Nicaragua’s Newly Ratified Military Pact With Russia Will Likely Prompt More US Meddling

The form that this takes remains to be seen since the last eight years of sanctions didn’t lead to the US’ envisaged political changes.

The Russian Federation Council ratified last September’s military pact with Nicaragua in late April. According to TASS, “it provides for the following areas of cooperation: joint training of troops, exchange of experience and information in countering the ideology of extremism and international terrorism, collaboration between military educational institutions, cooperation in the military-scientific field regarding research on military security issues, and other areas.” Trump 2.0 isn’t going to like this.

After all, the National Security Strategy, the State Department’s Agency Strategic Plan till 2030, and the National Defense Strategy all call for restoring US dominance over the Western Hemisphere, which explicitly includes pushing out rivals like Russia. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth also revealed in early March that his department seeks to advance the concept of “Greater North America”. This includes everything from the Arctic to the equator, thus placing Nicaragua firmly in the US’ sphere of influence.

Casual observers might not be aware or remember, but Nicaragua is also part of the “Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America” (ALBA), which was co-founded by Venezuela and Cuba to strengthen members’ sovereignty. The other main member is Bolivia while the remainder are small Caribbean island nations. Since the start of the year, the US captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and then obtained proxy control over his country’s energy exports, thus politically and financially weakening ALBA.

Cuba is also under a partial blockade, and late last year, Bolivia swung to the right yet again. The combined effect of these developments leaves Nicaragua as the last main member of ALBA standing. That in itself is reason enough for Trump 2.0 to meddle more in its affairs with the aim of regime tweaking or regime change, but its newly ratified military pact might be exploited as the public pretext, the reason being that its terms can more easily be presented as defying the so-called “Donroe Doctrine”.

Old Cold War-era President Daniel Ortega returned to office in 2007, but it wasn’t till 2018 that the US tried to get rid of him yet again. It was in that year that the US sanctioned Nicaragua for the first time since the Old Cold War. That coincided with its Color Revolution crisis back then. Incidentally, the most recent sanctions were imposed just last month. In any case, this consistent pressure campaign contextualizes why Nicaragua strengthened military-strategic ties with Russia in the years since.

An unconfirmed report late last year claimed that “Russia Is Upgrading Nicaragua’s Military Bases, Paying the Full Bill”, which preceded the US-based opposition alleging right after the ratification of their military pact that “Nicaragua is becoming a Russian military base.” These three developments – the aforementioned report implying that Russia plans to use Nicaragua’s military bases, their new military pact, and the opposition’s condemnation thereof – set the stage for more US meddling.

The form that this takes remains to be seen since the last eight years of sanctions didn’t lead to the US’ envisaged political changes, be they regime tweaking or regime change, but it’s possible that Trump might authorize a much stricter embargo of Nicaragua than Reagan’s modeled off of his blockade of Iran. It also can’t be ruled out that the US could resume arming anti-government militants, known as “Contras” in Old Cold War parlance, from Honduras. Nicaragua should therefore brace for the worst.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/nicaraguas-newly-ratified-military