This study examines some operational military issues involving the Caribbean Basin, and it reflects the broader concern that answers to operational military questions should depend heavily on answers to more fundamental questions about why and how the United States should be interested in this complex, unstable region. Based on an examination of current trends as well as historical experience since promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine, the study advances a conceptual framework that identifies underlying geostrategic principles for guiding U.S. policy in the Basin. The study then proposes specific measures for developing an integrated political, economic, and military strategy that would advance U.S. interests and meet the interests of Basin neighbors.

The three small economies that are the subject of this study were established as artificial colonial societies and have remained extremely vulnerable to the international capitalists system, a situation that has led to homegrown efforts to assert methods of development not associated with capitalism. After placing the developmental realities of the three countries in the general context of the Caribbean region and the global capitalist system, Rose (Siena College) critically examines the attempts of the three countries' experiments with socialism, begun in the 1970s. She reserves greater criticism for the United States as she turns her attention to U.S. government efforts to destabilize the countries in an effort to prevent the emerging of any socialist alternatives in an area it viewed as part of its sphere of influence. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.