How would George Kennan Respond to Nicaragua´s Growing ´Military Dependency´ on Russia?

Why is this happening now?  Conveniently for Putin, a 1914 treaty, giving the U.S. first dibs on building the canal, ran out in December 2013.   Putin likely aims at distracting   us in our strategic backyard while destabilizing the eastern Ukraine.   This resembles the strategy Nikita Khrushchev pursued in Cuba while trying to destabilize West Berlin in 1960-62 – the one that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Yuri Andropov did likewise in Nicaragua and El Salvador in 1980-83, while we were arming Afghanistan´s Muslim resistance.

 

Meanwhile, Costa Rican former Minister of Foreign Affairs Enrique Castillio,   has warned about Russia´s intrigues, or as he put it, Nicaragua´s “entering into a relationship of military dependency with Russia.”  Democratic Costa Rica has no army and its leaders fear Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega´s threatened reconquista of Costa Rica´s Guanacaste province.   It´s no coincidence   that Nicaragua, together with  Venezuela, were virtually alone in recognizing  Russia´s carving of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia in 2008.    Or that Russia reciprocated with military aid to Venezuela and Nicaragua, and naval war maneuvers with Venezuela in the Caribbean.  A day before the 2014 annexation of the Crimea, a Russian intelligence ship was deployed in Havana harbor.   The anti-U.S.  Caribbean trio is  also included in Russian Defense Minister Sergei  Shoigu´s   new global strategy   to extend Russia´s naval and strategic bomber power through facilities  worldwide.  Meanwhile, Putin has   doubled the  investment in Russia’s military since 2007.  It´s  expected to  triple by 2016 -- even as  our own military has been cut to pre-WWII levels!  

 

We in the U.S. must surely must be  concerned  about  unmonitored shipments of  drugs as well as arms and --who knows -- even WMD – traversing a  Nicaraguan canal.  Recall the North Korean ship interdicted in July, 2013  in the Panama canal   bearing undocumented arms and Cuban missile parts.     A  member of the Proliferation Security   Initiative, U.S.-friendly Panama blocks  illegal and dangerous cargo.  Will  Nicaragua?

 

So what should America do now?  We do believe  the late George Kennan, father of our containment policy vis-à-vis  Russia, is very relevant here.  He believed that rather than challenge  Russia  in her remote   “near abroad,”  we should  challenge her ambitions  in our own hemisphere.   “If the Soviets remained in Afghanistan and attempted to use the country for strategic purposes further afield,” he stated in 1980, “than military action against Cuba might be justified.”  

 

Given this outlook,  Kennan would likely have  disavowed   adding  Georgia and  Ukraine to NATO.  While  opposing boots on the ground in the Ukraine, however, he  would likely have supported arming  the Ukrainians against Russia as we did after WWII.  Ukrainian partisans bled the Russians for a decade.  He would also have recommended  formidable public diplomacy and sizable aid to  the Venezuelan democrats in their struggle.  Both Nicaragua and Cuba run on Venezuelan oil.

 

  Doubtless, the Russian president thinks that Obama, weakened by Washington scandals and an isolationist mood in the country,  is reluctant to use  military force.  Obama must change those perceptions!   An extra-hemispheric, nuclear  power  patrolling   our waters,   building a military facility in Nicaragua and aiding in the building an unmonitored new canal  is  unacceptable!   Kennan surely would have reminded us of the third corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that he devised In 1950.  Witnessing the  growing   Soviet influence south of the border,  he pledged in his memo to the Secretary of State, “the most scrupulous respect for… sovereignty and independence… of our Latin American neighbors!” 

 

In return for, “You do not make your countries the sources or the seats of dangerous intrigue against us.”  

 

Here is some necessary background for this article.  Jiri´s book, Conflict in Nicaragua, Allen & Unwin, 1987, co-edited with E. Duran, provided for the first time the general platform of the FSLN. This key, secret document was furnished by a former Nicaraguan  ambassador.  Despite domestic changes and acceptance of democratic elections by Daniel Ortega in the last two decades, it raises the question if Ortega, in foreign affairs, is still  motivated by the strategic objective of struggle  against the “Yankee Imperialists”  and revival of the Russo-Nicaraguan military alliance?  For the Gaddis-Smith book review see http://www.foreignaffairs.com/author/jiri-valenta           

 

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