Can You Spare a DIME? The Full Range of Foreign Policy Tools in Latin America

Sovereignty is one of the most durable concepts in international relations. Since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the concept of sovereignty has defined the political privileges of states. But when a state is doing things that run counter to another state’s interest, the concept of sovereignty limits the tools available to change the offending behavior. In this week’s episode of Horns of a Dilemma, we hear first-hand about how the tools that are available–often abbreviated as DIME for diplomacy, information, military, and economics–were used during the last administration to try to influence the authoritarian regimes in Venezuela and Cuba. Carrie Filipetti, a former State Department official responsible for American policy toward these regimes, analyzes what worked, what didn’t, and why. This event was held at the University of Texas, Austin, and jointly hosted by the Clements Center and the Alexander Hamilton Society.

Image: Flickr via Cubadebate. (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)