THE 1965 US INTERVENTION IN SANTO DOMINGO: LESSONS FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW
By Abraham F. Lowenthal
US military intervention in today’s world
Today’s world and the current US international role in it now very different from what they were in 1965. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union ended as did the brief period of unipolar US leadership and international affairs have changed in many respects that make for a more turbulent, volatile, complicated and unpredictable world. Global production chains, instant financial transactions, vastly expanded communications, international professional networks and those of nongovernmental organizations, integrated labor markets, travel-borne diseases, transnational crime and corruption, and many other phenomena render problematic familiar concepts of borders and of national sovereignty and clear demarcations of power and influence. Power of various kinds is changing its nature, venue, and efficacy with new distributions of both “hard” and “soft” power. Organized crime on a major national and international basis has also become a complex and very important part of the mix.
A segment of influential US opinion calls today for protecting and strengthening US sovereignty to “Make America Great Again,” and similar nationalist tendencies have counterparts in Mexico, Canada, Central America, and the Caribbean basin, as well as in several South American countries. In these and in many other countries around the world, significant numbers of power holders and plain citizens want to protect their country’s sovereignty and their own interests against what they perceive as the dangers of US and/or Chinese imposition.
Relations between the United States and the proximate countries and territories of its “near abroad” are much more intertwined and unpredictable than they were in the 20th century. There is a great difference between US relations with these nearby countries and territories and those with the rest of the world. These evident but usually undiscussed realities need to be recognized as important aspects of reshaping US foreign policy and international relations in a turbulent world and time.
People, goods, money, crime, and ideas flow back and forth across formal boundaries, no matter how many border agents, new technologies, and harsh rhetoric the US government chooses to employ. The demographic and economic realities of the United States and its closest neighbors have also changed dramatically. More than 60% of Mexicans have relatives in the United States, where nearly a fifth of Mexico’s employed workers have their jobs. Considerably more than half a million US retirees, a million by some estimates, live in Mexico. Many US residents travel to Mexico for vacations, health care, and other experiences.
Of those people born during the last 60 years in the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America, more than 15% of those alive today reside in the United States. In Mexico, remittances from the diaspora have fluctuated but amount in many recent years to more than $25 billion a year. In Central America, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and several other Caribbean islands, remittances add up to more than foreign investment and international economic assistance combined.
Campaign contributions and votes from migrant diasporas are crucially important in home-country politics, and the votes of naturalized immigrants play an ever more important role in US elections. Juvenile gangs and criminal leaders, socialized on US streets and in US jails, are active in the United States and also in their countries of origin, often after being deported from the United States. Immigrant gangs contribute to violence in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Minneapolis and elsewhere in the United States, and also in Mexico, El Salvador, Haiti, Venezuela, and other countries. Historic notions of “sovereignty” and unilateral measures mean much less than they used to in such circumstances, even if they are still vociferously articulated on both sides of porous borders.
The issues that flow directly from the growing mutual interpenetration between the United States, Mexico, and its other close neighbors—human, drug and arms trafficking; irregular immigration; environmental decay, public health, medical tourism and portable health and pension benefits; natural disasters, law enforcement and border management—pose particularly complex challenges for designing and implementing policies, both in the United States and in its closest neighbors.
These “intermestic” issues, combining international and domestic facets, are difficult to handle because democratic political processes push policies, both in the United States and in the neighboring countries, in directions that are often diametrically opposed. It is therefore difficult to secure the intimate and sustained international cooperation that would be required to effectively manage problems that transcend borders. This challenge is greatest in those countries—Guatemala, Honduras, and Haiti in particular—with very weak state capacity. But the fact is that intimate and sustained cooperation across frontiers is vitally necessary for the populations on both sides, more so every year, despite changing political currents and demagogic appeals. The initial steps and harsh rhetoric of the second Trump administration have further complicated relations and made cooperation much more difficult, even where the case for cooperation is strong or even becoming self-evident.
Attentive public opinion is beginning to recognize these realities, which are affecting political tendencies, broad public opinion, and legislative-executive relations, as well as relations between the executive branch and the courts. If, when, and as that happens, bipartisan cooperation on a responsible, comprehensive, and balanced US immigration reform might finally become possible, after a period of extremely dysfunctional US policymaking on migration and constant friction between the United States and most of its closest neighbors. Decision-makers and opinion shapers in the United States, Mexico, and several of the other Caribbean basin nations and the countries of the northern tier of South America may well come to recognize the appeal and indeed the urgency of working out viable arrangements for the broad agenda of intermestic issues. Such reforms might help change shared and worsening problems into opportunities for sustained cooperation that could improve conditions throughout the near abroad as well as within the United States.
In a period of international uncertainties, domestic polarization, and changing international alignments, the United States would be well-advised to consider far-sighted policies aimed at reshaping relations with its closest neighbors to take account of many shared interests, many points of friction, and the need for well-crafted and effectively implemented measures to resolve conflicts and build synergy. It is high time to challenge encrusted mindsets and clichés, overcome myopic attitudes, resist misplaced nostalgia, and think creatively about the future in order to deal more successfully with the pervasive interdependence among the countries of the near abroad and those of North America. Sixty years after the Dominican intervention of 1965 is certainly not too soon to start thinking and acting in this spirit.
Continue reading the full article HERE.
Abraham F. Lowenthal, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California, was founding director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Latin American Program, the Inter-American Dialogue, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He resided in the Dominican Republic from 1964 to 1966, and wrote The Dominican Intervention (Harvard University Press, 1972, republished with a new introduction by Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.
