The Dominican Background

Located in the Eastern Caribbean (between Guadeloupe to the north and Martinique to the south), Dominica lies approximately 2300 miles from the United States, as the crow flies. This very small island (290 square miles; population just over 71,000) was, until 1978, a British colony. Like many other West Indian countries, independence has meant insertion into a system of global capitalism that has reinscribed economic dependency. Among other things, this results in high rates of out-migration of Dominicans seeking opportunities elsewhere (IOM 2020). Another Dominican problem, also typically Caribbean, is historical reliance on agriculture (particularly bananas) and tourism (which is burgeoning in Dominica) (Nelson Reference Nelson2013). All this means that, overall, the island is poor. In 2020 its gross domestic product per capita stood at $6,527. In comparison, nearby St. Kitts and Nevis registered a GDP per capita of $17,436 (The World Bank 2021). Despite these low numbers, the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index, which incorporates measures of longevity, education, and a country’s Gross National Income per capita, ranked Dominica as having a “high human development” in 2019. This translated to a ranking of 94 out of 189 countries (UNDP Reference Baker2020).

Statistics such as these, while informative, do not do justice to Dominica’s complex social dynamics, which are informed by its history of multi-state colonialism, plantation agriculture, slavery, racism and class consciousness, authoritarianism, and political corruption. The Carib people were already living on the island when Columbus claimed it for Spain in 1493, but by 1642 France had firmly imprinted itself on Dominican soil. French ownership proved short-lived since Britain annexed the island in 1763, resulting in a society characterized by a mixture of French and British culture and institutions (e.g., French patois, the use of standard English, the prominence of the Roman Catholic Church, and British legal institutions) (Baker Reference Baker1994). The island’s rugged topography favored the development of coastal settlements (notably Roseau, the capital) but hindered easy communication between them and interior villages. According to historian Gordon K. Lewis (Reference Lewis1968), this rural/urban divide has shaped “the history of an oppressed peasant proprietary class fighting to maintain its precarious existence within a hostile environment” (p.150).

Race and class relations, rooted in plantation slavery and its aftermath, shaped this environment even more profoundly. Like many other British West Indian societies (see, for example, Philip D. Curtin’s Two Jamaicas (Reference Curtin1970)), these relations came to revolve around a tiny and dominant White elite, a mixed-race (“Colored” or “Brown”) middle stratum, and a large base of Blacks (Baker Reference Baker1994; Riviere Reference Craig1981).Footnote ² Former slaves, Black Dominicans developed into the peasant class after slavery’s abolition in 1833 and prized a spirit of self-sufficiency they had displayed even during slavery. Maroons, runaway slaves who had taken to the hills, epitomized this spirit. In the post-emancipation period, Black Dominicans exerted pressure on White plantation owners who could no longer take the availability of Black labor for granted. As the White elite’s relative power declined, that of the Brown middle segment rose. Patrick L. Baker (Reference Baker1994) notes that estate ownership tended to shift into their hands but, just as importantly, as they increasingly dominated the skilled trades, they became an urban and political force. They vied with the White elite for dominance, despising Black Dominicans as racial and class inferiors and positing themselves as the only true Dominicans.

These attitudes of superiority continued to inform social relations as Dominica gradually transformed into a post-colonial state in the late twentieth century, but by the 1970s rising Black consciousness had come to the fore. Driven by a cadre of educated young Black Dominicans, who were influenced by both Rastafarianism and the American Black Power movement, and against a background of limited economic opportunities, these Dominicans severely criticized the colonial Dominican state and capitalism (Baker Reference Baker1994; Riviere Reference Craig1981). This so-called “Movement for a New Dominica” also incorporated more radical elements who completely rejected polite Dominican society. These “Dreads,” like the Maroons before them, took to the hills in the face of persistent persecution but were not, uniformly, the criminals the authorities made them out to be. Violent actions characterized only a fringe element within the Dreads, whereas most were peaceful counter-culture individuals and political activists (Paravisini-Gebert Reference Paravisini-Gebert1996; van Dijk Reference Barnes and Minca1998).

Nevertheless, murders committed by this fringe element colored societal perceptions of the Dreads, and prominent politicians used widespread fear of the group to amass power. Patrick John, who became Dominica’s Prime Minister in 1974, is noteworthy in this respect. His passage of the Prohibited and Unlawful Societies and Associations Act in that year forbade punishment of anyone who killed a Dread. The ensuing “reign of terror” (Campbell Reference Campbell1980, p.47) against the group led to the police killing twenty-one Dreads (Baker Reference Baker1994; Campbell Reference Campbell1980; Paravisini-Gebert Reference Paravisini-Gebert1996; Phillips Reference Phillips2002; Rogozinski Reference Rogozinski2002; van Dijk Reference Barnes and Minca1998). Increasingly authoritarian and implicated in several shady deals (see below), John also attempted to quash local criticism of his actions, and he prohibited visitors to the island he regarded as provoking dissent. Nevertheless, anti-John sentiment increased, and in 1979 he used the army, which, under John, had become politicized and loyal to him, to quell a mass rally protesting his policies. This resulted in several deaths, and the general strike that followed forced John to resign as Prime Minister (Baker Reference Baker1994; Paravisini-Gebert Reference Paravisini-Gebert1996; Phillips Reference Phillips2002; Savarin Reference Savarin1979).

Eugenia Charles won the subsequent general election in 1980 by a landslide. This victory angered the DDF and spurred Patrick John to plot with American and Canadian White nationalists to help him regain power.Footnote ³ In December 1980, Prime Minister Charles attempted to pass legislation to court martial rebellious members of the army, and they responded by attempting a coup. The coup plotters were arrested but while in jail a DDF officer inadvertently revealed the Patrick John-White nationalist plot. He had passed on a note, which was intercepted, urging the White nationalists to proceed with the invasion of the island. As a result, Patrick John was also arrested and imprisoned, which prompted a second coup attempt by the DDF to free him (Meditz et al., Reference Meditz and Hanratty1989; Phillips Reference Phillips2002, Reference Phillips2008). In 1983, six of the local coup plotters were sentenced to hang. Patrick John, however, after a long series of legal maneuvers, was sentenced to twelve years in prison in 1985 but was released in 1990. Ultimately, he and several of the other local coup plotters were pardoned for their crimes (Baker Reference Baker1994; Bell Reference Bell2008; Phillips Reference Phillips2002; Rogozinski Reference Rogozinski1994; Thomas Reference Alter1981).

White Nationalism in Theory

Although, in the past, researchers explained adherence to White nationalist beliefs in terms of individual psychological pathology (e.g., Adorno Reference Adorno1950; Ezekiel Reference Ezekiel, Cashmore and Jennings2001), modern day scholars are more apt to characterize such individuals as belonging to a social movement (Berlet and Vysotsky, Reference Berlet and Vysotsky2006; Blee Reference Blee2017; Blee and Creasap, Reference Blee and Creasap2010; Caren et al., Reference Caren, Jowers and Gaby2012; Flint Reference Flint and Flint2004). Disagreement exists over whether social movements are best described as arising from societal grievances (Gurr Reference Gurr1970), should be analyzed in terms of resource mobilization (Johnston and Klandermans, Reference Johnston, Klandermans, Johnston and Klandermans1995, McCarthy and Zald, Reference McCarthy and Zald1977, Obershall Reference Oberschall1973), or are manifesting a new phase (Laclau and Mouffe, Reference Laclau and Mouffe1985, Melucci Reference Melucci and Pinto1981, Offe Reference Offe1985). Acknowledging these disputes, David A. Snow and colleagues (Reference Snow, Soule, Kriesi, Snow, Soule and Kriesi2004) have sought to take a broad view of social movements by defining them as, “collectivities acting with some degree of organization and continuity outside of institutional or organizational channels for the purpose of challenging or defending extant authority, whether it is institutionally or culturally based, in the group, organization, society, culture or world order of which they are a part” (p. 11).

Generally speaking, this definition fits White nationalists because though they are fragmented (see below), they also act in an organized manner. They manifest this organization in events ranging from the private (e.g., cross burnings) to public meetings meant to garner widespread attention. The 2017 riot by White nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, is a noteworthy example of the latter since, in it, organizers explicitly sought to “unite the right” by building bridges between the many sub-groups of White nationalists in attendance at the event (Bell Reference Bell2019; Heaphy Reference Heaphy2017; Peters and Besley, Reference Peters and Besley2017). The Ku Klux Klan, especially, demonstrates the longevity of White nationalism in the United States, the group having been formed in 1865, shortly after the ending of the Civil War (Hamm Reference Hamm and Perry2009). Although, as argued below, at times the KKK and other White nationalists have had access to the state (e.g., controversially, during the four years of the Trump administration), they have largely operated outside of institutional channels (Bell Reference Bell2019; Blee et al., Reference Blee, Decker and Legerski2007; Guerrero Reference Guerrero2020; Hamm Reference Hamm and Perry2009; Srikantiah and Sinnar, Reference Adams2019). As such, their goal is both to preserve “White” culture (e.g., defense of Civil War monuments), which they perceive as being under attack, and to disrupt American society. They believe that the latter is dominated by Jews and “corrupted” by inferior non-Whites or “mud people.” White nationalists intend to provoke a race war that will “cleanse” the country of this corruption by eliminating these groups to establish a homogeneous White nation (Berry Reference Berry2017; Bickford and Clabough, Reference Bickford and Clabough2019; Blee et al., Reference Blee, Decker and Legerski2007; Hale Reference Hale2013; Michael Reference Michael2009; Ostendorf Reference Ostendorf2002; Perliger Reference Perliger2012).

The Ku Klux Klan exhibited this melding of racist ideology and territorial ambition from its very origins as an anti-Black, pro-slavery terrorist organization. As Klansters lynched African Americans and their allies, they sought to re-create a South characterized by unfettered White supremacy and free from liberal social and political influences (Bickford and Clabough, Reference Bickford and Clabough2019; Hamm Reference Hamm and Perry2009; Southern Poverty Law Center 2011; Wade 1987). Eugenics and the mass migration of Jews and Catholics from Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe strongly influenced the formation of the second Klan in 1915 (Berry Reference Berry2017; Largent Reference Largent2002). Widely influential, eugenics valorized Anglo-Saxon Protestants as the epitome of “Whiteness,” while casting suspicion on the racial credentials of the new immigrants. Consequently, eugenicists advocated for the sterilization of racial and class “inferiors” and for restrictions on immigration from non-Western European countries (Engs Reference Engs and Sibley2014; Grant Reference Grant1916; Pavuk Reference Pavuk and Sibley2014; Shipman Reference Shipman1994). In addition to Central, Southern, and Eastern Europeans, these restrictions significantly impacted Asian immigrants. Meanwhile, Jim Crow legislation and practices kept African Americans and Mexican Americans firmly separated from the White mainstream and subordinated to White dominance (Haney-Lopez Reference Lopez and Gjerde1998; Ngai Reference Ngai1999; Spickard Reference Spickard2007).

Taken together, these various racist policies enforced the vision of a racially exclusive nation and were strongly supported by the Klan (Spickard Reference Spickard2007). In the decades since World War II, Nazism has increasingly influenced the diversifying White nationalist movement, abetting adherents’ pre-existing preoccupation with controlling racially defined territory. Of particular importance is that American White nationalists have adopted aspects of Lebensraum (or living space) and Autarky. Associated with the Nazi political geographer and journalist, Karl Haushofer, Lebensraum called for Germany to guarantee ample space and resources for its people to flourish. Autarky, a closely related concept, called for guarantees of economic and national self-sufficiency (Herwig Reference Herwig2008; Klinke and Bassin, Reference Klinke and Bassin2018). In the United States, White nationalists often tout Lebensraum-like ideas (Michael Reference Michael2009; Perliger Reference Perliger2012). Examples include such popular slogans as “Blood and Soil,” “You will not replace us”Footnote ⁴ (a White nationalist reaction to the fear of dark-skinned and Jewish immigrants), and, especially, the so-called “Fourteen words”: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children” (Herwig Reference Herwig2008; Michael Reference Michael2009).

Theoretically, White nationalists could secure this future in a homogenous White nation in several ways, and Lebensraum and Autarky may be directed inwardly or outwardly. That is, with an inward focus on the United States, they could attempt to: 1) seal the borders to prevent the entrance of non-Whites, 2) carve up the country in apartheid-like fashion by assigning different racial and ethnic groups to different territories, 3) expel all non-Whites from the country, and 4) destroy all non-Whites. Not just fantasy, these White nationalist desires are embedded in policies the American government has enacted in the past. For instance, as noted, turn-of-the-twentieth century immigration policy could be read as an attempt to exclude racial “inferiors” from the “White” nation, which eugenicists defined in terms of Anglo-Saxonism (Grant Reference Grant1916; Ngai Reference Ngai1999; Spickard Reference Spickard2007). The sequestration of Native Americans on reservations and African Americans in inner-cities has, at times, created apartheid-like conditions for both of those groups (Massey and Denton, Reference Massey and Denton1993; Rothstein Reference Rothstein2017; Woodard Reference Woodard2018). At different periods in American history, the U.S. government has deported, en masse, Mexicans and other Latinos (Mize Reference Mize2016), and it has committed genocide against some Native American tribes (Chalk and Jonassohn, Reference Chalk and Jonassohn1990).

Some modern-day White nationalists are actively planning to implement aspects of these historical U.S. government policies (Gibson Reference Gibson1994). For instance, Barbara Perry and Randy Blazak (Reference Perry and Blazak2010) show how White nationalists plan to carve up the United States into mutually exclusive racial and ethnic territories. The extreme Northwest (e.g., states such as Idaho and Washington) would be reserved for Whites, Native Americans would be restricted to New Mexico, Mexicans would be housed in Southern California, Hawaii would contain all Asians, African Americans would be restricted to the deep South (but South Florida would house Cubans), Jews would be restricted to Manhattan and Long Island, and French Canadians would be confined to the northeastern New England states.

During World War II, however, the Nazis interpreted Lebensraum and Autarky externally, as the conquest and colonization of territory in Russia (Barnes and Minka, Reference Barnes and Minca2013). This they attempted, using a brutal combination of ethnic cleansing and genocide (Hilberg Reference Hilberg, Frank and Jonassohn1990). Similarly, some American White nationalists advocate genocide and adopt a transnational view of White territorial domination, arguing that the creation of a racially homogeneous United States is only a steppingstone to their hegemonic control of other parts of the world. Blood in the Face, the well-known 1991 documentary examining White nationalism, offers good examples of this point of view (Bohlen et al., Reference Bohlen, Rafferty, Ridgeway, Moore and Productions1991). The growing interconnectedness of White nationalists on the internet is salient to this vision of a global “White sphere” (Blee Reference Blee and Flint2004; Perry and Olsson, Reference Perry and Olsson2009). Chillingly, White nationalist terrorism also reflects this global vision. For instance, extremist Afrikaners increasingly look to compatriots in the United States to help stem the rise of Black rule in South Africa (Pogue Reference Pogue2019). Similarly, in 2019, Brenton Tarrant, an Australian White nationalist, murdered fifty-one Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, and admitted that he had imitated Anders Breivik, a Norwegian White nationalist who murdered eighty-seven people in 2011 (Fuhrmans and Grundberg, Reference Fuhrmans and Grundberg2011; Seierstad Reference Seierstad2019; Soufan Center 2019).

Varieties of White Nationalists and Their Relationship with the State

Despite this vison of a burgeoning global White space, it is the prospect of a homogenous White America that animates many White nationalists. This tends to unite them across the board, but sub-groups of White nationalists emphasize different elements of movement ideology, and they also vary on tactics. Using this as a point of departure, Chip Berlet and Stanislav Vysotsky (Reference Berlet and Vysotsky2006) argue the existence of three broad categories of White nationalists, revolving around political organizing, religion, and youth culture. This typology brings order to the White nationalist landscape, but it is also problematic because of the high degree of overlap between these groups in the real world.

Political White nationalist groups (e.g., The National Alliance, The Order, Volksfront, and White Aryan Resistance) consider themselves to be direct descendants of the Nazis and valorize fascism. As such, they are strongly authoritarian, prize the nation over the individual, and equate it with White superiority. Ideologically, these groups are strongly anti-communist, but they also display strong antipathy toward the notion of a democratic, multicultural America. These views can bring them into violent conflict with the American government. For instance, in the early 1980s, Robert Mathews, co-founder of The Order, sought to establish a White ethno-state by declaring war on the federal government. Subsequently, the group embarked on a crime spree of murder, armored car heists, bank robbery, and counterfeiting. In 1984 Mathews was cornered in a house on Whidbey Island, Washington, by FBI agents, and was incinerated when the house caught fire (Gibson Reference Gibson1994; Michael Reference Michael2009; Wright Reference Wright2007).

According to Berlet and Vysotsky, religious White nationalists share some of the traits of their political compatriots but root their core ideology and violent actions in mysticism. As examples, Berlet and Vysotsky cite Christian Identity, the Creativity Movement, and followers of Odinism, and Wotanism. They could also have added, for instance, The Order of the 9 Angles (O9A), the notably extremist Neo-Nazi-Satanist hate group (HOPE not hate 2020). Considering the Ku Klux Klan, however, demonstrates the fuzzy borders between religious and political White nationalist groups, because the Klan, having woven its mythmaking around the cross, claims to be a Christian organization (Berry Reference Berry2017; Stephens Reference Adorno2017). But the Klan is also a notably political and violent group. The same blurring of boundaries characterizes skinheads who, according to Berlet and Vysotsky, fall into the youth culture category. Like the Klan, skinheads also hate minorities, but they are more apt to commit random acts of extreme street violence. They have also been shaped by a particular youth culture that has its origins in the intermingling of West Indian immigrants in the UK and English working-class culture (Hamm Reference Hamm and Perry2009; O’Shea Reference O’Shea2018). According to Berlet and Vysotsky, adherents to various forms of hate metal music also fall into the White nationalist youth culture category.

Despite the obvious overlap between different types of White nationalists, they differ significantly in their modus operandi. According to Kathleen M. Blee (Reference Blee2005), some groups (e.g., skinheads) employ narrative violence to attain their ends. In this type of violence, enemies are ill defined, and violence is both more random and meant primarily to solidify in-group bonds. In contrast, other White nationalists employ strategic violence, which is predicated on the identification and destruction of distinct enemies. Political White nationalists fall within the latter camp since, to achieve the wholescale societal transformation they desire, they typically target the state as the enemy preventing the realization of a homogeneous White nation.

Blee argues, however, that antagonism between political White nationalists and the American government has varied over time. She shows how the first Ku Klux Klan directed terrorism against African Americans with the strategic goal of destroying the Reconstructionist state and resurrecting White supremacy. In the early twentieth century, the second Ku Klux Klan changed tactics and aligned itself with the American government to oppress an expanded array of racial and culture enemies. Often, this violence depended on mob rule, was more narrative in nature, and used the state as a vehicle to enact and sustain it. As mentioned previously, contemporary White nationalists have reversed course sharply, claiming that a Jewish-dominated Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG) controls the United States. Consequently, White nationalists regard themselves as existing in a state of war with the federal government (Michael Reference Michael2009; Ostendorf Reference Ostendorf2002; Perliger Reference Perliger2012; Reitman Reference Reitman2018).

The “American Mediterranean” as “Bayou of Pigs” Context

Viewed broadly, and despite demeaning references to it as “the Bayou of Pigs,” the failed White nationalist plot to overthrow the Dominican government fits within well-worn historical patterns. Specifically, the United States has a history of imperialistic nation building in the circum-Caribbean that has involved a mix of state-directed (most typically) and private-led efforts. The Operation Red Dog coup plotters fit, especially, within the latter tradition.

As one leg of the triangular slave trade, North America, the Caribbean, and Central and South America constituted “the Americas,” which early-on involved the integration of economies, as manifested in the circulation of goods, provisions, and people (Fraser Reference Fraser and Palmer1990). Nevertheless, citizens of what developed into the United States viewed themselves as racially superior and the natural leaders of other peoples and societies in the circum-Caribbean. For instance, in American Mediterranean, Matthew Pratt Guterl (Reference Guterl2008) shows how the slaveholding American South, especially, faced with the demise of a lifestyle based on human bondage, exhibited a “lust” for Caribbean territory they imagined would sustain and expand slavery. As they saw it, the great planters of the South were the “impending lord and master of the warm blue waters of the American Mediterranean” (pp. 48-49).

Importantly, U.S. government policy, guided by the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny, concurred with and framed these beliefs, leading to a long series of interventions in the circum-Caribbean (Captain and Jones, Reference Captain, Jones, Eccles and McCollin2017; Flint Reference Flint and Flint2004; Gilderhaus Reference Gilderhaus2006; Pastor Reference Pastor1994; Williams Reference Williams1984; Williams Reference Williams2017). These include repeated attempts between 1865 and 1871 to annex the Dominican Republic; the establishment of a customs receivership on that island in 1907 under the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine; the occupation of the country by U.S. troops between 1915 and 1924; the occupation of Haiti from 1915 until 1934; the colonization of Panama in the early twentieth century, with special emphasis on the control of the Panama Canal; and the establishment of U.S. hegemony over Puerto Rico following the Spanish-American War in 1898. In the post-WWII period, the desire to restrict the expansion of communism on America’s doorstep came to dominate American foreign policy regarding the Caribbean. This led to the Bay of Pigs attempted invasion of Cuba in 1961 and the invasion of Grenada in 1983 (Dookhan Reference Dookhan1985; Maingot Reference Maingot, Knight and Palmer1989; Rogozinski Reference Rogozinski1994; Williams Reference Williams1984).

Cuba, and especially Grenada, are important in analyzing the motives of the Operation Red Dog plotters because American fears of expanding communism in the Caribbean intersected with White nationalist ideology on those two islands. These plotters, per Berlet and Vysotsky’s (Reference Berlet and Vysotsky2006) typology, were political White nationalists, and anti-communism served as a primary motivator for their adventure (Bell Reference Bell2008; Malvaney Reference Malvaney2018). Writers such as Kathleen Belew (Reference Belew2018) and James William Gibson (Reference Gibson1994) have shown the strong links between the Vietnam War, anti-communism, and the growth of the modern American White nationalist movement. They argue that many White Vietnam War veterans, disillusioned with the war’s outcome and convinced that communism remained a threat both abroad and in the United States, gravitated to a warrior culture that melded love of guns, machismo, and a conspiratorial threat narrative positing the extinction of the “White race” by Jews, “mud people”, and liberals. This combustible combination metastasized into anti-establishment attitudes and an increasingly violent White nationalist movement.Footnote ⁵

It turns out that some of the Operation Red Dog plotters were Vietnam War veterans and, initially, they had targeted the island of Grenada, not Dominica, for “invasion” (United States v. Black Reference Ball and Dagger1982). Grenada had turned communist in 1979 when the People’s Revolutionary Government, led by Maurice Bishop, overthrew the government of Prime Minister Eric Gairy. Although such coups were unusual in the English-speaking Caribbean, which is mostly composed of parliamentary democracies, Grenada represented the second bona fide communist regime in the Caribbean and rang alarm bells in Washington (Meditz et al., Reference Meditz and Hanratty1989). Eventually, with encouragement from Eugenia CharlesFootnote ⁶ (and several other Caribbean leaders), the situation, as noted, led the United States to invade the island in 1983 (BBC 1988; Ramphal Reference Ramphal2014).

The Operation Red Dog plotters, apparently motivated by anti-communist zeal, came to the same conclusion two years before the U.S. government did but changed their minds because Grenada was too heavily defended. They believed that overthrowing the government of Dominica would be easier (Bell Reference Bell2008). George Malvaney, one of the coup plotters who served time in prison for the conspiracy, has given an insider’s view of this decision-making process. In his autobiography, Cups Up: How I Organized a Klavern, Plotted a Coup, Survived Prison, Graduated College, Fought Polluters, and Started a Business, he makes the following observation:

Essentially, the Operation Red Dog plotters were mercenaries, a type of group that is not unknown in Caribbean history (Belew Reference Belew2018; Bell Reference Bell2008; New York Times 1981; Phillips Reference Phillips2002). According to Thomas K. Adams (Reference Adams1999), traditional mercenaries are private groups who sell their military expertise to foreign governments for money. Typically, this means that the mercenaries constitute an actual fighting force. Adams distinguishes between such groups and modern-day vertically integrated mercenary-corporations that provide a full range of military systems, which may or may not include an actual fighting force, to foreign governments.

Traditional mercenaries such as those involved in Operation Red Dog were the latest in a line of private American groups that have sought to influence the internal affairs of Caribbean countries. For instance, between 1824 and 1861, private American groups made three attempts to establish colonies of former slaves in Haiti. Similarly, privately funded groups made at least three attempts between 1849 and 1851 to overthrow the Spanish government in Cuba (Dookhan Reference Dookhan1985). These groups operated with the tacit approval of the American government, the most famous of these collaborations being the Bay of Pigs operation in 1961. The Operation Red Dog plotters in 1981 differed from these previous efforts in being completely independent of American government support. In fact, their plot constituted a true conspiracy.

The Dominica-Operation Red Dog Mercenaries Problem

This point brings us back to the problem of how to conceptualize the relationship between the White nationalist coup plotters and the Dominican state and society. Judging from their active adherence to White nationalist ideals (e.g., they had Confederate and Nazi flags in their possession when they were arrested), the plotters were committed racists. Yet they intended their relationship with Dominica to be more than merely clientelistic. Instead, they planned to settle down on this island composed primarily of Black people. They would have seriously considered living in Dominica only if the rewards were high.

Like other writers (e.g., Berger Reference Berger2020; Bhatt Reference Bhatt2021; Blee Reference Blee2005; Reitman Reference Reitman2018), I argue that White nationalists often embrace chaos as a means of actualizing their goals.Footnote ⁷ Recall that in the United States, politically oriented White nationalists have alternated between supporting the federal government and fighting it. The latter describes their current posture, as they launch rhetorical and actual terroristic attacks against ZOG. In Dominica, as mercenaries, the White nationalist coup plotters encountered a very chaotic situation and a weak state.Footnote ⁸ They opportunistically embraced this chaos, hoping to attain, through strategic violence, the toppling of government. American-based White nationalists had mostly only fantasized about a similar outcome in the U.S. until they attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021 (Darby Reference Darby2021; Givhan Reference Givhan2021; Malvaney Reference Malvaney2018; Tavernese and Rosenberg, Reference Allfrey2021; Wells et al., Reference Wells, Talley and Horwitz2021). The Operation Red Dog coup plotters intended for Dominica what American White nationalists hope to achieve in the United States.

Although the overthrow of ZOG and the creation of a homogeneous White nation are the primary goals of many White nationalists, in fact, they have several goals. Importantly, as noted, they are also anti-communist, and they hanker after power and wealth. Furthermore, they are flexible in the means they employ to obtain their objectives. One way of explaining the White nationalists’ willingness to involve themselves in Dominica is that they downplayed their long-term goal of creating a homogeneous White nation, and their antipathy toward Blacks, in favor of the immediate opportunity that presented itself to amass power and wealth. Federal prosecutors concluded as much in their case against Don BlackFootnote ⁹ and Joe D. Hawkins, two of the Operation Red Dog operatives, when they argued that, essentially, the plot was a money-making scheme (United States v. Black Reference Ball and Dagger1982). Also supporting this conclusion is the fact that the plotters brought American and Canadian organized crime figures, who hoped to capitalize on illegal activities in Dominica, into the conspiracy (Bell Reference Bell2008; Lauder Reference Lauder2017).

White nationalists’ behavior in other situations illustrates their flexibility in attaining their multifarious goals. For instance, the violent White supremacist prison gang, the Aryan Brotherhood, is known not only for its extreme racism but also for the group’s control of various lucrative criminal enterprises (Plunkert Reference Plunkert2009). The former Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke,Footnote ¹⁰ is an example of the pursuit of a White ethno-state through alternative means. Eschewing cross burnings, in the 1980s Duke established the National Association for the Advancement of White People and decided to run for elected office. He won the election and became a delegate in the Louisiana House of Representatives (Perliger Reference Perliger2012; Perry Reference Perry2000). Some have argued that the Alt-Right is another example of White nationalist mainstreaming as an alternative means of attaining political power. That group retains the core beliefs of more violent White nationalists but hides these views beneath a cloak of civility (Atkinson Reference Atkinson2018; Bhatt Reference Bhatt2021; Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir, Reference Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir2020).

Despite the globalist pretentions of some American White nationalists, it is farfetched to imagine that the Operation Red Dog plotters could have facilitated the mass migration of Whites into Dominica, thereby completely displacing the island’s Black residents. In this sense, classical Lebensraum, which entails full-blown White settler colonialism, would not have worked. Instead, they hoped to achieve a modified form of Lebensraum in which large sections of the choicest land on this small island, along with the island’s economy, would be controlled by the coup plotters. That is, they intended to create a lucrative White nationalist outpost on the island in which economic gain matched, or exceeded, pure racial ideology in importance (Belew Reference Belew2018; Bell Reference Bell2008; Maingot Reference Maingot, Fruhling, Tulchin and Golding2003; Malvaney Reference Malvaney2018; New York Times 1981; Thomas Reference Alter1981). Their desire for power and wealth, and the constraints imposed by Caribbean geopolitics, pushed the coup plotters to embrace a spatial solution that recalled American White nationalists who propose the carving up of the U.S. into racial and ethnic enclaves (Perry and Blazak, Reference Perry and Blazak2010). In terms of our previous discussion, this Dominican solution was a hybrid form of Lebensraum and Autarky since, in the American context, spatial ethno-racial vivisection is inward-looking, but imposing themselves on another country meant that the White nationalists were also practicing a type of outward-looking settler colonialism. Specifically, playing a dominant role in the island’s economy would have entailed Dominicans’ submission to the White nationalists (Bell Reference Bell2008; Gane-McCalla Reference Gane-McCalla2012; New York Times 1981).

Clearly, this state of affairs, pregnant with bitter memories of White domination over Blacks, would have been intolerable to ordinary Dominicans. But the creation of a White nationalist enclave in Dominica was a plausible outcome had the coup plotters successfully overthrown the Eugenia Charles government because of Patrick John’s past behavior. His authoritarianism gave the White nationalists the unexpected opportunity to intervene in the social and political chaos that John, himself, had initiated. One of the reasons for his ouster from power in 1980, in the first place, is that John had a penchant for making deals with global pariahs. For instance, he was implicated in a plot with the arms dealer, Sidney Burnett-Alleyne, to funnel South African money into Dominica to build an oil refinery to help the apartheid regime evade international sanctions (Allfrey Reference Allfrey1979; Baker Reference Baker1994; BBC 1988; Maingot Reference Maingot, Fruhling, Tulchin and Golding2003; Savarin Reference Savarin1979; Thomas Reference Alter1981; Time Reference Atkinson1981). This was an explosive charge in the 1970s West Indies which abhorred apartheid (Allfrey Reference Allfrey1979; Bell Reference Bell2008; Levi Reference Levi1990). Moreover, like the White nationalist mercenaries, Burnett-Alleyne had also plotted to overthrow the Barbadian government (Bell Reference Bell2008; Meditz et al., Reference Meditz and Hanratty1989). In another deal, John had also promised to give one-third of Dominica’s arable land, which was to be taken from small farmers, to an American corporation to create a freeport. The terms of the deal called for the Americans to completely control the freeport, which would have comprised its own autonomous entity within Dominica (Baker Reference Baker1994; Maingot Reference Maingot, Fruhling, Tulchin and Golding2003; Thomas Reference Alter1981).

This pattern of dealing with renegades and shady foreigners helps explain John’s comfort with plotting with American and Canadian White supremacists to topple the Eugenia Charles government. He was willing to extend them the same economic favors and high degree of autonomy he had promised previous foreign interlopers. Prior to the coup, John formalized these considerations in a contract he signed with Michael Perdue, Operation Red Dog’s lead organizer. In it, Nortic Enterprises, the company set up by Perdue to oversee the White nationalists’ business interests in post-Eugenia Charles Dominica, was promised $50,000 to complete the coup and 2.5 percent of an expected $80,000,000 development loan that was to come from foreign governments. The company was to be exempted from all taxes, duties, and levies and could repatriate funds without restrictions. Moreover, the contract called for the company to build an airport and to develop and oversee the Dominican tourism industry. Furthermore, Michael Perdue was charged with training and supervising a 200-man defense force that was to serve as a Praetorian Guard for Patrick John (Bell Reference Bell2008; New York Times 1981).Footnote ¹¹ These terms provided the White nationalists exceptional latitude in the creation and operation of a small but lucrative military and economic fiefdom, which mixed legal and illegal activities. The latter included drug manufacturing and dealing,Footnote ¹² gambling, money laundering, and passport fraud.Footnote ¹³ (Bell Reference Bell2008; Gane-McCalla Reference Gane-McCalla2012; Maingot Reference Maingot, Fruhling, Tulchin and Golding2003; New York Times 1981; Phillips Reference Phillips2002).