Although it seems more than thirty years ago, it was in October 1983 that the United States made two nearly simultaneous decisions that dramatically altered the scope of its foreign policy. The first was taken in response to suicide bomb attacks on the Multinational Force barracks in Beirut, attacks that killed 241 American servicemen, injured 60 others and took the lives of 58 French paratroopers. The scale and ferocity of the attack shook the Reagan presidency and bewildered the American public. Few Americans could find Lebanon on a map, let alone explain why American lives were being risked to maintain the peace in such a politically complicated and deadly theatre. Faced with this perceived insult to American power, President Reagan famously announced that the United States would stay the course in Beirut, only to pull troops out just a few months later.
The second momentous decision, already in the planning stages before the attacks in Lebanon took place, was the launch of Operation Urgent Fury, better known as the invasion of Grenada. Throughout his presidential campaign Reagan had stressed the need to reassert American power, especially within its backyard. Frustrated by the creeping Communism he and his advisers discerned throughout the region he was determined to mount an intimidating show of military force. In April he had warned a Joint Session of the Congress on Central America that: “The national security of all the Americas is at stake in Central America. If we cannot defend ourselves there, we cannot expect to prevail elsewhere. Our credibility would collapse, our alliances would crumble, and the safety of the homeland would be put in jeopardy.”
From the outset it was not clear exactly how Grenada threatened the United States. President Reagan would piously declare that “The Soviet-Cuban militarization of Grenada … can only be seen as power projection into the region.” But the facts on the ground gave little evidence of this. The White House seemed to be clutching at shadows. The supposedly ominous development of the local airport, for instance, had a perfectly ordinary explanation, had anyone taken the time to check. The Grenadian government had applied for American aid to modernize the airport and looked elsewhere when the request was denied. Similarly, fears about the presence of Cuban engineers should have been allayed by the fact that the project was supervised by a British contractor. The need to ‘rescue’ American students from the fallout of the Coard-Bishop feud was also nonsensical. Throughout the political crisis, faculty and staff at St. George’s University had been assured by government officials that students would remain safe and could leave the island whenever they wanted.
Since the Reagan White House proceeded with maximum secrecy it gathered little useful intelligence on Grenada. Its Navy SEAL teams were asked to make a pointlessly dangerous nighttime parachute jump– which cost several lives – and then after regrouping from their disastrous first attempt, to carry out the invasion with tourist maps – since nobody could supply an up to date survey of the island. Other snafus included the bombing of a mental hospital, and the military’s apparent ignorance that St George’s had more than one campus.
The invasion – which mobilized 8,000 troops and cost $135 million – was widely denounced for the sham it was, but within America it was a huge public relations success. The Great Communicator never let facts stand in the way of a good message and his account of Grenada was compelling. “The events in Lebanon and Grenada,” he told the nation, “though oceans apart, are closely related. Not only has Moscow assisted and encouraged the violence in both countries, but it provides direct support through a network of surrogates and terrorists.” Earlier in the same speech he warned that pulling out of Lebanon would signal weakness to “those who foment instability and terrorism.” A craven retreat would insult the murdered Marines: “They gave their lives in defense of our national security every bit as much as any man who ever died fighting in a war. We must not strip every ounce of meaning and purpose from their courageous sacrifice.” Yet this is almost exactly what he chose to do, less than six months later.
It is always tempting to believe that we live in unusual times. America’s bungled planning of the invasion of Iraq in the Second Gulf War, its shoddy intelligence, its grandiose rhetoric could have been predicted from the machinations of the Reagan years. So too could its preference for photo opportunities (an American student kissing the airport tarmac after his ‘rescue’ from Grenada; George W. Bush landing on an aircraft carrier to speak under the now infamous ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner). But memory also simplifies. Beyond this near-caricature of American solipsism, an angry Congress moved steadily to limit the Executive branch’s war-making powers, to prevent future presidents from committing the country to whatever conflict they fancied. While these restraints are clearly not as robust as they might be, it is still a testament to the strength of America’s democracy that they exist at all. Furthermore, while bloody attacks in the Middle East have hardly diminished over the course of the last three decades, it seems almost impossible to imagine something like the invasion of Grenada taking place today.
