The War that Didn’t Break Out : Military Rule and Regional Tensions in the Andes in the 1970s

Abstract

Throughout the 1970s, tensions among various South American countries, ruled for most of the decade by military governments, mounted, which led actors and observers in the region and elsewhere to believe that a war would break out at some point in the decade. To a large extent, these tensions and fears of war resulted from the interplay between the challenge posed by the Peruvian military regime to the ideological and military balance of the Andean region, and the reactions of the rest of the countries of the region to that challenge, especially Chile. The possibility of a war between Chile and Peru concerned all the countries in South America as well as the United States, for its outbreak could lead to a regional confrontation of great magnitude. However, the military governments of the countries of the Andes did not want war and, through public displays of cordiality and discreet diplomacy, avoided hostilities, even though a few situations of tension and military incidents seemed to point inevitably towards an international conflagration.