The Red Affair: FMLN–Cuban relations during the Salvadoran Civil War, 1981–92
This paper examines the relationship between the leftist Salvadoran revolutionary organisation FMLN and the Cuban regime throughout the Salvadoran civil war in the 1980s. In light of interviews conducted by the author in 2007 and 2008 with some of the highest-ranking leaders of the FMLN, it re-evaluates existing primary and secondary sources on the topic. This study demonstrates that despite its autonomous roots, the FMLN's development, growth, and achievements throughout the Salvadoran civil war were indissolubly linked to its relationship with Cuba. By placing Cuba as a nodal point in the Salvadoran civil war, the idea of ‘unilateralist’ US hegemony in the region throughout the Cold War is brought into question, as is the notion that the Soviet Union fashioned Havana's foreign policy. Furthermore, this analytical paradigm begins to shed light on the importance of transnational historical analyses.
The Uses and Limits of Small-Scale Military Interventions
Abstract : The enormous costs of the American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have inevitably sparked a backlash against military interventions generally, especially as the magnitude of the American fiscal crisis has become apparent. While many critics of nation-building argue that the United States should abandon military interventions altogether, others continue to accept that such interventions may be necessary to secure U.S. interests. Where the United States went wrong, these latter critics claim, is in the scale of its ambitions and the concomitant ways and means adopted to achieve them. These critics argue that, rather than seeking to transform the domestic politics of foreign countries a utopian or at least prohibitively costly goal the United States should commit only the minimum resources necessary to stabilize the target state. Such small-scale interventions what we in this volume term minimalist stabilization supposedly offer the opportunity to secure core U.S. interests at vastly less cost than larger nation-building missions. At stake in this debate are not only future decisions about military interventions but also present-day choices about U.S. force reductions. Despite these enormous stakes, the debate remains poorly structured, and little systematic empirical evidence has been offered in support of many of the claims on either side.
The Impact of the Law of the Sea Convention on the Regime for Islands: Problems for the Coastal State in Asserting Claims to “New-Born” Islands in Maritime Zones
ter-productive. The work of the Preparatory Commission will certainly suffer in consequence and the apparently perceived belief that in time, and before a longdelayed coming into force of the Convention, substantial re-negotiation of the Part XI provisions will be possible, may well be illusory. At the time of writing, 138 countries have signed the Convention and 14 have ratified.* What has been called "the convoluted compromise" over prospective Community participation will certainly be widely interpreted as an attempt by the Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom to secure eventually a form of limited accession with major reservations.* Their stance will be subjected to criticism within the Community as well as in the General Assembly and the Preparatory Commission. This is a subject to which the writer hopes to return in a future article. For the moment, however, it is as well to note that the stance of these two countries is not to be identified with the US position although its adoption now makes even more remote the emergence of a deep sea-bed mining regime established by " . . . an international treaty of a universal character, generally agreed upon . . . " as required by the 1970 General Assembly Declaration of Principles Governing the Sea-Bed . . . Beyond the Limits of National Jurisdiction.*