ABSTRACT
In 1933, exhausted by the costly Nicaraguan intervention, the United States withdrew its marines and swam to the rim of the whirlpool. It remained there, focusing on other matters for forty-five years, when it was dragged in again. The nations of South America are generally larger, more stable, and more integrated than those in the Caribbean Basin. Besides proximity, the United States is tied to the Caribbean Basin in a new way. The region has been the largest source of legal and illegal immigration since the Immigration Act of 1965. No country in Latin America has the capacity to threaten the United States directly, but it is precisely those countries that are its smallest, poorest, and least stable that are the most tempting targets for US adversaries. National security managers have remained alert to the possibility that an unfriendly neighbour might seek to defend itself by providing a base or a platform for a hostile rival of the United States.
