Some foreign policy advice for President Ali

Jul 31, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – Thucydides’ “The Peloponnesian Wars” is regarded as the first book on international relations in the western world. Two laws of international relations were explicitly touched upon in that world famous text.

One is large states will always have security obsessions. Secondly, the establishment of spheres of influence among small states by big powers to cushion those security fears. The Peloponnesian Wars were all about those two permanent factors in global politics.

Sphere of influence became the most conspicuous characteristic in international politics after the emergence of the bi-polar world after World War 2. The Americans and the Soviets carved out spheres of influence around the world and bankrolled their small strategic friends.

Perhaps the most staggering evidence of how the generosity of the two superpowers was used in preserving spheres of influence during the Cold War was Cuba and Israel. But there were two other interesting unknown cases. Poland was literally funded by the Soviet Union and in the 1970s, Guyana was the second highest, recipient of American aid, per capita after Israel.

Some powerful leaders in the post-colonial world were unhappy being part of the spheres of influence and founded the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in the 1960s. The main motivation behind the formation of NAM was just as economic as it was political.

These post-colonial nations figured that their developmental needs were so enormous that it was strategic to move easily among great powers for developmental assistance rather than being completely tied to one of them. Zaire and Guyana took the lead in using the Cold War fears of the Americans and Soviets to diversify their trading relations.

Spheres of influence collapsed when the World Trade Organization and the advent of globalisation took hold of the world. Cuba’s economy was devastated when the Soviet Union evaporated. Third World states were facing economic extinction because of the West’s disinterest. Guaranteed price for Third World products like sugar and bananas were removed and this had terrible economic consequences. The Americans disengaged financially from the Third World.

The international system is witnessing the return of spheres of influence. All the American military institutions and the American foreign policy establishments have advised successive American governments that China will be the US’ greatest competitor and it will be a rivalry that makes the first Cold War look like child’s play. The USSR never had the financial, military, populational and global capacity that China possesses. China is a superpower the status of which the USSR never had.

The American government requested a high-level dialogue with President Ali for two reasons only. One was urgent, the other was important. The important one was for the assurance from President Ali of guaranteed oil deliveries without interruptions or controversy because the war in Ukraine will be a forever battle in which oil will be in sharp shortage.

The exigent factor is to wave Guyana away from increasing involvement in its relations with China. Under Presidents Jagdeo and Ramotar, the Guyana government sought to diversify its trading relations. Guyana opened up to countries that were willing to offer bilateral assistance.

The US is now carving up spheres of influence and Guyana is being asked to resuscitate the role Guyana once played in the 1960s and 1970s in the old Cold War. Guyana is a country that is extremely close to the US. That is the way Guyana evolved. There is nothing negative about an enduring closeness between Guyana and the US. But pitfalls in international relations must be astutely internalised by President Ali.

Three factors have to be concentrated on by Dr. Ali. One is that if Guyana is going to accept being part of the spheres of influence in the American orbit, then big brother has to cater in consistent ways for Guyana’s developmental needs. This is a non-negotiable position. The US has the financial resources; Guyana has an insatiable need for developmental assistance.

Two – despite a new Cold War intimacy between Guyana and the US, Guyana has to trade with other countries and accept developmental assistance from them even if those relationships make the US uneasy.

Guyana has to pursue a correct relation with these countries, including China, meaning that the relationship should not be ideological and political but based on Guyana’s developmental needs. The US has to understand this reality plight of Third World countries and must accept it or be forced by CARICOM to accept it.

Finally, the resuscitation of spheres of influence is a Biden invention and not an American songbook. If Trump wins the presidency, he will dismantle Biden’s new creation. Trump will not finance Biden’s spheres of influence and Guyana will suffer the way all Third World countries did when the US and the EU abandoned them in favour of globalisation.

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