Gunboat Democracy: U.S. Interventions in the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama [Paperback]

Russell Crandall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 30, 2006

In this balanced and thought-provoking study, Russell Crandall examines the American decision to intervene militarily in three key episodes in American foreign policy: the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama. Drawing upon previously classified intelligence sources and interviews with policymakers, Crandall analyzes the complex deliberations and motives behind each intervention and shows how the decision to intervene was driven by a perceived threat to American national security. By bringing together three important cases, Gunboat Democracy makes it possible to interpret and compare these examples and study the political systems left in the wake of intervention. Particularly salient in today's foreign policy arena, this work holds important lessons for questions of regime change and democracy by force.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Gunboat Democracy offers a much-needed corrective to the dominant view that U.S. foreign policy toward the Caribbean and Central America has been driven by nefarious motives, that U.S. imperialism has changed little since the 19th century, and that U.S. interventions have left these countries worse off. Russell Crandall demonstrates with these three cases that U.S. foreign policy has been largely based on security concerns, that it has evolved during the last century, and that its interventions have probably helped to promote democracy and stability. Provocative and insightful, the book's cases are first rate. (Robert S. Snyder )

In this important and well-reasoned study, a former Bush administration official audaciously takes on the academic orthodoxy to defend three U.S. military interventions in the Caribbean basin. . . . Gunboat Democracy is a significant contribution and a compelling revisionist counterweight to the prevailing literature. (Richard Feinberg Foreign Affairs )

Russell Crandall has produced a well-written and provocative book that contributes to a critical topic: why U.S. presidents choose to invade. In an era of pre-emptive warfare, it is particularly timely. (Gregory B. Weeks )

About the Author

Russell Crandall is associate professor of political science at Davidson College. He is the author of Driven by Drugs: U.S Policy Toward Colombia and co-editor of Mexico's Democracy at Work: Political and Economic Dynamics and The Andes in Focus: Security, Democracy, and Economic Reform.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (March 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0742550486
• ISBN-13: 978-0742550483
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #664,280 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > History > Americas > Caribbean & West Indies > Grenada
  • #32 in Books > History > Americas > Caribbean & West Indies > Dominican Republic
  • #34 in Books > History > Americas > Central America > Panama

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crandall is one of the bright shining stars of Latino studies, July 2, 2006

By 

Bert Ruiz "Author" (Pleasantville, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gunboat Democracy: U.S. Interventions in the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama (Paperback)

"Gunboat Democracy; U.S. Interventions in the Dominican Republic, Grenada and Panama," by Russell Crandall is clear and conclusive evidence that this Davidson College professor is one of the bright shining stars of Latin American studies in the United States. Crandall is a rational voice...backed with precision research and pragmatic volume.

This book is an impressive follow-up to the eye-opening 2002 publication of, "Driven by Drugs; United States Policy toward Colombia." On that note...both books examine history with a strong focus on White House decision-making.

The author's first chapter, "The Evolution of U.S. Interventions and Occupations in Latin America," raises the curtain with careful attention to the American zeitgeist. This chapter is comprehensive and establishes a firm path to understanding U.S. leadership motives. Crandall takes no short-cuts and provides a balanced examination of the U.S. policy of intervention and occupation.

It is comforting to know that there are so many talented academics studying Latin America. However, this man is truly special and demands further public service attention. Crandall is qualified. And obviously will one day be a an excellent choice for U.S. Ambassador in a key Latin American nation or to fill the senior Western Hemisphere decicion-making position in the State Department. Highly recommended.

Bert Ruiz

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Professor Russell Crandall, Now of the Pentagon: A Controversial Analyst and Three Controversial Caribbean Interventions, October 28, 2009

By 

Shantel Beach (Washington D.C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gunboat Democracy: U.S. Interventions in the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama (Paperback)

In the U.S. policy arsenal, a series of specialized weapons stand ready to defend democracy, and perhaps of equal importance, to serve Washington's strategic interests abroad. In "Gunboat Democracy; U.S. Interventions in the Dominican Republic, Grenada and Panama" (2006), Professor Russell Crandall, on leave from Davidson College in North Carolina, contextualizes a particular series of U.S. involvements in the Caribbean over the past several decades in order to pinpoint how strategic regional interests have shaped U.S. policy towards the three specific countries under discussion. Crandall's central and most controversial claim is that democracy has been made unquestionably stronger in the Caribbean after the United States intervened with overwhelming military force.

Professor Crandall's prose is easy to read and graciously styled, but is also grossly opinionated and wondrously simplistic. His main objective is to provide objective criteria in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the three radical interventions which become the raw meat of his analysis. The criteria includes whether or not Washington made prudent decisions based on all of the information that was available at the time. Also, Crandall means to weigh in on the consequences of U.S. military intervention in the purported defense of democratic institutions in these countries. Ultimately, and perhaps inevitably, given his highly wrought security/strategy background, and his adept penetration of the Pentagon's bureaucratic corridors, Crandall easily concludes that the three interventions were legitimate.

Regarding Russell Crandall

The PR notes made available by his college spell out Professor Crandall's meteoric progress: first as a member of the Bush National Security Council team, then to Obama's campaign, and now into his current Pentagon service as an advisor. They reveal an ambitious academic who is skilled at working political networks effectively enough to hold respectable positions under both administrations. When it comes to Latin America issues, divergent ideological battle lines between the Republicans and Democrats have never seemed to get in Crandall's way. One can only conclude that his ebullience over the Bush administration's regional policy might have limited his ability to sympathize with Obama's more enlightened approach to Latin America. George W. Bush's Latin America, after all, was the antithesis of Barack Obama's. Given Washington's present initiative to place a string of military bases throughout Colombia, and perhaps elsewhere, for many skeptics the question remains as to whether Professor Crandall can be comfortable with a regional map that isn't laced with U.S. military facilities.

Democracy on the Run

Crandall, always affable, does not state his own personal agenda outright, as much as he clearly strives to brush off critics who disapprove of his support for "democracy promotion" at the barrel of a gun. In light of Washington's multiple failings in its struggle to secure democracy in the wake of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Crandall seeks to prove what others might term as a tendentious thesis: that U.S. military intervention abroad can be justified if it ostensibly nurtures democratic institutions, defined of course, by Washington's policymakers. Russell Crandall is more than willing to prove that there is a positive correlation between the weight of U.S. military force used in the interventions, and the subsequent strength of the democracy that is later experienced. Even in light of an overwhelming literature which argues that freedom and democracy cannot be imposed by force, Crandall adamantly disagrees, stating that, "Grenada was now [after the U.S. intervention] more free and democratic than at any point in recent memory" (p.161).

What Crandall fails to see is that there is a body of history here that tells a different and somewhat more complex story, and it makes all the difference if one is talking about Maurice Bishop's Grenada, or "General" Hudson Austin's Grenada. Crandall contends that in Panama and the Dominican Republic, the general outcomes were the same, "the taking out of Noriega by the United States ended up being a quick and lasting way for Panama to get rid of its oppressor" (p.200), and "the [Dominican] intervention also has helped promote a modern political system" (p.94). Crandall fails to mention that, in the fullness of time, the `modern political systems' in question would come to be dominated by strongman governments resulting in drug running, corruption, bank fraud, and money laundering - projecting the pretense, rather than the substance of democracy. Ultimately, Crandall might bring himself to argue that the world ought to be grateful that the contemporary history of the Dominican Republic, Panama and Grenada were conceptualized by the National Security Council, and scripted by the Pentagon.

Surprisingly, Crandall acknowledges that the democratic institutions established in the Dominican Republic after U.S. intervention by the Johnson administration were somewhat weaker than in Panama and Grenada. But when asked why, he argues that insufficient U.S. military force had been committed; as if thousands of troops were not enough to handle a disorganized revolutionary force numbered in the hundreds. It remains unclear to the reader from the introduction of "Gunboat Democracy" to its conclusion, why the extent of force used in the interventions became a unifying function of their success.

Saving Latin Americans from Themselves

Underlining the author's belief is an uncompromising America-knows-best attitude, fortified by a robust script in which Latin Americans are seen to be the victims of inevitable and self-inflicted ideological problems, against which they must be immunized. Regarding the intervention in Panama, in which Manuel Noriega was removed from power by U.S. forces, Crandall postulates that, "even if the Panamanian people had removed Noriega themselves, it was more than likely that someone who was far from democratic would have replaced him" (p.200). This process of serial interventions could be described as Crandall's sense of noblesse oblige.

Many of Crandall's formulations are dressed up in a disturbing hip-hip-hooray rhetoric, which must have annoyed at least some of his readers, especially those like myself, who happen to be of another nationality. Throughout much of his study, Crandall seeks to point out that those living in the Caribbean (especially in Grenada), were in dire need of U.S. direct action to protect them against becoming captives of leftist authoritarian actors, but it is here that his evidence truly runs thin. The White House's passion to oust Maurice Bishop's Marxist New Jewel movement from power soon after it took office was based upon an utter myth; that Bishop had commissioned the construction of a military airport on Grenada at the behest of Havana, in order to facilitate the movement of Cuban troops to aid in the revolutionary wars in Africa. Furthermore, President Bush's insistence that General Noriega was a major drug runner and human rights violator was equally inflated. Although Noriega was a somewhat unsavory figure, only a small number of fatalities could truly be ascribed to him. Manuel Noriega was, after all, a former CIA asset, who for years served as a highly appreciated functionary of the Agency.

Even with these facts aside, it is odd that Crandall did not bother to canvas other writings on democracy (for example, Robert Dahl comes to mind) in search of deeper explanations for the advent and endurance of democratic regimes. Because he isolates his work from others who have taken on the task of explaining where, when, and how democracy thrives, Crandall's book comes out rather narrow in its scope, totally predictable in its attitude, and somewhat shallow in its overall analysis of democracy as a process. In effect, he utilizes meager theory to thump a very big drum. Furthermore, despite his fluency in the language, he ignores important Spanish sources that presumably could have broadened and deepened his enterprise.

The Protection of U.S. Citizens: A Pretense for Invasion

Professor Crandall had no problem in swallowing the line that securing the supposed safety of American citizens lent a compelling argument for the execution of the Dominican Republic intervention, but he tortures the "we did it to protect U.S. citizens" apologia well beyond its proper functional range. In such settings, Crandall alludes to the scheming Communist side as the main threat to American life, often with little effort to substantiate his claim with historical evidence buttressed with recent documents and other primary sources. If he had, perhaps he would have acknowledged that the number of U.S. casualties from these interventions, to no one's surprise, was negligible. Occasionally Crandall lets his true beliefs show, stating at one time that, "a better way of viewing the situation is to accept that at least some risk of a Communist takeover existed" (p.37).

In the case of Grenada, Crandall has attempted to refute some of his expositors' critiques, but ultimately refers to the "what if the U.S.A. hadn't intervened" stream of analysis. Crandall does not acknowledge that only a small group unanimously considered Grenada a win for Washington diplomacy. Of equal importance, he fails to remind us that U.S. public opinion had been deceptively manipulated in order for Americans to accept a political ideology which was fraudulent to its core. This includes the arresting of a political process whereby Washington could have targeted "General" Hudson Austin, rather than pretending to avenge the murder of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, who had been slain by the Austin coup. To this end, Crandall never... Read more ›