ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the most important aspect of the United States' (US) military aggression against Nicaragua and its most destructive policy effort--the organization and support of the contras. The president's economic and military policy toward Nicaragua took the form of low-intensity attrition warfare. Meanwhile the administration waited for Congressional opinion to change -- i.e., toward supporting more direct moves against Nicaragua -- or, for the Sandinista government to be weakened to the point of collapse by the US' low-intensity attrition campaign. US military strategy in Central America in the 1980s reflected the US' renewed commitment to military expansion and increased capacities for US military presence in the Third World generally. US economic policy against Nicaragua was coherent rather than ad hoc; it followed a wider strategy of economic aggression that the US had earlier developed as a tool of its foreign policy.
