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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
During the past twenty years, the United States has been involved in three cases of armed intervention in Latin America: Guatemala in 1954, Cuba in 1961, and the Dominican Republic in 1965. In addition, there was the naval blockade and possibility of intervention in Cuba in 1962 during the missile crisis. Each of these episodes occurred in the Caribbean region (defined as including those areas either in or adjacent to the Caribbean Sea). There were no similar armed interventions elsewhere in Latin America during this period, and in fact, all of the incidents of United States armed intervention in the Twentieth Century have taken place in the Caribbean area. Therefore, in its actions in Latin America, the United States appears to distinguish between the Caribbean area and the rest of the continent. The Caribbean is treated as a special region where military intervention is apparently more justifiable than elsewhere in Latin America. Only in the area outside the Caribbean has Washington found it possible to abide by its inter-American treaty commitments to nonintervention.