![]() Southern Command in the Panama Canal Zone, and the other U.S. Shuff, "the most positive threat to hemispheric security is submarine action in the Caribbean Sea and along the coast of Latin America." (4) However, after the Kennedy administration took office in 1961, "the basis for military aid to Latin America abruptly shifted from hemispheric defense to internal security, from the protection of coastlines and from antisubmarine warfare to internal defense against Castro-Communist guerrilla warfare." (5) Consequently, grants for counterinsurgency training and equipment were made available under the MAP program beginning in 1963. aid represents about seven percent of Latin America's total defense expenditures (which run at about $1.516 billion annually) however, the $80 million in arms assistance supplements the amount Latin armies spend on arms purchases by more than 50 percent, and by more than 90 percent in some of the smallerĪs recently as 1960, the main objective of the Military Assistance Program in Latin America was the development of a strong antisubmarine capability according to the then Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense, Charles H. Aid to Latin America is currently running at $98 million per year (of which $13.3 million represents training, $4.2 million for civic action projects, and the remaining $80.5 million for arms acquisition). military assistance to Latin America in the period 1953-1966 amounted to $1.136 billion (see Table I). Such agreements were subsequently signed with Ecuador, Cuba, Colombia, Peru, and Chile in 1952 with Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay in 1953 with Nicaragua and Honduras in 1954 with Haiti and Guatemala in 1955 and with Bolivia in 1958. ![]() A country became eligible for these funds upon ratification of bilateral mutual defense assistance pacts with the United States. Under the Mutual Security Act of 1951, funds were to be made available for the strengthening of Latin armies in the interests of Hemispheric defense. Military aid to Latin America was suspended in the immediate postwar era as the Cold War intensified, however, the rearmament of Latin American armies once again became a U.S. and to gain military cooperation in the event the Western Hemisphere became involved in World War II."(2) These objectives were largely realized following the entry of the United States in the war, when Latin America provided temporary bases, stepped up production of strategic materials, and collaborated in antisubmarine and other defense operations. aid were "to enable the area to defend itself better against external aggression. military assistance to Latin America can be traced to the eye of World War II, when Washington, in order to counter the threat of Fascist and Nazi subversion, began to establish military missions."(1) (The United States has maintained a monopoly on military missions in Latin America since 1941, when the European military missions were withdrawn, except of course in Cuba.) Initially, the objectives of U.S. Edwin Lieuwen of the University of New Mexico in his excellent study, The Latin American Military, "The origins of U.S. program aimed at military operations in Latin America. The Military Assistance Program (MAP) constitutes the most important U,S.
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