The strategy of using a proxy country to advance anti-democratic interests in Latin America is a vexing problem, because it has so successfully been employed in the past to undercut popular movements.

What Venezuela and like-minded countries in the region need is a South American Treaty Organization, patterned after NATO.

The international community must accept this. Latin American countries have common regional security interests that are best defended by a coalition of nations, where an attack on one is deemed an attack on all.

That way, superpowers would be greatly inhibited from fighting wars through proxy nations, as the proxy nation would not only risk war with the country being targeted by the superpower, but also confront a military campaign that has to take into account a regional alliance of nations.

Imagine such an organization, composed of countries like Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and maybe one day the entire continent, then north to Central America, Mexico and even the Caribbean.

Such an organization need not be a threat to the United States, but may actually prove to be a stabilizing force for the region, as militant power plays by rogue players would face concerted reaction by an alliance of nations. Likewise, misguided foreign policy influenced by unaccountable special interests in Washington would be held in check by the reality that a challenge to one nation in the region is a challenge to all.

Clearly, the formation of such an alliance would face numerous obstacles – both from within the region and from abroad – but mere talk of such a group in the works might promote a greater focus on other matters of common regional interests, such as the promotion of democratic movements, reducing the harm of the war on drugs and advancing the common economic interests of South American nations.

This is not a new idea, to be sure, and clearly some organizations already exist to promote regional cooperation. Such an alliance also could be perverted to become an oppressive force against indigenous movements within nations. But as things stand now, similar perversions already exist – brought on by both corrupt leadership from within the region and from the pecuniary and hegemonic interests of superpowers abroad.

But if true participatory democracy has any hope of developing organically in South America, it must have the means to protect itself from manipulation by foreign and corrupt interests. Venezuela should not have to worry about an attack from Colombia, because, in the final analysis, such a war would benefit neither country, and most certainly would be a destructive force for democracy and the lives of the people.

If power will not yield to the interests of the people, then it must be confronted with power that is acting on behalf of the people. That power can be exercised by going to the streets, in nonviolent civil disobedience, as we are seeing in Mexico now, or through the power of the vote as we saw in Venezuela last year. But in the final analysis, when power will not listen to reason or the voice of democracy, and insists on turning to battlefield tactics, in that arena, the only thing a tank understands is another tank.

Clearly, a military alliance of South American nations would never be a match for a superpower, but that is not its purpose. The porcupine is no match for the lion, either, but the smart lion avoids the porcupine because the pain it can inflict is not worth the meal it yields.

This isn’t about winning a war; it’s about preventing one, and just as important, it’s about stemming the ability of one nation to suck the life out of another sovereign nation through a brutal policy of proxy fascism.

For that reason alone, it makes sense to erase the battlefield trump card held by any one nation by changing the rules of the game to put into play the wild card of regional solidarity. A military alliance of nations on that front, structured not as an aggressor machine, but as a peace-keeping force, is the only way, as I see it, to balance the table in a world where, all too often, the voice of the people can’t be heard over the din of the guns.