The Game Of Security And Development

During the Cold War Era, United States and Soviet Union took comprehensive measures to strive for world hegemony. Both of them attempted to export its ideology, social system and values to all over the world especially to developing countries and areas, for the sake of maximizing their own national interest. As an important part of Third World and United States traditional sphere of influence, Latin America inevitably became the target which U.S. and Soviet struggled for. Nationalism developmental requirements of Latin American countries were trapped in the paradox of North-South tensions and East-West antagonism. This not only made more difficult for them to realize independent development, but also complemented Cold War features of multi-level. The tortuous development of Latin American guerrilla movements is a typical case, which reflects not just U.S.-Soviet competition for supremacy in Western Hemisphere but Cold War's influence on Third World regional situation also.This dissertation employed a great deal of rare documents declassified by American government under the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act), and used some second-hand books for reference. The game relations between regional defense security and economic development assistance as main thread, the principal purpose of this dissertation is to trace the origins and adjustment of American cold war strategy toward Latin America around WWII, to reveal the essence of U.S.'s Latin American policy and regular patterns of their relations, to make know how cold war changed the Third World situation. On one hand, international and Latin America regional situation played an important role in America's policy-making. On the other, U.S. policy to Latin America would also react on the cold war structure in Western Hemisphere and expand the breadth and depth of global cold war.On the basic of careful researching the declassified documents, this dissertation borrowed challenge-response theory to review several significant readjustment of U.S. policy toward Latin America from 1945 to 1969, used comparative analysis approach to show variation of American cold war tactics and competition status on both sides in Western Hemisphere in macro-micro and integral-local view, and clarify interaction among cold war, Latin American situation and U.S. diplomatic policy at the international, regional and national level. This dissertation tried to illustrate three viewpoints as follows:first, pursuing Western Hemisphere hegemony is always the basic motive of U.S. policy toward Lain America, and keeping regional stable and secure is the core interest for United States. According to different historical background and competitor, U.S. government merely makes some adjustments on tactics. Second, the rise and fall of Latin American guerrilla govements in 1960s reflect that in Cold War era East-West antagonism was more threatening rather than North-South conflict of solving development, the latter one may even be served as a tool by U.S. and Soviet for world hegemony. Therefore, the Third World nations' dream for independent development is hard to come true. Third, guerrilla warfare or insurgency is best defined in strictly military terms, not in social or political terms. If United States hopes to promote regional and global stability and security, it should pay more attention on local development issues in long run instead of rough counter-violence measures. Only in this way, building a harmonious world, which couple security and development simultaneously, will not be far from us.