ABSTRACT

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book begins with the premise that Central America's domestic and external reality cannot truly be understood without situating it within the subregional context. Central America has experienced the alterations in its external environment more deeply and intensely than any other area of Latin America, and it is perhaps the region that has been least able to adjust or adapt to them. From the longest side of the triangle, the United States commenced a new cycle of activism in the region toward the late 1970s, with the implementation of an unconventional strategy to contain the social change promised by the triumph of the Sandinista revolution. The high concentration of Mexico's and Central America's foreign relations with the United States partly explains why mutual Mexican-Central American relations have been marginal for both parties when conditions in the region have been normal or relatively stable.