Greater attention must be paid to defense policy

Nov 15, 2020 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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Kaieteur News – (A Review of David Granger’s National Defense: A small state in the subordinate system. ISBN-10 978-976-8178-14-0 (pbk) (Reprint 2012).)
A change of government often presents the challenge of designing and implementing a new or revised national defense policy. The task of formulating its own national defense policy has often proven problematic. Instead of articulation, there is ambivalence.
The problem has been, frequently, the lack of competence, which is a product of the inability to understand the implications, intricacies and subtleties of national defense. To overcome this handicap, it is necessary to have a full grasp of both the practical and theoretical issues relating to national defense.
David Granger’s National Defense: A small state in the subordinate system is the most authoritative source of information of these issues. The book is the premier study on national defense to emerge from the Anglophone Caribbean.
David Granger does not project himself as an expert of national defense. His credentials in this field are impeccable, however, and he has been a prolific writer on national security. This book adds to his impressive oeuvre on the subject. He wrote this book a decade before assuming the Presidency in 2015. He provides a non-blinkered and non-partisan approach to the subject. The book has benefitted from his years of experience as Commander of the Guyana Defense Force. It represents an objective study of national defense from a small-state perspective.
National Defense: A small state in the subordinate system has an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources, which attest to the thoroughness, and depth of research undertaken. The book breaks new ground in local literature on national defense. Its concern is not so much about issue areas of national security as it is about examining the role of a defense force in a small state.
Granger does this with reference to the Guyana Defense Force’s role in the state of Guyana. This makes this publication unique, a fact that the author himself recognizes. In his introduction, he notes that the literature on Guyana’s national defense has tended to concentrate on four main categories – first … regional security threats including insurrections and invasions; second … the question of militarization within newly-independent states; third … the links between defense and politics; and, fourth … official publications on matters of public policy, including defense.
The book addresses a series of theoretical and practical concerns about defense forces in small states and within the subordinate system. Granger argues that the subordinate system is not a passive factor. It is delineated geographically, ideologically and economically and this conditions the role, which defense forces play within the system. National defense, in other words, is circumscribed by a country’s place within the subordinate system.
Guyana, soon after Independence, found itself enmeshed in an exceptional geopolitical and ideological situation. It inherited territorial controversies with two of its neighbours – the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Republic of Suriname. Brazil acted always as counterpoint to Venezuelan hegemonism in the region and discountenanced threats against Guyana. Brazil, however, was not without its own regional objectives.
Guyana’s low gross domestic product and, consequently, the resources, which it can devote to national defense, are dwarfed by the vast assets of its two more powerful neighbours. Its place in the subordinate system thus presents several challenges. National Defense: A small state in the subordinate system addresses the dilemmas faced by Guyana in the context of the subordinate system.
Each chapter of the book is devoted to examining one or more of these dilemmas. Granger begins by providing the reader with the historical context for the emergence of Guyana as a state in the international system. During the colonial era, this process encompassed rivalries between European powers for territorial control. These rivalries and Cold War machinations caused Guyana to inherit controversies on two of its borders. Among the other topics addressed in the book are:
 the role of the defense force in a politically and ethnically divided country;
 the posture of a small state, with a small defense force, in defending its frontiers;
 the act of balancing defense and development, or as the book puts it, the choice between guns and bread;
 the choice of an appropriate defense doctrine;
 the options for securing the country’s maritime and Exclusive Economic Zone;
 the tensions in civil-military relations;
 the role of gender in the defense force; and,
 the changing defense situation in the context of an emerging new world order.
Guyana has already benefitted from the insights of Granger’s authorship of this book. During his presidency, he pursued an enlightened defense strategy, articulating a clear and coherent policy patterned on the concept of Total National Defense. He was primarily responsible for having the controversy with Venezuela referred to the International Court of Justice. He has pursued a policy of defense diplomacy shrewdly and helped to strengthen the Defense Force’s capability through cooperation with friendly states and defense forces.
The Guyana Defense Force was reorganized, restructured and re-equipped during his five-year presidency. He re-commenced the process of bringing the regular Force up-to-strength and augmenting the Reserve Force and deploying it, extensively, throughout the country’s 10 Regions. This aspect of his policy was aimed at creating a more agile Defense Force, which could quickly and readily respond to crises in any part of the country.
The book argues a case for greater attention to be paid to defense policy. Granger writes:
Defense policy in the new century must be driven by new thinking and serious planning by competent people who recognize the changes taking place on our frontiers, who understand that the fundamental threat to any state is an attack on its territoriality and who appreciate the old adage, that like liberty, the price of security is eternal vigilance.
The book, surprisingly, does not devote a separate chapter to developing an approach towards the newer transnational criminal threats – terrorism and narcotics, firearms and people trafficking. This may be as a consequence of the emphasis, which the author places on the threats to territoriality, which he describes as the fundamental threat to the state. National defense now requires greater attention to these non-traditional threats.
The implicit take-away from this book is that governments risk imperiling the state by their neglect of a national defense policy. The present People’s Progressive Party administration is yet to articulate a clear policy for national defense. It can do itself no harm in acquainting itself with David Granger’s National Defense: A small state in the subordinate system. It may find that imitation may be its best option when it comes to national defense.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

 

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