Spheres of Influence

The world is on fire. There are wars in Africa. There are conflicts in Asia. There is the ongoing, grinding bloodbath in Ukraine. And of course, there is Israel versus everyone seemingly within striking distance.

So why has Donald Trump been ratcheting up the pressure on Venezuela since the Summer, seemingly risking yet another bloody conflagration? This is the man apparently so committed to peace that he regarded NOT receiving the Nobel Peace Prize this year as something of a personal insult. Who beamed like a child on Christmas morning when awarded the ‘FIFA Peace Prize’ by the obsequious FIFA president Gianni Infantino, an award that was transparently created with the sole purpose of giving it to one Donald J.Trump and thus stoke the man’s already monstrously inflated ego. As mortified as I was watching the event, I was thankful he didn’t at least start barking ‘Award! Award!’ in anticipation of his bauble, as a certain Father Jack did at a Christmas many years ago…

What then explains this mismatch between a man who supposedly loves peace so much he is determined to achieve it in as many places as possible, no matter the cost (particularly if he won’t be the one paying or if, even better, he can extort a benefit for the United States from another country’s agonies…) and the man who is clearly pushing for regime change in Venezuela?

In reality, it’s not that complex, but it does have to be unpacked.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE

First, we have to start with the Monroe Doctrine. This is so named because it was articulated by American President James Monroe in 1823 and the basis for the doctrine is that any interference by foreign powers in the affairs of the Americas, north or south, was a threat to the security of the United States and that the United States could take steps against any such power. Now the United States of 1832 wasn’t the hyperpower it is today and this led to the great colonial empires of the time essentially ignoring the proclamation and continuing to do as they willed. The French invasion of Mexico of 1861-1867 (when the United States was embroiled in civil war) is remembered as a pretty egregious example of a European power disregarding the Monroe Doctrine but over time, as the United States’ might grew, European powers began to respect it.

As the pre-eminent power in the Western hemisphere, the United States became prone to meddling in the affairs of its neighbours. There was the dismemberment of Colombia in 1903 when the US supported the secession of Panama from that nation in order to secure the rights to build the Panama Canal. Which lead to the creation of a Canal Zone that cut the new country in two over which the United States had sovereignty and which then either justified or precipitated multiple American interventions in that state in the years that followed. Most notable among these interventions were the response to the riots in 1964 (commemorated in Panama as Matyr’s Day) and the invasion of 1989 that removed the dictator Manuel Noriega from power.

There were the Banana Wars, a term used to describe American adventurers in Latin America during the early years of the 20^th century and which included long-lasting occupations of both Haiti and Nicaragua as well as interventions in Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, interventions that were often driven by American commercial interests.

The Cold War saw American meddling in the region become endemic, with multiple dictatorships in South America propped up by virtue of their hardline anti-communism and, where the government was NOT anti-communist, support given to rebel groups who espoused those critical anti-communist perspectives regardless of their commitment to democracy. A particularly nasty example was the 1954 coup d’état in Guatemala where a left-leaning government was toppled at the behest of the American United Fruit Company (whose commercial exploitation of the region had been threatened) and replaced with a military dictatorship, which then triggered a long-running civil war. The United Fruit Company profited handsomely from the takeover of course as restrictions placed on their business were removed. The company later rebranded as Chiquita, still selling fruit today.

Of course, the biggest sore spot for the United States in the Americas was Cuba. The American obsession with Cuba is tied to the Monroe Doctrine, because it is a government inimical to the interests of the United States. Cuba, an unfriendly nation in the heart of the Western hemisphere, can be used by other Great Powers to undermine the security and hegemony of the United States. As a result, the United States has sought to either contain or undo the communist regime there. This was most obvious during the Bay of Pigs invasion when American backed forces attempted to start a counter-revolution in Cuba (which failed miserably) and its sequel, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when America sought to dislodge their great rival the Soviet Union from the island, after the Soviet Union was invited to base nuclear missiles and military forces there to defend those missiles (and thus, by extension, the island itself).

What I want you to take away from this is that the Monroe Doctrine is not a high-minded attempt to protect the independence, rights and dignity of other nations in the Americas. It was about ensuring that America was the undisputed hegemon in the region and that if anyone was going to meddle, it was going to be them. Other nations doing the same, that just won’t be tolerated in Washington’s backyard.

But I do want to clarify that I am not someone who thinks that ‘If you oppose the United States, you are automatically the good guys’. Everyone is responsible for the own actions, their virtues and most especially their sins. Cuba’s government is, at the end of the day, not a democracy and it is somewhere where you can be imprisoned for your political beliefs. I wouldn’t weep if that government fell tomorrow, and I hope that one day they find their to a pluralistic liberal democracy that serves the wishes of the people who live there. You can condemn or hold in suspicion the government of a country whilst doubting the motives of their opponents.

Which is important as I move into the next part of this essay.

VENEZUELA

There are few governments in the world as unlikable as that of Nicolás Maduro. He’s the successor to Hugo Chavez, the firebrand politician who rode to power on a wave of left-wing populism in 1999, survived a coup attempt in 2002 that was the subject of an Irish documentary, ‘The Revolution Will not be Televised’ and who succumbed to cancer in early 2013. He made his anti-Americanism a pillar of his ideology, and he never missed an opportunity to rail against the iniquities of Uncle Sam. But whilst I can acknowledge that the American interest in Venezuela is far from benign and that Chavez fashioned a pretty compelling case against American Imperialism (and much of Chavez’s rhetoric took place in the aftermath of the Iraq War and the occupations of both Iraq and Afghanistan under the Bush administration), I will also argue that tremendous democratic backsliding occurred in the country under both Chavez and Maduro. Venezuela’s economy has contracted by some 70-80% since 2014. The media has been increasingly restricted. The democratic opposition has been driven underground. Roughly a quarter of the population, some eight million people, have fled to neighbouring countries to escape the increasing poverty and repression. And it is generally accepted internationally that Maduro rigged the last election to ensure he would continue in office despite his government bringing Venezuela to its nadir.

Basically, this man and those backing him deserve no sympathy and I fervently hope that one day he gets a much-deserved comeuppance. After all, just because the United States is opposed to Maduro’s government and has sought to stymie and undermine it, that does not make Maduro a legitimate leader. He is by any standard a dictator who cheated to retain power and continue inflicting misery on his own country. Trump apparently loathes him for his mismanagement of his country, though more to do with how his policies have impoverished it rather than his evisceration of the rule of law.

Maduro’s worst mistake though in the eyes of Washington has been cosying up to Beijing and Moscow.

THE DONROE DOCTRINE

Donald Trump is not one for playing nice with others. He abhors the multilateralism that the United States relied upon as the foundation of their global power from 1945 until the present day, a point of view he articulated in his free-wheeling address to the United Nations in late September.

He hates the European Union, an alliance of democracies, because the multi-lateral co-operation and co-ordination built into that organization means he simply cannot use the heft of the United States vis each of the much smaller, individual states to achieve maximal gains for the US (though perhaps he needn’t have worried given how the last round of trade talks turned out…).

He also openly admires Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and his antipathy towards Ukraine’s struggle against its mightier neighbour can be explained by…Zelensky stiffing Trump’s request to launch an unfounded investigation of Hunter Biden (whilst threatening to withhold American aid) in an attempt to damage his prospective electoral opponent in the 2020 election and thus triggering his first impeachment…but also by his sympathy for one of Putin’s animating drives.

The need for a sphere of influence.

It seems Trump respects Putin’s desire for Russia to be dominant in its near-abroad, which means the former territory of the Soviet Union, because Trump wishes to emulate him with a sphere of influence over the Western Hemisphere. And the thing about spheres of influence is that they take no account of the feelings or wishes of the inhabitants or even governments in the states that the sphere encompasses, instead they must be subordinate to the whims and interests of the hegemon.

Last Thursday, the Trump administration released their new ‘National Security Strategy’ or NSS. According to Wikipedia, ‘The National Security Strategy (NSS) is a document prepared periodically by the executive branch of the United States that lists the national security concerns and how the administration plans to deal with them…The document is purposely general in content, and its implementation relies on elaborating guidance provided in supporting documents’. In other words, it is an articulation of the vision of the President.

Politico’s examination of the document says that

“It has an unusually heavy focus on the Western Hemisphere that it casts as largely about protecting the U.S. homeland. It says “border security is the primary element of national security” and makes veiled references to China’s efforts to gain footholds in America’s backyard.”

The report further quotes from the NSS itself when it says…

“The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity — a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region,” the document states. “The terms of our alliances, and the terms upon which we provide any kind of aid, must be contingent on winding down adversarial outside influence — from control of military installations, ports, and key infrastructure to the purchase of strategic assets broadly defined.”

(Some smart wag reframed this modern embrace of the Monroe Doctrine as ‘the Donroe Doctrine’).

Politico goes further…

“The Trump strategy suggests the president’s military buildup in the Western Hemisphere is not a temporary phenomenon. The strategy also specifically calls for “a more suitable Coast Guard and Navy presence to control sea lanes, to thwart illegal and other unwanted migration, to reduce human and drug trafficking, and to control key transit routes in a crisis.”

The strategy says the U.S. should enhance its relationships with governments in Latin America, including working with them to identify strategic resources — an apparent reference to materials such as rare earth minerals. It also declares that the U.S. will partner more with the private sector to promote “strategic acquisition and investment opportunities for American companies in the region.”

To sum up then, what is driving the United States actions towards Maduro and Venezuela is that the current US administration is looking to firm up their sphere of influence in the Western hemisphere, something many in the current government believes is America’s due by virtue of its status as a Great Power. Whilst Trump is clearly sympathetic to Putin, he will not tolerate Russia or China attempting to use an American adversary such as Venezuela as a proxy with which to make mischief. If he is going to respect Russia’s sphere of influence, he demands reciprocity.

The stationing of huge quantities of American naval assets in the Caribbean, the strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Trump admitting he has authorised covert ops in Venezuela are all part of a strategy to apply pressure to the already unstable Maduro government. The best-case scenario for Trump is that this pressure is enough to topple the regime and allow the installation of a government far friendlier to American interests. The illegitimacy of the Maduro regime means that, if successful, Trump may face limited diplomatic blowback. But if it doesn’t work and Maduro manages to cling on despite this intense, crushing pressure, then who can say what will happen? Antipathy towards the military adventurism and failed nation-building efforts of his neo-conservative predecessors in the Republican party is a cornerstone of his MAGA movement, and Trump has said on more than one occasion that he shares those sentiments so it would be a surprise for him to begin dabbling in overt regime change.

But on the other hand he no longer has to worry about re-election so perhaps the feelings of his base isn’t as important to him now that he no longer needs them, as we saw with his response to their demand for the Epstein files, where he lambasted his supporters as ‘stupid’ and ‘foolish’.

Some hope that his desire for the Nobel peace prize may stymie his more aggressive instincts, his desire to match the achievement of his great bête noire, his ideological and temperamental opposite Barack Obama may yet prove irresistible for him (and on that we can but hope). Still, he already has A peace prize now, if not THE peace prize. Maybe that’s enough.

In a sign of the darkness that is descending with the advent of this multi-polar world, Russia said that the new strategy articulated by Trump ‘aligns with Moscow’s vision’. The carving up of the world into spheres of influence, where the strong do what they will and the weak suffer as they must. A return to how politics used to be conducted, and one that shows that the internationalism of the past century was a historical aberration.

Trump seems determined to either contain Venezuela or bring it to heel in realisation of his vision of predominance of the United States in the Americas. That Maduro and his cronies don’t deserve our pity is irrelevant to the fact that when a great power decides to work its will through force of arms, it is ordinary folks who pay the price.

I’m a firm believer in Irish unity and I live in the border regions of Tyrone.