On October 25, 1983, US President Ronald Reagan launched Operation Urgent Fury, an air and sea invasion of the tiny island of Grenada.

Initially alluding to the need to protect American citizens on the island and quelling unrest, the ultimate reason for U.S. intervention was to prevent further Communist influence in the hemisphere. Soviet and Cuban military aid, equipment, and construction of a large airfield convinced the U.S. national security establishment that intervention was necessary.

While the proximate reasons for U.S. involvement in Grenada were the protection of American citizens and restoring order, the ultimate causes for action were an American desire to maintain regional hegemony and countering Grenadian coalition building while simultaneously using the invasion to rally political support at home in a “rally around the flag” phenomenon.

On December 2, 1823, President James Monroe (R-Virginia) declared a new hemispheric political doctrine in which he laid out three basic notions: separate spheres of influence for the Americas and Europe, non-colonization, and non-intervention. The President’s vague promise to Latin American freedom fighters became the Monroe Doctrine.

Monroe’s action was symbolic because the US lacked the military power to enforce the doctrine in 1823. However, by the late 19th century industrial development gave the US such military power.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries US leaders used the Monroe Doctrine to establish the initial framework for United States hegemony in The Western Hemisphere. the Monroe Doctrine continues to play a role in U.S. foreign policy.

Grenada was a consistent challenge to American regional hegemonic power ever since the leftist Maurice Bishop took control of the Grenadian government from Eric Gairy in 1979. Bishop and his government openly defied U.S. influence in the four and a half years between their initial coup and U.S. invasion.

The Situation

Situated roughly 1,500 miles southeast of Key West, Florida and 100 miles north of Venezuela, Grenada is the smallest and most southerly Windward Island in the Eastern Caribbean.

In 1983, the population was only 91,000 people on an island roughly 200 square miles. The primary sources of revenue for the island included tourism and bananas while a medical school provided additional revenue.

Founded in 1976, by 1983 the St. George’s University School of Medicine accounted for somewhere between 10% and 15%of the island’s gross national product and had approximately 700 American students studying there. Student safety amid growing unrest became one of President Reagan’s primary justifications for launching the invasion.

First claimed and settled by French colonialists in 1650, ceded to the British in 1783, Grenada only achieved independence from Britain in 1974. A bloodless coup occurred on March 13, 1979, that ousted Prime Minister Eric Gairy and installed known Marxist and Cuban ally, Maurice Bishop as head of government.

Bishop was the leader of the New JEWEL (Joint Effort for Welfare, Education, and Liberation) Party, a leftist populist movement with ties to communist regimes around the world, a natural enemy of the United States in the Cold War.

The coup itself was inevitable, as Gairy had become increasingly corrupt, interfering with elections, and intimidating his opposition, among other offenses. After Bishop seized power, US officials consistently warned the Grenadian regime about its relationship to Cuba. American leaders wanted to maintain their regional hegemony and therefore viewed new leftist governments in the region as a challenge to that hegemony and as something to bolster Cuba and by proxy, the Soviet Union.

In defiance of American requests, Bishop announced in November of 1979 that he planned to build a new airport at Point Salines, with Cuban help, directly challenging the United States. The Cubans sent to help build the airport were not military men, but rather middle-aged construction workers.

Nevertheless, tensions between Grenada and the United States continued to rise over the next four years and came to a head in late 1983 when Bishop’s Deputy Prime Minister and chief Marxist theoretician, Bernard Coard, arrested and eventually executed Bishop. The subsequent unrest promptedthe nations of the eastern Caribbean, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) to ask for American intervention.

The United States government viewed Cuban influence in the eastern Caribbean as a threat to the current power balance dynamic in the Western Hemisphere. Already dissatisfied with a Communist regime and Soviet bases a scant 105 miles from sovereign U.S. territory, the Reagan administration viewed the happenings in Grenada as a threat to the status quo and their hegemonic influence in the Western Hemisphere.

Balance of Power

If under the balance of power theory, the primary aim of all states is their survival, then the invasion of Grenada in 1983 is an example of the United States launching a pre-emptive war to ensure their survival.

The problem arises on the notion of whether a threat existed. On the other hand, Bishop’s rise to power and relationship with Cuba is an example of the realist theory that state survival is the most critical driver in decision-making. To Bishop, a relationship with any other state is not an option.

Reasons for Invasion

The primary cause of the U.S. invasion of this tiny country centers on the Grenadian government’s relationship with Cuba and the Soviet Union, and reluctance to give that relationship up despite U.S. pressure.

Cuba’s dictator Fidel Castro and Maurice Bishop maintained a close friendship. Bishop and Coard both owed their positions on the island to Communist sponsorship, namely Castro.

The United States strove to maintain hegemony in the region, and a Marxist government on a small Caribbean island building a new, larger, airfield represented a threat as it could accommodate all types of Cuban and Soviet aircraft.

The threat was not from Grenada itself, but that Grenada would serve as a forward base from which the Soviets or Cubans could influence the region. Of course, from the Grenadian point of view, the new airport with Cuban help represented an investment in tourism.

As tourism in the Caribbean rose, Grenada watched neighboring island St. Lucia host more than twice as many visitors each year. Easily the smallest airport in the region, Grenadian officials wanted to build a 9,000-foot runway to accommodate the wide-bodied 747s, DC-10s, and the like.

To some Americans, this represented a military project, viewing the Cuban workers that went to work on the project as military support. Furthermore, the assassination of Bishop and subsequent instability on the island became a secondary reason for intervention, putting the lives of U.S. citizens studying at the medical school in St. Georges at risk.

President Reagan cited the presence of U.S. citizens on the island as a primary reason for the United States invasion and in so doing created national support in the United States akin to rallying around the flag.

The American populace elected Ronald Reagan on his promise of ‘restoring American credibility’ in 1980. Americans were frustrated by their government’s inability to rescue 50 diplomats held hostage at the US Embassy in Iran.

With the United States still recovering from its involvement in Vietnam, a swift, ‘easy,’ clean victory would do much to repair the national psyche about how it uses its military force. A clean victory became especially necessary after the Reagan administration’s failed policy in Lebanon.

The invasion took place only two days after an explosion at the Marine Barracks in Beirut killed 256 US Marines and a year before the next presidential election. Clearly, President Reagan’s bid for a second term benefitted from successful intervention in Grenada.

To belabor its success and cement their legacy with anti-communist foreign policy, the Reagan administration cited the invasion as the first successful rollback of Communist influence since the beginning of the Cold War. The positive political response to the invasion suggests that the diversionary theory of war does not require a severe external threat to be effective.

Furthermore, as the United States had fundamentally revamped its entire military apparatus after its experience in Southeast Asia. Grenada was an opportunity to put its retooled forces to use against an enemy that allegedly threatened U.S. interests in the region but was not as formidable as the Soviets. The invasion served to display U.S. capabilities and send an international message.

The United States’ history of intervention in the region against Marxist regimes necessitated military ties with like-minded states. Following the 1979 coup, both Bishop and Coard attempted to create a coalition of other ideological states to extrapolate support from around the world for their policies and eight months after securing power, Bishop made the announcement of the new airport with Cuban support.

Coard visited the USSR in May 1980, Bishop in July 1982. Bishop made another trip to the USSR as well as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, and Cuba between September 28 and October 8, 1983. The Grenadians were attempting to develop relationships and a form coalition of Communist states along ideological lines.

The United States was opposed to Communist states in the Western Hemisphere, specifically the Caribbean while Soviet influence in the Western hemisphere was growing by the early 1980s. The USSR was supporting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and Communists in El Salvador, in addition to their continual support of Cuba since the early 60s.

When Coard ousted Bishop, the Cuban government treated the Grenadians with suspicion, perhaps, unsure of what their next move would be. The Cubans were likely unwilling to become embroiled in Grenadian affairs with the United States, especially when the regime was one they were unwilling to support.

The United States and specifically the Reagan administration created a non-existential threat and the idea of a threat in Grenada to oust a leftist government that was not consistent with the American outlook on freedom. The idea that Grenada would become a staging base for the exportation of Marxist revolutionaries and terrorism to other islands in the Caribbean and beyond is unlikely.

Grenadian need for external support led Bishop to continue cultivating a relationship with Castro, Cuba, and other Communist regimes in the world. Cuban involvement, especially airfield construction support, in turn, provoked a U.S. response as the Americans sought to maintain their regional hegemony.

Further complicating matters, the Reagan administration was keen on restoring American credibility. As soon as Coard arrested Bishop and caused further unrest in an already unpopular government, the United States had the impetus it required to launch an invasion.