The Year of the Troika

National Security Advisor John Bolton

2018 is the year that US National Security Advisor/Iran hawk/facial hair aficionado John Bolton coined the term "Troika of Tyranny", or a Triangle of Terror (I guess this is a subtitle, like "Die Hard: With a Vengeance"), to refer to socialist governments in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela in a speech in Miami.  Condemning socialism (and left-leaning politicians), he said "the problems we see in Latin America today have not emerged because socialism has been implemented poorly. On the contrary, the Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan people suffer in misery because socialism has been implemented effectively" and that the troika was "the cause of immense human suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability, and the genesis of a sordid cradle of communism in the western hemisphere". Bolton concluded his speech stating "Look to the North; look to our flag; look to your own. The Troika will crumble. The people will triumph. And, the righteous flame of freedom will burn brightly again in this Hemisphere".

Bolton clearly builds upon Bush 43-era Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's 2005 speech on the "Outposts of Tyranny", in which she identified Belarus, Burma, Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe and the broader Middle East as regions of tyranny, despair, and anger -- but Bolton, I suppose, is highlighting Vladimir Putin's role in propping up the South American socialist regimes, all the while trying to shore up the Cuban-American voting block for Trump.

Anyways, there's quite a bit to digest here.

Maybe we should rename Bolton the "mustache of mediocrity"

— Wayne Wilson (@slider2004) November 1, 2018

Troika of Tyranny is Axis of Evil with a bushy moustache.

— Jacob Weisberg (@jacobwe) November 2, 2018

1. Venezuela

Venezuela has been all over the news for its severe economic mismanagement and humanitarian disaster over the past 5 years, leading to thousands fleeing the country's borders every week.  Ishan Tanoor from the Washington Post calls it the biggest crisis in the western hemisphere:

According to U.N. figures, some 2.3 million Venezuelans — about 7% of the population — have left their homeland over the past couple of years. Other estimates place the number at closer to 4 million.  The exodus is the consequence of severe economic deprivation and mounting desperation among Venezuelans. The country’s economy has shrunk by half in just five years, and inflation is nearing a staggering 1 million percent. Shortages of food and medicine have led to a crisis in public health, with once-vanquished diseases such as diphtheria and measles returning and the rate of infant mortality rising sharply. U.N. officials claim that some 1.3 million Venezuelans who left the country were “suffering from malnourishment.”
The vast scope of the crisis has drawn bleak parallels. “Comparisons with Syria’s refugee crisis — the worst man-made disaster since the second world war, with almost 6 million refugees out of a prewar population of 20 million — may be inexact,” noted an editorial in the Financial Times. “In terms of scale and raw numbers, however, they no longer seem entirely far-fetched.”

Constrained by US sanctions, Venezuela has received lifeline from the other "superpowers": China and Russia.  Moscow, in particular, has doubled down on its investment in Venezuela, giving it larger influence in the western hemisphere.  Anthony Faiola (Washington Post) reports from Caracas: 

[China] has made massive investments and established deep trade ties in Latin America. But their efforts are largely economic. A major Venezuelan creditor, China has shown little interest in accumulating Venezuelan assets or strengthening political ties with [President Nicolas] Maduro’s failing regime. For the most part, it has concentrated on trying to get its loans repaid. 

Russia, in contrast, has repeatedly restructured, refinanced or taken in-kind payments from Venezuela. Just days after the [G-20] summit, Maduro traveled to Moscow to meet with Putin. The Venezuelan leader said Russia agreed to invest an additional $5 billion to improve Venezuelan oil production — much of which goes to Russia’s export customers — and $1 billion in gold mining. Separate contracts were signed to supply Venezuela with 600,000 tons of Russian wheat and to modernize and maintain its Russian-made weaponry. [...]

Russia also now owns significant parts of five oil fields in Venezuela, which holds the world’s largest reserves, along with 30 years’ worth of future output from two Caribbean natural-gas fields. Venezuela also has signed over 49.9% of Citgo, its wholly owned company in the United States — including three Gulf Coast refineries and a countrywide web of pipelines — as collateral to Russia’s state-owned Rosneft oil behemoth for a reported $1.5 billion in desperately needed cash. [...]

Maduro described Russia and Venezuela, both under heavy U.S. sanctions, as comrades in a fight against American hegemony and leading the charge toward a new, “multipolar world.”

So does it make much sense, or is it disingenuous, to blame Russia, when US sanctions give Maduro no choice but to offer the country to Putin and Xi?

2. Nicaragua

Given the CIA financial and military support for the Contras rebels (which committed atrocities including burning farms and schools, murdering women and children, and hundreds of terrorist attacks) against the Sandinista junta in the 1980s, which fueled a bloody civil war that lasted a decade, it's a bit jarring to hear a Trump official talk about Nicaragua with no sense of irony whatsoever. 

President Daniel Ortega has been de facto ruler for many decades, consolidating his power through corruption and nepotism, and maintained popular support by administering generous welfare programs for the country's poor population.  For most of the 21st century, the country was a bright spot for tourism, with a economy (although still very poor by world's standards) growing at a brisk 5% annually.   Things turned in 2017, when trading partner Venezuela stopped financial support due to its own economic collapse, and northern neighbor Honduras plagued by gang violence. 

Ortega responded to the cash strap by cutting social security benefits, leading to an outraged public to take to the streets.  Following the old dictators' playbook, he unleashed his security forces to crack down on the protesters, killing hundreds, leading the Washington to impose sanctions under human rights violation.  The Ortega regime is widely expected to collapse under the weight of severe economic crisis and popular disenchantment.

3. Cuba

Pointing at Cuba as part of the troika is... probably the strangest, in a speech full of very odd statements [Note: Perhaps since Bolton's is mostly a political stump speech right before crucial midterm elections, we shouldn't try to distill foreign policy out of it].  The island nation south of the Florida has been stable under former president Raúl Castro, who assumed power in 2011 from his ailing brother/socialist revolutionary icon Fidel Castro (who passed away in 2016), and its current president Miguel Díaz-Canel, who took office in April 2018 in a peaceful political transition.  Furthermore, in 2014, Castro and US President Barack Obama announced that efforts to normalize relations between the two nations would begin with the re-establishment of embassies in Havana and Washington.  The embassies had previously been dissolved in 1961 after Cuba became a close ally of the Soviet Union.

The normalization efforts were heavily criticized by conservative politicians, most notably Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL).  In a 2016 election stump speech he said:

“The Obama administration is making more concessions to the Castro regime, and the United States is getting nothing in return. Cash makes the Castro regime’s grip on power stronger, its repression harsher and its exportation of misery throughout the hemisphere, especially Venezuela, easier‎ [...] By encouraging U.S. companies to do business with Cuban military-owned entities, Obama is giving them an open invitation to violate existing U.S. law. [...] After two years of President Obama’s Cuba policy, the Castro regime has made out like bandits without lifting a finger to return the fugitives it is harboring from American justice, pay Americans for their stolen property, or allow the Cuban people to exercise their God-given freedoms. [...] President Obama’s Cuba policy puts the Castro regime’s interests first, profits ahead of America’s national security, and the Cuban people’s rights and dignity dead last.”

The Cuban economy is fragile (thanks to lingering sanctions and Venezuela's collapse), but President Díaz-Canel recently announced constitutional reform to revive its socialism-based economy.  Noteworthy changes include modest steps towards decentralization, and recognizing a role for non-state actors, including small private businesses, worker-owned cooperatives, private property and foreign direct investment. However, the extent of this opening is yet to be determined.