Update your IR textbooks: Chronicle of a non-crisis

After deploying his troops to the border with Colombia, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said on television that Latin America would turn into a new Middle East, and that regional war was a possibility. The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez sent ten tank battalions and the air force to his side of the line, and threatened to use his newly acquired toys, the Russian warplanes Sukhois. He accused Colombia of state terrorism and called President Uribe a criminal. Uribe replied that they had evidence that both Chávez and Correa had ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and that he planned to send this evidence to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The President of Nicaragua, the Sandinista Daniel Ortega, jumped into the fray. They all closed borders and withdrew diplomatic delegations. Former President Fidel Castro ranted against US interference and genocidal policies in Latin America. Not to be outdone, Senator John McCain, acting 'presidential,' committed the United States to another jungle war of impossible solution if Colombia was attacked.

In the end, Latin America's worst diplomatic crisis since the brief Cenepa War in 1995 came to an abrupt and swift end at a summit of the Organization of the American States, with all of the dignitaries involved shaking hands, hugging, and exchanging jokes, back pats, and apologies. In what can be described as one of the most unscripted moments in the history of televised diplomatic meetings -Khruschev's shoe banging at the Security Council was scripted-, Daniel Ortega managed to force Uribe to commit to withdraw a Colombian warship from Nicaragua's coast. President Chavez could hardly contain his smile.

The rapid escalation and de-escalation of this border crisis, initiated with the assassination of the FARC's second-in-command during a raid in Ecuador, provides a new case study for IR theory classrooms. What defused the crisis? Realists might say that Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia were merely saber-rattling and bluffing, and that their weak military forces hardly stood a chance against one of the biggest recipients of American military aid in the world. Confident of Washington's support, Colombia had achieved its goal and was happy to offer an apology. Liberals might say that Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela are major trading partners, and a regional war would have no winners and many losers. Institutionalists might chalk this one up to multilateralism. The fact that the OAS had a summit scheduled for that week, forcing the leaders to seat at the same table and talk it off in front of their peers, highlights the benefits of these institutions of cooperation. Finally, culturalists of Hungtingtonian persuasion would say that countries that speak the same language and belong to the same cultural space and civilization do not go to war with each other nowadays. Absent an ethnic or religious cleavage, the crisis could only qualify as a family argument.

But could this truly be a happy win-win? I suspect some stand more to gain than others. Washington's persona-non-grata du jour, Hugo Chávez, effectively solidified his leadership in the region, exacerbating the isolation of the United States' biggest regional ally. Chávez has got Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Cuba firmly in his sphere of influence. Brazil, Chile, and Argentina all came down on his side. For most Latin Americans, his recent successes mediating the release of hostages held for years by the FARC surely matters more than his embarrassing performances at the UN General Assembly or the last Summit of the Americas. And President Uribe knows that, with oil and cocaine yielding such high profits, neither the FARC nor President Chávez are likely to go anywhere.