When talking about the foreign policy of Argentina, there are not few that indicate that in reality the same one has not existed; at least as a body of postulates and coherent interest maintained throughout the time. That is to say, that there were fundamentally decisions and positions adopted by each government and that those were not continued, except with rare exceptions, by the administrations that follows.
Nevertheless, if the analysis is deepened a little, one will see that, although not always one can find a coherent development in the international driving of Argentina, is possible to be rescuing a series of different tendencies, constants or variables that authors consider they repeat in the evolution of our foreign policy.
As a example, as emphasizes Gustavo Ferrari, in 1914 Estanislao Zeballos concluded that, between the peculiarities of the Argentine foreign relations, stand out the pacifism, the friendship with all the nations, the moderate policy of armaments and the commercial vocation (1).. At that time we looked for compete with the United States by the hegemony in the region and we had faced in repeated opportunities each time that any project that could imply a leadership of the other country was discussed (ej. Pan-American Conference of 1889-90), or before any measurement that could harmed our commerce or our preferential entailment with Europe.
On the other hand, in 1946, the american Arthur Whitaker specified what he considered could be the four more persistent practices in our foreign policy: hegemony in the region, nonintervention, special relation with the other Latin American States and opposition to multilateral alliances and other pacts of security. To these practices, he saw that progressively had been added two more: the search for leadership in Latin America and the repulse of the foreign war (2).. For that time the bilateral relation lived one of their worse stages, with important differences that crawled from World War II, and to which the strong opposition of several americans officers to the new Argentine president was added. A better dialogue and understanding of both parts were needed; something that could have avoided expensive conflicts, specially for our country.
As well, in 1970 Juan Carlos Puig detailed the following historical tendencies: affiliation to the sphere of British influence, opposition to the United States (in the political and economic-commercial field), isolation respect to Latin America and weakness in the territorial policy (3).
Eleven years later, Gustavo Ferrari considered that the constants in the Argentine foreign policy were six: pacifism, isolationism, evasion by means of the law, moralism, confrontation with the United States and europeism, and territorial dismemberment (4).
A the end of the last decade, and taking the period 1943-83, Felipe of the Balze indicated that one of the lessons that can be rescued are the the lack of adaptation, in the political field, to the deep changes happened in the international scene and, simultaneously, the adoption of an isolationist international economic strategy. Tendencies of foreign policy that were, in the hemispheric dimension, the incapacity to elaborate a fruitful relation of long term with the United States (5).
Finally, Carlos Escudé has denounced in diverse opportunities which he sees as an historical tendency to confrontation in the foreign relations of Argentina with the United States. Something with which agrees in main lines Joseph Tulchin (6).
In synthesis, one of the characteristics that progressively several authors emphasized in ours foreign policy were the conflicted relations maintained with the United States along most of XX century. And, although the majority of these differences were by shared faults, or even often for reasons attributable mainly to the United States (7), our country also has a great responsibility in it.
And in the faults that correspond to us, we can affirm that often they came from a bad analysis of the international context, or of the actions implemented by the superpower and from the little existing dialogue. That is why, looking for ways to palliate possible new bad understandings and to favor a better communication between both countries, becomes vital to conform institutions that, from the civil society, benefit the deepening of the knowledge of multiple issues that do to the relation bilateral.
Giving you a very warm welcome, and thanking you for your interest in the objectives and activities of this Foundation, we greeted you kindly and we keep in touch for any idea, suggestion, and/or propose that you wants to make us arrive.
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Eduardo Diez
Executive Director |
Luis Ruvira
President |
(1) Deputies, secret session, 19 of June of 1914, fs.159.
(2) Whitaker, Arthur P. “Argentina and the United States”. Buenos Aires, 1946. Pags. 105-106.
(3) Puig, Juan Carlos. “Tendencias de la política exterior argentina”. In Secretaría del Consejo Nacional de Seguridad, Lineamiento de un nuevo proyecto nacional, Buenos Aires, 1970. Pags. 341-357.
(4) Ferrari, Gustavo. “Esquema de la Política Exterior Argentina”. Eudeba, 1981. Chapter 1. Pag. 6.
(5) De la Balze, Felipe. “La política exterior de “reincorporación al primer mundo””. In Cisneros, A. (comp.); "Política Exterior Argentina 1989 - 1999" CARI - GEL, Buenos Aires, 1999. Pag.157.
(6) Tulchin, Joseph. “La Argentina y los Estados Unidos, Historia de una desconfianza”. Editorial Planeta. 1990. Pag. 285.
(7) For Alconada Sempé, under secretary of State during the government of Raul Alfonsin, the confrontation would be a necessary consequence of the expansive policy of the United States and, of its tendency to intervene in the national policies of others States.
