Ecuador and the other South American countries are illustrative of how ‘honoured’ they are to lie next to the US.
Sure enough, the events that have just swept Ecuador can hardly compare with those unfolding in the Middle East or Ukraine. However, the ongoing tragedy in a far-flung state in South America is illustrative of the kind of misery a country can land in if it has the misfortune to be at the focal point of the US foreign interests. In a nutshell, shortly after the New Year a leader of one of local gangs escaped from prison. The breakout was followed by a cascade of rebellions and violence rocking the prison system that ended in civilian deaths and fatalities among the law enforcement.
Some of them were taken hostage by rampaging thugs as was lately the case with a local TV crew where the masked gunmen stormed the studio live on the air to rattle off their demands to the government. As of this writing, the criminals have captured a total of more than 130 people nationwide. President Daniel Noboa has declared a state of emergency followed by a curfew. The locals hunker down as the streets are being flooded by the troops. Russia’s Foreign Ministry along with its counterparts across the world cautions Russian nationals against travelling to Ecuador.
Sadly, such events are a common occurrence in large South American cities where street gangs are reigning supreme. Drug cartels are running their private armies, while governments are either paralysed or just deeply corrupt. The reason why the overpopulation of South American prisons is barely instrumental in restoring public order takes us down the socioeconomic rabbit hole. Countries from a vast region ranging from Argentina to Mexico have spent decades embroiled in frequent leadership changes, devastating economic policies, poverty and a huge income gap. That being said, the closer the country lies to the US, the worse its domestic plight, the higher its crime rate and the more intense the despair over future prospects.
All of the South American countries are more or less illustrative of what it takes to sit close to the US. It almost always spells trouble. Granted, there are outliers. Those include Cuba that has recently celebrated the 65th anniversary of the revolution, Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro and in part the region’s largest countries like Brazil whose sheer size prevents them from systemic stagnation and social quagmires. But it is precisely Cuba and Venezuela that are mostly being pressured by the Washington honchos on the diplomatic, economic and military fronts. The Americans are not okay with these countries calling their own shots instead of devolving into destitute banana republics pumping their resources and cheap workforce to the US. As for Brazil, the size of this state allows it to be independent in its foreign policy calls every once in a while. But both Brazil and Venezuela are struggling to get both the economic woes and spiralling crime rates under control.
Over the past eight decades the rest of the Latin American world has done literally nothing to try and reverse their dreary plight. Instead, they keep stepping on a rake time and again as they constantly rush to political extremes. A good example would be the recent win of Javier Milei, an anarcho-capitalistic candidate, in an Argentinian presidential election. He went so far as to propose substituting the national currency with the US dollar and abolishing the national bank. However, he has yet to put his money where his mouth is. Seeing as most of the botched reform packages initiated by the previous government were overseen by the World Bank and the IMF doling out one-size-fits-all liberal solutions, the voters went for an original pick. However, this originality, one is inclined to think, stemmed from the citizens’ devastation and the resulting blurred sense of responsibility for the country’s future. It echoes the Ukrainian election where people voted for a popular comedian whose policies ended up in the country’s plunge into a deadly conflict with Russia.
Mind you, some 70 to 80 years ago Argentina was a prosperous nation. Indeed, this overall livable country boasts a favourable climate along with a racially and religiously homogeneous society. Otherwise, it would not have drawn hordes of Nazi criminals in the wake of World War II. In the early 20th century Argentina was a top-10 economy and a major agricultural producer. Until 1926 its GDP per capita was higher than that of Austria, Italy, Japan or Spain. But ever since the Great Depression era of the late 1920s and the early 1930s, this large country has been enmeshed in unending economic struggles.
Other examples are similarly heart-rending, with Colombia and small Central American states standing out from the pack. Suffice it to say that most of those who are fleeing poverty and the impact of the climate change and are being repelled at the US–Mexico border hail from small countries such as Belize, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Most of the nameless mercenaries fighting and dying for the Ukrainian armed groups and all over the world represent Colombia. Importantly, they do not go to the battlefield because they are Russophobic or particularly thrill-seeking souls, as is the case with most European and American mercenaries. They are propelled by abject poverty that makes them want to perish for a bundle of cash. Colombia has literally turned into the US backyard, neglected and criminalised where the elites and their obsequious staff are separated from the rest of the people by barbed-wire fences. They symbolize a perfect societal model resulting from liberal economic tenets.
Part of the reason South American nations find themselves in a constant survival mode is their cultural background. Above all, it is marked by a historically large gap between the ruling class and the downtrodden. It is mostly true of the countries with a significant share of the Indigenous people of the Americas at the core of their population. The ruling elites around those places are almost entirely shaped by the descendants of Spanish colonisers with paltry later additions of Italians and Germans. However, it does not apply to Argentina where 97% of the population self-identify as the whites and a mere 2% belong to the conquered locals. This fact does not make it easier for them, though.
That is why a far more important systemic reason Latin American countries are struggling to address is rooted in geopolitics. They have been drawn into the US orbit and are only viewed as a resource base replenishing the imperialist economy. This tradition goes back two centuries as the Monroe Doctrine (1823) staunchly opposed Europe’s interference in the New World’s affairs. But international politics suggests that a ban someone’s interference inevitably leads to the total control exercised by the banning side. No wonder Nicholas J. Spykman, an illustrious US political scientist, claimed in his 1942 and 1943 articles that the countries lying south of the US were to be predominantly controlled by the Americans, the main tool being the management of the elites and the suppression of any leanings towards intellectually independent courses of action. As long as the US has the resources to proceed with this policy, South American nations will have a bleak future.