Introduction

INTRODUCTION . he Caribbean Basin has come of age. Defined generally to include Central America, the Caribbean islands, and those states on the periphery (Mexico and Venezuela particularly), the subregion is the current focus and concern of U.S. foreign policy in the hemisphere. To a degree never before experienced, the Caribbean Basin has been both "regionalized" and "internationalized." For the United States, these new realities pose both a challenge and an opportunity. In regional terms, Mexico and Venezuela have taken the initiative in seeking a political solution to the crisis in El Salvador. The Andean Pact's foreign ministers were instrumental in the negotiations leading to the Sandinista victory in Nicaragua. A concessionary oil-pricing program by Venezuela and Mexico for the impoverished countries of Central America has opened a new era of intraregional development cooperation. Mexico's persistence in following an independent course in its relations with Cuba and other revolutionary forces in the Caribbean Basin demonstrates the complexity of political change in the area and the growing autonomy of the region's principal states. The United States suddenly confronts a range of international actors concerned about Washington's policy in the region and committed to participating in the ultimate resolution ofthe region's future. International interests cannot be ignored. The Socialist International, the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, labor unions, and the Roman Catholic Church have emerged as crucial transnational actors both in the Caribbean Basin and elsewhere in Latin America. They represent the ongoing penetration of the Americas by global institutions. It is a trend that will accelerate , not diminish, in the years ahead. The United States is ill-prepared to accept such a diversity of opinion or of participation. Historically, the Caribbean Basin has been relevant only when a security threat has arisen such as in Guatemala in 1954 or in the Dominican Republic in 1965. In such cases, unilateral 2 SAIS REVIEW action was deemed sufficient to restore the status quo ante. The Soviet presence in Cuba after 1959, however, led to a slow but inexorable erosion ofU.S. presence in the hemisphere. By the 1970s, in the face of a decline in the relative economic power of the United States globally, the U.S. economic presence in the Americas had to adapt to increasingly aggressive competitors from the OECD and the Socialist bloc. If U.S. political and economic influence declined in the region, it was a given that security concerns were paramount to the national interest and no quarter would be given to another unfriendly regime in the Caribbean Basin. The dramatic victory of the Sandinista offensive—an authentic revolution—and the U.S. acquiescence in that victory challenged a primary assumption ofU.S. strategic and political reasoning. The events in El Salvador have threatened to corrode another principle ofU.S. policy—the beliefthat a political "center" always exists or can be created. The efforts ofthe Carter administration and the present tendency of the Reagan administration attest to the longevity of that belief. A failure ofthe center, it is argued, would fortify the right rather than the left, and therefore it is best to either broaden the center (which is the European approach in part) or prepare to accommodate U.S. interests to the emergence ofa revolutionary regime, as we will need to do in Nicaragua. With Guatemala looming on the horizon as an even more complex policy issue, the jury remains out and the ultimate verdict unclear for Central America. The following essays on the Caribbean Basin present the many sides of the issues involved in political and social change in that troubled area. They offer a broad spectrum ofopinions and policy alternatives from the perspective ofpractical experience and history as well as from careful consideration offuture options. The ultimate outcome in the Caribbean Basin will determine, to some degree, our relations with the other countries in the hemisphere for some years to come. As well, it will provide important insights into the priorities and perceptions of the Reagan administration. No longer a local and marginal security question, U.S. policy in the Caribbean Basin may determine the broad outlines for American policy in the Third World generally...