ABSTRACT
The Sandinistas enjoyed a number of political assets at the time of their victory, but their power was not limitless. The new armed forces were explicitly Sandinista—that is, revolutionary and popularly oriented. Though not pleased with the Sandinista victory, the Carter administration had decided to make the best of it, offering economic aid with strings attached in the hopes of manipulating the Sandinistas in a direction acceptable to conservative Washington. The economic problems facing the Sandinista government during the first half decade were awesome. The Somozas and their accomplices had left Nicaragua with a $1.6 billion foreign debt and another $500 million in war damage. Clearly the intervening variable was the Contra War, the effects of which really began to hit home late in 1982. By 1989, with the Contra War ostensibly over, the Soviet Union had ceased arms shipments to Nicaragua.
