Richard M. Balzano is the President of the Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies. He lectures in History and Political Science at Springfield College, and he teaches History at Western New Mexico University. His research examines U.S. foreign policy and Latin America’s Cold War through the intersecting lenses of human rights, foreign aid and sanctions, the politics of information and narrative management, and resource diplomacy, extractive imperialism, and the political economy of international power and intervention. He writes a bi-weekly political column for the New Hampshire Gazette