Avoiding war in South America

What happened

Ecuador broke off relations with Colombia on Monday, a day after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sent tanks and troops to his country’s border on Colombia’s other flank. The tensions began when Colombian forces clashed with killed a Colombian guerrilla commander on Ecuadorean soil over the weekend. (The New York Times, free registration)

What the commentators said

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

This has the look of the beginning of a war in South America, said Tim Padgett in Time, but “don’t bet on it.” Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe “hate each other,” and “few world leaders rattle a saber as flamboyantly” as Chavez does. But both sides have plenty of reasons to back away from the brink: Their economies are too interdependent, Colombia’s military is no longer the pushover it once was, and Venezuela can’t afford to do anything to disrupt its oil exports.

Usually “Ch