Also, in my last post about Venezuelan regional diversity and its relation to historical voting patterns in the country, I noted that Venezuela has a temperate mountainous region in its southwest, bordering Colombia. In terms of climate and geography, this temperate region can be seen as an extension of Colombia’s Andean region:

The climate and vegetation of the region vary considerably according to altitude, but as a general rule the land can be divided into the tierra caliente (hot land) of river valleys and basins below 1,000 m; the more temperate conditions of the tierra templada (temperate land, approximately 1,000 m to 2,000 m) and tierra fría (cold land, 2,000 m to 3,200 m), which include the most productive land and most of the population;

Similar to Venezuela, early Spanish settlers in Colombia preferred the temperate regions over the low-lying coastal areas and valleys, not only because of the more agreeable weather, but also due to the presence of gold1 in the mountains.

In the 17th-century, Canarians started settling the Caribbean coast of northern Colombia in significant numbers, encouraged by the Spanish government which feared that the sparsely populated region would be a tempting target for foreign actors, including pirates.

These immigrants eventually imbued the Colombian Caribbean coast with a distinct Canarian character, similar to that found in other Caribbean regions. Even now, the local Spanish dialect, Costeño, more closely resembles other varieties of Caribbean Spanish than it does the Spanish spoken in the Andean interior of Colombia (Paisa, Cundiboyacense, etc).

Just like I did for Venezuela2, I’ve procured maps of the geographical distribution of Canarian surnames in Colombia, showing the relative concentration of those surnames in the Caribbean coast, reflecting the settlement pattern I just mentioned:

Unlike in Venezuela, the geographic confinement of Canarian descendants to Colombia's Caribbean region is less pronounced, but it is clear enough to suggest that cultural differences between the Caribbean coast and the interior could be attributed to differences in ancestry.3

Colombian electoral maps

Before I present any Colombian electoral map, allow me to quote from my previous post on Venezuela:

So, does my hypothesis that Venezuelan regional voting patterns, and other cultural differences, derive from the cultural differences between Canarian settlers (a major component of the colonization of the Caribbean coast) and those from other Spanish regions hold up when applied to the case of Colombia?

Let's look at a map of the last Colombian presidential election results and see if we can answer that question:

The purple-colored areas on the map represent the Colombian states where the majority voted for the left-wing candidate, Gustavo Petro, whereas the yellow-colored states are those that supported the right-wing candidate, Rodolfo Hernández.

I modified the original map by adding a purple circled area to denote Caribbean Venezuela, which is adjacent to Colombia’s Caribbean coast, and a yellow circled area to represent Andean Venezuela, right next to Colombia’s Andean region.

You will notice that, as is typically the case in Venezuela, the Andean regions leaned towards the right, while the Caribbean regions favored the left, as you can see in the following map of Venezuela:

Similar to our approach in the Venezuelan case, we should ask whether this is a persistent pattern or a recent occurrence.

And to address that question, I have compiled a series of results maps of Colombian presidential elections from 1962 to 2018:4

According to those maps, Colombia mirrors Venezuela in that its Caribbean and Andean regions exhibit distinct voting patterns.

Historically, in most Colombian elections, the Caribbean region has shown a stronger preference for the left-wing candidate (typically the Liberal party candidate) than the Andean region, mirroring the electoral trends for Venezuela.

Notice that in recent elections, additional patterns seem to have emerged, with the easternmost states and those along the Pacific coast states also favoring left-wing candidates.

What about other explanations?

Of course, other explanations for the regional voting patterns of Colombia and Venezuela, not rooted in cultural traits, are plausible. The consistency of the cultural hypothesis across both sides of the border does not necessarily mean it is right.

Let’s examine the economic hypothesis. By this, I refer to the notion that poorer communities and regions tend to vote left while more affluent communities and regions tend to favor right-wing parties.

Let's begin with Venezuela. Since I couldn’t find historical (20th century) GDP per capita data for each Venezuelan state, I will instead quote from my previous post:

Given their scarcity of natural resources, it is highly unlikely that the Venezuelan Andean states were richer than the national average during the second half of the 20th century5. Are they wealthier now, in 2024?

Based on their GDP per capita and Human Development Index (HDI), the answer is clearly no:

Notice that, in addition to the Andean states (highlighted in red), I have also highlighted Barinas state in blue, which is located just to the southeast of the Andean states. Barinas also seems to lean more right, especially in the municipalities right next to Táchira and Mérida, and yet it is the second poorest state in Venezuela.

Now, let’s examine whether the economic hypothesis holds true for Colombia.

Here are the GDP per capita numbers for all Colombian departments. In this instance, it’s the Caribbean departments, not the Andean ones, that I have highlighted.

In the Colombian case, I cannot entirely dismiss the economic hypothesis as I did for Venezuela. Approximately half of the Caribbean departments have a GDP per capita near the national average, while the other half clearly fall into the lower range. But this doesn’t prove the economic hypothesis either. Seven out of the 10 poorest departments voted for the left in the 2022 presidential election, but most of the wealthier departments that also voted for the left were located in the Caribbean region.

The differences in political culture between Caribbean/Canarian Venezuelans and Andean Venezuelans are not merely superficial or the product of recent developments, but stem from deep historical differences related to the diverse settlement patterns that shaped different regions of the Spanish Americas.

Specifically, Canarian settlement occurred not only in the Caribbean region of Venezuela, which is the main region of that country, but also along the Caribbean coast of Colombia, which is a minor area of Colombia.

This settlement, which I previously called Canari America, brought with it the seeds of Venezuela’s political culture.

Canary Islanders have made an outsized demographic contribution to the formation of Latin America, with their contribution particularly concentrated in a few countries - or colonies prior to their independence from Spain. One such country is Venezuela, where by my own estimation a quarter of the average Venezuelan's ancestry can be traced back to the Canary Islands.

The Spanish empire actively promoted Canarian emigration to the New World as a strategy to protect its colonies from encroachment by foreign powers such as the English, Portuguese and French, settling the islanders in sparsely populated areas that were vulnerable to foreign attacks. The Caribbean coastal regions were the primary settlement areas, where the new settlers, accustomed to the semi-tropical climate of the Canary Islands, found it easier to adapt than mainland Spaniards.

Cuba is a great example of this. Canarians migrated to the tropical island in large numbers, ensuring it would avoid the fate of its neighbors Jamaica, which fell into English hands in 1655, and Western Hispaniola, which fell to the French in the 1660s.

Some notes on Venezuelan geography

The migration of Canarians to Venezuela did not exactly mirror that to Cuba, due to differences in their geographic characteristics. While Venezuela boasts a lengthy Caribbean coastline, it also features a temperate mountainous region in its southwest, which is an extension of the Andean region of Colombia.

While most Spanish settlers favored the temperate regions (circled in yellow in the previous map) over the tropical coastal areas (circled in red in the previous map), Canarians predominantly migrated to the Venezuelan coast and nearby valleys.

This pattern is evident even today when looking at a map of the geographical distribution of surnames across Venezuela.

The maps below display the geographical distribution of 15 Canarian surnames1, showing the expected high frequencies (many Venezuelans with those surnames) along the Caribbean coast of Venezuela2, and low frequencies in the three Venezuelan states that comprise the Andean region: Táchira, Mérida and Trujillo.

Compare the frequencies in the three Andean states (marked with a blue dot in the upper left map) with those in the Caribbean states. This reflects the little weight that Canary Islanders had in the creation of Venezuelan Andean society3, the society and region of Andinos, despite their enormous impact on the formation of Venezuelan society as a whole.

But what do these Canarians and Andinos have to do with the recent presidential election?

Here’s a map of the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election results according to the opposition Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD)4:

According to the PUD, Andinos voted overwhelmingly for González, with a 32 percentage point difference between the least pro-González state (Sucre, in the East) and the most pro-González state (Táchira).

This is even clearer when looking at a map of results by state:

Geographic patterns in elections are nothing new. You can search the internet for maps of results by region (state) or district (county), and you will probably notice patterns for Brazil, the United States, France, etc. And you'll likely find several explanations offered for these patterns.

In the case of Venezuela, it would be interesting to explore whether this pattern has some basis in deeper cultural differences that are reflected in political preferences.

But first, we should ask if this is a persistent pattern, or just a recent phenomenon.

Here’s a map of the 2013 Venezuelan presidential election results:

And of the 2012 presidential election, the last election won by Chávez, pitting the late Venezuelan leader against candidate Henrique Capriles:

And additional maps for various elections during the Chavista era:

Maybe these maps just reflect the fact that Andinos are anti-Chavistas - or less Chavistas - than other (Canarios?) Venezuelans?

To answer that question, let’s go back in time a little further.

A few older maps

Before the Chavista era (1999-present), Venezuela experienced what is typically referred to as the Puntofijo era (1958-1999), an era marked by political and social stability - with some hiccups.

So, let’s look at some old election maps from the Puntofijo era5:

Once again, these maps show that the Andean region tends to vote in a distinct manner from the rest of the country.

Throughout this period - particularly before the 1980s - Andinos predominantly voted for the Copei party, a Christian democratic party commonly regarded as the right-wing half of the two-party system during the Puntofijo era. It’s main rival was the Democratic Action (AD) party, which could be considered the left-wing party.

Copei was founded and grew during the 1940s, after a period of dictatorial rule in Venezuela. It found particular success in the Andean region with the support of the Catholic church, of which Andinos were very fond.

In contrast to Andinos, coastal Venezuelans favored AD or parties further to its left, rather than Copei, as the previous maps show. Even when Copei, the less popular party of the two, finally managed to beat AD in 1968, the party’s candidate (Rafael Caldera) received a larger majority of the vote in the Andean region compared to other regions. Also, notice the level of support garnered by Wolfgang Larrázabal (in yellow), a communist leaning candidate, during the 1958 elections in the central Caribbean coast.

A few objections

In this post, I propose a hypothesis to explain the geographic disparities in voting patterns in Venezuela, but I acknowledge that it might be wrong. An obvious objection, evident just by looking at the initial maps, is that the Andean region is not such an outlier. There are other regions in Venezuela that seem to persistently diverge in their voting patterns.

Here’s the 2013 Venezuelan presidential election results map again:

Notice that this time, I have circled other regions of Venezuela that seem to persistently diverge: two regions inside pink circles, and another region inside a green circle.

Let’s start with pink. The western pink circle encompasses the oil-producing region of Zulia, while the eastern pink circle is the oil-producing region of Anzoátegui. Together with the state of Monagas, located immediately east of Anzoátegui, these regions account for over 90% of Venezuela's oil production.

The green circle surrounds the mineral-rich region centered in Ciudad Guayana, Bolívar state. This area was responsible for some of Venezuela's main exports beyond oil, including iron, steel, and aluminum, in large part thanks to the plentiful energy produced by the nearby Guri Dam, which is the sixth-largest hydroelectric dam in the world.

These regions, in contrast to the Andean region, are very rich in natural resources.

Now, picture yourself as an average Venezuelan living in one of these regions.

You don’t work in the oil industry (or the steel or aluminum industry), but you benefit from residing in one of Venezuela's most economically vibrant regions, with high wages and a population with high consumption levels. Now imagine that this industry, the main engine of the region’s economy, becomes a shadow of it’s former self. Oil wells stop producing, steel mills close, etc.

Would you be less inclined or more inclined to vote for the Chavista candidate compared to other Venezuelans who have only experienced inflation, scarcity, insecurity, etc.?

This, I believe, is the reason why we don’t see Zulia/Anzoátegui/Bolívar’s pattern in older electoral maps, but only in the more recent maps.

Another objection is: but Trujillo state (the north-eastern most Andean state) is part of the Andean region, and the pattern is not clear for Trujillo. Point acknowledged.

As time passes and Venezuelans increasingly migrate from one area of the country to another, the cultural differences between different regions will tend to disappear. In particular, I think that the distinctions between Andean and coastal Venezuelans were more pronounced decades ago, and even centuries ago.

So my answer to the case of Trujillo is this: Trujillo is the least Andean of the three Andean states and it is the closest one to the rest of the country. Therefore, it is the state you would expect to be less Andino and more like the rest of Venezuela.

I doubt that I have thoroughly persuaded you of the existence of two clearly defined cultural regions in Venezuela, much less of the notion that these regions differ not only in their voting patterns but in many other ways as well. Ways that explain to a large extent the current predicament in which Venezuela finds itself.

But this post is already longer than I originally intended, so I’ll leave further comparisons between Andinos and other (Canarian) Venezuelans, and further explorations of their origins, for a future post.

(UPDATE: I wrote a follow-up post discussing Colombia.)

But before discussing the two Dicks1 at the center of this story, let's explore the historical context of Nixon’s 1958 visit to Venezuela.

If you read my earlier post on the life of Teodoro Petkoff you might recall that I mentioned several changes of government during Venezuela's mid-20th century history, many of them mediated by coups, including the fall of dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez in January 1958.

Pérez Jiménez, who hailed from Táchira State like most of the key figures in Venezuelan politics in the first half of the 20th century, participated as a young lieutenant colonel in the 1945 coup that brought Rómulo Betancourt, the leader of the left-wing Democratic Action party, to power as President of a Revolutionary Government Junta. This marked the beginning of a three-year period of Democratic Action (AD) rule in Venezuela known as Trienio Adeco. In 1948, the Trienio Adeco was brought to an end by yet another left-wing coup, barely 9 months after the election of Rómulo Gallegos as president2.

The 1948 coup, led by Colonel Carlos Delgado Chalbaud and Pérez Jiménez, ushered in a new dictatorial era that would last until the 1958 coup. This period can be divided into three distinct phases. The first phase was characterized by the rule of a triumvirate led by Delgado Chalbaud, who was known for his communist sympathies3, until his assassination in November 1950.

During the second phase, the two remaining military leaders appointed a civilian, lawyer Germán Suárez Flamerich, to serve as president. He governed the country until free presidential elections were held in November 1952. However, as the election results were not favorable to Pérez Jiménez's party, he decided to annul the elections and assume power as provisional president, marking the beginning of the third phase of this dictatorial era.

The initial move to overthrow Pérez Jiménez began with a failed coup attempt led by Colonel Hugo Trejo4 on January 1. This was followed by a significant general strike on January 21. The strike seemingly served as a powerful signal to those who had been waiting for the right moment to remove Pérez Jiménez from power:

On the 22nd, senior military leaders meet at the Military Academy to consider the situation. Their deliberations conclude by forming a Military Government Junta that asks Pérez Jiménez to resign. On the night of the 22nd, the Navy and the Caracas Garrison spoke out against the dictatorship; and Pérez Jiménez, deprived of all support in the Armed Forces, fled in the early morning of January 23….At news of the overthrow, the people took to the streets, looting the houses of the regime's supporters, attacking the headquarters of the National Security and lynching officials.

The newly formed Junta was led by Admiral Wolfgang Larrazábal alongside three Colonels and a General5. However, a purge occurred just one day later, resulting in the replacement of two Colonels considered too closely aligned with Pérez Jiménez6 (by whom, it’s not specified) with two civilians, cementing Larrazábal’s leadership position.

This was the government that Nixon would encounter upon his arrival in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas.

Goodwill tour

In the context of the United States' foreign policy during the 1950s, aimed at fostering the economic development of Latin American nations and supporting freedom-loving countries, it is not surprising that the U.S. recognized the newly formed Venezuelan provisional government, which promised to hold free and fair elections as soon as possible.

Pursuing this policy, and with the intention of increasing engagement with Latin America, in April 1958 United States President Dwight Eisenhower sent his Vice President Richard Nixon on a goodwill Latin American tour, visiting eight countries: Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela7.

Nixon dutifully arrived at his first stop in Uruguay on April 28, and continued his tour without major issues until his arrival in Lima, Peru, on May 7:

The first serious trouble on the tour materialized in Lima, Peru. Nixon's scheduled appearance at the University of San Marcos saw a large crowd of student demonstrators awaiting his arrival... Over the next few minutes, Nixon spoke with the students. However, a second faction of demonstrators soon began stoning the group, hitting one of Nixon's staff in the mouth and grazing the vice president's neck. The vice-president then withdrew and a later round-table with student leaders was canceled. Returning to his hotel, Nixon and his staff had to push through demonstrators who had encamped outside, during which Nixon was struck in the face.

The Peruvian Government, embarrassed by the violent attacks against Nixon, expressed its regret and condemned the incidents. And despite the gravity of these events, Nixon decided to continue with his South American tour.

But before we proceed any further with Nixon’s tour of South America, it may be worthwhile to take a look at the political and economic climate in Venezuela under Junta rule. This will provide insight into the state of the country that the American Vice President encountered when he arrived in Caracas.

The social truce

In 1957, the Venezuelan Business Federation, which was the main representative of the country's industries and commerce, still supported Pérez Jiménez. However, after his downfall, the Federation conveniently shifted its allegiance to the Junta8:

the President [of the Business Federation] highlighted in an event held at the White Palace in support of the Junta. It was criticized, among other things, specifically that the dictatorial Government had abandoned agriculture

They were not completely wrong about agriculture. Although it was not the Pérez Jiménez government that had abandoned agriculture. Farmers were abandoning agriculture and moving to the cities in droves.

While rapid urbanization was a common trend in most Latin American countries during the 50s, the pace of migration to Venezuelan cities was one of the fastest in the continent9.

Per capita income had surged by 70% from 1947 to 1957, largely due to an oil windfall. With the Venezuelan state receiving 50% of oil profits, the cities, particularly Caracas and Maracaibo, became the focal point for those seeking to benefit from the new oil fueled state largesse.

If you believe the new Larrazábal government must have had it’s hands full trying to avoid a resource curse, managing all that oil wealth in a responsible way that would avoid inflation, and fostering the growth of other economic sectors beyond oil, you might be surprised that this was not their primary focus.

By March the Venezuelan political and economic elites had reached a consensus to establish a social truce, labor peace and national unity10.

This consensus eventually solidified into a political pact signed by the Business Federation and the main Venezuelan trade union, the Unified Labor Union Committee (CSU), which, among other points, established11:

The convenience of celebrating Collective Contracts for each economic branch that tend to standardize working conditions and stabilize worker-employer relations.

This was less than what the trade union had demanded, as their demands included establishing maximum prices for essential goods and lowering housing rents.

The new government was also worried about the very high levels of unemployment12 and decided to solve the problem by implementing an Emergency Plan, which involved recruiting 18,500 workers to undertake minor public works while receiving what was then called an “idleness salary”13.

Maybe these policies of the Venezuelan government were not a sign of a radical leftist ideological inclination. Had that been the case, it would have created an awkward situation during Nixon’s visit, who was an avowed anti-communist.

Need a house?

As a result of the influx of people migrating to Caracas and other cities, informal settlements started to emerge on the outskirts of these urban areas, where newcomers would reside. The Pérez Jiménez government initiated a series of public works projects, financed by oil revenues, including among them14 the building of housing to accommodate these new urban dwellers.

The centerpiece of these housing projects was the new December 2 neighborhood, named in commemoration of the (fraudulent) presidential election that marked the beginning of Pérez Jiménez's rule as de facto president. Following his overthrow, the recently completed housing projects were swiftly renamed January 23 to celebrate his downfall15.

What happened then?

Buildings were invaded and apartments squatted by the slum dwellers from the surrounding hills. The Venezuelan Communist Party did very effective political work among these people, and they were very hostile to the Betancourt regime.16

Larrazábal’s government chose not to evict the squatters.

Then in July 23, the Minister of Defense, General Jesús María Castro León, voiced his opposition to the replacement of two Junta members, the previously mentioned civilians, by two new members. In particular, the appointment of José Antonio Mayobre, a former communist17, as a new member displeased many military officers.

Later that day, the situation escalated as Castro León presented a list of demands to the Junta, including the exclusion of the Communist and AD parties from the Venezuelan government.

Ultimately, Castro León's sabre rattling failed to sway Larrazábal, and the situation was resolved the following day through Castro León's resignation as Minister of Defense18.

Castro León's gamble had a subsequent chapter in September when a group of mid-level officers led a failed uprising in Caracas. Their objective was to express solidarity with Castro León and his supporters, while also voicing their disapproval of Larrazábal's government, which in their words was leading the country to economic disaster and the Armed Forces to division19.

Perhaps these actions by Castro León and others were an overreaction to the economic and social policies implemented by the government, which were being misinterpreted as a reflection of a particular ideological leaning by Larrazábal and his associates. But it would be unwise to blindly trust the judgment of Castro León and his supporters without further evidence.

Granted, the events I just mentioned happened in July and September, after Nixon’s visit in May 13, nevertheless they provide valuable context for understanding Venezuela's political landscape in 1958 and the inclinations of its provisional government, and how those factors might explain the reception Nixon encountered during his visit.

Poor Richard

I’ll quote Wikipedia on Nixon’s arrival in Venezuela20:

Nixon arrived, via air, in Caracas on May 13, 1958. According to a U.S. Secret Service report of the incident, a crowd of demonstrators at the airport "purposely disrupted ... [the] welcoming ceremony by shouting, blowing whistles, waving derogatory placards, throwing stones, and showering the Nixons with human spittle and chewing tobacco"… The New York Herald Tribune's Earl Mazo wrote that "Venezuelan troops and police seemed to evaporate. The vice-president and the whole official party literally had to fight their way to cars behind a thin but sturdy phalanx of U.S. Secret Service agents". The original itinerary had Nixon moving from the airport to the National Pantheon of Venezuela where he was to lay a wreath at the tomb of Simón Bolívar. However, a United States naval attache sent ahead with the wreath reported a crowd that had assembled at the Pantheon had attacked him and torn up the wreath. At this point it was decided to proceed directly to the U.S. embassy.

Far from a warm welcome. But surely the Venezuelan government would intervene to alleviate the situation.

Life's Wilson wrote that a crowd of several hundred "raced toward their quarry and engulfed Nixon's car", stoning it and banging on the windows with their fists. Nixon was protected by twelve United States Secret Service agents, some of whom were injured in the melee… According to the Secret Service, Venezuelan police declined to intervene to clear the crowd. When the mob began rocking the car back and forth in an attempt to overturn it, U.S. Secret Service agents, believing the vice president's life was in jeopardy, drew their firearms and prepared to begin shooting into the crowd…Nixon ordered Secret Service agent-in-charge Jack Sherwood to hold fire and shoot only on his orders. No shots were ultimately fired

It seems that some Venezuelans thought they knew what was happening.

[Foreign Minister] Velutini explained the police inaction was because the communists "helped us overthrow Pérez Jiménez and we are trying to find a way to work with them". Nixon's longtime secretary, Rose Mary Woods, was injured by flying glass when the windows of the car in which she was riding, following Nixon, were smashed. Vernon Walters, then a mid-ranking U.S. Army officer serving as Nixon's translator, would end up with a "mouthful of glass", and Velutini was also hit by shards…

Maybe Minister Velutini was inadvertently mischaracterizing the situation?

Nixon’s motorcade eventually made it to the embassy, allowing him to proceed with the planned meetings and lunches scheduled for the visit, including lunch with the Junta members.

Concerned about Nixon’s security, President Eisenhower deployed the aircraft carrier USS Tarawa to the Caribbean region to provide potential rescue and support in the event of further threats. The operation, which ultimately was not executed, was named Poor Richard.

I’m not sure whether Richard Nixon learned the right lessons from this event, but he seems to have learned some lessons21:

Following Nixon's departure, the provisional Venezuelan government persisted in implementing its preferred policies.

Guns and Planning

With the December presidential election still months away, Larrazábal seized the opportunity during his brief tenure to draw on state resources in pursuit of what he believed to be worthy goals.

One of these goals was the success of the Cuban revolution, and recognizing the continuous need for arms of the growing Sierra Maestra insurgency, Larrazábal arranged for a Venezuelan aircraft loaded with weapons to be sent to the Castro-led guerrillas22. That plane not only included those much needed weapons but also carried future Cuban president Manuel Urrutia to the Sierra Maestra23. Urrutia's presidency, however, was short-lived, as he was succeeded by the communist Osvaldo Dorticós just seven and a half months later after acceding to the presidency of Cuba.

Should we conclude Larrazábal was a philo-communist simply because he was arming Fidel Castro’s revolution?

After all, the Venezuelan government Nixon encountered in Caracas was not solely led by Larrazábal. Other Venezuelan leaders were also part of the Junta.

In fact, Larrazábal stepped down from his position as president to run as a candidate for the December election24, which he lost. Edgar Sanabria then assumed the presidency and promptly created a new government office charged with the central planning of Venezuela’s economy.

In that December election, Larrazábal was supported by the Republican Democratic Union Party (URD) and the Venezuelan Communist Party…

Ok, maybe Larrazábal was a commie, and having Nixon travel to Venezuela was a very stupid idea.

Or maybe he wasn’t. While Larrazábal was indeed ideologically left-leaning, he was a quintessential example of Venezuela's political class, particularly among high-ranking military officers who have frequently meddled in the country's political affairs.

These Venezuelan leaders firmly believe in the central role of government in directing and planning the economy, have little regard for political and social stability, particularly when it necessitates setting aside their personal egos, and possess unwavering confidence in the power of leadership. Their leadership of course.

And they have ruled Venezuela not for the last 25 years, but for the greater part of the last century.

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The revolution back then was a kind of personal adventure, with an air of romanticism. We lived the armed struggle very intensely…

I was pondering what episode of Venezuelan history could be a good subject for me to write about, when I realized that maybe I should not write about something but about someone, and that someone should be the famous Venezuelan revolutionary Teodoro Petkoff.

Petkoff was the son of Jewish European parents, the Bulgarian Petko Petkoff and the Polish Ashkenazi Ida Maleç1. They met while studying in then Czechoslovakia, where Petko studied chemistry and Ida studied medicine, though Petko's presence in Brno was due to his fleeing Bulgaria in the aftermath of the failed 1923 revolution2, in which he took part.

As a refugee in a foreign land and with no chance of safely returning to Bulgaria in the short term, Petko and Ida must have contemplated the possibility of emigrating to a country where they could settle indefinitely. While temporarily residing in Paris, where Ida was pursuing her postgraduate studies, and with the help of some Bulgarian friends who had migrated to South America, they found out about this beautiful and prosperous country called Venezuela. Taking a chance, they decided to try their luck in this new land.

Upon their arrival in Venezuela in 1927, Petko and Ida encountered the usual challenges most immigrants face when trying to secure a job and settle into their new life. However, their fortunes improved markedly when Ida was hired in 1928 as the medical doctor3 for Central Azucarero Venezuela, a sugar refinery in the small town of Batey. Petko was also promptly hired as a chemical engineer for the refinery and the couple settled in Batey, where four years later their son Teodoro was born.

The Petkoff family flourished in Batey and continued to grow with the arrival of twins Luben and Mirko, born in 1933. But the moment young Teodoro reached school age Ida and Petko - both exceptionally educated by Venezuelan standards - decided it was time to relocate to the capital, Caracas, to give their children better educational opportunities.

Once in Caracas, Petko initially worked for the Venezuelan Ministry of Development for a while before attempting to establish a chemical factory that would produce ink and printing materials. However, the onset of the Second World War made importing the necessary machinery impossible, so Petko finally settled on opening a printing shop.

Petko’s venture was not only a prosperous business during the 1940s and 1950s but also became a family-run enterprise, with Luben working as a typographer and Mirko working as a salesman. This might also be related to the fact that, unlike Teodoro, brothers Luben and Mirko didn’t display any academic inclinations, and per Teodoro’s account they were pretty restless young men:

Luben was the quite one while Mirko was a rooster, a fighting rooster. People said: There goes Luben plotting the next mischief so Mirko can make it. They were a menace. The true scourge of the neighborhood. They were arrested often, and not due to political reasons. When one of them was in prison, the other one would visit in order to supplant him until the next afternoon, when they would repeat this routine. If it was a 15-day prison sentence, each one would do half.

Teodoro was much more academically gifted than his younger brothers, after all it was him who became Venezuelan Minister of Planning a few decades later, and this despite a rather eventful academic life.

In the streets

A few years ago I used to interview job candidates for the engineering company I worked for, and one of the key aspects I always made sure to check in every resume I read was that the chronology of the resume made sense. Gaps in employment or education history raised a red flag, and the candidate better have a good explanation for any missing years.

Let’s see, Teodoro Petkoff was born in January 1932, began studying medicine at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) in Caracas in 1949, at the tender age of 17, and graduated as an economics major in 19614. That’s a total of 13 years to study two very different careers5. Something is off. As it turns out, Petkoff was very busy6:

When I began my studies of medicine, starting in 1949 at the Universidad Central of Caracas, I remained a member of the Communist Youth and was required to be politically active in the faculty of medicine. But my main focus of activity was in the streets.

In fact, Petkoff was so active in the streets that he got himself arrested on three separate occasions during the 1950s Pérez Jiménez dictatorship, an era marked by a swift surge in oil wealth and the rapid social and economic transformations that accompanied it. But his juggling of student life and revolutionary life eventually paid off in 1960, after the fall of the dictatorship, when he emerged victorious in the election for president of the student union of the faculty of economy at UCV.

His time as union president was after the fall of the Marcos Pérez Jiménez’s dictatorship, when the new democratically elected Rómulo Betancourt government allowed greater political participation. And apparently Petkoff would like to think that he contributed to Pérez Jiménez’s downfall.

At the time of the general strike of January 21, 1958, which overthrew the dictatorship, I was deeply involved in organizing the workers of the Los Cortijos neighborhood for street disorder, speaking at the factory gates and being chased by the police. On January 21 there was a large popular demonstration in the Plaza de El Silencio, and Luben and I went to see what was happening. There were fights in the streets all day. We didn't have weapons in those days, but we burned buses in the streets, and turned them into barricades.

Here's a timeline highlighting some of the major events in Venezuela's history to provide a broader perspective on the country's 20th-century developments and events mentioned that I’ve mentioned earlier:

Down with democracy

The new democratic regime did not please Petkoff. In his own words:

The failure of our campaign to stop the 1963 election had produced very important changes, both in the country as a whole and in our movement. Perhaps our biggest mistake of this period was trying to stop the elections, instead of participating in them.

The objective was to stop democratic elections and bring about a revolution by any means necessary.

The leadership of the party throughout this period was wrong in not understanding the ways of revolutionary war in the conditions of Venezuela. There was no dictatorial regime like the right-wing military dictatorships in other parts of Latin America, nor a colonial regime like in Algeria or Vietnam, but rather an electoral democracy that in Venezuela was something new…At that time, a transportation strike began in the state of Táchira, which caused uprisings throughout Venezuela and in a few days paralyzed the entire country. On the first day of the riots in Caracas there were about 18 deaths. That was the only moment in which we were about to start a much larger insurrectionary process. The only thing missing was the participation of a part of the army in the revolt. …This section of the Armed Forces existed and was willing to join the revolt.

Petkoff doesn’t seem to acknowledge any contradiction in maligning the supposed prevalence of right-wing military dictatorships in Latin America during the 1960s, while admitting the recruitment of officers from the Venezuelan Armed Forces to partake in a left-wing coup that would propel him and his fellow revolutionaries into power.

This is perfectly understandable in the context of Venezuela in the 1950s and 1960s. The general strike that toppled the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship was preceded by a failed coup attempt on January 1, 1958, led by left-wing Colonel Hugo Trejo. After the general strike had weakened the Pérez Jiménez regime, other left-wing officers led by Admiral Wolfgang Larrazábal decided to form a Junta, which requested and ultimately secured Pérez Jiménez's resignation.

Larrazábal went on to preside over the Junta during most of 1958, using his position to send weapons to Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries in Cuba. He eventually resigned in order to compete in the 1958 presidential election, with the support of the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV) and the left-leaning URD party.

Pérez Jiménez for his part had first entered politics by taking part in the coup that established the 1945-48 revolutionary junta lead by Betancourt - yes, the same Betancourt - and subsequently lead the 1948 coup that put an end to that first revolutionary government of Betancourt7.

Military coups were common during those years, almost all of them from the left, and Petkoff was well aware of the fact that the Venezuelan military harbored a significant number of left-wing mid-level officers, some actively plotting the next coup:

This section of the Armed Forces existed and was willing to join the revolt, but subsequently lost strength through the futile naval uprisings at Carúpano and Puerto Cabello and other isolated uprisings. But in January 1962, the strength of the left in the Armed Forces was largely intact in La Guaira, Carúpano, Puerto Cabello and Caracas; and we were mostly in good shape due to the type of units commanded by leftist officers. We had groups in Caracas, the Marine Corps in La Guaira, and the bases in Carúpano and Puerto Cabello. If a military revolt had occurred at that time (January 1962), the fate of the country could have been different. So these units could have revolted, but they did not. We did everything we could to induce these military bases to rebel in January 1962.

The military uprisings in Carúpano and Puerto Cabello, mentioned by Petkoff, were not small affairs. In Carúpano, the rebellion resulted in 56 deaths, while Puerto Cabello witnessed the loss of approximately 400 lives.

Following these military insurrections, supported by members of the Communist Party and the MIR movement8, the Betancourt government reacted by banning both the PCV and MIR and issued warrant orders for several communist leaders, including Petkoff.

Going to the mountains

In April 1962, Petkoff and fellow revolutionary Douglas Bravo, both in hiding, decide to take the fight to the countryside and head for the mountains of Falcón State in Western Venezuela to form an initial group of rural guerrillas, intended to be the first of many. Bravo was a local big man and failed law student with considerable influence in the area. Their goal was to overthrow the legitimate government of Betancourt, or that of its democratically elected successor, Raúl Leoni, by instigating a rural based uprising in the manner of the Cuban revolution:

I knew the guerrillas from the states of Lara and Trujillo very well. In Trujillo, where my brother Luben was fighting, the guerrilla was composed mainly of peasants from the Boconó mountains…Falcón's guerrillas were organized in the context of an old dispute between the Bravo and Hernández clans in those mountains.

Bravo was not the only local big man in the Falcón mountains.

Douglas Bravo was mistakenly considered something of a coward, because Douglas's father was murdered by a member of the Hernandez clan, and in the best mountain tradition, he should have killed a Hernandez in revenge. But Douglas was interested in other things, in politics, so he went to Caracas to look for another kind of life. He later regained his prestige in Falcón when he became a guerrilla.

If your manliness is questioned by the local community due to your failure to fulfill a vendetta by taking a life, you can always get your manly reputation back by targeting and killing soldiers and policemen. Good to know.

Regarding how they formed and organized the initial guerrilla group:

In the Falcón mountains we were able to build our guerrilla base with the help of an old family of landowners who had their own retinue of serfs, squatters and servants. Our first point of arrival was a mountainous area north of Pueblo Nuevo, a town of the Bravo clan, near one of their haciendas called Los Evangelios. We were able to incorporate the Bravo’s farmers who work the land. In Falcón we established the guerrilla based on this type of political-family relations.

Large landowners, serfs, servants, farmers who work the land. That’s an interesting social structure to base a rural guerrilla on.

Besides Petkoff and Bravo the other main leaders of the Falcón guerrilla were a kidnapper and murderer from another one of the local big families9, a deserter captain from the army10, and a lawyer from another local big family (Hipólito Acosta).

They led a colorful group of guerrillas formed by students, peasants and a few enigmatic characters:

For example, there was a man who had recently killed in a typical Falcón State dispute. He was a kind of professional assassin, very brave and a good marksman, who joined the guerrillas and then left and had an incredible conversion. He became an evangelist, a shepherd of souls, a super peaceful man who was recently murdered from behind in one of those old vendettas. He had joined the guerrilla because he was a friend of the Bravos, and because of the rebellious tradition of the Sierra.

The guerrilla movement ultimately failed, as the Venezuelan army hunted down most of the insurgents. Yet Petkoff found a glimmer of success in that his Falcón State group managed to hold out longer, an accomplishment he attributes to a more selective recruitment policy.

Seeing the failure of the rural guerrillas Petkoff returned to Caracas to try his hand at urban guerrilla:

We planned and executed operations such as the kidnapping of the Argentine-Spanish soccer star Alfredo Di Stéfano, the hijacking of the steamship Anzoátegui... the fire at the Good Year tire factory, in the middle of a densely populated area, terrified the population...During the period some police officers were murdered in cold blood.11

Petkoff was finally captured in March 1963, only to escape in August of the same year. He was recaptured again in June 1964, only to escape once more in February 1967.

His time in jail apparently gave him the opportunity to ponder the possible need for a change of course in his struggle, and in 1966 he was involved in a very public dispute over the strategy of the PCV with other prominent members of the party, including Douglas Bravo.

Meanwhile his brother Luben, who had been captured in 1962 while fighting in the rural guerrilla group of Yaracuy State and subsequently escaped prison12 in September 1963, distanced himself from his older brother by advocating for the continuation of the fight through any means. In July 1966, he returned to Venezuela to resume the revolutionary fight - after having spent some time in China, Czechoslovakia and Cuba - accompanied by a Cuban contingent led by Arnaldo Ochoa Sánchez13.

Despite the Cuban support this new effort also failed to succeed, and Luben, like his elder brother Teodoro, eventually laid down arms14.

Not only did the elder Petkoff change his stance on using violence to achieve the PCV's goals, but he also caused an acrimonious split in the party when he published a book in 1969 condemning the recent Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

In December 1970, Petkoff and those who agreed with him left the Venezuelan Communist Party to found the new Movement Towards Socialism Party (MAS) with the aim of participating in the 1973 general election. Although the MAS presidential candidate, José Vicente Rangel, only garnered 4.26% of the votes, the party managed to elect two senators and nine deputies, one of whom was Teodoro Petkoff.

A new kind of revolution

The transition of the Petkoff brothers and other revolutionaries to electoral politics - of the not violence-backed variety - was facilitated by Venezuelan President Rafael Caldera's (1969-1974) conciliatory policy. This policy included the legalization of the PCV and MIR parties and the issuance of pardons for several revolutionaries, including Luben Petkoff, who was released from jail on July 1973.

The MAS and Petkoff consistently participated in elections during the 1970s and 1980s but were unable to secure a victory. During this period, the party's electoral results mostly fell below the 10% threshold.

Petkoff was the presidential candidate for the MAS in the 1983 and 1988 elections, following a split between José Vicente Rangel and the majority of MAS supporters. In the 1983 election, Petkoff garnered 4.17% of the votes. His performance declined in the 1988 election, where he received only 2.17% of the votes.

By the 1990s, rapid demographic growth and lower oil prices had once again dramatically transformed the social and economic landscape of Venezuela. Gone were the days of the 1960s and 1970s high oil price bonanza, and the country's population had surged from around 13 to 14 million in the mid-1970s to over 20 million by the early 1990s. That meant significantly fewer petrodollars to please many more Venezuelans.

Even Petkoff, the seasoned revolutionary, could not ignore the signs of the impending storm15:

This means that current levels of per capita public spending cannot be maintained by a wasteful state that employs a colossal and unproductive bureaucracy just to alleviate the possibility of social disorder. Surely two-thirds of Venezuela's public employees are unnecessary, a form of disguised unemployment absorbed by the Government to calm social unrest. Two-thirds of Venezuela's public budget comes from oil revenues, and much depends on the state's ability to employ people and redistribute this wealth.

Eventually, it was Carlos Andrés Pérez, the victor of the 1988 presidential election, who was forced to acknowledge that money does grow inside oil wells but not on trees. As a result, he initiated an economic program focused on austerity, which included the reduction of fuel subsidies and a thirty percent increase in public transportation fares.

A few days following the announcement of these new measures, all hell broke loose in Venezuela:

Larger protests and rioting began on the morning of 27 February 1989 in Guarenas, a town in Miranda State about 30 kilometres (19 mi) east of Caracas, due to the increase in public transportation prices… rioting quickly spread to the capital and other towns across the country… Students began to build barricades, which blocked the main thoroughfares in Caracas, and students of the Central University of Venezuela began to organize large protests against Pérez's new policies… reports emerged that the upper-tier of Metropolitan Police–comprising a force meant for military action– were ordered to respond to protests with force… Through the night, some working class areas participated in parties with alcohol looted earlier in the day… Some groups of troops allowed organized thefts to occur, letting people enter shops and take only essential items… Middle-class citizens responded to the protests by creating their own self-defense groups… Following the crackdown by authorities, gunfights between radical groups and the army began on 1 March… By nightfall, militants in Zona Central who had been clashing with troops, began to run out of ammunition…Rioters destroyed properties indiscriminately, with no motives related to initial protests, and many had to line up at government food distribution centers since markets were destroyed by rioters.

In the aftermath of the rioting and looting, Pérez's party emerged victorious in the Venezuelan regional election of December 1989, garnering 39.74% of the vote. Meanwhile, the MAS party, in a partial coalition with the COPEI (Christian Democratic) party, managed to elect one governor and secure 17.78% of the vote - hardly an electoral revolution.

As is widely known, this didn't deter a handful of left-leaning mid-level officers from attempting two coups during Pérez’s rule, in February and November of 1992. The first one led by Hugo Chávez among others.

Following an impeachment process that ousted Pérez from the presidency, the MAS party finally secured a significant victory when COPEI's former leader, Rafael Caldera, reclaimed the presidency in the 1993 general election, forming a coalition with the MAS. Petkoff was now part of the government.

The old revolutionary now became Minister of the Central Office of Coordination and Planning, likely due to his credentials as a graduate in economics16.

Let's take a look at an assessment of Petkoff, the traitor, and his time as a minister, as provided by marxist.com:

The appointment came at a time when the Caldera government was besieged by economic crisis and needed a sharp turn to the right in its economic policies. Petkoff was the ideal candidate to carry out that program, covering the sale of the country to private and multinational interests…The MAS participation in the Caldera government was very controversial within the party, but Petkoff managed to hold the line. ‘He became the most pragmatic of planning ministers in the 1990s, deftly negotiating a structural adjustment programme with the IMF,’ says the Financial Times obituary. What they mean by ‘pragmatic’ is pro-capitalist. Petkoff was responsible for a package of privatisations of state owned companies, cuts in social spending, increase in taxes, making it easier for bosses to sack workers, etc.

Despite the malignement of Caldera’s and Petkoff’s sound economic policies17 by marxist.com, it raises one valid point: the party was beginning to show signs of fracture.

The MAS's 1997 internal election led to a shift in the party's leadership, as those opposed to Petkoff gained control. Later on, the party's new leadership decided to support coup maker Hugo Chávez in the 1998 presidential election, prompting Teodoro Petkoff to leave the political movement that had been his home for nearly three decades.

Now that someone from the left had grabbed power and finally managed to effectively neutralize any opposition18, Petkoff’s role in the Venezuelan political landscape was confined to criticizing the Chávez regime and attempting to form a united front against it, while receiving praise from the New York Times and other prestigious establishments for his new found place as a defender of democracy:

“The best president Venezuela never had” said the Financial Times. “His struggle for freedom of expression and defense of human rights will never be forgotten,” cried Luis Almagro, general secretary of the OAS, conveniently glossing over the fact that Petkoff cheered on the undemocratic coup against president Chavez in April 2002 from the frontpage of his newspaper TalCual (“Chau Hugo” was the headline). The same disregard for the facts was shown by Dorothy Kronick, who in the New York Times described the deceased as “a restless defender of democratic values”. “A giant of Venezuela's politics” gloated the Associated Press piece on his death.

Teodoro Petkoff passed away in October 2018. I could say that an important chapter of Venezuela’s history, or even Latin American history, came to a close with his death. I could also say that he exemplified the evolution of a nation, transitioning from one where violence was an accepted means to attain power to a more peaceful society that rejects violence as a political tool.

But I’m not going to say any of those things.

He’s more of a study in the frivolity of ideology. It illustrates how individuals and societies can justify violence, theft, and deceit as long as there’s a convincing layer of bullshit to wrap it all up. And how a society that swallows bullshit is more susceptible to being preyed on.

Violence is still a thing in Venezuela. Government capture is still a thing in Venezuela. Little has changed in the last two centuries.

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I'm not quite sure what these X posters are trying to imply. Are these young men supposed to be sleeping cells for a future attack on the United States by their countries of origin? Are they supposed to start a criminal wave based on their presumed military qualities?

Of course these posters might just be trying to create a climate of fear around massive immigration, and saying "military age" is just a convenient way to reinforce that fear. Yet something caught my attention when seeing those posts with the words "Venezuela", “Cuba“, "Haiti" and "military age" next to each other and I decided to take some time to elaborate on why it caught my attention and whether it makes sense to call these immigrants men of military age.

First, let's start with a clear definition of “military”. A military force is a highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Guerrillas don't count. Bands of armed men under the orders of some strong man don't count.

Now let's delve into the military history of Venezuela, Haiti and Cuba1 to see what their military performance has been like in the last couple of centuries. From the time of the Latin American wars of independence to the present the only war in which any of these three countries actively participated and emerged victorious is the Ogaden War where Cuba aided the Ethiopian army, which was bolstered by Soviet materiel and advisors, to defeat the weak Somali forces. Not a great feat of military prowess.

The fact that a country doesn't participate in wars doesn't necessarily imply that its population lacks any military qualities. But in the case of these countries they've managed to display a high degree of incompetence several times during their history: a series of defeats of Haitian forces at the hands of the smaller Dominican army during the middle of the 19th century; the pathetic defeat of the Cuban army at the hands of revolutionary guerrillas during the 1950s; the embarrassing performance of Venezuela's government and military during a couple of episodes of gunboat diplomacy at the turn of the century.

You might think that factors other than bravery and discipline affect the combat performance of these Latin American soldiers, and you would be right. However those other qualities, such as capacity for planning, strategic thinking and just plain economic capacity to produce the resources needed to conduct war, are probably also lacking in these countries.

A first indication that Venezuelans, Cubans and Haitians simply lack these military qualities comes from the market. There is a market in military capabilities, and just like it happens in the market for bananas, consumers prefer good bananas to bad bananas. In this case consumers are military contractors and bananas are Latin American mercenaries.

So where do the good Latin American mercenaries come from? Colombia, Chile, El Salvador and to a lesser extent Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, Panama. No Venezuelans, no Haitians and no Cubans.

Prince told the House Oversight Committee that in contrast, Blackwater’s employees are “Americans working for America, protecting Americans.”

This statement would come as a surprise—and a slap in the face—to the thousands of Latin Americans… whom the company has hired to fill its contracts in Iraq since the war began. [a Blackwater affiliate] has recruited Iraq security guards from countries throughout Latin America, including Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama, as journalist Jeremy Scahill has reported.

Latin American mercenaries have been employed in the Middle East during the last few decades, in places like Iraq and Yemen, and they overwhelmingly come from the countries I just mentioned, not from the countries of origin of the so-called men of military age now crossing the U.S. border.

A second indication that this is not the case is evident when examining the recipients of the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration in the United States Armed Forces2. For this analysis, since Venezuelans have only recently become a sizable population group among U.S. Hispanics, consider Puerto Ricans as a proxy population for Venezuelans3, and possibly Cubans as well.

During World War II, Korea and Vietnam a total of 883 Medals of Honor were given. Out of that total 38 were awarded to Hispanic Americans4, with 28 to Mexican Americans, 4 to Puerto Ricans and 6 to other Hispanics.

Now consider that according to the 1970 U.S. census, taken during the Vietnam War, the American population of Mexican descent was 5,073,000 while the population of Puerto Rican descent was 1,454,000 (US-side, with more than 2 million living in PR). This means that Mexican Americans represented 2.5% of the total U.S. population, while Puerto Ricans accounted for either 0.7% or more than 2%, depending on whether only state-side Puerto Ricans are considered.

Their shares of Medals of Honor is 3.2% and 0.5% respectively. So for Mexican Americans their share is higher than their share of the general population, though this is to be expected considering it was a much younger population, while for Puerto Ricans (also a younger population) it was much lower than expected.

And most of those Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients served during the early and mid-20th century. Since the end of the conscription era only 30 Americans have received the Medal of Honor and among them only one, the Mexican-American Leroy Petry, is Hispanic.

Aiming for the stars

From USA Today5:

Hispanics are the fastest growing population in the military, making up about 16% of all active-duty military, according to the Department of Defense. However, Latinos make up only 8% of the officer corps and 2% of general/flag officers, according to a 2019 report by the Congressional Research Service.

Another indication that Venezuelans and Cubans would not make good military men comes from the numbers of two-stars and higher commissioned officers that have served in the United States armed forces.

The figures I found for each nationality are as follows: 11 Mexican-Americans , 4 Puerto Ricans, 2 Spaniards, 1 Colombian and 1 Cuban.

Once again, this number is relatively low for Puerto Ricans when compared to Mexican-Americans, and particularly low for Cuban-Americans, who only became a sizable Hispanic group in the United States starting in the 1960s and 70s, but one might expect them to be well represented among high ranking commissioned officers during the last three or four decades.

This is strong evidence that Cubans and Venezuelans will not excel in military roles. But what about Haitians?

Haitian-Americans now number slightly over one million people, representing approximately 0.3% of the U.S. population. And yet the number of Haitian commissioned officers in the US armed forces is remarkably small, and I couldn’t find any Haitian recipient of a Medal of Honor. The highest-ranking officer of Haitian descent that I could identify is Rudy Moise who attained the rank of colonel in the US Air Force6.

If you want to keep the peace, train for war

In a sense, there exists another market for military capabilities where Latin American armies compete to sell their services. Despite being an imperfect market with a single buyer, it also provides insight into the relative value of the military capabilities of different Latin American populations. This market is the United Nations’ lead peacekeeping operations.

From a Latin American country's perspective, participating in a UN peacekeeping operation offers valuable experience for its armed forces and an opportunity to showcase its logistical and military capabilities.

Moreover, there are minimal costs for participating countries, since funding comes from all UN member states. Therefore, the only apparent cost for participating countries lies in the risk of being involved in any of the few regrettable scandals that have occasionally tarnished peacekeeping operations, which could negatively impact their reputation.

From the point of view of the UN's Department of Peace Operations (DPO), enabling countries with limited or no prior involvement to participate in peacekeeping operations helps to legitimize the DPO and its operations. This approach also avoids the potential mistrust that may arise from an excessive involvement by global superpowers.

As we are about to see, the small country of Uruguay has had a large involvement in peacekeeping operations relative to its size, but this is a good thing from the DPO’s perspective. As long as participating countries steer clear of controversies, the UN should be pleased to accept peacekeeping contingents from any Latin American country, particularly those that have previously contributed less.

The following is a list of all Latin American countries7, detailing the number of troop contributions each has made to United Nations' peacekeeping operations.

The list is ordered by population size, with Brazil first and Uruguay last, making it easier to compare the number of troop contributions with similarly sized countries and identify any unusually low or high contributions.

The three most significant outliers in terms of low troop contributions are Mexico, Venezuela and Cuba. Not shocking.

The case of Venezuela is particularly striking considering that from 1948, when UN peacekeeping missions began, until the 1990s, it was one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America due to its oil wealth - it’s only contribution was to ONUCA in 1990). This is not an issue of lack of resources.

Argentina and Chile have even established peacekeeping training centers to assist in training not only their own forces but also those of other countries, further contributing to global peacekeeping efforts.

Just fear?

You might view my efforts to argue for the low military qualities of Venezuelans, Cubans and Haitians as unproductive. And from a certain point of view you would be right. While a few overtly concerned American conservatives think there is something sinister about these men of military age, the least of any American's worries should be their actual military capabilities. It’s just a matter of fear; ignore the tweets.

But there’s another angle to this story.

The United States' status as a global superpower can be attributed to several factors, key among them its enormous economic weight and large population. Yet clearly another significant factor is its formidable military capabilities that allow it to project power on a global scale.

If we assume that American elites - military, political and economic elites - understand that for the United States to maintain its global superpower status despite China and India's four-fold larger populations they need to increase the U.S. population fast through massive immigration, then looking the other way while millions of Latin Americans cross the border seems reasonable from their point of view. The population living south of the Rio Grande significantly outnumbers that of the north.

However, there’s a catch. The American armed forces are not solely the product of an enormous budget and a prolific military industry. They also arise from a key element: a population that has fought, mostly successfully, the wars necessary to assert American power around the world. It’s their secret sauce if you will.

Regardless of the cause, different populations have different military capabilities, and it appears that, in an attempt to maintain its status, America - or more precisely, its elite - might be diluting one of the essential elements that propelled it to superpower status.

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