be ridiculed, yet they fade in comparison with abysmal conditions elsewhere — not least, in the Middle East, a region the U.S. embraces with passionate blindness. Latin America stumbles now and then, but continues to move forward. That claim could not be made for any Muslim state on the Eurasian land mass or for a single country in the great triangle of misery bounded by Egypt, Nigeria and Congo. If any stretch of the globe offers still-untapped potential for a mutually beneficial relationship with the U.S., it's Latin America.

All parties would have to want such a relationship and plenty of tired myths would need to be discarded. The old stew of resentment, neglect, animosity, condescension and jealousy simmering at the back of the geopolitical stove may provide convenient helpings for demagogic politicians, but poorly serves the people of Latin America — or the U.S.

Strategically speaking, it's time for us all to grow up.
MORE AT LINK
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/03/2539173

 

[José]

All signs indicate that, for the foreseeable future, US foreign policy will continue to be dominated by Kissingerian thought:

"Latin America is a dagger aimed straight at a block of ice (Antarctica)."

Translation:

The whole region is irrelevant in geopolitical terms.

 

[José]

But the “real world” is Eurasia and Africa.

What you have from Canada to Tierra del Fuego is a separate island.

So Canada and Latin America are the natural spheres of influence for the US, since we are an island continent, geographically isolated from the rest of the world.

The Orange Revolution in Ukaine ended with a pro russian politician as PM (Yanukovych).

Ukraine was not able to fight its own geography not even in the short run so in the long run, Mr. Kissinger’s eurocentrism will not fare any better.