ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Mikhail Gorbachev's inheritance in Latin America regarding Soviet-United States (US) cooperation and conflict, new thinking for conflict management south of the Rio Grande and prospects for future Russian-US cooperation. New initiatives have been pursued elsewhere in the Caribbean and Central American regions. Such instability has not been caused by Soviet or Cuban activities, but arises from local and regional conditions. Cuba has been a key regional element contributing to Soviet-US conflict in the Third World. Soviet policy assumptions and behavior form another set of factors contributing to the adversarial character of Soviet-US relations before Gorbachev. Soviet writers, to be certain, endorsed violent change—an exception to their general line—during the early 1980s, using the Sandinistas as their model, but by the mid-1980s were again focusing on peaceful change. Moscow could claim numerous successes in its Latin American policies by the time Gorbachev assumed power.
