Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0074/00744.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 42KB | 663 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00744}
$Pretitle{233F}
$Title{Caribbean Commonwealth
Chapter 1A.   Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Rex A. Hudson}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{caribbean
states
united
grenada
military
security
region
british
britain
american}
$Date{1987}
$Log{St. Ann's Fort*0074401.scf
Figure 21.*0074402.scf
Point Salines Airfield*0074403.scf
}
Country:     Caribbean Commonwealth
Book:        Caribbean Commonwealth, An Area Study: Security Perspectives
Author:      Rex A. Hudson
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1987


Chapter 1A.   Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives

[See St. Ann's Fort: Barbados, built by the British in the early eighteenth
century.]

     Strategic and Regional security issues pertaining to the Commonwealth
Caribbean insular subregion need to be considered, to a certain extent, within
the wider context of the Caribbean Basin region. This geopolitical concept
encompasses all of the Caribbean island polities, as well as the rimland
countries of the United States, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras,
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, and Guyana.

     Of the Latin American rimland countries, only Venezuela, which exports
petroleum to the United States through the Caribbean and has 2,816 kilometers
of Caribbean coastline, has played an economic and diplomatic role of any
significance to the Commonwealth Caribbean since the late 1970s. Venezuela's
influence was most noticeable in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In general,
however, aside from its longstanding territorial dispute with Guyana,
Venezuela did not play an important security role in the Commonwealth
Caribbean as of late 1987. For this reason, it is not discussed in this
chapter. The only non-Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean Basin discussed
here in a geopolitical context are the United States and Cuba, whose strategic
or other interests have influenced the security of the English-speaking
islands. The strategic interests of two extrahemispheric powers--Britain and
the Soviet Union--also are examined for the same reason.

     The strategic aspects of the Commonwealth Caribbean islands largely
account for United States, Soviet, and Cuban interest in this subregion, as
well as in the Caribbean Basin area in general. The transition to independence
of the Commonwealth Caribbean islands during the period from the early 1960s
to the early 1980s was accompanied by a gradual withdrawal of Britain's
security and defense responsibilities. This situation created a strategic
vacuum in the subregion and made the islands more vulnerable to external
subversion. Since the 1960s, Cuba and the Soviet Union, in growing competition
with the United States, have attempted to fill this vacuum, albeit in an
incremental way in order to avoid provoking a United States response.

     As German submarines demonstrated during World War II, the geography of
the Caribbean Sea region is ideal for interdiction of the vital sea- lanes on
which much American and world trade depend. Efforts by the United States to
reinforce and resupply European allies in time of war also would be dependent
on these Caribbean lifelines. Cuba and the Soviet Union have developed the
military capabilities to interdict shipping on the Caribbean sea-lanes and
control vital "choke points" among the numerous passages and straits in the
region, as well as the Panama Canal. The Soviet Union and Cuba nearly gained a
foothold in Grenada in the early 1980s, but the landing on the island of
combined United States-Caribbean forces on October 25, 1983, dealt their
strategic plans for the Eastern Caribbean a major setback. The swift military
action by the United States, which contrasted markedly with Britain's
hesitation, enhanced United States influence in the Commonwealth Caribbean and
appeared to confirm regional perceptions that the United States was assuming
responsibilities once held by the British.

     For the Commonwealth Caribbean islands, regional security issues are of
much greater concern than strategic affairs. The English-speaking islands of
the Eastern Caribbean became increasingly interested in a regional security
arrangement following the 1979 coup in Grenada by Maurice Bishop's New Jewel
Movement (NJM), a self-described pro-Cuban Marxist-Leninist party, and several
incidents involving mercenary or other subversive activities in the region. In
October 1982, five Eastern Caribbean states--Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda,
Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines--signed a memorandum
of understanding creating a Regional Security System (RSS). Nevertheless, in
the late 1980s the English-speaking Caribbean remained a highly vulnerable
area guarded mainly by police. This subregion continued to have one of the
highest concentrations of pro-Western democratic governments in the world, and
it looked primarily to the United States, not Britain, for economic, military,
and other security assistance.

The Strategic Setting

[See Figure 21.: Caribbean Sea Lanes.]

     The proximity of the region to the United States and the many key
passages (choke points) and vital sea-lanes running through the Lesser
Antilles and Bahamian archipelago and through the Greater Antilles make the
Commonwealth Caribbean a strategically significant part of the world and thus
an arena of international power competition. Until a revolution brought Fidel
Castro to power in Cuba in 1959, the hegemony of the United States in the
Caribbean had been unchallenged since the late nineteenth century. In October
1962, the Soviet Union challenged that hegemony and threatened the United
States by attempting to install ballistic missiles in Cuba. Although the
United States forced the Soviet Union to withdraw its missiles, during the
1970s and 1980s the Soviets developed the island into a Soviet base and the
Cuban military into one of the most powerful in Latin America. Furthermore,
Soviet naval deployments to the Caribbean, which had been nonexistent until
1969, became an annual or semiannual event.

     Bounded by the Bahamas in the north and Barbados in the east, the
Caribbean is one vast natural chain commanding the trade routes running
between the Atlantic and Pacific and from north to south (see fig. 21).
Controlling both ends of this natural barrier would be a clear strategic
advantage. There are thirteen key sea-lanes in the Caribbean, eleven of which
lie between the smaller islands and are deep enough to be used by any ship
afloat. The relatively narrow passages in the Caribbean constitute choke
points through which merchant or naval shipping must pass in transiting to and
from North America's Gulf ports and the Atlantic Ocean. Should these passages
come under hostile control, sea traffic could be seriously impeded or blocked.

     In the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, a navigable area of more than
2,156,500 square kilometers, the 13 major high-density sea-lanes pass through
4 major choke points--the Yucatan Channel, Windward Passage, Old Bahamas
Channel, and Straits of Florida--all of which are vulnerable to Cuban
interdiction. The Straits of Florida, Mona Passage, Windward Passage, and
Yucatan Channel are the main gateways for vessels entering or leaving the
Caribbean, and the Straits of Florida provide the only open-sea connection for
the Gulf of Mexico. Tankers entering the Caribbean from the Persian Gulf and
West Africa mainly use three passages: Galleons Passage, Old Bahamas Channel,
and Providence Channel. There are a number of lesser passages as well.

     Once the United States became the dominant power in the Caribbean, it
began taking the region for granted as its "backyard" or the "American
Mediterranean." Consequently, the United States often underestimated the
region and rarely accorded it priority in its foreign and security policies.

     After the Grenada intervention in late October 1983, the United States
began significantly increasing assistance to RSS member states