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Hegemony in the Coordinates of U.S. Policy : Implications for Latin America

Daro Salinas Figueredo Latin American Perspectives 2007 34: 94 DOI: 10.1177/0094582X06296359 The online version of this article can be found at: http://lap.sagepub.com/content/34/1/94

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Hegemony in the Coordinates of U.S. Policy Implications for Latin America

by Daro Salinas Figueredo Translated by Marlene Medrano

The reordering of the international system has deepened asymmetries and allowed the East-West dispute to continue in terms of a North-South or center-periphery axis. The new geostrategic order is overwhelmingly unilateral. U.S. conceptions of security and economiccommercial policy constitute an integrated geostrategic whole; the expansion of global commerce is part of the security strategy of the United States. Latin America is an essential area for the United States because of the importance of its great southern border. Although there is no concerted regional strategy for avoiding the imposition of unilateralism, countertrends are arising and new forms of interaction and collaboration are emerging. The challenge for regional politics is to entertain the possibility of prioritizing common problems and interests and making what unites Latin America and the Caribbean prevail. Keywords: Security, free trade, antiterrorism, regional integration

The events of 9/11 have been considered a watershed for the international order and, consequently, for U.S. policy, but a more integrated and long-term view requires a more comprehensive perspective. The current international order has its own dynamic. Without minimizing their consequences and antecedents, the events of 9/11 are only a single very propitious and decisive moment in the U.S. hegemonic project. The reordering of the international system from the point of view of the balance of power and the projection of U.S. policy corresponds with the remarkable recovery of capitalism and the dismemberment of the socialist experiment in Europe. It is in this framework that we can best understand the meaning of its changes of strategy. An analysis from this angle facilitates examination of the contemporary capitalist process, the trends of the new U.S. hegemony, and their political and geopolitical implications for Latin America.

FROM PARITY TO STRATEGIC DISPARITY The major changes in the global correlation of forces after the end of the cold war did not constitute an end of ideologies or an end of history as has been suggested from the intellectual trenches of the victors. Capitalisms neoconservative politics was not lacking in reasons to proclaim its victory over socialism. That victory encompassed all fields from the economic to the political, its most forceful though not necessarily definitive
Daro Salinas Figueredo is a professor and researcher at the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City. He is grateful to the members of the U.S. Studies Group of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) for their critiques and suggestions of the preliminary version of this study and to Mariana Aparicio for her valuable collaboration since the projects inception. Marlene Medrano is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American history at Indiana University.
LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 152, Vol. 34 No. 1, January 2007 94-101 DOI: 10.1177/0094582X06296359 2007 Latin American Perspectives

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expression being in the realm of ideology. What until 1989 had been characterized as an unstable and relative strategic parity between the capitalist and the socialist system became a drastic disparity. The new correlation of forces was ratified in the Persian Gulf conflict and then in the invasion of Afghanistan and the unilateral decision to invade Iraq in the name of democracy and security. It is not insignificant that these moves sidestepped diplomacy and international legality and resulted in the U.S. exercise of a disruptive influence never before seen in the region. Currently there are no signs of a counterbalance to the operational accessibility and the intra- and intercontinental logistics of the U.S. strategic force. The threat of an invasion that is not American is unthinkable. At the same time, the new global state of affairs established after the fall of the wall hinted at the possibility of new forms of international cooperation between developed countries and those on the periphery or on the road to development. It also suggested that international relations would be in a better situation to promote peace, security, and development. However, the deepening of asymmetries that this reordering entailed, with the sanctification of U.S. hegemony, can only be considered negative in that it permits the East-West dispute to continue, albeit in terms of a different, North-South or center-periphery, axis. Furthermore, the new distribution of forces increases the possibility of a concentration of power, with all its implications. In this context, the hypothesis that locates the asymmetries and tensions of that North-South relationship as a good place from which to examine security issues with regard to Latin American policy is entirely plausible. Liberated from their old socialist flank, the advanced capitalist countries of the G-8 have access to the economic and financial forces with which to relate to the peripherythe historical and structural locus of the Latin American and Caribbean countries. It is not advisable to avert ones gaze with regard to the cost of the crises and systematic adjustments in the core countries when eventually that cost will be transferred to Latin America, as will the geopolitical implications of Northern projects of regional integration.

FROM SUBVERSION TO THE THREAT OF TERRORISM The mobilization of an external threat, real or fictitious, and the belief in its intrinsic superiority have historically been important aspects of the discourse of U.S. policy, from the notion of the savage Native Americans to the Monroe Doctrine and the postulates of Manifest Destiny to the Huntingtonian elaboration that, by stressing cultural differences, suggests the capacity to harbor in its historical mission the germ of a superior culture. After 1989, U.S. hegemony, in its search for a redefinition of the enemy, found in terrorism the threat it required to further its policy. The construction of this threat has not been free of inaccuracies and exaggerations. The most blatant example is that of the weapons of mass destruction supposedly in the hands of the deposed Baghdad regime, which, according to Washington, represented a real threat to U.S. security but which turned out to exist only in the political laboratory of the presidential team. The new geostrategic order is overwhelmingly unilateral from the point of view of the political-military, financial, and technological power of the United States. The emergent polarities are fragmented and barely sketch a relative economic and commercial hierarchy, especially with regard to China, Japan, and Germany. At the same time, various indicators suggest a decline in the U.S. economy. The dynamic of these changes has important consequences for the conceptualization of the security issue.
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During the cold war, security meant the traditional state security. It consisted of the perception of threats superimposed on the identification of internal conflicts that were treated as subversive threats supported from outside. Schematically, this was the general logic of the hegemonic notion of security that involved the containment of communism as an ideology. A political framework referred to as national security doctrine served as a model for the conduct of the majority of Latin American governments. The hypothesis of civil war, which gave rise to the fight against subversion, justified the installation or survival of dictatorships. Recently, others attempting to identify structural causes for the conflicts that threaten security have revised this conceptualization. The context for this redefinition is globalization and its implication of interdependence. It is in this context that we can situate terrorism as a global threat articulated as a component of a security policy. Finally, the transition to democracy has not resulted in a substantial restructuring of the armed forces. Despite the beneficent dimensions of the political changes in terms of human rights and a democratic rearrangement of the civil-military relationship (Tulchin, 2002), there is no indication of a significant change in the doctrinal framework that guided the actions of the armed forces up to the 1980s. Although there is no homogeneity within military institutions, a conceptual and doctrinal framework is maintained as a general rule. This is an advantage for the new security strategy connected with the fight against terrorism, given that its conception continues to be part of its capacity to control the conduct of othersin other words, to orchestrate its hegemony.

FREE TRADE AND SECURITY The postcold-war period has been characterized by the indisputable dominance of financial capital in the development of the global economy. The free circulation of unrestricted capital constitutes the motor of the model. The globalization of markets involves privatization and deregulation of the international financial system on a primarily speculative basis. The movement of international capital has been freed from the variables of the economy whose operation remained largely beyond the control of the national authorities in charge of economic policy, variables that Treasury secretaries often refer to in terms of a difficult environment. The proposal to transform the Latin American region into a free-trade zone is a reflection of this climate that, since 1989 and especially since the Washington Consensus, has been deployed as the ideology of neoliberalism and then as a policy converted into action (Cademartori, 2004). In fact, U.S. conceptions of security and economic-commercial policy constitute an integrated geostrategic whole; the expansion of global commerce is part of the security strategy of the United States (Salinas, 2002). The project is aimed at standardizing the development of the world in terms of criteria that favor the economic-political configuration of the principal world power (Chossudovsky, 2002). Proposals of integration are not related exclusively to commercial issues. The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which should not be considered abandoned, and other free-trade treaties should be considered geopolitical mechanisms for developing a large-scale project of domination. These mechanisms range from the strictly economic to those concerning labor legislation, state reform, laws concerning intellectual property, the environment, natural and energy resources, knowledge, and culture. The free-trade treaties signed so far, Chiles among them, endorse the totalizing character intended by Washington and Wall Street (Weintraub and Prado, 2005).
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It is exactly from this angle that the core of this geostrategic conception can be appraised. Its most acute expression was in the formulation of the concept of the preventive war, which in the case of Iraq was carried out at the margins of international legality, confirming the unilateralism that is fundamental to decision making in the new geostrategic order. Antiterrorist policy operates as a coercive force that has an impact on regimes whose margins of self-determination are most precarious. The comprehensive treatment of these challenges is expressed in the context of the fragmentation of Latin American foreign policy in the face of the pragmatic U.S. prioritization of drug trafficking, terrorism, and migration. Since 9/11 the United States has attempted to implement its national security policy without much concern for the establishment of agreements. This course of action was ratified both in the Conference on Hemispheric Security in 2003 and in the meeting of secretaries of defense in 2004. Lack of concordance in the treatment of an agenda shared with the United States necessarily turns into a sounding board for a social and political imbalance that disturbs more than the surface of diplomacy. This may be responsible for the strong social pressure to reconsider military spending in the countries of Latin America given their serious deficiencies with regard to social welfare, stability, and security. In the face of this deficit, the significance of military spending as a percentage of the global product since 2001 cannot be overlooked (IISS, 2004).

THE COMPLICATIONS OF A REGIONAL SETTING For Latin America, a security setting excluding the United States would be unthinkable. It is appropriate, then, to identify some complications associated with this problem. 1. If the principle of dissuasion no longer seems useful in the struggle against terrorism, it is clear that, despite the prioritization of military force, a policy of alliance is required. In this sense, Latin America is an essential area for the United States because of the importance of its great southern border. The historical influence of the United States in the area, beyond its actual strategic supremacy and the agreements already subscribed to, is the best breeding ground for a campaign in favor of validation of the concept of security embodied in the policy of preventive war. The demand for collaboration stems from its imperative character, which does not admit different views because those who are not friends are enemies. 2. Multilateralism has lost its force, and its political-diplomatic tools have been debilitated. Although there is no concerted regional capacity to avoid the imposition of unilateralism, countertrends and doubts are arising that release new forms of interaction and collaboration, primarily in the Andes and South America (Rojas, 2003). 3. The sovereignty of the other loses its legitimacy if there is a presumption in the North that under its protection terrorism is being covered up or supported or if there is suspicion concerning the construction of weapons of mass destruction. From this perspective, one of the principal dangers for the security of Latin America stems not from foreign armies or from guerrillas but from criminal organizations. The danger of this perspective is the possibility of criminalizing the social struggle that has been unleashed in the region. 4. The limits of the policy have opened a space for the absolutization of hard powerin other words, military forcein the new model and the antiterrorist struggle. From a Latin American viewpoint, security requires a multidimensional reading that transcends the view entailed by that struggle.
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The significance for U.S. policy assumed by the struggle against terrorism as a war of global reach or a global enterprise of uncertain duration is inseparable from the previous points (NSC, 2002). These statements are translated into the identification of threats or zones of threat in Latin America as follows: 1. The triple border of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, which has long been a path for unregulated trade on a grand scalein other words, for contraband of all types. Similar cases include the Tabatinga-Leticia corridor on the Brazilian border with Colombia, the Lake Agrio zone between Ecuador and Colombia, and the Darien Jungle. 2. The current government of Venezuela, because of its alleged support of the Colombian guerrillas and for setting a bad political example for the region as a whole. Its economic and political initiatives potentially constitute expressions of a counterbalance to hegemonic politics, which may explain the intrusive and destabilizing harassment to which it is subject. 3. The Cuban government, for its alleged support of international terrorism and the meaning of its politics. 4. Latin American terrorist organizations, among them the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army in addition to drug traffickers and paramilitaries. This point implicates Colombia and its neighboring countries, along with the Caribbean basin, as an extraordinarily significant area for U.S. security policy. The U.S. resources destined for Plan Colombia and the Andean Regional Initiative and a sordid struggle for the drug market, added to the climate of war and violence, reflect a situation with the capacity to produce dynamics that unbalance the strategic perspective of regional stability.

THE PRAGMATIC USEFULNESS OF AN AMBIGUOUS DEFINITION The issues just mentioned, which place the antiterrorist problem at an almost operative level, break from ideas that converge in a particular form of conceptualization. By means of documents and reference works, the U.S. government establishes various definitions in this respect, but all of them are notably loose. This permits the extension of its own view as if it were equivalent to hemispheric or global security. Although the U.S. government formally distinguishes between national and regional terrorism and terrorism on a worldwide scale, it assumes that these groups will attack U.S. citizens or interests anywhere (Americas Program, 2004). In an attempt at reconciliation with a Latin American reading, it is clear that these definitions erase any difference between guerrillas and terrorist groupsin other words, making Bin Laden equivalent to Marulanda. However, conceptual laxity contains a dose of political coherence: Luis Posada Carriles could be tried on various charges (destruction of a plane with 73 persons aboard, participation in Operation Condor, etc.), but it remains clear that his actions have never threatened U.S. interests.

STRATEGIC SUPERPOWER AND ITS RELATIVE WEAKNESSES At this point, it is useful to call attention to the preferred type of ally of the predominant policy in Latin America. I begin by stressing that, despite having imposed the policy of preventive war and all its belligerent strategies, the expected political results have not materialized. Beyond the fact that it is farfetched to speak of democracy in a
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climate of war, the elections organized in Iraq on January 30, 2005, under the protection of the occupation forces do not politically sanction the invader and have not generated a new situation. Although it is deplorable that this occurred in the name of democracy, a Latin American reading becomes indispensable. This is not a matter of preferring the deposed regime that preceded the U.S. invasion. One has only to call attention to the character of the imperialist intentionsestablishing democracy by means of occupation. But the art of intimidation and making war has not resulted in any indication of improvement in its economy. The U.S. economy is far from being able to boast of an upturn, despite its investments in the weapons industry and in the business of war. Everything indicates that it is in recession, affected by problems of productivity, competitiveness, technological delay, fiscal deficit, and increased indebtedness. These points are worth examining because our attitudes toward integration tend to be tied to the condition of the U.S. economy. The absolute military supremacy of the United States, with none of its allies being able to compete in this area, is one of the few comparative advantages its economy has at its disposal. This military power is employed to violate the rules of the market that it claims to promote in theoryfor example, when it exercises internal protectionism (agricultural subsidies) while demanding unrestricted and deregulated opening of markets from everyone else or indiscriminately imposes on its allies mechanisms of negotiation that result in violating the rules of supply and demand, as in its trade laws with Cuba and the transactions carried out with the island through third countries. Thus we see the tightening of restrictions on the flow of remittances and on travel by Cuban-Americans to Cuba even as immigration policy becomes more relaxed for countries beyond its southern border. At the same time, something stands out that is not spoken about much but appears cryptically as a commitment to Latin American financing of Plan Colombia (Gandsegui, 2003; Leal Buitrago, 2003; Caycedo, 2004)a tool of domination that threatens Latin Americas stability and sovereignty. U.S. power, observed from Latin America, should not be read only as a risk of military invasion in the literal sense. In the current situation, the reading can be extended to other forms of invasion of our economic sovereignty. It can be seen in the intrusive policy of certifying our practices of democracy or evaluating our contributions to the struggle against drug trafficking in the region or our cooperation in the antiterrorist struggle.

THE THEORY OF VULNERABILITY The immediate future of policy in the region does not precisely offer a climate of calm. Opposition is expressed in connection with every adjustment or monetary-fund package and privatization. When a leader does not fulfill his promises to the electorate, a movement tends to be unleashed that generates serious questions, erodes his credibility, and may even result in his removal from office. The story begins with the crisis that followed the Caracazo and then that of the beginning of Carlos Andrs Prezs second term in Venezuela, which resulted in his dismissal, and ends with its most recent chapter, which was written in March 2005 with the resignation of Carlos Meza in the face of the social mobilizations that rejected his policies in Bolivia. A flow from this source finds its institutional expression in the pursuit of transformation shaped by the political geography of Latin America. Here we can identify important spaces for the democratic forces and coalitions that are seeking to establish a foothold in the
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counterhegemonic landscape. One of these was the inauguration of Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva in Brazil and another Nestor Kirchners accession to power in Argentina. It is possible that these new currents, their various social elements, and the government proposals that have triumphed in recent elections can underpin a counterbalance to the formulations of Latin American politics, in such a way that the FTAA and other free-trade agreements do not become the only way of thinking about integration. The need for integrated development that Latin Americas shortcomings demand and criticisms of proposals to absolutize the preventive strategy regarding regional security could open spaces that reinforce the democratic aspirations that are emerging. To reduce the field of security to the threat of terrorism would be a serious error, but this is not to minimize its importance. The major issue stems from terrorism as an aspect of security, which as a political matter constitutes a multidimensional set of problems. What in the political analysis arises as a threat to one society does not necessarily constitute one in other countries. Whatever validity this proposal has and beyond the dubious relevance of the inter-American system, especially the InterAmerican Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance and the Organization of American States, an important factor is connected with the fact that Latin America has not been able to undertake a classification of the threats or uncertainties of social development. In the meantime, a difficult path awaits us in the reconstruction of a renewed regional consciousnessmaking what unites us in Latin America and the Caribbean prevail. It will be challenging to entertain the possibility of prioritizing our common problems and challenges, since the superpower insists on exercising broad dominion with all the means within its reach and at any price. Its strategy of free trade and its antiterrorist security policy currently shape a core of challenges for regional politics. Viewing Latin America in its real dimensions and in accordance with our own interests seems to be an indispensable step in the direction of which democratizing tendencies and dynamics are being created. Creating our own projects does not mean isolating ourselves from the globalized world; rather, it means actively incorporating ourselves into it as agents of our own destiny.

REFERENCES
Americas Program 2004 Foreign policy in focus: Americas Program, Executive Summary, A Secure America in a Secure World. http://www.americaspolicy.org/reports/2004/sp_Oct_body.html. Cademartori, Jose 2004 La globalizacin cuestionada. Santiago: Editorial Universidad de Santiago. Caycedo, Jaime 2004 Impacto regional del conflicto colombiano en Amrica Latina, in Ana Esther Cecea (ed.), Hegemonas y emancipaciones en el siglo XXI. Buenos Aires: CLACSO. Chossudovsky, Michel 2002 Guerra y globalizacin. Mexico City: Siglo XXI. Gandsegui, Marco A. 2003 Gobernabilidad y seguridad humana en el Plan Colombia, in Daro Salinas Figueredo and Edgar Jimnez Cabrera (eds.), Gobernabilidad y globalizacin: Procesos polticos recientes en Amrica Latina. Mexico City: Ediciones Gernika. IISS (International Institute for Strategic Studies) 2004 The military balance, 2004-2005. http://www.iis.org. Leal Buitrago, Francisco 2003 Crisis de la regin andina: fragilidad democrtica, inestabilidad social y Plan Colombia, in Klaus Bodemer (ed.), El nuevo escenario de (in)seguridad en Amrica Latina amenaza para la democracia? Caracas: Editorial Nueva Sociedad/FLACSOChile.

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NSC (National Security Council) 2002 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. http://www.usinfo.state.gov. Rojas Arevana, Francisco 2003 Una comunidad de seguridad en las Amricas: Una mirada a la Conferencia Especial de Seguridad. Revista Foro 21 (30). Salinas Figueredo, Daro 2002 Gobernabilidad en la globalizacin: concepciones y procesos polticos en Amrica Latina. Revista Venezolana de Economa y Ciencias Sociales 8 (3): 7999. Tulchin, Joseph 2002 Control democrtico en las fuerzas armadas, in Fundacin CIDOB, Nuevos temas de seguridad en Amrica Latina. Barcelona: Ediciones CIDOB. Weintraub, Sydney and Veronica R. Prado 2005 Libre comercio en el hemisferio occidental. Foreign Affairs (Mexico) 5 (2).

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