Word: chavez
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...fact, the Marxist guerrillas of the FARC had the upper hand in Colombia's four-decade-old civil war. But since Uribe took office in 2002, the armed forces have grown and modernized impressively enough to land body blows against the FARC, as demonstrated by Reyes' stunning demise. Chavez may have spent $4 billion over the past decade to buy everything from AK-47 rifles to Russian Sukhoi fighter planes, but the Venezuelan armed forces haven't seen real action since Chavez himself, then an army paratrooper, led a failed coup in 1992. So, Venezuela is likely at a military...
...Hard Sell at Home: If Chavez has learned one thing from his idol Fidel Castro, it's how to summon the threat of the U.S. to distract his countrymen from problems at home. And if there is one thing Uribe has learned from his pal George W. Bush, it's how to manipulate the terrorist threat to amass greater executive power. But a cross-border war would most likely backfire on both men - especially Chavez, whose strategy this time may have been a miscalculation, as Venezuelans haven't exactly taken to the streets to answer his martial call. Chavez plans...
...Sure, Chavez and Uribe, two of Latin America's most outsized egos, loathe each other. Each has significantly fattened his military arsenal in recent years, and tensions have rarely been this high between their countries. Nor are they alone on the Latin street when it comes to martial upgrading: Brazil's 2008 federal budget, for example, includes a 53% increase in military spending, leading many to wonder if Latin America is undergoing an arms race not seen since the heyday of military rule across the continent. But that doesn't mean that either Chavez or Uribe can afford an armed...
Trade: Venezuela and Colombia's economies are too interdependent. Bilateral trade reached $5.5 billion last year, a 25% increase over 2006. Colombia buys Venezuela's petroleum products - Chavez controls the hemisphere's largest reserves - and Venezuela needs Colombia's agricultural produce even more. Despite the massive windfall Venezuelans have accrued from $100-a-barrel oil, they face sharp food shortages and the region's highest inflation rate. If Chavez were to exacerbate the situation by entering a war, his political popularity - which has dropped since he lost a referendum last year in which he sought greater powers and an unlimited...
What Would the Neighbors Say? Neither Uribe nor Chavez needs any more bad international publicity right now. Uribe's domestic approval ratings may be higher than the Colombian sierras, but he can't secure a free trade agreement with the U.S., for example, because Congress is too wary of his government's alleged ties to Colombia's bloodthirsty right-wing paramilitary armies and because of human rights abuses by the Colombian military. Nor is he getting global kudos for sending his troops over a neighbor's border on Saturday in an operation denounced by Ecuador's leftist President and Chavez...