STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The United States has deployed warships, a submarine, planes and 10,000 troops on ships just off the coast of Venezuela. President Trump says it's about keeping drugs out of the United States. Analysts are watching for signs of something more - a U.S. effort to overthrow the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Turns out there is a tradition of influencing a country by sending warships off the coast or massing troops nearby - gunboat diplomacy. NPR's Eyder Peralta reports.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: The last big invasion the U.S. conducted in the Americas was in 1989, when President George H. W. Bush sent troops to depose Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. Since then, the U.S. has relied on economic sanctions to get Latin American countries to do what it wants. Eric Farnsworth of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says that simply hasn't worked.
ERIC FARNSWORTH: I'm not aware of any case anywhere in the world where economic pressure has forced out a leader determined to stay.
PERALTA: He says the oil-rich Venezuelan government, for example, has spent the last decade focused on survival, making sure they could cling to power even if they lost elections or if the U.S. deployed deep economic sanctions.
FARNSWORTH: And there's only one way you can get out a group like that, and it's through force.
PERALTA: The White House has said the deployment in the Caribbean is designed to stop drugs from flowing north. The U.S. has blown up boats it says were carrying drugs. President Trump has threatened to start going after targets on land. Farnsworth doesn't dismiss the White House explanation, but he says the armament suggests something more than a counter-narcotics operation.
FARNSWORTH: I mean, do you really need a submarine, you know, with Tomahawk missiles to - you know, against drug traffickers?
PERALTA: To Alexander Avina, who studies Latin American history at Arizona State University, this marks a return of American gunboat diplomacy. The term refers to a time when Western powers would flex their military muscle to force weaker countries into submission.
ALEXANDER AVINA: It promises to take us back to a really dark era of U.S.-Latin American relations, and it's going to spawn some sort of regional response that I don't think the Americans are taking into account.
PERALTA: Avina says through the decades, American politicians have always believed wrongly that a people who hate their leader will welcome American troops.
AVINA: Venezuelans can be highly critical of Maduro. They can be highly critical of the elections that happened last year, but that's not going to necessarily translate into them supporting foreign intervention in their country.
PERALTA: Ana Esther Cecena, who studies geopolitics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, points out that the U.S. has placed a $50 million bounty on President Nicolas Maduro, saying he's a drug trafficker. But no one, not one of his generals or deputies, has turned him in.
ANA ESTHER CECENA: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "That tells you Maduro's internal support is robust," she says.
CECENA: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "It tells you that regime change," she says, "is not that easy."
Even Eric Farnsworth, who has openly advocated for the violent overthrow of Maduro, believes an American invasion is unlikely. President Trump has avoided invasions.
FARNSWORTH: He put bunker-buster bombs in Iran but certainly didn't invade. He's attacked the Houthis, but he certainly didn't invade. He's attacked Syria, but again, he didn't invade.
PERALTA: And he's reading another tea leaf. The U.S. has simply not deployed enough gear or troops to invade a country as big as Venezuela.
Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Mexico City. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
