Latin American Militaries Can't Stop the U.S.

Peter Zeihan 10 min

The United States can easily defeat Latin American militaries but lacks the systems to manage the aftermath effectively. The U.S. government is unprepared for this, and U.S. corporations are unprepared for this because for the last 80 years, we have drilled into every American company that rule of law on a global basis is the first issue.

Chapters

  1. 0:00

    U.S. Military Dominance and Deployment

    The U.S. can quickly overthrow Latin American governments due to superior logistics and deployment capabilities.

  2. 0:55

    Technological Gap and Precision Warfare

    The U.S. holds a centuries-long technological advantage that allows for precise, low-casualty victories against Latin American forces. Mountainous terrain fragments populations, preventing conventional war and fostering large paramilitary groups instead.

  3. 5:02

    Historical Context of Conflict

    Recent history shows Latin American nations lack the capacity for sustained conventional warfare against each other.

  4. 7:10

    Strategic Management and Corporate Interests

    The U.S. must manage post-conflict scenarios to enforce norms established by corporations rather than governments.

Key points

  • 0:00

    The United States is far and away the most powerful military force, not just in the world, not just in the hemisphere, but in human history.

  • 0:00

    The United States has spent the last century building up the logistics that allows it to push troops, ships, and power anywhere in the world.

  • 0:00

    Latin American militaries have zero deployment capabilities beyond their own shores.

  • 0:55

    The Anglos, which include the Americans, have held that kind of technological advance over the rest of the world for the better part of the last 300 years at this point.

  • 0:55

    The United States demonstrated that it had precision as well as reach.

  • 0:55

    It's mostly highland or jungle. And in doing so, the population centers get broken up from one another.

  • 3:27

    The problem with countries like Colombia or Mexico or Venezuela or Brazil isn't so much a conventional military threat, it's a paramilitary threat that is caused by guerrilla groups and rebel groups that boil up throughout these territories because they can't project traditional power and cultural monolithicness with their own systems.

  • 5:02

    Since then, there's been nothing worth fighting over because the countries can't get at one another.

  • 7:10

    It's going to be a very rocky road because for dollar diplomacy to work, the United States has to both build up institutions here to manage it and knock down institutions there to enforce it.

  • 9:33

    And dollar diplomacy, by default, says it's not.

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