U.S. Aid to Anti-Communist Rebels:
The "Reagan Doctrine" and Its Pitfalls

by Ted Galen Carpenter

Ted Galen Carpenter is a foreign policy analyst with the Cato Institute.

Proponents of the Reagan Doctrine, such as Jeane Kirkpatrick, Michael Ledeen, and Charles Krauthammer, contend that U.S. assistance to anti-communist insurgencies in the Third World would serve three beneficial purposes. First, it would enhance U.S. security by tying down Soviet-bloc military resources and perhaps reversing Soviet expansionist gains. Second, it would achieve these objectives without serious military risk or financial cost to the United States. Finally, it would promote the growth of democracy throughout the Third World.[54] All three contentions are open to serious question.

It is difficult to see how the Reagan Doctrine would bolster U.S. security; indeed, the opposite result is far more likely. Most Third World struggles take place in arenas and involve issues far removed from legitimate American security needs. U.S. involvement in such conflicts expands the republic's already overextended commitments without achieving any significant prospective gains. Instead of draining Soviet military and financial resources, we end up dissipating our own.

Moreover, contrary to the sanguine assumptions of Kirkpatrick and Krauthammer, implementation of the Reagan Doctrine promises to be a costly undertaking. The sums now being discussed are no more than a down payment on a long-term policy. If the intent is to overthrow hostile governments, it will be necessary to provide funds and equipment to insurgents in quantities sufficient to give them a reasonable chance of victory. Most analysts concede that the funding levels contemplated for UNITA ($15-40 million) and the contras ($100 million) are woefully inadequate. Even the annual subsidy of $250-300 million to the mujaheddin seems insufficient to do more than prolong the existing military stalemate. Unless the United States cynically contemplates using such insurgencies merely as pawns to annoy the USSR, military-assistance programs amounting to several billion dollars will be required.

The prospects for the Reagan Doctrine promoting democracy in the Third World are no more promising; again, an intrusive U.S. military policy is likely to produce the opposite result. The Reagan Doctrine threatens to become a corollary to America's longstanding policy of supporting "friendly" autocratic regimes. Administration leaders exhibit a willingness to endorse and assist any insurgent movement that professes to be anti-Soviet, without reference to its attitude toward political or economic rights. The United States has already antagonized Third World populations by sponsoring repressive governments and may incur even more enmity as the patron of authoritarian, albeit anti-Marxist, insurgencies. Such a strategy is hardly an effective way to promote the popularity of democratic capitalism.

The Reagan Doctrine entails a variety of risks and burdens while offering few discernible benefits to the United States. It is a blueprint for unpredictable and potentially perilous entanglements in complex Third World affairs. Proponents of the doctrine seem determined to imitate Moscow's techniques of subversion without considering its adverse consequences.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa074.html