In this, the first Ashbrook Essay, Mark Falcoff provides a brief history of the United States policy in Latin America and explains the effect the end of the Cold War will have on it. According to Falcoff, the driving force behind the United States policy was the Communist threat, and Latin American countries were able to manipulate it in order to gain economic aid and U.S. support. With that threat gone, Latin America will now be seen in a different context and a new foreign policy will result. Falcoff also explains how Latin American people are becoming disillusioned with the Communist left. With these influences now gone, Falcoff offers his view of the coming world order.

Mark Falcoff is a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., where his speciality is Latin American issues. He is the author of Small Countries, Large Issues (1984), A Tale of Two Policies (1989), and Modern Chile: A critical History (1989). He is the co-editor of several books and has written for the Foreign Affairs, Commentary, The New Republic, and the Washington Post, among others.

$3.00; 19 pages; ISBN 1-878802-00-3