Crossroads of Intervention: Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Lessons from Central America

The challenges that vex the United States today in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere are not altogether as new and unique as they seem. U.S. involvement in Central America during the 1980s clearly demonstrated the costs, risks, and limits to intervention and the use of force in internal conflicts. Much can be learned today about the nature of irregular warfare from the experiences of the United States and the other protagonists in Central America during the final phase of the Cold War. The U.S. perceived a threat to national security in these wars from determined insurgents with a compelling revolutionary ideology and powerful allies that linked them to other conflicts around the world. This strategy and policy analysis makes a new contribution to irregular warfare theory through an examination of the origins, strategic dynamics, and termination of the Sandinista insurrection in Nicaragua, the decade long counterinsurgency of the Salvadoran government against the FMLN guerrillas, and the concurrent Contra insurgency against the Sandinistas.

TODD GREENTREE is a Visiting Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and teaches national security studies and international politics at the University of New Mexico. He is a former Professor of Strategy and Policy at the U.S. Naval War College. Greentree's personal experience with irregular warfare extends from El Salvador and Nicaragua to Angola, where he served as U.S. Foreign Service Officer.