U.S. Military Involvement in Panama

U.S. military involvement in Panama began even before the Central American nation won its independence from Colombia in 1903. With the 1846 Bidlack‐Mallarino Treaty, the United States agreed to defend Colombia's rule over Panama in exchange for the rights of free transit across the isthmus. In order to uphold the treaty and to protect American interests in the region, U.S. forces landed in Panama as many as ten times before the turn of the century. In 1885, President Grover Cleveland dispatched more than 1,000 Marines and sailors to put down a nationalist uprising, thus launching the largest U.S. expeditionary force since the Mexican War. The other interventions were usually smaller affairs, but their frequency as well as the regular presence of the U.S. Navy in Panamanian waters were harbingers of what would come in the next century.

American military and naval leaders had long dreamed of a Central American canal that would allow them to project U.S. power over two oceans using only one naval fleet. The lengthy voyage of the USS Oregon around Cape Horn during the Spanish‐American War strengthened their resolve to secure an interoceanic passage. Secessionist rumblings in Panama provided the opportunity. In violation of the 1846 treaty, the United States deployed warships and landed Marines in order to block Colombian troops from putting down the Panamanian rebellion. Panama became an independent nation on 3 November 1903, but the Hay‐Bunau‐Varilla Treaty penned two weeks later made the new republic a U.S. protectorate. In addition to the right to intervene militarily in Panama, the treaty gave the United States the right to build a canal through a ten‐mile‐wide “zone” leased in perpetuity. These generous concessions would be the major source of tension in U.S.‐Panama relations for decades.

By the time the Panama Canal opened in 1914, the U.S. military had already established a firm foothold on the isthmus. A U.S. military administration presided over the waterway, which was guarded by U.S. ground troops, naval vessels, and coastal artillery batteries. All transportation and communication in the country came under the watchful eyes of the U.S. forces. This strong military presence served the dual function of defending the canal against interlopers from outside Panama and eliminating threats from within the country. The latter project came to dominate U.S. activities in Panama. At different times the United States wielded its power to help disband the Panamanian Army, supervise elections, halt urban rioting, and pressure political leaders. The United States eventually renounced its right to intervene, but it had amply demonstrated a willingness to subordinate Panama to the needs of canal security.

The presence of the U.S. military in Panama reached its peak during World War II, when the United States operated 14 bases, established more than 100 defense sites, and stationed as many as 67,000 troops there. Although the canal remained physically unscathed, it would never again be the linchpin of American hemispheric strategy. While the Panamanians objected more vocally to the U.S. presence, Washington found the canal too narrow for the U.S. Navy's new supercarriers and too vulnerable to air and atomic attack. Postwar military involvement therefore included converting the Panamanian National Guard into a quasi‐military force, training soldiers in jungle warfare, and maintaining intelligence operations in the region. U.S. forces were deployed when riots over which nation's flag would be flown in the Canal Zone erupted in 1959 and again in 1964. Although the canal itself became less vital to U.S. strategic interests, it remained a potent political symbol to both countries.

Exclusive control of the canal had once been axiomatic in U.S. strategic thought. But Washington began to reconsider its policy toward Panama in the aftermath of the 1964 flag riots. A new treaty signed in 1977 promised to turn over the canal to Panamanian control on 31 December 1999. Despite some resistance from elements within the defense community, the Pentagon officially endorsed the treaty and agreed to scale back its activities in Panama. To help stabilize the nation after the American withdrawal and to maintain an important pipeline to the Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s, the United States funneled aid to the Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF; formerly the National Guard). When President George Bush decided he could no longer countenance PDF chief Gen. Manuel Noriega, who was accused of election fraud and drug trafficking, he launched the massive Operation Just Cause to capture Noriega in December 1989. The invasion resulted in hundreds of U.S. casualties and possibly more than 1,000 Panamanian deaths; it also made clear that the United States would not easily sacrifice its historic prerogatives over Panama and its canal.

[See also Caribbean and Latin America, U.S. Military Involvement in the; Nicaragua, U.S. Military Involvement in.]

Bibliography

• Larry LaRae Pippin, The Remon Era, 1964.
• William D. McCain, The United States and the Republic of Panama, 1970.
• Walter LaFeber, The Panama Canal, 1978.
• John Major, Wasting Asset: The U.S. Re‐Assessment of the Panama Canal, 1945–1949, Journal of Strategic Studies, 3 (September 1980), pp. 123–46.
• Michael L. Conniff, Panama and the United States, 1992