Latin America

Here's a Friday special for you. Or, Monty Python would say, something completely different.

Another of the great things about CNAS is our military fellows program, which brings in smart officers from the military services, as well as the Air Force. They are a major part of the institution, bringing recent experiences in the field into our discussions, and tending to help focus the conversation on effectiveness. CNAS doesn't care about ideology, it cares about what works.

One thing a think tank should do is look at tomorrow as well as today. So, while everyone else in town who can spell "counterinsurgency" is honking on about Afghanistan and Iran, Marine Lt. Col. Jeff Goodes, a CNAS fellow, has been mulling a problem closer to home: Cuba. He's a three tour vet of Iraq who before coming to CNAS commanded Marine Wing Communications Squadron 28  in Cherry Point, N.C.

Cuba is something that could get very big, just as soon as Fidel dies-and that, for all we know, could be tomorrow. So it is best to start thinking about it now:

The Obama administration's decision to extend the U.S. economic trade embargo on Cuba for an additional year is detrimental to our national and regional security and further emboldens our economic, military, and infrastructure rivals.  What is most perplexing is the fact that earlier this summer the Obama administration decided to relax some of the regulations regarding personal travel and personal money transfers from Cuban-Americans to their relatives in Cuba, as well as telecommunication exchanges between private U.S. and state-run Cuban companies: all are steps in the right direction for U.S. interests - but are not enough.  While these relaxed restrictions are certainly a step forward in normalizing relations, these steps do not outweigh the heavy diplomatic, information, and economic influence of Brazil, Venezuela, Nicaragua, China, Russia, India, and Iran, all of whom support the Cuban government and all of whom seek to be peer competitors with the United States.     

In short, the U.S. unilateral embargo will continue to retard regional security and stability, and further serve to erode our influence in the Americas at a time when U.S. credibility is globally scrutinized.  The arguably outdated and undeniably ineffective embargo will continue to halt progress at every turn; more specifically, the diplomatic influence and credibility of the U.S., the social and political progress of Cuba, and the security and stability progress of the region.  The U.S. embargo will continue to impede potential and future cultural and scientific trade investments, shared agricultural advancements, and pertinent meteorological and environmental exchanges regarding the shared Florida Straits ecology.

Furthermore, the U.S. unilateral embargo will continue to encourage Cuba to partner with Russia, China, and Brazil for off-shore oil and natural gas exploration within the shared U.S. and Cuban economic exclusion zone.  The U.S. embargo will continue to endear many of the poor Caribbean and Central American nations to the Chavez Venezuelan PetroCaribe initiative, and the embargo will ensure that no official U.S. - Cuban dialogue and/or planned cooperative action occurs with regards to such crucial issues as regional and transnational criminal organizations, illegal immigration and extortion issues, and the growing Islamic influence on Latin American from Iranian, Syrian, and Lebanese diasporas.

We must face the facts: the U.S. efforts to isolate and force a regime change in Cuba for nearly half a century have failed.  These 50 years have successfully driven Cuba to aggressively seek support elsewhere, as is evident in their forming and fostering diplomatic ties, seeking infrastructure support, establishing  military liaisons, and accepting economic support from every government in the Americas - to include Canada - with the exception of the United States.  Most of Cuba's economic and diplomatic partners have "Leftist" governments with close ties to state and non-state Islamic fundamentalists, porous national borders and often rampant organized crime cartels coupled with violent gang warfare fueled by drug trafficking, human trafficking, and extortion.  After all, Cuba has the backing of Hugo Chavez' endorsed ALBA and doctors for oil initiative, Evo Morales' endorsed MAS, China's $600M economic and trade stimulus grant, and Brazil's $300M infrastructure and modernization credit to list a few.   To be sure, the United States should be very concerned with the company that Cubans keep.

A less adversarial tone with Cuba will reestablish much needed dialogue in the region and help address shared national border security vulnerabilities, transnational and regional crime consortiums, and environmental and ecological initiatives.  The necessity for the Obama administration to lift the U.S. economic embargo is painfully obvious.  It would enhance the region's security, promote economic prosperity, establish shared environmental regulations, and help re-establish our credibility and leadership vis-à-vis some of our most prominent global allies and competitors.  Lastly, let's ask ourselves, "Has our 50 year embargo brought Cuba any closer to democracy, or have we denied the Cubans an opportunity to see the best that our free and democratic society offers?"

I think the colonel is right. The embargo has been Fidel's best friend, and hasn't done the Cuban people any good. It is time to change this. 

Counterinsurgency expert David Ucko von der Siftung Wissenschaft und Politik (Berlin) and der RAND Corporation posted this as a comment on Friday, but I think it is too good to just sit there. So I am promoting it to a guest blog. Take it away, David:

I would gladly provide a longer blog post, though I am afraid time is too limited to produce a structured piece. Let me however jot down a few thoughts on the matter.

First, I would recommend Benjamin Schwarz's study on El Salvador for RAND, written in 1991. What Schwarz does is illustrate the critical weaknesses of the U.S. approach in El Salvador, most of which centre around its limited leverage: its inability to get the armed forces of El Salvador (ESAF) and the government (GoES) to do what the U.S. reforms asked of them.

That is to say, despite a daily expenditure of ca. $1.5m in military and economic aid to El Salvador, and the deployment of 55 advisers in country (more, at times), exogenous efforts at reform were only at best partially succesful.

What this meant in terms of the conflict is that while U.S. aid and assistance reversed the initial gains of FMLN, the end result, by the mid-1980s was stalemate. The U.S. and GoES could not defeat FMLN, and nor could FMLN threaten the overthrow of the government. That is why I suggest the indirect approach in El Salvador produced stalemate rather than success. Perhaps the biggest manifestation of this stalemate was the FMLN's final offensive of November 1989, in which, through the launch of major offensive operations, they were able to penetrate the capital, temporarily seize some of its territory and produce a Tet-like psychological effect both on GoES and on its U.S. backers.

Of course the conflict has since been lauded as a successful transition from war to peace. Yet it should be recalled that FMLN was not defeated, which had been the aim under Reagan. Instead, given the change of strategic context with the end of the Cold War, and the election of George H. W. Bush (who was eager to extricate the U.S. from El Salvador's stalemated conflict), the effort shifted from one of 'victory' to one of 'compromise'. That compromise was successfully achieved at Chapultepec, though it should be said that there are important qualification to be made on this point too (see the great research by Charles T. Call on this topic).

So whether it was a success or not depends a little on your standards. In one sense, FMLN were no longer an armed threat, but the initial aims of the campaign, which had by this point lasted ten years, cost a hell of a lot of money, as well as 75,000 lives, were not met - and perhaps they could not be met, given the intransigence of GoES to conduct reforms and the continued inefficiency and inflammatory human-rights abuses of ESAF. In that sense, the U.S. effort in El Salvador was 'saved by the bell', if by bell we mean the significant changes in global politics around the end of the 1980s. Without this change in circumstances, the stalemate would likely have continued or, absent greater responsiveness to U.S. pressure, its aid would have declined (particularly given the mood within the U.S. Congress at this time), allowing for an outright eventual FMLN victory.

Again, no time for more carefully structured thoughts on this topic. I refer you to a forthcoming RAND publication on COIN, led by John Gordon and William Rosenau, to which I contribute a chapter on this very conflict and difficult question.

I find this comment interesting. But I gots to tell you, in the U.S. military establishment, $1.5 million a day is cheap cheap cheap. It would not buy you 15 minutes of the war in Iraq, or even half that, by my hurried calculation.  

Here is more on the Salvador option.

Jose CABEZAS/AFP/Getty Images

Remember yesterday I mentioned David Wood as a good defense reporter? He has a terrific column today about what is going wrong in Afghanistan. I'll summarize it here, but only if you promise to click on this link and read the whole thing.

Wood begins with a good strong "lede" that manages to combine action and policy:

When a warning crackled over the radio of a suspected ambush ahead, Lt. Col. Rob Campbell swore softly and ordered his three armored trucks to a halt. What happened next illustrates why the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan is failing, why commanders here are asking for more manpower -- and why they are pleading for more time.

Then his main character strides into the picture, along with a succinct statement of the problem:

Leaping out with his M-4 carbine, Campbell, a tall cavalry officer with sandy hair and freckles, strode through the empty, sun-baked fields flanking the road while his men fanned out, checking the ground for IEDs, sweeping the fields for snipers. The Afghan police assigned to patrol this stretch of road? Nowhere in sight.

Campbell comes off as a good, thoughtful officer doing well, but conscious that time is running out. Anyway, read the whole thing -- one of the best things I've read on Afghanistan in awhile.

Meanwhile, NATO aircraft hit some hijacked fuel tankers in northern Afghanistan, killing a bunch of people. Some of them were insurgents, some of them children and other civilians trying to get the fuel the Taliban was distributing from the trucks for free. The total is somewhere between 50 and 90, it appears. My question: Does this air strike  pass the Petraeus test, which I saw him apply in Mosul back in 2003-2004: Before taking any action, consider whether it will create more opponents than it stops. Anyway, this makes me wonder if NATO forces got snookered into the attack.

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Honduras goes old school.

ian_ransley/Flickr