By JOSÉ LUÍS FIORI*
South America today presents itself without unity and without any type of common strategic objective capable of strengthening its small countries and guiding collective insertion within the new world order.
1.
Two events that occurred in August, in a span of just ten days, could become landmark dates in the future history of South America. One was more publicized and discussed; the other was more discreet and silent.
The first was the ratification, on the 22nd, by the Venezuelan Superior Court of Justice, of Nicolás Maduro's victory in the presidential election of July 28, 2024, and his confirmation, therefore, as president-elect of Venezuela. A decision that was contested by the main opposition candidate and the United States, and ten other Latin American countries, but was recognized by China, Russia and some other countries on the continent itself.
This decision ends the domestic legal process of contesting the election results, and therefore there is no way to change or reverse them, except through an act of force or external intervention. Nicolás Maduro appears to have a very solid internal support system, and an external intervention would not have the support of Brazil and Colombia. Therefore, it is most likely that Nicolás Maduro will be the president of Venezuela between 2025 and 2031.
As a consequence, what can be expected is that the United States will intensify its economic siege and increase the siege, boycott, and economic sanctions that it has been imposing on Venezuela since the coup d'état of April 11, 2002, against President Hugo Chávez, which failed despite having the support of the North Americans.
The second event we refer to was the meeting of the South American Defense Conference, or SOUTHDEC 2024, in the city of Santiago de Chile, between August 27th and 29th, sponsored by U.S. Southern Command and the High Command of the Chilean Armed Forces. The central theme of the conference was “how to develop new technologies aimed at the defense of Hemispheric Sovereignty”, and was attended by the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Southern Command, General Laura Richardson.
Addressing attendees at the opening of the event, General Laura Richardson referred to the audience as part of a “team of democrats” who are determined to confront and defeat the “authoritarian and communist governments that are trying to take everything they can here in the Western Hemisphere, without respecting national or international laws”, in a more or less explicit reference to the Chinese New Silk Road initiative.
He then referred to “evil states that use advanced technologies to perpetrate corruption, disinformation, and human rights abuses…”, alluding to Russia and Iran. He concluded his speech by denouncing the Venezuelan presidential elections of July 28, 2024, which he called “undemocratic.” His statement leaves no room for doubt: the United States considers Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela to be part of the great war — military and economic — that the Americans are currently waging against Russia, China, Iran, and all their allies.
And at the same time they consider that South America's involvement with the Chinese project Belt and Road, or with the BRICS group, is an affront to US strategic interests. Many might consider the tone of General Laura Richardson's speech as arrogant and imposing, but in fact it is part of a long tradition of hierarchical relationships between the US Armed Forces and the South American military, and also between US foreign policy agents and the political and diplomatic elites of South America.
2.
Let us briefly recall the past history of the continent: after its independence, and throughout the 19th century, the South American continent was treated by the great powers of the North Atlantic as a mere demographic and cultural extension of Europe. And throughout the 20th century, as a North American military protectorate, especially after the Second World War.
Furthermore, South American countries have often served as experimental laboratories and propaganda showcases for economic initiatives promoted by the United States. This was the case of Chile, after the bloody military coup of 1973, sponsored by the United States and later transformed into a pioneering laboratory for the neoliberal policies that were spread throughout the world.
One must remember, in particular, the period of the Cold War, after the Cuban Revolution, in which the United States abandoned its “desired post-World War II democratic system and sponsored or directly promoted the coups d'état and military dictatorships that definitively destroyed the unity and identity of the South American peoples. They were divided in a profound and irreversible way, with the subordination of their Armed Forces to the international policy of the United States, in a hierarchical and ideological dependence that continues to this day.
It was with the aim of reversing and overcoming this situation of fragility and submission that technocratic and political sectors from several South American countries formulated, in the 1950s and 1960s of the last century, the project of South American integration, mirrored in the example of the European Community. This project, however, never became a state policy for the countries of the region, coming and going in the form of a seasonal utopia that strengthened or weakened depending on the fluctuations of the world economy and the changes of government on the continent itself.
In the first decade of the 21st century, the continent's new governments, aligned around the critique of neoliberalism and stimulated by the growth of regional economies, took forward several integrationist initiatives, such as the advancement of Mercosur, led by Brazil and Argentina, and ALBA, led by Venezuela, as well as UNASUR, the CDS (South American Defense Council) and the CCS (South American Health Council).
With the 2008 crisis, however, this scenario changed. This strategy had temporary success, but at the same time it returned the continent to its primary export roots, with each country focused on itself and governed by its own national interests, with its back to any type of regionalism. This process of fragmentation and isolation was radicalized by the economic crisis caused by Covid-19, which caused the continent to regress by about 10 years in terms of its economic and social indicators, but also in terms of all its ideals of solidarity and integration.
3.
All regional integration organizations created in the first decade of the 21st century have dissolved or been forgotten. As a result, in the third decade of the 21st century, faced with the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the ongoing disintegration of the international system and the shift of its economic axis towards Asia, divided South America has lost geopolitical and geoeconomic relevance within the international system.
This decline is likely to become more pronounced in the next decade, as South American economies continue to be small, isolated and irrelevant “primary exporting” units from a geopolitical point of view. With the exception of Brazil and Argentina, perhaps, and Venezuela, which alone has the largest oil reserves in the world. Furthermore, in the last decade, socioeconomic inequality has increased between the countries of the region, and political and ideological polarization within each of them has become more radical.
As a result, South America today appears to be without unity and without any kind of common strategic objective capable of strengthening its small countries and guiding their collective insertion into the new world order that is being created in an increasingly violent and unpredictable manner. In this context, it is not unlikely that the United States will once again make mistakes, transforming the South American continent — once again — into a secondary stage for its global wars, now using Venezuela to repeat what it did during the Cold War, when it used the Cuban Revolution as a reason to put an end to South American democracies.
* Jose Luis Fiori He is professor emeritus at UFRJ. Author, among other books, of Global power and the new geopolitics of nations (Boitempo)[https://amzn.to/3RgUPN3]
Originally published in the Economic Bulletin no. 7 of the International Observatory of the XNUMXst Century — NUBEA/UFRJ.
