“If Trump wins, he can make a pact with Maduro. He is a strong man who fascinates him”

September 24, 2024

The former National Security Advisor in the Trump Administration and ambassador to the UN under George W. Bush inaugurated the FAES 2024 Campus yesterday. Just a few metres from Madrid’s Retiro Park, the veteran foreign policy expert spoke to EL MUNDO about international news, full of “threats”.

This article was first published in Spanish in El Mundo on September 24, 2024. Click here to read the original article.

Question: You say that your biggest failure as National Security Advisor to Donald Trump was “not being able to help the people of Venezuela against the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro.”

Answer: I feel that way. True. The conditions in Venezuela are so bad economically and politically that, from a strategic point of view, Maduro could not stay in power if it were not for the support of Russia and Cuba, as well as the intervention of China and Iran. So we have a global problem. We have the troika of tyranny, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, plus other leftist governments in Latin America, which resemble a return to the 1950s and 1960s, again, which is strategically a problem for the United States, but at the same time it is terrible for the people of the American continent.

Q. How do you assess the latest events in Venezuela, with the Spanish government at the epicentre of the exile of the winner of the elections, Edmundo González?

A. Yes. Well… Maria Corina Machado is still inside Venezuela, hiding. So she is still in danger, as are many other opposition leaders. It was a mistake to agree to let Maduro hold elections. He was never going to allow freedom. Maduro began excluding Machado, even from running. And the votes that the electoral officials proclaimed were completely fictitious. It was an exact repeat of the 2019 elections. It was the same thing again. Maduro is doing the same thing.
over and over again. The Biden Administration is completely blind. Sanctions were lifted for a while. Now they have to be reimposed. But the damage is already done. (The) international coalition against the regime has deteriorated and it will be difficult to rebuild it. We don’t know who will win in November in the United States, but Donald Trump has already said recently that Caracas is one of the safest places you can go; that it is safer than many cities in the United States.

Maduro is obviously a strong man for Trump. I remember from my days with him that I was fascinated by the strong man and I don’t know if you’ve read the chapter on Venezuela in my book [The Room Where It Happened], but in the end we managed to get Trump, much to the chagrin of some, not to meet with Maduro. We didn’t let it happen. However, now, it is possible that Trump will make a deal with him. That would be a big setback.

Q: So do you think it is better for Venezuelans if Kamala Harris wins the November 5 election?

A: Well, I don’t think we know anything about her position on Latin America. The best prediction I can make is that, during the first year of a Harris Administration, she will follow the trajectory of the Biden Administration, because that’s what she’s been sitting in National Security Council meetings for for three and a half years.

Q: You say you will not vote for Donald Trump, but neither will you vote for Kamala Harris, and in the 2020 elections you announced that you were going to write Ronald Reagan on the ballot.

A: I thought about writing Ronald Reagan in 2020, but then I also thought that people might think it was too much even for a protest vote. So I wrote in Dick Cheney. Because I wanted to vote for a conservative Republican and there wasn’t one on the ballot. Trump has no philosophy [of government]. He doesn’t think in political terms like most political leaders. Think in terms of what benefits Donald Trump. So what he does in a second term is much harder to predict than people think because the circumstances are different.

Q. And what decision can you take with NATO? You are very pessimistic on this issue…

A. Yes, I think Trump can withdraw the US from NATO. He was very close to leaving. And we’ll see what happens in Ukraine between now and the election and, if Trump wins, between the election and Inauguration Day. I’m very worried. I’m worried that if Trump wins, Putin can call him the day after the election and say, ‘Congratulations, Donald, I’m very glad you were elected. The Biden administration has been a disaster. Why don’t we just get together and resolve all our problems? ‘ And Trump can easily say, ‘As soon as I’m inaugurated, you’ll be the first person I meet with.’

Q. That would be a serious problem for Europe…

A. A Trump Administration doesn’t understand alliances. It’s not just with NATO; Trump doesn’t understand the alliance with Japan; he doesn’t understand the alliance with South Korea… One of the first fights he got into as president was with one of our two closest allies: Australia.

Q. And what about the European position on the Middle East, sometimes so distant, as in the case of the Spanish Government, from the United States’ staunch defense of Israel?

A. It’s hard for most Americans to understand. Support for Israel is overwhelmingly strong among both Democrats and Republicans, although there are many Democrats on the left of the party who take a more pro-Palestinian stance: on college campuses, among American Muslim communities, and on the radical left of the Democratic Party; which is important. I think Europe is making a big mistake. He is buying into the propaganda about who is responsible for the Gaza tragedy. Obviously it is Hamas. If Hamas had not taken billions of dollars to build its underground fortress, that money could have been used for economic development, for the citizens of Gaza, and yet they did not benefit from it at all. Absolutely it is barbaric and cynical the way Hamas is using the Palestinian people to protect itself, and that all this is done at the behest of Iran.

Q. Your tough stance towards Tehran is unwavering…

A. The Tehran regime is the main threat to peace and security in the Middle East and I think, unfortunately, that until that regime is gone and the Iranian people have the opportunity to take control of their own government, there will be no peace and security, because in the meantime it is using a network of terrorist groups. We don’t know what will happen in Lebanon with Hezbollah, but the Israelis live in fear of it. Hezbollah has a missile capacity that can overwhelm Israeli defenses if thousands of missiles are put into the air at once. No air defense system can withstand it. Israeli population centers are very vulnerable.

Q. Your support for Israel is tenacious, but is it also for Benjamin Netanyahu and the war he is waging?

A. Netanyahu has become strong within Israel and I believe that the vast majority of Israelis really want him to eliminate the terrorists. I support the right to self-defense, which includes eliminating your opponent, and Hamas is an opponent, Hezbollah is an opponent. People say, ‘Can’t the war in Gaza end?’ The answer is yes: Hamas could surrender.

Q. What role does China play for you in the complex geopolitical landscape? In Europe, for example, there is still a desire to maintain a bridge with Beijing.

A. Europe has become very dependent on the Chinese market. This is a significant
difference from the Cold War, when Russia had almost no economic connection with Europe or the United States. But the Chinese use this economic connection to in their own interest and people should take that into account. In the United States, companies are not making new capital investments in China. They are looking for alternatives. South Koreans are not investing their money in China either.

The place that is out of date is Europe. And that puts Europe at greater risk. It has also been difficult to convince European governments. Companies like ZTE and Huawei are a threat, and they are not just telecoms companies, they are arms of the Chinese state, designed to take over fifth- generation telecommunications so they can get all the information they want. This is unprecedented in history: using commercial companies in this way, as intelligence arms.

Q. Are we Europeans then naive?

A. Everyone has misjudged China. The US didn’t fully appreciate the threat from Huawei and ZTE until the Australians and New Zealanders sounded the alarm, explained it to us, and fortunately we realised they were right. We then went to the British and told them our whole intelligence-sharing relationship could be in jeopardy. They didn’t believe us, although they do now. Then we tried to talk to the Europeans, on the continent, where we’re having mixed success.

Q. And yet Europe must fear the Chinese connection with Russia…

A. Like South Koreans, the Japanese, and the Taiwanese… who are seeing that same connection between China and Russia.

Q. What do you think of the peace plan that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is about to present?

A. Zelensky hopes to demonstrate with his peace plan that Ukraine is flexible.
But he may be making a mistake in trying to be too reasonable, because Putin is not going to be.

Q. This week the United Nations General Assembly is being held in New York and you are the author of the famous phrase…

A: ‘if the UN headquarters in New York lost 10 floors today, no one would notice.’

Q. That’s it. Do you really think it’s not worth it? Will what is happening and discussed these days in New York mean anything?

A. The United Nations is a large and complex organization, and that is part of its problem. But several of its specialized agencies do very important work: the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Telecommunication Union, the International Maritime Organization,
the World Health Organization (WHO)… They all do a good job when they are not politicized, and in the case of the WHO, for example, we could see how Chinese influence and politicization affected them during Covid. The problem with the UN is that its political decision-making bodies are paralyzed and irrelevant. The General Assembly does almost nothing. And the Security Council is broken by vetoes from Russia and China. The real reason the UN was created was political. It was the answer to the failed League of Nations. It was supposed to stop World War III, but the fact that we haven’t had a World War III has had nothing to do with the United Nations. It’s had to do with the West prevailing in the Cold War. Now it’s going to stop World War III.

We are going to have… I don’t like to call it a second Cold War… it is a very different circumstance… it is a Sino-Russian axis that is a reality. So in the Security Council we are going to have the United Kingdom, France and the United States on one side, and China and Russia on the other.

Q. Let’s end with the future of the Republican Party to which you have dedicated so many years of work since you were in the Reagan Administration. What awaits the political party whether Donald Trump wins or loses?

R. A fight is going to break out in the Republican Party whether Trump wins or not. Let’s say he loses… As I said, Donald Trump has no philosophy, he doesn’t do politics, there is nothing he can pass on to his successors, apart from his style and his way of acting, which is a performing art. So there is no Trumpism. Because Trumpism is what he decides on a given day. After this fight, the Republican Party can return to a Ronald Reagan style, to that kind of party in a few years. If Trump wins, the fight will be greater, because he will be in the White House. But it must be remembered that Donald Trump will become a lame duck the very day he is sworn in, since he will not be able to run for president of the United States again. And that is a very different circumstance than the one he faced in his first term, where he had an eight-year runway.

Potentially, you now only have a fixed term of four years, which goes by very quickly.

This article was first published in El Mundo on September 24, 2024. Click here to read the original article.

Yet another Biden foreign policy failure

August 07, 2024

The Biden administration has again fallen victim to its own foreign policy, this time in Venezuela.

Entirely predictably, Nicolas Maduro’s illegitimate regime has stolen its second straight presidential election, propelled by White House concessions and naivete. As a result, the Venezuelan people remain under authoritarian rulers strongly backed by Russia, Cuba, China, and Iran. This is a U.S. failure by any measure.

Responding to Maduro’s first electoral larceny in 2018, Venezuela’s National Assembly, acting under the country’s constitution, declared the presidency vacant. The National Assembly then named Juan Guaido as acting president pending new elections. Some 60 countries, mostly in Europe and the Western Hemisphere, recognized Guaido’s government and its authority over Venezuelan state assets. Many imposed economic sanctions, particularly against PDVSA, the government-owned oil company, to pressure Maduro’s criminal regime into accepting this.

After extensive efforts to oust Maduro, opposition efforts failed in April 2019. Although he successfully reimposed authoritarian rule, the sanctions weakened Venezuela’s already-collapsing economy, forcing Maduro to rely increasingly on illegal drug trafficking for revenue.

Former President Donald Trump’s loss of interest in Venezuela thereafter meant that American policy drifted until his term ended. Unfortunately, and unavoidably, Maduro then proceeded to rig Venezuela’s 2020 parliamentary elections, which the opposition boycotted, giving Maduro’s supporters overwhelming control of the National Assembly.

President Joe Biden’s election brought a return of Obama-like policies toward Latin America, which downplayed Venezuela’s importance to the emerging Beijing-Moscow axis, or to Havana and Tehran.

Meanwhile, now fully in control of Venezuela’s governmental institutions, Maduro systematically dismantled opposition parties. He intimidated anti-regime political leaders ahead of the next presidential election, disqualifying candidates such as Maria Corina Machado, the opposition’s main leader.

Even as this repression was underway, the Biden administration made a deal with Maduro, weakening U.S. sanctions and making other concessions if Maduro committed to holding free and fair elections.

This agreement simply accelerated Maduro’s election-rigging, while simultaneously benefiting the regime through loosened sanctions.

After Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election, Maduro’s officials quickly declared him the winner. No one believed these assertions, not even Biden’s White House. Both the opposition and international observers believed Edmundo Gonzalez, the opposition candidate, had won a 2-1 majority.

Given Maduro’s long record of dishonesty, this was all tragically foreseen, except by the Biden administration. Distracted by his own political troubles, and with the international coalition against Maduro (particularly the Western Hemisphere’s Lima Group) in disarray, Biden had no strategy to respond.

However, led by Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Congress reacted quickly, and with strong bipartisan support, to recognize Gonzalez as Venezuela’s president-elect and reimpose U.S. sanctions.

The White House followed, declaring Gonzalez the winner and abandoning its initial feckless call on Maduro to make public the Venezuelan vote-tally sheets proving he had won.

Leftist regimes in Colombia, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico have so far waffled, not taking a public position on the outcome, and thereby providing Maduro oxygen. Reviving the Lima Group is now critical to show Western Hemisphere solidarity, but doing so requires urgent White House effort to get these important South American countries to recognize Gonzalez.

Without question, all previous American sanctions must be restored immediately, and more should be added.

Venezuela is the right place to start dramatically enhancing U.S. sanctions enforcement: in resolve, capabilities, and resources. Targets of sanctions don’t meekly accept their fate, but do everything possible to evade or mitigate sanctions’ effects. Accordingly, U.S. enforcement must be dynamic, evolving ahead of targets’ efforts to escape the economic bullseye.

The objective of U.S. and multilateral sanctions and other punitive steps against Maduro’s regime must have as their ultimate objective the defeat of “Chavismo” once and for all. Only by sweeping away Venezuela’s reigning ideology and returning government to its people will they have a meaningful chance to better their status, economically and politically, and reduce the heavy hand of foreign influence.

Although some observers believe Maduro has been weakened, there is no sign his masters in Moscow, Havanna, et al., have gotten the memo. Ensuring that they do should also be a U.S. diplomatic priority.

America failed the Venezuelan people once before. We must not do so again.

John Bolton served as national security adviser to then-President Donald Trump between 2018 and 2019. Between 2005 and 2006, he served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

This article was first published in the Washington Examiner on August 6, 2024. Click here to read the original article

Biden’s weakness is bringing war to South America

December 13, 2023

The Essequibo crisis is further evidence, if the world needed it, of why dethroning Nicolas Maduro is desirable

Is war about to erupt in South America? Last week, Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro took provocative steps toward forcibly annexing Essequibo, a region comprising almost three-quarters of neighbouring Guyana. “Experts” promptly downplayed the possibility of hostilities, but they may have spoken too soon.

Maduro’s pretext is a 19th-century dispute, once thought resolved, but periodically reopened by Venezuela. The real spark, however, is his regime’s ongoing collapse, financially crippled by decades of mismanaging Venezuela’s vast oil reserves; massive regime corruption; and repression of domestic political opposition. If Guyana’s huge offshore oil deposits, discovered in 2015, continue to be developed, Venezuela’s chance to rejuvenate its own oil industry drops to near-zero. Why deal with a failed state when Guyana, eager for foreign investment, offers a seemingly uncomplicated alternative?

Joe Biden’s 2024 electoral vulnerability is also key here. Just months ago, Maduro suckered Biden into lifting economic sanctions imposed after Maduro stole Venezuela’s 2018 presidential election. Desperate to lower US petrol prices, Biden effectively betrayed Venezuela’s democratic opposition. Maduro’s promise to hold free and fair elections lasted just weeks, disappearing once sanctions were removed, proving that only mad dogs and the Biden administration negotiate with him.

Biden’s fear that international crises will raise oil prices, and the perception that the Ukraine and Middle East wars are overwhelming Washington’s bandwidth, reinforce Maduro’s conclusion that now may be an ideal moment to strike. Inadequate US responses so far underscore the absence of a deterrent sufficient to dissuade even Venezuela’s dilapidated military from using force against much-smaller Guyana.

Ironically, Washington had a key role in the 1899 arbitration award Caracas now rejects. Faced with a boundary dispute between British Guyana and Venezuela, the US advocated arbitrating the competing claims.

Secretary of State Richard Olney cited the Monroe Doctrine, brushing back UK imperial ambitions: “Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition.” Although British colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain bridled at the Monroe Doctrine’s invocation, he agreed to arbitrate, declaring Britain and America were “more closely aligned in sentiment and in interest than any other nations on the face of the earth.”

During the ensuing proceedings, two US Supreme Court justices served as arbitrators, in effect representing Venezuela’s claims. The 1899 award should have ended the controversy, but Caracas has repeatedly rejected it, not seeing the Monroe Doctrine so benignly later. The Organization of American States, however, supports the award to this day.

The current Essequibo crisis did not arise overnight. As the extent of Guyana’s offshore oil resources became apparent, Venezuela’s worries grew, and provocations began. In 2018, Venezuelan navy vessels sought to land a military helicopter on one of three Exxon-chartered oil-exploration ships, contending they were in Venezuelan waters. The vessels, in fact in Guyanese waters, moved away from the sea border, effectively ending the incident, but Venezuela’s hostile intent was clear.

To bolster his current threats, Maduro staged a December 3 “referendum”, which endorsed annexing Essequibo. This vote was as rigged, and the outcome as predetermined, as every Venezuelan election in the past 20-plus years.

Maduro ordered the arrest of opposition figures immediately thereafter, and took further steps to advance his territorial claims, such as mobilising the army. He does not need to conquer all of Essequibo to achieve his objectives. Simply seizing key coastal territories could buttress Caracas’s claims to the offshore oil deposits, while occupying inland areas could give it control of extensive deposits of gold, copper, other minerals and possibly hydrocarbons. In either case, military action would intensify the crisis, and enhance Maduro’s bargaining position.

But the Essequibo crisis also poses risks to Maduro, and further evidence, if the world needed it, of why dethroning him is desirable. His opponents should use Maduro’s belligerent behaviour to generate additional pressure on his government, domestically and internationally, thereby opening new possibilities for Venezuela’s citizens then to do the rest.

This article was first published in The Telegraph on December 13, 2023. Click Here to read the original article.

Biden’s foolish reward for Venezuela

October 31, 2023

Venezuela today vividly represents the collapse of effective American foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere. Receiving unfortunately little attention, President Joe Biden’s misguided, dangerous efforts to lift economic sanctions against this oppressive regime will undermine Venezuela’s democratic opposition and entrench the criminal syndicate now in power.

The United States and a solid phalanx of Latin American and European countries issued sanctions, particularly on the international sale of petroleum and related products, following Nicolas Maduro’s successful effort to steal Venezuela’s 2018 presidential elections and many other measures to suppress dissent. As foreshadowed by earlier Biden attempts to negotiate a deal, any deal, with Caracas, the White House is now effectively abandoning even the pretense of supporting the opposition coalition and toppling the heirs of Hugo Chavez.

This article was first published in The Washington Examiner on October 31, 2023. Click Here to read the original article.

America can’t permit Chinese military expansion in Cuba

July 01, 2023

This article was first published in The Hill on July 1, 2023. Click Here to read the original article.

Important historical events often get lost in the daily shuffle. Only last week, news of China building a “military training” facility in Cuba came just a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s brief June 19 meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which was touted as having stabilized Washington-Beijing relations.

Then President Biden weighed in, opining that Xi had been unaware of Beijing’s spy balloon over the United States, which reflected “a great embarrassment for dictators: when they didn’t know what happened.”

China answered angrily that Biden’s remarks were “extremely absurd and irresponsible”; sent in its Washington ambassador to protest; and read America’s ambassador in Beijing the riot act. Biden himself then said, modestly, that his comments hadn’t had “any real consequence.” Just another episode of Biden inadvertently speaking the truth (although what Xi really knew about the balloon remains unclear).

Of course, an attempted paramilitary coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin is an attention-grabber on any day, but when it comes to China, planning a military facility on Cuba’s north coast is far more important than rhetorical exchanges and uneventful diplomatic visits.

Even before Russia’s drama erupted, coverage of China’s “training” base all but disappeared, lost beneath the most recent example of Biden musings contradicting declared U.S. policy. Originally published by the Wall Street Journal, the “military training” story followed its reporting on China opening a new espionage center in Cuba.

The Biden administration initially denied that story, but then reversed itself, saying the spying base emerged under Donald Trump, likely supported by Huawei and ZTE.

The potential of significant Chinese facilities in Cuba is a red-flag threat to America. After the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Washington relied on an “implicit understanding” (in Henry Kissinger’s words) with Moscow to reduce threats emanating from Cuba. Under this understanding, the USSR agreed not to place new offensive weapons or delivery systems in Cuba, and the U.S. agreed not to invade Cuba. Although severely tested by Soviet efforts to build a submarine base at Cienfuegos in 1970, the understanding has held. Moreover, in 2002, Russia closed its Lourdes intelligence base, greatly restricting its Cuban collection capabilities.

Between China and America, however, no such modus operandi has ever existed. Beijing made no commitment comparable to Moscow. Moreover, “military training” could well camouflage offensive weapons, delivery systems or other threatening capabilities.

For example, hypersonic cruise missiles, already harder to detect, track, and destroy than ballistic missiles, are natural candidates for installation in Cuba, a prospect we cannot tolerate, along with many other risks, like a Chinese submarine base. Beijing’s interests in Venezuela’s oil-and-gas assets, its support for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship, and its extensive mineral and other investments throughout Latin America could help make Cuba the center for China’s activities across the Hemisphere.

Beijing plainly deals with Havana as though it has no inhibitions. Neither should we. America should move immediately to thwart China’s intrusive ambitions. Revoking diplomatic relations with Cuba; increased economic sanctions against both China and Cuba; and far stricter implementation of existing sanctions, are required now. Although these steps have previously failed to overthrow Castro or his successors, prior measures were never backed, post-1962, by the possibility of using American force against the regime, assuming Moscow adhered to the “implicit understanding.” Moreover, the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion spooked U.S. officials, thereby ending significant planning for Cuban exile participation in regime-change efforts.

That was then. China’s intrusion into Cuba reflects a significant escalation in its hegemonic aspirations, equal to or graver than the 1960s Soviet presence. One thing is certain: We should not stand idly by. Had Presidents Eisenhower or Kennedy acted more forcefully and effectively against Castro, we might have avoided many perilous Cold War crises, sparing us decades of strategic concern, not to mention the repression of Cuba’s people.

As evidence grows that China is prepared to take full advantage of Cuba’s geographic proximity to America, we need to think again about whether and how to overthrow Havana’s post-Castro regime. With Beijing’s threat rising, we should not miss today’s moment without seriously reconsidering how to return this geographically critical island to its own people’s friendlier hands.

Both Havana and Beijing need to understand, without qualification, that they have no license to engage in behavior threatening the United States. We are bound by no commitment limiting our use of force. Just as Nixon properly blocked the Soviets at Cienfuegos, we should examine how to block construction of Chinese military facilities. Guantanamo Bay, for example, was never prepared as a staging ground for anti-Castro activities but remains fully available to us today.

Verbal sparring between Beijing and Washington, or even ominous developments in Russia, should not distract us from critical opportunities to preclude a rising Chinese threat centered in Cuba. If Biden won’t act, Republican candidates in 2024 should make China’s looming Cuba presence a major campaign issue.

Pay attention to Latin America and Africa before controversies erupt

January 02, 2018

This article appeared in The Hill on January 2, 2018. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
January 2, 2018

Latin America and Africa have rarely rated as top U.S. foreign policy priorities in recent years, but 2018 may change that. Political instability and the collapse of national governments, international terrorism and its associated financing, and great power competition for natural resources and political influence could all threaten significant American national security interests next year. If several simmering controversies erupt simultaneously, Washington could find itself facing these crises with little or no strategic thinking to guide our responses.

In the Western Hemisphere, Cuba as of now is scheduled on April 19 to see the end of official leadership by the Castro brothers. Since seizing power from Fulgencio Batista in 1959, Fidel and Raul have embodied global revolutionary Marxism, defying U.S. opposition and repressing domestic dissent without compunction. But while loath to admit it, the Castros were always sustained by external assistance, by the Soviet Union until its 1991 collapse in turn prompted a near-terminal regime crisis in Cuba, and more recently by Venezuela’s dictatorship.

Moreover, despite Barack Obama’s revealingly ideological effort to extend a lifeline by granting the Castro regime diplomatic recognition, economic conditions did not improve and domestic political repression only intensified. Even beyond Cuba’s open contempt for Obama’s concessions, however, 2017’s still unexplained sonic attacks on American diplomatic personnel crossed the line. Denied by Havana but hard to imagine without its connivance, these attacks concentrated the new Trump administration’s attention. In November, the White House rolled back many of Obama’s changes, serving notice that harming Americans was unacceptable.

Now, with Venezuela on the ropes, the revolutionary legitimacy of the Castros set to disappear, and U.S. pressure increasing, how long the regime survives is an open question. Whoever follows Raul Castro may well be Cuba’s version of Egon Krenz, East Germany’s last Communist ruler after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

One major unknown is whether Vladimir Putin will see a strategic opportunity to reassert Russian influence in the failed Marxist paradise, or in other hemispheric weak points. Both Nicaragua (where, incredibly, the Sandinistas remain in power) and Honduras (which President Trump is trying to rescue from misguided Obama policies) are possibilities. While tensions will not likely return to Cold War levels, when U.S.-Soviet crisis over Cuba came close to igniting nuclear war, Russian meddling in Latin America could inspire Trump to reassert the Monroe Doctrine (another casualty of the Obama years) and stand up for Cuba’s beleaguered people (as he is now for Iran’s).

Venezuela’s tragic decline, first under Hugo Chavez’s comic-opera regime and now under Nicolas Maduro, his dimwitted successor, accelerated in 2017. A country that once had near-European living standards has seen its petroleum industry collapse through corruption, criminal negligence and lack of investment, with devastating consequences.

Moreover, foreign penetration of Venezuela remains unprecedented. Maduro relies on Cuban military advisers, and Iran and others maneuver to retain access to the country’s extensive uranium reserves, using its banking system for extensive money laundering and other illicit transactions. Hezbollah, exploiting the long history of expatriate Middle Eastern trading networks in Latin America, remains a murky but continuing threat, and narcotics empires are taking advantage of the rising chaos to operate in both Columbia and Venezuela.

Fortunately, at least some countries, like Argentina and Chile, show signs of restabilizing and overcoming misguided economic policies. On the other hand, as Brazilians themselves say, “Brazil is the country of the future, and always will be.” While Washington continues debating Mexican border policy, broader hemispheric threats, essentially ignored during the Obama administration, continue to grow, as 2018 may prove to our dismay.

Africa, in 2017 and before, has been ravaged by spreading anarchy and Islamic terrorism. Somalia effectively disintegrated decades ago, southern Sudan’s bloody civil war continues (and Sudan’s Darfur massacres remain etched in our memory), Boko Haram has torn open the seam between Muslims in the Saharan and Christians and animists in sub-Saharan Africa, and destabilizing terrorists or warlord groups, often armed by collaborating with similar groups in the collapsed state of Libya, have rampaged across the continent. Of these, Boko Haram’s threat to Nigeria’s stability and unity is the most significant, especially given Nigeria’s substantial oil reserves.

While the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq was essentially destroyed in 2017, its leaders had exfiltrated over time, escaping to Africa, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Throughout northern Africa, therefore, ISIS and other terrorists could well become more visible next year as weak governments come under increased threat. France, for example, saved Mali from likely terrorist takeover in 2013, and more such threats could now emerge. Africom, the newest U.S. combatant command, faces its most extensive challenges and considerable attention to its counterterrorism efforts.

More broadly, Kenya saw internal political discord and external interference in 2017 that all but shattered confidence in national institutions. Similarly, South Africa’s African National Congress, which brought the country to independence and ruled it thereafter, nearly disintegrated in a just-concluded leadership contest to succeed President Jacob Zuma as the party’s head. On the other hand, successful elections in Liberia to succeed President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf mean that, for the first time in that nation’s history, there could be a peaceful transformation from one democratically elected leader to another. Moreover, Robert Mugabe’s fall in Zimbabwe was good news, although there is no guarantee the country will escape from his autocratic regime.

In both Latin America and Africa, China’s presence has grown significantly in recent decades, often through substantial foreign aid infrastructure projects or investments in natural resources, designed to feed China’s industrial production demands. Beijing’s competition with Washington has been largely one-sided, since we have long had wholly inadequate strategic understanding of the implications of China’s incursions, and no coherent response. Russia has been less involved in the race for natural resources, but its increased visibility, especially in our hemisphere, are part and parcel of Putin’s efforts to reassert Russia’s presence as in Cold War days.

In both of these critical regions, we need greater U.S. involvement, hopefully guided by more comprehensive thinking rather than ad hoc responses to erupting crises. This same advice could have been given for decades. Whether it will change in 2018 remains to be seen.

Securing America’s Interests In a Challenging World

Category: JRB_LatinAmerica