Posted on 03/30/2006 12:57:03 PM PST by texas_mrs
According to columnists George Friedman and Carlos Alberto Montaner, the US answer to the headline question is Yes. Venezuela is irrelevant because all it produces is oil and verbal abuse, the first of which can be purchased elsewhere at market prices, and the second of which is nonsensical. And Latin America is irrelevant because it produces commodities in obsolescent resource-extraction economies that add little value, new technology or innovation to the global market.
During the Cold War, communism was relevant because the threat of the Soviet Union was relevant and thus the Alliance for Progress, Cuba, El Salvador and Nicaragua were relevant. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the political rant of Castro, Chavez and Morales is irrelevant, the movement to the left in Latin America is irrelevant, and the Latin extractive economies continue to be irrelevant. What's relevant in today's world is research, technology, huge markets, nuclear weapons, and terrorism. India and China are relevant on all those counts. Europe, Russia, Japan and the Middle East are relevant on one or more of those counts. And Africa and Latin America are irrelevant on all of those counts.
This analysis has merits and flaws. It starkly explains the US neglect of its "back yard" as a kind of junk yard that is sealed off from memory. It explains why the Washington Consensus development strategies have failed, and why the US has not applied its know-how to the scabrous problem of Latin poverty. And it explains why the US ignores the idiotic provocations coming from Latin populists as simply not worth the time of day.
But the flaws in the analysis are obvious. Immigration is a war where people are the bullets no fence can stop from penetration, and 100 million Latinos live on less than $2 per day. Demographically, while the US is getting older and richer, Latin America is getting younger and poorer. Terrorism, nuclear weapons and asymmetric warfare have no address, and draw recruits from discontent. The politics of rage may be seen by the US as a Latin leap into the abyss that is irrelevant. But it doesn't take much imagination to envision the diseases of the back yard finding their way into the kitchen.
Depends on who you talk to....
Next question?
Yes. The only country south of us that is of any importance what-so-ever is Chile. And they aren't that important
Wait until China has substantial footholds in all of these countries. Then we'll see how insubstantial they are...
Ya forgot the Dominican Republic, the Baseball Star Factory!
Very true. My bad.
--I believe it was Henry Kissinger who decribed it as a "dagger pointed at Antarctica"--
Well, Argentinian vintners aren't irrelevant. I like Malbec.
--I also once saw James Mitchener quoted as sayiing that "South America is a second rate continent populated by third-rate people"--can anybody out here confirm that or point me to a quote source?
It's not irrelevant to where my cup of coffee comes from.
Paraguay is pretty important.
Brazil and Chile are certainly not irelevant. Brazil might overtake France as a power one day. Imagine the ignomy of that event.
pretty much like africa for centuries, yes.
There is China, and a resurgent Russia/CIS to worry about.
And a Resurgent Russia. China and Russia are allies and are jointly taking stakes in Latin America.
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