Military Interventions

Kende finds the United States most active in the kind of foreign intervention, which is not surprising since it replaced Britain and France in their interventionist roles after 1960. Leitenberg also emphasizes foreign "military interventions, in relation to wars and conflicts; this is probably the least systematically studied area relating to war and conflict. In fact, it is barely studied at all, systematically or otherwise." The recent revelations of interventions by the CIA may provide the basis for such studies that go beyond the notorious American interventions in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Lebanon in 1958, the Congo and Cuba in 1961, Panama (and Brazil?) in 1964, and the Dominican Republic in 1965.

Leitenberg also reviewed twenty other studies of military coups d'état and used them to compile a list of both successful coups and unsuccessful attempts. Between 1945 and 1975 Leitenberg counts 276 successful coups (and 269 unsuccessful attempts), of which 100 (and 103) took place between 1945 and 1960 and 176 (and 166) took place between 1961 and 1975. ( Leitenberg says his figures of 18 successful coups and 18 unsuccessful attempts for 1976 to 1978 are very incomplete, so they are not used here.) Until 1960 most of these coups and attempts were in Latin America. But with the creation of many independent states in Africa after 1961, this continent experienced 71 successful coups and 83 unsuccessful attempts, while Latin America had 44 successes and 36 failures. (These figures suggest, incidentally, that on balance there is a nearly even chance of succeeding in a coup attempt; but in Latin America the chances of winning are better and in Africa less than fifty-fifty.) In the decade after 1966, of the 105 successful coups and 96 unsuccessful attempts, 51 and 58, respectively, were in Africa and 23 and 16, respectively, took place in Latin America.