Soviet Aims in Central America: The Case of Nicaragua

(Hardback)

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Using Nicaragua as a case study, this book demonstrates how Soviet foreign policy has been the instrument for projecting Moscow's power and influence in a region that has been in the US sphere of influences since 1898. "Soviet Aims in Central America" lays down the facts about the Soviets' drive since the 1950s to undermine US influence in Central America by fuelling guerrilla wars. The author examines key Sandinista, Castroite and Guatemalan Communist documents and reveals how Soviet military power is being used by the Sandinistas and their Cuban allies to consolidate power, threaten Nicaragua's neighbours and ultimately revolutionize all of Central America. This, Sand claims, threatens the future of the United States itself. The foreword describes the threat to US security by Soviet satellization of Central American countries. Sand begins the book with a review of Soviet aims and strategies in the Americas. He offers a history of the Sandinista movement as well as of Soviet foreign policy toward Nicaragua. Further chapters explore the Sandinistas' record with regard to human rights and the current civil war in Nicaragua. Sand's reading of Central American Communist documents reveals Soviet aims for the region. Finally, the book offers a possible strategy for averting Moscow's incursion into the United States' sphere of influence.

Reviews

From the viewpoint of contemporary events, Soviet Aims in Central America appears somewhat dated. What with glasnost, perestroika, and Cold War funeral ovations, the East-West struggle has been moved to the back burner. Yet Castro's Cuba has shown little interest in changing its ideological bearing and, therefore, remains a threat to the American republics. Furthermore, the longevity of glasnost remains in question. Dr. Sand's book is challenging, controversial, and easy to read (only seventy-four pages of narrative) with an introduction by Dr. Lewis A. Tambs, former U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica. Supplementary materials include six maps of Nicaragua and the surrounding area, a draft of the Sandinista '1988 Strategy, ' notes, a bibliographical essay, and an index.-South Eastern Latin Americanist
Sand begins by pointing out that there is no mistaking Moscow's hostile aims in those areas of the Third World where a small military and economic investment produces problems for the West. Fortunately, he then goes on to make this point without the conspiratorial obsessions and superficial analyses into which some anti-communist authors fall. . . . Sand points out the importance of the response or lack of response offered by democratic or other noncommunist societies. He makes the interesting argument that the outcomes of revolutionary insurgencies depend to a large extent on the mistakes made by noncommunist governments, and cites as an instance those of the Carter administration and the Mexican government in dealing with the Sandanistas. Nor does the author underestimate the potential of relatively smaller communist states, such as Nicaragua under the Sandinastas, to contribute to the threat against their immediate neighbors.-ORBIS
Soviet Aims in Central America is educational and revealing, well-documented. It deserves a place in our schools and universities, and should be of particular interest to students of political science and scholars and researchers on Latin America.-The Virginian Pilot and the Ledger-Star
This provocative analysis sees an unprecedented threat to U.S. security in the Soviet attempt to make Central American countries into Soviet satellites. The author examines Sandanista, Cuban, and Guatemalan documents that reveal Soviet aims in the region, and he concludes that the USSR interest in the region is clearly strategic. He recommends a five-point program to counter Soviet strategy by promoting: defense, democracy, development, demilitarization, and departure of "foreign" (i.e., non-hemispheric) forces.-Booknotes
"From the viewpoint of contemporary events, Soviet Aims in Central America appears somewhat dated. What with glasnost, perestroika, and Cold War funeral ovations, the East-West struggle has been moved to the back burner. Yet Castro's Cuba has shown little interest in changing its ideological bearing and, therefore, remains a threat to the American republics. Furthermore, the longevity of glasnost remains in question. Dr. Sand's book is challenging, controversial, and easy to read (only seventy-four pages of narrative) with an introduction by Dr. Lewis A. Tambs, former U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica. Supplementary materials include six maps of Nicaragua and the surrounding area, a draft of the Sandinista '1988 Strategy, ' notes, a bibliographical essay, and an index."-South Eastern Latin Americanist
"Soviet Aims in Central America is educational and revealing, well-documented. It deserves a place in our schools and universities, and should be of particular interest to students of political science and scholars and researchers on Latin America."-The Virginian Pilot and the Ledger-Star
"This provocative analysis sees an unprecedented threat to U.S. security in the Soviet attempt to make Central American countries into Soviet satellites. The author examines Sandanista, Cuban, and Guatemalan documents that reveal Soviet aims in the region, and he concludes that the USSR interest in the region is clearly strategic. He recommends a five-point program to counter Soviet strategy by promoting: defense, democracy, development, demilitarization, and departure of "foreign" (i.e., non-hemispheric) forces."-Booknotes
"Sand begins by pointing out that there is no mistaking Moscow's hostile aims in those areas of the Third World where a small military and economic investment produces problems for the West. Fortunately, he then goes on to make this point without the conspiratorial obsessions and superficial analyses into which some anti-communist authors fall. . . . Sand points out the importance of the response or lack of response offered by democratic or other noncommunist societies. He makes the interesting argument that the outcomes of revolutionary insurgencies depend to a large extent on the mistakes made by noncommunist governments, and cites as an instance those of the Carter administration and the Mexican government in dealing with the Sandanistas. Nor does the author underestimate the potential of relatively smaller communist states, such as Nicaragua under the Sandinastas, to contribute to the threat against their immediate neighbors."-ORBIS

Author Bio

GREGORY WILLIAM SAND is Adjunct Professor of International Relations in the Master of the Arts Program in International Relations at Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri. In addition to researching a companion volume to Soviet Aims in Central America, on the crisis in U.S. foreign policy in the Caribbean and Central America, Dr. Sand is the recipient of a Research Grant from the Harry S. Truman Library Institute to complete research for a book on Truman's post-Presidential years, 1953-1972.