Max Paul Friedman and I have a couple short articles out that connect our Perspectives on Politics (currently open access) article more directly to current events.
The first was published last weekend in the Uruguayan newspaper La Diaria (Spanish). It’s written especially for a Uruguayan audience and relates to that country’s diplomatic traditions. Those are particularly interesting now because Uruguay has taken a rather contrarian position on the regional approach to Venezuela recently. That now includes stating an intention to leave the Rio Treaty on collective defense.
The second was published in Americas Quarterly. It looks at the invocation of the Rio Treaty last week by sixteen Western Hemisphere signatories. Tying that to the Larreta Doctrine–initially a proposal for the Rio Conference agenda–it argues that history makes the Rio Treaty a poor tool for promoting democracy: “The doctrine further offers a solution to the sovereignty dilemma by allowing representatives of a sovereign people to work out guarantees and permissions before they lose their voice to dictatorship. It could also help protect against violations of sovereignty in the form of, say, unilateral U.S. interventions or extended military occupations, common in the first third of the 20th century.”
Tom Long, PhD 