Establishing a framework for fashioning a state’s foreign policy

Apr 26, 2020 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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(A Review of David Granger’s ‘The national interest. The international relations of a small state’)
David Granger, Guyana’s President, is a passionate advocate of Caribbean regional integration and Continental peace and security. He also has emerged as one of the world’s foremost spokespersons for small states, highlighting not only their challenges but, also, their invaluable contribution to solutions to global challenges.
President Granger’s book – The national interest. The international relations of a small state – confirms his international reputation as a statesman to whom the world should pay greater attention. The book offers visionary insights on issues such as environmental responsibility, regional integration, international peace, defence diplomacy and, most of all, the security of small states.
This book is a rich source of Guyana’s foreign policy. It defines the country’s foreign policy objectives concisely and precisely. The book is a product of a meticulous research and scrupulous analysis of his country’s interests in the international community.
The concept of the national interest has been used and abused as the pretext for aggression by states against others. There have been invasions, incursions, insurrections and other forms of intrusion in the pursuit of the aggressors’ national interest.
The resort to such claims, notwithstanding, the promotion of the national interest remains an essential instrument of the foreign policy of small states. which lack the economic, military and political influence of larger states. They are obliged to rely, increasingly, on diplomacy as the main means to pursue their foreign policy objectives. The national interest provides the relevant framework for small states to articulate and promulgate, precisely, these objectives.
The national interest represents the objectives, principles and policies which states pursue in their international relations in order to achieve their national goals. These goals may change over time with the advent of new governments but there remains, often, a kernel of immutable principles and unalterable long-term strategic interests at the heart of any state’s foreign policy.
Fashioning a country’s foreign policy involves determining and defining the national interest. Sources of a country’s foreign policy are to be found in the addresses and statements delivered at international meetings and conferences by its Head of Government. Such presentations contain the objectives, principles and policies which constitute a state’s foreign policy.
The book consists of a series of ten addresses which the President of Guyana delivered to various international meetings and conferences – in Britain, Brazil, Chile, Ethiopia, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and the United States of America.
The first address was to the Heads of Government Conference of the Caribbean Community in which President Granger proposes a return to the original vision of the founding fathers of the Community. He emphasises the need for strengthening functional cooperation, one of the original pillars of the Community.
The second address was delivered at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies in Washington D.C. In that address, President Granger pointed to natural disasters as an emerging security threat to the small states of the Caribbean. He called for security cooperation, between the United States and the Caribbean, to encompass environmental security.
The President was invited to address the Andres Bello Diplomatic Academy during a state visit to the Republic of Chile in 2016. His presentation emphasized the importance of preserving the continent of South America as a zone of peace. He iterated this call when he examined the security challenges of small states, during his address to the 50th anniversary of the Institute of International Relations of the University of the West Indies.
Continental security cooperation was the subject of a special address which President David Granger delivered at the Paula Nogueira Batista Auditorium, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brasilia, Brazil, on 2017.12.21. He identified defence cooperation as a key element in ensuring regional peace and security.
President Granger has emerged as one of the world’s leading spokesmen for small states in the field of the protection of the earth’s environment. His intervention at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference in London in 2018 reminded the Conference of the Langkawi Declaration, issued 30 years earlier, in which the Commonwealth sounded an early warning to the world of the impending dangers of climate change.
During his address to the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, Addis Ababa, in 2015, President Granger issued a stern rebuke to those who threatened the use of force against other states, pointing out how such actions undermine security which is integral to development. The link to the challenges to the territorial integrity of Guyana could not be missed when he observed:
Security and stability are indispensable to sustainable development and the pursuit of prosperity. We resent, reject and resist the threat or use of force or any unilateral coercive attempt by one state against another in order to frustrate the legitimate aspirations of our people to enjoy a good life.
The addresses in this book highlight Guyana’s key strategic foreign policy objectives – territorial integrity, defence cooperation, Caribbean integration, Continental recognition as a zone of peace and protection of the earth’s environment. These are the elements of the national interest which Guyana projects through its foreign policy.
The most significant value of the book, however, is the framework it establishes for fashioning a state’s foreign policy. Addressing his country’s diplomats during its Heads of Mission Conference in 2017, President Granger argued that the national interest should be considered at three levels – the citizen, the country and the Caribbean Community. The national interest is pursued when diplomats represent and protect the country’s citizens wherever they are, pursue the state’s broad economic and political interests and promote regional cooperation and integration.
David Granger makes a signal contribution to international relations theory with this typology. David Singer’s theory of the ‘levels of analysis’ allows for an examination of the factors influencing international behaviour. David Granger’s theory of the ‘levels of the national interest’ offers a typology for defining and articulating a state’s foreign policy objectives.
This book is of supreme value to policymakers, statesmen, students of international relations, and to those interested in having a deeper understanding of Guyana’s foreign policy. It is worthy of a place in any library or university.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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