Stormy Times for the U.S.

Washington faces losses, whoever wins in the Falklands

One of the first casualties in the war for the Falkland Islands has been the Reagan Administration's troubled attempt to mold its global ideology into a coherent foreign policy. Ronald Reagan came into office with an East-West world view that saw each crisis as a possible target of Soviet expansionism that must be vigorously opposed. Once again, unexpected events showed the world to be more complex than that, but no less challenging.

Plunged into the perilous currents of a South Atlantic struggle that nobody predicted, nobody wanted and nobody seemed sure how to control, the U.S. found itself trying to mediate between Argentina, a would-be partner in the effort to fight Communist influence in the Western Hemisphere, and Britain, a historic ally that is Washington's staunchest supporter in the NATO alliance. The more intense the battle between the two countries became, the more the U.S. stood to lose—and the more, it could be said, the Soviet Union might stand to gain. As former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger put it last week, "Sometimes you come up against a situation where you can't win."

The most immediate consequence of the conflict is the breakdown, at least for the moment, of Reagan's attempt to forge an alliance among nations in the Americas to fight Marxist influence in the hemisphere. Washington's decision to back Britain with sanctions as well as rhetoric has helped to divide the Americas once again along North-South lines. A sweeping alliance of left-and right-wing regimes, spanning the ideological spectrum from Cuba to Brazil, has rallied to support Argentina, miscasting it as a victim of colonialist subjugation. "The tilt toward Britain will destroy the coalition we must have if we are to prevent a Communist takeover of Central America," said North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms, the lone opponent of a Senate resolution endorsing a pro-British policy.

Whether the rift between the U.S. and its Latin neighbors will prove serious depends on how long the Falklands dispute lasts. While the U.S. and Britain are aligned against a Latin American nation, "Hispanidad," the tradition of Latin American solidarity, will remain at the fore, overshadowing a myriad of inter-American territorial and ideological disputes, like Argentina's quarrel with Chile over the Beagle Channel. Already there are mutterings within the Organization of American States about moving the headquarters of that hemispheric coalition out of Washington, or forming a purely Hispanic rival group. Said a senior O.A.S. official: "Never has the U.S. done so much so fast to destroy its image in Latin America." But some State Department officials still believe most Latin American nations, despite their verbal support for Argentina, are discomforted by the junta's use of force to settle its territorial dispute with Britain, and realize that their long-range economic and political interests are inevitably linked to the U.S. Says one optimistic analyst: "We should not take this lightly, but in six months it will be forgotten." One example of the attitude at work: Brazilian President Joao Figueiredo, even though he has condemned U.S. support for Britain, did not cancel his state visit to Washington this week.