The three leashes of empire

Sep 09, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – Empire, in its modern form, seldom arrives wearing a military uniform. It comes dressed instead as an investment banker, carrying a development plan, or as the representative of a multinational corporation bearing gifts in the language of progress.

The empire does not always need soldiers to occupy a country. It can arrange for the country to occupy itself with the repayment of its debts, the protection of foreign investments, and the preservation of a political class that understands which side of the table holds the cheque book. There are at least three principal leashes by which powerful imperial countries, particularly the United States, have historically exercised influence over smaller states. The first is economic dependency, dressed in the respectable vocabulary of neoliberalism.

The neoliberal prescription is familiar: liberalise the economy, privatise where possible, open the doors to foreign capital, reduce the role of the state, allow markets to allocate resources and integrate the national economy into the great machinery of global capitalism. A small economy entering the global marketplace does not meet its giant competitors as an equal. A country with a small population, limited capital, narrow production capacity and weak bargaining power enters negotiations with corporations and governments whose economic resources may exceed its own.  It sells commodities cheaply and purchases finished goods dearly. It becomes dependent upon external markets, external financing, external technology and, sometimes, external expertise.

The result is a curious form of dependence in which a country is politically sovereign but economically constrained. The country is tied to the empire by virtue of economic relations. The second leash is the multinational corporation. The multinational arrives with the promise of jobs, infrastructure, technology and development. Sometimes it delivers all four. But it also arrives with shareholders to satisfy, profits to maximise and a legal department considerably larger than the ministry responsible for negotiating the agreement. Its obligation is not to the citizens of the country in which it operates. Its first obligation is to its owners.

The history of extractive industries offers some of the clearest examples. Oil, minerals, timber and other natural resources have repeatedly turned small countries into geological treasure chests for companies headquartered elsewhere. The multinational may become so economically important that governments become reluctant to challenge it, lest investment disappear, production decline or the country’s international reputation as a hospitable destination for capital be damaged.

The tragedy of the Ogoni people in Nigeria demonstrated how dangerous this imbalance can become. Ken Saro-Wiwa became an international symbol of resistance to the environmental devastation and political consequences associated with oil exploitation in Ogoniland. His execution by the Nigerian military government in 1995, alongside eight other Ogoni activists, revealed something darker than a dispute over pollution. It revealed the extraordinary power that can emerge when governments, natural resources and multinational corporations become entangled.

Not every multinational, however, is part of an imperial conspiracy.  But a multinational corporation does not have to conspire against a country to exercise power over it. It needs only to become indispensable.

The third leash is political leverage through secrets. Great powers collect information. They know things. Intelligence services exist precisely because governments understand that knowledge about another country’s leaders can be more useful than armies. Corruption, hidden bank accounts, illicit transactions, sexual indiscretions, secret business interests, questionable political dealings—whatever the material may be—can become a currency of influence.

The accusation that a foreign government possess compromising information about a particular leader should therefore never be casually accepted as fact. But neither should the possibility of political leverage through intelligence be dismissed as the stuff of conspiracy novels. History is crowded with examples of powerful states cultivating relationships with foreign political elites and using information, money, influence and intelligence to advance national interests. The question for Guyana is consequently  where the leashes are attached. Are we becoming excessively dependent upon a neoliberal economic model in which our prosperity rests upon foreign capital and external markets? Have multinational corporations acquired such economic and political weight that the state is reluctant to renegotiate lopsided agreements?

And, perhaps most uncomfortably, does any foreign power possess information about our political leaders that could be used to influence decisions made in the name of the Guyanese people?

The modern empire asks for access to resources. It seeks influence over economic choices. It cultivates dependable friends in a country’s political establishment. And sometimes it asks the smaller country to do things that serve the interests of the empire while having little or nothing to do with the interests of its own people. For Guyana, therefore, the real test is whether we possess the courage to make decisions without first asking permission. And that principle must apply even when the price of saying no is high.

A sovereign Guyana must be able to say no to the exploitation of its resources,no to the bullying of its government—and, when necessary, no to the demand that we accept or facilitate the deportation of persons who are not Guyanese nationals merely because a more powerful country wishes to rid itself of them. The measure of an independent nation is when it can look an empire in the eye and calmly say: No. But even more important is for us to ask why our leaders said yes.

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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• Development Plan, Empire, investment banker, military uniform, Peeping Tom

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