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.
Explaining Washington's Central American Policies
Why have the Washington authorities under both Democrat and Republican administrations chosen to devote so much time, money, and political capital to the pursuit of a policy in Central America that most international opinion, and a substantial proportion of domestic US opinion, considers to be unwarranted interference? The standard answers to this question fall into two main groups, each with strong ideological connotations. The official American position, most forcefully expressed in speeches by such prominent figures as ex-Secretary of State Alexander Haig, UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and President Ronald Reagan himself, judge events in Central America as yet another example of worldwide Soviet expansionism, in this case channelled through Cuba. On this view, it is not possible for America to stand back from the struggles of this small and apparently unimportant region, for unless the Russian cause is decisively rebuffed there is a real risk of ‘falling dominoes’, to the Panama Canal and beyond in one direction, and even northward into Mexico.
Stability results for the solutions of some third and fourth order differential equations
SummaryThe paper investigates conditions under which solutions of the equations (1) and (2) of § 1.1 tend to zero as t → ∞.