ABSTRACT
For the relationship between the United States (US) and Latin America, the Cold War was both a glue and a caustic: It served to bond the northern and southern parts of the hemisphere together, but it did so in a way that burned. Despite their protestations of concern for hemispheric solidarity, policymakers in Washington have not seemed to regard Latin America as very important since the 1920s. Losing a country to communism or even to Communist influence had large domestic political costs. And because of the potential repercussions in US domestic politics, the specter of communism haunting the hemisphere was credited with a potency far beyond its feeble accomplishments. For the Organization of American States (OAS) to do so would bring the organization squarely up against the problem of US exceptionalism. The end of the Cold War has significantly diminished the likelihood of any intervention by US armed forces elsewhere in the hemisphere for reasons of security or great-power rivalry.
