Shanghai University of Finance and Economics(SUFE) &
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences(CASS)
Intl. Seminar 28.9.13
By Dr.Alfredo JALIFE-RAHME
Reflections on a Necessary Transition Program for a Participatory Democracy in LatinAmerica.
The Misnomer of “LatinAmerica” and The New Geoestrategic G-3 World Order.
Since its modern inception the so called LatinAmerica never has experienced the present trends towards a more participatory democracy due greatly to the new geostrategic world equilibrium which has been developing and that, see in my humble visión, buy accommodates a G-3 de facto between US, generic Russia and China.
This G-3 with its respective regional spheres of influence has become clearer as a result of the virtual conflict resolution to the syrian crisis.
The big picture of the new geostrategic G-3 order reflects the defining movements and moments coming from the G-7/NATO directed by the US and also from the BRICS and the Shanghai Group where overlap the respective interests from Russia and China.
The former “LatinAmerica” is amisnomer and is no more correct due to the recent geopolitical positionings,even before de virtual conflicto syrian resolution,where collide the new frameworks of “NorthAmerica”,advanced by legislators and policy makers from USA,and the reactive concept of “SouthAmerica” coined by the the geostrategists from Brazil,a conspicous member from the BRICS.
Implicitly,”CentralAmerica” belongs to the concept of “NorthAmerica”,the modern US matrix,as a subdivision where the national interests of Washington prevail at the the Gulf of Mexico—intended to be rebaptized as the “Gulf of America”—and the Caribbean Sea:the so called “Mediterranean American Sea” which totals an area of 4.2 kms2.
Graphics: NorthAmerica,Gulf of Mexico,Gulf of America,Caribbean Sea,and the Mediterranean American Sea.
Geoeconomics and defense national security are also colliding within the former “LatinAmerica” between the MERCOSUR/UNASUR—the economic and political integration—in front of the broader Trans-Pacific Partnership ,contemplated to contain China as a the pivot of the Obama´s doctrine,and its narrower regional application:The Pacific Alliance —“Alianza del Pacífico”—Chile,Peru,Colombia and Mexico).
Since the death of president Hugo Chavez from Venezuela,the block ALBA has entered a new phase which its natural road would to pertain in the near future to MERCOSUR.
Some school of geopolitical thinking within the US define its “source of power” and the last frontier of US in the hemisphere:tha Amazon as a divide between north and south and the Greater Caribbean :from Yorktown at the mid North Atlancic american ocean,to the Guainias.
I quote the american-israeli geopolitician Robert Kaplan from Stratfor(18.61.2):
“American geopolitical power historically has its source not in Europe or Asia but in the Greater Caribbean. The Greater Caribbean is the world from Yorktown to the Guianas; that is, from the mid-Atlantic states to the jungles of northern South America. The Western Hemisphere, as the Dutch-American strategist Nicholas J. Spykman explained in 1942, is not divided between North and South America. It is divided between the latitudes north of the great barrier of the Amazonian jungle and the latitudes south of it. In other words, from a geopolitical point of view, Venezuela is not a South American country at all. It is a Caribbean country: Most of its population of 28.8 million lives in the north along the Caribbean Sea, secure from the jungles to the south”.
Through the Greater Caribbean concept does the Pentagon pretend to recover what it lost in the past decade in the former “LatinAmerica”?
Washington has made some movements,overtly or behind the scenes,in Haití, Honduras and Paraguay.
On the brazilean side its geestrategist developed a New Strategic Vision, written in the National Defense Strategy(2008),with its three pillars:nuclear,spatial and cybernetic with its two basic areas South Atlantic and the Amazon.
SouthaAmerica in the brazilean optic is quite distinct from CentralAmerica and the Caribbean “closer to US” or its “security perimeter” or the “American Mediterranean Sea” as coined by Alfred Mahan.
The participatory democracy more vigorously entrenched in SouthAmerica seems to evolve convenientently in spite of authoritarian reactions promoted by US from Venezuela to Paraguay. Honduras coup:the antecesor of the Egyptian model.
The reaction from presidents of Southmerica has been unthinkable were it not because of its particpatory democracy and the new G-3 balance in the world
The scandals and leakages from Wikileaks and Snowden affected considerably the image of the US and had repercussions in SouthAmerica at the extent point thst
.If the american Snowden is exiled in Russia ,the australian Assange is exiled at the Ecuador embassy.Its symbolism is enormous.
Dilma Roussef the brazilean president has lambasted at the Assembly General of the United Nations the espionage and blatant intrusión from the NSA which captured strategic data from Petrobras,its presidencny and the army. The damage to the relationshipp with US is huge and Dilma cancelled its programmed visit to the uS.
This vigorous response would not have been posible without de support of the whole brazilean society.
Morover:Brazil is now behind the creation o f new internet cable form tyhe BRICS in order tu cut ist dependency on the US.centric internet.The world is changing dramatically in accordance.
