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With Venezuela threatening Guyana, and C&Rsenal's supporter pre-release talking about Argentinean Mausers, I am reminded that South America did not enjoy as much or as long a period of peace as the three nations of North America.
The lack of nations up Norte could be the explanation all by itself.
Of course, we stuck our big noses into South American politics a couple times, and often with no regard of whether it was good for the residents of the area if their interests were in conflict with an American business interest.
It appears that quite often foreign nations contributed to wars starting down there as much as natural conflicts.
It's very European.
I only just recently found out about the War of the Pacific, where Chile trounced Peru and took away Bolivia's seacoast. And the War of the Triple Alliance had little Paraguay up against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay...and holding their own for a while. If the CSA had fought as hard as the Paraguayans did, Abraham Lincoln would have been signing surrender papers in Bangor, Maine, or Seattle, Washington.
ReplyDeleteUp until WWII there was regular squabbling south of Mexico including a battleship arms race in the early 1900s which ended up supplying several British WWI battleships. The last hot war apart from the Falklands was probably the "Football War" between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969, which is noteworthy for the last air to air kills by the P-51 Mustang and F4U Corsair. There was also the very bloody Gran Chaco war in the 30s between Bolivia and Paraguay.
ReplyDeleteVenezuela's military has devolved into political brute squad so I think any attempt to invade Guyana will go badly. Guyana maintains decent relations with Britain and the Commonwealth and has a competent army.