The Quito Cables: How the U.S. Projects Power Abroad
Recently, the U.S. has been doing its utmost to steer political change in the Middle East, an area of key strategic importance to Washington. However, judging from U.S. cables declassified by the whistle-blowing outfit WikiLeaks, diplomats are also very much on top of events in Latin America, even when it comes to small and relatively non-influential countries. Take, for example, Ecuador, a poverty-stricken nation in the Andean region wracked by chronic debt and political instability.
Despite its low geopolitical profile, American diplomats in the Bush era sought to keep Ecuador very much within the political fold. Fearing ideological contagion from nearby Venezuela and a spillover domino-like effect, the U.S. Embassy in Quito did its utmost to maintain its political grip on the Andean country. WikiLeaks cables, however, reveal the utter futility of such a strategy and the negative and ultimately distorting effects that such long-term interventionist policies can have upon poor nations.
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This analysis was prepared by COHA Senior Research Fellow Nikolas Kozloff
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