Why Gunboat Diplomacy Invites Regional Blowback—Even Without a Unified Enemy

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

This Is About Defense, Not Villainy

This essay does not argue that South America is preparing to “attack the United States.”
It examines something far more basic and historically consistent: how peoples and regions respond when external powers impose control through force.

When sovereignty is violated, when leaders are seized, when foreign officials speak openly about “running” another country and restructuring its economy, defense and resistance emerge. Not because of ideology, but because legitimacy collapses.

This is not a moral judgment. It is a strategic reality.

Occupation Is Not a Moment—It Is a Condition

Occupations rarely fail because of one decisive battle. They fail because they create a long-duration condition that erodes consent and multiplies friction.

That condition includes:

  • foreign troops and contractors on unfamiliar ground,
  • economic assets reframed as “reconstruction opportunities,”
  • and a narrative—broadcast by leaders themselves—of external control.

Public remarks by Donald Trump describing plans to “run” Venezuela and involve U.S. oil companies are not incidental. They signal ownership, not assistance. In regions with long memories of gunboat diplomacy, that language is catalytic.

Why Unified State Action Is Unlikely—and Unnecessary

A coordinated, state-run “United States of South America” opposing the United States is improbable. Regional governments differ in ideology, capacity, and appetite for direct confrontation.

But unity is not required to impose costs.

Resistance historically takes fragmented, deniable forms:

  • diplomatic isolation,
  • economic and logistical friction,
  • sanctuary and tolerance for non-state pressure,
  • intelligence leakage and political obstruction,
  • and the steady delegitimization of an occupying presence.

None of this requires a joint command or a declaration of war.

The Asymmetric Reality on the Ground

Latin America already contains armed networks, smuggling corridors, and border ecosystems that predate this crisis. These actors are typically local, territorial, and revenue-driven—not ideologically focused on the U.S. mainland.

When an external power occupies or coerces a neighboring state, these ecosystems do not need new instructions. They need space, grievance, and time.

Occupation supplies all three.

This is how prolonged instability forms—not through grand alliances, but through ambient resistance that makes every deployment more expensive and every promise harder to keep.

Contractors Multiply Exposure

When military action is paired with promises of economic “straightening out,” especially in oil and infrastructure, the footprint widens.

Contractors:

  • are dispersed,
  • operate predictable routines,
  • and lack the protections of uniformed forces.

If local populations perceive resource control as foreign extraction rather than recovery, contractors become political symbols, not neutral technicians. That is not conjecture; it is a pattern observed across decades of interventions.

Legitimacy Is the Center of Gravity

The most dangerous misunderstanding in occupations is believing that force controls outcomes.

In reality:

  • legitimacy controls compliance,
  • compliance controls stability,
  • and stability controls safety for troops and civilians alike.

When legitimacy collapses—through unilateral seizures, opaque custody, and rhetoric of control—resistance does not need to announce itself. It simply refuses to cooperate, and the costs begin to compound.

Regional Alarm Is Rational, Not Performative

Calls from South American and Caribbean governments for restraint, multilateral engagement, and respect for international law are not empty gestures. They reflect an understanding that precedent travels.

If cross-border seizures and economic control are normalized, no state is truly insulated. That is why appeals to international law and institutions like the United Nations persist—even when enforcement is uncertain.

Editorial Condemnation

WPS News condemns the illusion that occupation can be clean, brief, or insulated from regional response.

This is not a warning about enemies. It is a warning about predictable consequences. When a powerful state uses force to impose outcomes, resistance emerges—not because people are irrational, but because they are defending agency.

History is consistent on this point.
Ignoring it does not make it go away. It only makes it costlier.

APA Citations

United Nations. (1945). Charter of the United Nations.

United Nations General Assembly. (1974). Resolution 3314 (XXIX): Definition of Aggression.

Kilcullen, D. (2009). The accidental guerrilla: Fighting small wars in the midst of a big one. Oxford University Press.

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