rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (03/04/86)
Here's a correction to my last paragraph: I confused the assessment of
an American military analyst (from a written source I can't recall), that
the FSLN would require a Soviet sealift to survive an invasion, with
the judgment of Arturo Cruz Jr. (SON of the prominent politician) that
the junta could not hold north & east Nicaragua due to popular hostility
and would be forced to occupy only a narrow strip along the Pacific
("Managua's Game: The Sandinistas' 1986 strategy", The New Republic,
17-19). Cruz said:
In spite of their arrogant rhetoric, the Sandinistas know that
if intervention comes they will not be able to retire to the
mountains of Segoria province, or the forests of the Atlantic
coast, there to lead---as Tomas Borge has bravely offered to
do---a hundred-year war of prolonged resistance. The inconve-
nient truth is that both regions already belong to the forces
of counterrevolution. The only alternative in the event of an
American invasion would be to fall back to the country's Pacific
corridor, where the Popular Sandinista Army would be forced to
fight a conventional war of fixed positions. [18]
The FSLN has 60,000 people under arms & can call up another 60,000; so,
despite what I said last message, war would be a protacted affair, as
well as bloody (since most of the population lives along this corridor),
unless Sandinista war-making depends on a supply flow from outside.
According to Cruz:
The Sandinistas reasoned that if the revolution could survive
1986, it would become permanent. They needed to concentrate
on two areas of comparative advantage: propaganda and war.
In the economic realm, the only requirement was to survive at
the level of sheer subsistence [sic., the Nicaraguan masses
that is; commandantes still live high off the hog], and to
generate (or buy with long-term credit from the Soviet Union)
those resources essential to a war economy---fertilizer, medi-
cine, and oil. Ironically Sandinista propaganda owes much
to Reagan's war and his ill-advised commerical blockade
(since by now there is nothing to blockade). Both serve to
justify an economy of scarcity, whoser characteristic feature
is the daily recitation of what items are unavailable. [18]
Yet Cruz thinks
To push the United States over the brink [ie, to invade] would
require the stupidest mistakes---something more than simply
inviting in more Cuban and Bulgarian military advisers (since
for some reason this has been judged, willy-nilly, as permis-
sible). To provoke U.S. intervention, the Sandinistas would
have to offer Nicaragua as a missile base for the Soviet Union,
something that, in fact, Defense Minister Humberto Ortega has
already threatened to do. [18]
[Quotations made without permission.]
Thus, according to Cruz, the Sandinistas, unlike their many sympathizers,
ignore in their deliberations niceties like economic progress & social
issues, nevermind the legal & ethical aspects of the invasion threat, and
not only engage in many of the same calculations as warlike Ronnie, but
probably reach some of the same conclusions.
Regards,
Ron Rizzo