Outlooks Come Up Short

The United States wished to have a good relationship with its southern countries. After World War II the United States and Latin America formed an anti-communist alliance called National Security Doctrine. This doctrine upheld that Latin America would have permanent United States military aid for Latin American armies, and training at the United States military’s School of the America’s. There they taught the armies counterinsurgency, where it would later bite them back.

This all began with the dictatorship in Cuba, but not only there but also in other countries in Latin America, such as Guatemala. The United States began to interfere trying to help countries such as Cuba, but later on have it turned into dictatorship. Also Chile had the largest amount of communism, but that didn’t really inspire the Latin American countries low economic development. The war did.

 That’s how the alliances began, because of the Cuban Revolution. The reality was not the takeover of communism, but the cry for help for those in poverty, hunger that lacked health and education. It was to prevent communism from happening like it had already happened in places such as China. The most in need were desperate for help and with the United Stated taking in Latin America but with no true government and no true leaders the Alliance for Progress was bound for disaster.

The National Security Doctrine covered that the United States will take care of any outside invaders of communism, while Latin America would seize “the internal enemies of freedom”. This gave the Latin American armies a lot more power in their own countries. The alliance was in the Latin American armies officials favor which they received power and end up becoming juntas.

Before the Latin American army officials take over, the United States president, John F. Kennedy wants to interfere and try to put an end to communism and actually help Latin American countries. Kennedy makes the plan called Alliance for Progress this program was to help all Latin America because of the shortage of the help that the United States has given them, so the United States was going to fund money Latin America to help aid even more than what the National Security Doctrine wasn't doing.

What ended up happening was that the army officials instead of funding the money received through the United States they were keeping it to themselves and not the way the Alliance of Progress should have been distributed. Now with the army generals and military officials in power they let go of the Alliance of Progress and took matters into their own hands.

With the United States out of the way the Latin American militaries did their duty as what National Security Doctrine, but with no one in power they began to capture guerrillas and even torture them to see where they were hiding and then break their code of secret. “United States called for democracy but helped trigger dictatorship.” This evoked the bureaucratic authoritarianism that gave the political power the military, and had taken over South America.

Argentine mothers protesting the disappearance of their children by the military dictatorship – December 1979 
Associated Press, Frankfurt/ Main 
Stepan, Photos that Changed the World, p. 147
http://www.csupomona.edu/~jmvadi/454/The%20Cold%20War.html
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/kennedy-proposes-alliance-for-progress
http://www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/03_The-World-since-1900/12_The-Uncertain-70s/12d_Europe+the-Third-World.htm