ABSTRACT
The Ronald Reagan Administration's charge by 1982 that Nicaragua had begun an unprovoked, offensive military build-up, and, its claim that the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) purposely sought to establish exclusive military links to the Soviet bloc obscured important regional political realities in the 1979 to 1982 period. After 1980, the Reagan Administration's language of urgency and crises in Central America, together with its escalating involvement in destabilization efforts, sparked an escalation in Nicaraguan military preparedness that continued through the mid-1980s. A brief comparison of regional military systems puts Nicaraguan military capacity into perspective. Stressing popular mobilization for the defense of the revolution, the FSLN sought to eliminate inordinate US influence over Nicaragua's security apparatus and nationalize defense institutions. Defense thus came to be the responsibility of every Nicaraguan, just as it demanded the bulk of Nicaragua's political end physical energies after 1983.
