World-System (1950-2100) Latin America and the Donroe Doctrine

 

The 2025 National Security Strategy of the United States reinvoked the Monroe Doctrine to justify aggressive military actions against (if not outright invasions of) Latin America countries using a spheres of influence argument as justification. Moreover, previous Geopolitical Alignments (particularly Europe) that have been important to the US have been downplayed using dismissive language such as "...economic decline [of Europe] is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure" as a result of uncontrolled immigration (p. 25).

A lot has been said already about the 2025 National Security Strategy of the United States and I will have more to say in future posts. My question in this post, however, is "what is in the best Geopolitical interests of Latin America?" I have used the LA20 model to make seven forecasts of Latin American growth based on different Geopolitical Alignments (see the graphic above):

• BAU (Business-As-Usual), that is, no Geopolitical Alignments. In terms of growth, BAU is the best future for Latin America as it provides maximal exponential growth into the Future.***
• TECH (Productivity) is a variant on BAU with no Geopolitical Alignments but focusing on doing everything to increase productivity.  It provides the next-best rate of Exponential growth.
• W (World System Linkage) Geopolitical alignment to the World System (the WL20 model) provides the third-best rate of exponential growth.
• CN (China Linkage) provides the fourth-best rate of exponential growth based on input from the WL20 China model.
• US (United States Linkage) produces growth-and-collapse, peaking between 2050 and 2100 (based on input from the USL20 model).
• RW (Random Walk) anything can happen including stagnation.
• RU (Russia Linkage) produces immediate collapse based on input from the RUL20 model.

The negative forecast for Russian Linkage should give pause to leaders such as Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela. According to ChatGPT:

Also, the exponential performance of the BAU, TECH and W forecasts should be viewed from the perspective of World-Systems Theory where the relationship between Core (US) and and Peripheral (LA) countries is viewed as exploitative.

If US Linkage is not beneficial after 2055, one benefit in the short-term is if the US would clean up the Latin American Drug Cartels. Violence created by Cartel turf Wars and the need to employe drug mules (drug smuggling) is one factor in illegal immigration to the US.

American policy should focus on enlisting regional champions that can help create

tolerable stability in the region, even beyond those partners’ borders. These nations

would help us stop illegal and destabilizing migration, neutralize cartels, nearshore

manufacturing, and develop local private economies, among other things (p.16 of the 2025 National Security Strategy of the United States).

However, according to ChatGPT:

The six forecasts above leave Latin American in a difficult situation: The US and the new "Donroe Doctrine" are intent on maintaining Latin American Dependency. Part of the Doctrine is resisting inroads to Latin America from China. I cannot say I am very confident about Latin America's future.

Please see the Boiler Plate for a discussion of data sources and how the models were constructed.

Notes

** The exponential growth forecasts do not imply that they are the "best" forecasts and the environmental consequences might be quite negative (another possibility that the 2025 National Security Strategy of the United States rejects ("...We reject the disastrous “climate change” and “Net Zero” ideologies"...p.14 ).

Blog Roll

• Six Futures for Growth of Colombia The most stable Future for Colombia focuses on Globalization. The Colombian BAU model exhibits unstable cycles.
• Growth Forecasts for Venezuela  The best future for Venezuela focuses on Technical Efficiency (not Technical Productivity). For the entire economy, Venezuela is approaching a Steady State. The best controller for Inflation in Venezuela is Globalization.
• Latin American Futures The best future for Latin America is Business-as-Usual (no Geopolitical Alignments). However, the Latin America BAU model is unstable and cyclical.
• Geopolitical Linkages: Canada, Mexico and the US Trade Wars between CA, MX and the US will benefit none of the countries.
• Future Forecasts for the EU The best forecast is to pursue Business-as-Usual with no Geopolitical Alignments.
• Latin American Geopolitical Alignment with China would benefit Latin America but would be resisted by the US.
• Future Forecasts for Argentina Business-as-Usual and Geopolitical Alignment with Russia produce uncontrolled, unstable exponential growth. Growth in Government Expenditure is out of control. Should Argentina take a Random Walk with Shock Therapy? Better System Control is needed in Argentina rather than Shock Therapy. Linking with the Latin American Regional Economy would provide a stable future growth path for Argentina; linking with the US would produce Growth-and-Collapse. Historically, the Economy of Argentina has been through many Economic Bubbles as a result of Political Mismanagement.
• Futures for Growth of Mexico Business-as-Usual and focus on Technical Productivity produce stable growth. Geopolitical Linkage with the World System, the US and China produce Collapse.
  
  

World-System (1970-2100) Latin American Futures

 

The Trump II administration, which took office in January 2025, is threatening to impose tariffs on Latin American Countries. In turn, the Latin American Countries are threatening retaliation on the US (here). Rather than investigating whether this trade war is a good or bad thing, let me take a broader look at Latin America's future from the perspective of Geopolitical Alignment (I'll look at Mexico, Venezuela, Columbia, Panama, etc. in future posts).

Latin American faces a wide range of futures from unlimited exponential growth if aligned with China (CN, in the graphic at the beginning of the post) or collapse if aligned with the World System (W). But, let's take China out of the picture (assuming the US would resist such a future). The graphic above shows the "also ran" input models:

• BAU The Business as Usual model (which you can run here) is cyclical but has the best growth out to 2100. 
• TECHE The Technical Efficiency model is stable and a strong contender (AIC = -160.3, smaller is better). 
• TECHP The Technical Productivity Model is also stable and has one of the best statistics (AIC = -264.3). This model is the Systems Theory analog of the Neoclassical Economic Growth Model with exogenous technological change.
• US The model driven by the US is also stable, cyclical and an obvious contender given the history of Latin America (AIC = -85.96).
• RW In the short run, the Random Walk is a strong contender (AIC = -108.1).
• W The World System input model is stable, cyclical and also a strong contender (AIC = -71.53). Unfortunately, it leads to collapse starting in the very near future.

You can experiment with the LA20 BAU model here. Instructions for modifying the model to produce stable and/or cyclical patterns are given in the code. I believe that the BAU model describes how policy makers think about their own economy, regardless of what Systems Theory right tell them about "Best or Worst Models" (an important Contradiction).

You can read about data sources and how the State Space models were created in the Boiler Plate.

Notes

LA_SYS Model Summary with AIC (Akaike Information Criteria) Statistics: