In her regular Washington Post column Katrina van den Heuvel makes a point I have raised around here. After noting the U. S. treatment of Cuba over the period of the last 60 years she observes:
Cuba is not alone. The United States has imposed harsh sanctions on Venezuela and Nicaragua for sustaining regimes Washington opposes. Even the recent sanctions on Russia, says Juan Sebastian Gonzalez, the senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council, are designed such “that they will have an impact on those governments that have economic affiliations with Russia … So Venezuela will start feeling the pressure; Nicaragua will start feeling the pressure; as will Cuba.â€
At the same time, the national security establishment is raising alarms about growing Chinese involvement in the Western Hemisphere. China is now Latin America’s leading trade partner, as well as a leading source of direct investment and financing. Interested in security access to commodity exports, China assisted the region after the 2008 financial crisis, with investments that generated jobs and helped decrease poverty in the region. During the pandemic, the Chinese rushed vaccines (of questionable effectiveness, it should be noted) into the region and provided continued demand for products.
concluding:
Hypocrisy is common in international relations. The Russians and Chinese, for example, constantly invoke international law, even as they trample it when they deem it necessary. The United States champions a “rules-based order,†in which we make the rules and hold ourselves exempt from them when desirable. The “principle†of respecting nations and their right to choose their own path is a good one. The countries of our own hemisphere wish we would practice it as well as preach it.
In other words we believe in “spheres of influence” when they’re our own. There are two intellectually consistent points of view. One of them is to accept spheres of influences as facts of life. The other is to reject the notion of spheres of influence including our own. That’s my preference and it’s usually castigated as isolationism. Or we could continue on as we have. Hypocrisy, too, is a fact of life.
Its a thorny issue. True isolationism will result in the neighborhood bully doing as it pleases, ultimately affecting our interests, and perhaps too late for us to effectively respond.
On the other hand, our track record of exhibiting model behavior in our chosen spheres leaves, um, room for improvement.
People often use extreme examples to argue the point. (Leave Iraq alone; leave Ukraine alone etc), but that’s poor analysis and simply states the obvious. Things get less clear in central and south America. Or any region holding strategic interests.