Deterrence, propaganda and international order
The United States mobilized part of its Fourth Fleet in April to monitor drug trafficking in the Caribbean and to threaten Nicolas Maduro, who has been charged with this criminal offence against U.S. public health. The decision has been described by the Venezuelan regime as a diversionary maneuver in the face of the coronavirus crisis, but the strategic vision goes beyond this consideration. In the midst of the debate on the consequences that the crisis of the pandemic may have on the international order, the United States puts on the Caribbean waters one of the elements on which the power supports its leadership in the world: the naval power.
The 11 American aircraft carriers, plus two under construction, exceed the total number of similar ships of the rest of the maritime powers. Rivals or allies, because India, Italy and Australia have two aircraft carriers each. The II Fleet is deployed in the North Atlantic, the third in the Pacific with the logistic support of the American bases in Pearl Harbor, Guam and Japan. The V Fleet monitors trade flows and security in the waters of the Middle East and the Red Sea. Together with the seventh, in the Indian and South Pacific, it controls the flows and risks between the Straits of Ormuz and Malacca. Finally, the Sixth Fleet, based in Rota and Italy, sails the Mediterranean and Africa. "Our navy will protect America from attack, and preserve America,s strategic influence in key regions of the world," said Admiral John M. Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations in a Heritage Foundation report in 2019.
The Economist's cover story this week asks whether China is gaining positions on the global geopolitical chessboard. But in the maritime domain of the chessboard, American superiority is out of the question. And that has also highlighted the naval deployment strategy vis-à-vis Venezuela, which at the same time forces Maduro to begin a process of internal negotiation and anticipates a reaction to any risk of destabilization in a territory like the American one about which President Monroe said decades ago that "it was for the Americans. The strategy also deters more distant rivals from any action that could alter international stability, something few political leaders are thinking about at this time. Finally, it reinforces and externalises the power and capabilities of the United States in this hypothetical revision of the World Order.
A few days later, President Trump announced the withdrawal of funds to the World Health Organization (WHO), as a measure against the possible mistakes made in the expansion of the pandemic. But also as a punishment for the organization's connivance with China's information policy at the beginning of the crisis. This decision has been harshly criticized by the American allies and certifies that Donald Trump lives like a fish in water in an order of Competition between Powers and like a fish out of water in the traditional Liberal Order, in which the WHO was born.
Uncertainties, decisions and information are overlapping in the world in crisis that we are living. The last one, from The Washington Post, about the existence of a laboratory in Wuhan where the virus could be experimented with and then, by mistake, spread. A fact of the utmost importance, but that to this day still remains uncertain. Little does the truth matter in the world of COVID-19. What really matters is the management of the narrative that explains it, that is, the plausibility. What is really important is the management of the narrative that explains it, that is, the credibility. In international communication, the Americans have a considerable advantage. But in the domain of cyberspace, the balance is greater.