NICARAGUA: REVOLUTION IN THE FAMILY
Shirley Christian
Random House 1985
337 pp., Cloth
FSLN: THE IDEOLOGY OF THE SANDINISTAS AND THE NICARAGUAN REVOLUTION
David Nolan
The Institute of Inter-American Studies, University of Miami, 1984
203 pp., Paper
Nicaragua is one of seven countries in the world today where an anti-Communist resistance movement is waging guerrilla warfare against an avowedly Marxist government. In none of these countries are the insurgents on the verge of winning, but in nearly all of them the guerrilla forces are growing in size. The governments of Angola, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Cambodia would quickly go down to defeat were they not propped up by thousands of foreign troops from Cuba, the Soviet Union, or Vietnam. Similarly, Nicaragua's Sandinista government could not long remain in power without the $150 to $250 million worth of military assistance it receives each year from the Soviet bloc.
The geopolitical stakes in the conflict between Nicaragua's Marxist government and the so-called "contra" guerrillas are high--higher than most Americans realize. The Caribbean Basin, of which Nicaragua is a part, is a major supply artery of the U.S. economy. Over 40 percent of all foreign imports entering the U.S. pass through Caribbean waters, as does 50 percent of our imported oil. The Caribbean also forms the eastern approach to the Panama Canal, which enables our under-600-ship Navy to maintain a three-ocean presence. In addition, the region is an indispensable staging area for any U.S. defense of the South Atlantic sea lanes, which carry up to 25 percent of American and 60 percent of European petroleum important, as well as strategic minerals critical to Western defense industries. Most important, the Basin is a departure zone for more than half the men and material that our nation would send to Europe in the event of the Warsaw-Pact invasion. Our economic welfare and national security depend in no small measure, therefore, upon our being able to control the airways and sea lanes of this strategically vital region. Our capacity to exercise such control can, however, no longer be taken for granted.
Should war come, U.S. maritime traffic and naval operations in the Caribbean would be in danger of attack by Cuba's 200 MiG aircraft, three submarines, two frigates, and 50 fast patrol boats armed with missiles and torpedoes. Some of these forces could be used to strike cities and military bases in the American southeast, as could the numerous Soviet submarines, battleships, and aircraft that periodically deploy to Cuban ports and airfields. Were Nicaragua to become, like Cuba, a secure base for the projection of Communist military power, we would face an even greater threat to our security. Fortunately, two factors continue to obstruct Nicaragua's transformation into a soviet beachhead and forward base: the Sandinistas fear of U.S. military intervention, and the existence in Nicaragua of a large and growing insurgent movement.
At present, Nicaragua endangers U.S. interests chiefly by adding to the instability of an already turbulent and violence-prone region. The Sandinistas provide weapons, training, sanctuary,
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