Third World Security in the Post-Cold War Era 9781685852146

Table of contents :
Contents
Foreword
Abbreviations
Introduction
1 The Security Legacy of the 1980s in the Third World
2 Soviet Policy Toward the Third World in the 1990s
3 US Policy Toward the Third World in the Twenty-First Century
4 The Third World and the Superpowers in a Different Era
5 The United Nations and Third World Security in the 1990s
6 The Impact of Superpower Collaboration on the Third World
7 Critical Commentary: A Soviet View
8 Critical Commentary: A Third World View on the Implications of Superpower Collaboration
The Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Third World Security in the Post-Cold War Era

Emerging Global Issues Thomas G. Weiss, Series Editor

Published in association with the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Brown University

Studies,

Third World Security in the Post-Cold War Era A World Peace Foundation Study edited by

Thomas G. Weiss Meryl A. Kessler

Lynne Rienner Publishers

•

Boulder & London

Published in the United States of America in 1991 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Steet, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 1991 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Third World security in the post-cold war era / edited by Thomas G. Weiss, Meryl A. Kessler. p. cm.—(A World Peace Foundation Study) ( Emerging global issues) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-55587-264-6 (alk. paper) 1. Developing countries—National security. 2. World politics—1985-1995. I. Weiss, Thomas George. II. Kessler, Meryl A. III. Series. IV. Series: Emerging global issues. D887.T45 1991 327'.09172'4—dc20 91-3672 CIP

British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48.

Contents

Foreword Richard J. Bloomfield and Howard R. Swearer List of Abbreviations Introduction

vii xi

Thomas G. Weiss and Meryl A. Kessler

1

1 The Security Legacy of the 1980s in the Third World Augustus Richard Norton

19

2 Soviet Policy Toward the Third World in the 1990s Celeste A. Wallander

35

3 US Policy Toward the Third World in the Twenty-First Century Michael Clough

67

4 The Third World and the Superpowers in a Different Era Robert Legvold

85

5 The United Nations and Third World Security in the 1990s Meryl A. Kessler and Thomas G. Weiss

105

6 The Impact of Superpower Collaboration on the Third World S. Neil MacFarlane

125

7 Critical Commentary: A Soviet View Viktor Kremenyuk

147

8 Critical Commentary: A Third World View on the Implications of Superpower Collaboration James O. C. Jonah

161

The Contributors Index

175 177

V

Foreword

This volume results from a collaborative project between Brown University's Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies and the World Peace Foundation. Our purpose was to explore the possibilities of cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union in mitigating or resolving Third World conflicts. The project was initiated in early 1990, a time when the world seemed on the verge of a new era. The collapse of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe had begun the previous fall and heralded the end of the Cold War; the movement toward democratization and economic transformation in the Soviet Union itself was in full swing; and the two superpowers were making headway on agreements to reduce both nuclear arms and conventional forces. The growing entente between them had made possible the reemergence of the United Nations as an important instrument for conflict resolution—in IranIraq, Afghanistan, Angola, Namibia, and Central America. Moreover, the Soviet Union for some time had called for strengthening the United Nations to make it capable of implementing the collective security provisions of the UN Charter. The US response to the Soviet initiative, while noncommittal, was at least no longer hostile. In short, the time seemed right for a study of the possibilities of even greater collaboration between Washington and Moscow to head off or resolve regional wars. Accordingly, our two institutions set about designing such a study, recruiting scholars to do the necessary research, and organizing a conference at which their conclusions could be critiqued by experts from the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Third World. By the time our group gathered in December 1990, the crisis in the Gulf had transformed hypothetical questions into real life-or-death issues about collective security. As it turned out, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council had been able to agree in short order on collective action to counter Iraq's aggression and thereby to put pressure on Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait. Mandatory sanctions, which included an embargo of most of Iraq's foreign trade, were unprecedented in their severity and in the

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RICHARD J. BLOOMFIELD & H O W A R D R. SWEARER

near unanimity of support they enjoyed. The subsequent provision of troops and military support by 29 countries and the use of force by individual countries was authorized by the UN Security Council for the first time since the controversial action in Korea in 1950. To be sure, the collective sanctions against Iraq were not to be enforced in quite the way envisaged in the UN Charter. The blockade of Iraq and the subsequent authorization to use the necessary military means to drive Iraq out of Kuwait were not undertaken using the process called for by Articles 4 3 47, which provide for military forces to be put at the disposal of the UN Security Council and directed by its Military Staff Committee. Instead, those states that chose to deploy armed force to implement the sanctions did so under Article 48, which foresees the possibility that such actions will be taken by some members and not others. The military operation in the Gulf was in fact from the beginning a US-led and US-staffed undertaking, with only two of the other permanent members of the UN Security Council, France and Great Britain, providing contingents of any size, and with the notable absence of Soviet forces. Nonetheless, the war in the Gulf has answered in the affirmative two important questions posed by this study: Could the Soviet Union and the United States cooperate in a collective security action requiring enforcement? And could they do so using the machinery of the United Nations? However, one cannot say at this point whether the Gulf War will prove to be a precedent. Just as there are reasons to believe that it might, there are grounds for believing that it will not. The uncertainties as to the meaning of the Gulf War for the future of collective security reflect some fundamental questions. These include possible changes within the United States and the Soviet Union as well as in the rest of the world. For example, the outcome of the struggle in the Soviet Union between the forces of reform and the opponents of perestroika will have a profound effect on the nascent collective security regime. Soviet traditionalists, who may be unhappy with the way in which the rapprochement between their country and the United States has come about and critical of Soviet support for U S action in the Gulf, have apparently begun to gain ground in the conflict between Moscow and the republics. If they or their representatives were to take power, it is possible that the Soviet U n i o n ' s strong UN collective security role might be weakened. The Gulf conflict also revealed divergent attitudes among US allies in Europe and Japan toward the use of force for collective security. Finally, there is the inherent difficulty of using an organization like the United Nations to wield supranational powers on behalf of nation-states of vastly unequal power with disparate interests. We mention these obstacles not to deny the more favorable climate that has since 1987 breathed life into the collective security regime envisaged in

FOREWORD

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ix

the UN Charter, but to point to the need to examine the fundamentals that in the long run are likely to determine whether such efforts succeed. Important among the latter are the domestic political forces that will shape foreign policies, the growing military capabilities of regional middle powers, and the dynamics of an international system that is no longer bipolar. These fundamentals are changing so fast that prediction has become ever more perilous. Nevertheless, an effort must be made, based on an analysis of history and current trends as far as we can discern them. That is what this book attempts to do. We are particularly indebted to Thomas G. Weiss, associate director of the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies, for having taken the lead in conceptualizing and organizing this study. Richard J. Bloomfield Executive Director World Peace Foundation Howard R. Swearer Director Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies, Brown University

Abbreviations

ABSP ANC ASEAN CBMs CIA CMEA CNN CPSU CSCE ECOSOC EEC FLN FLS GA GATT IBRD ICJ ICRC ILO IMF IMEMO INF KGB MPLA MSC NAM NATO NGO NIC OAS

Arab Ba'th Socialist Party African National Congress Association of Southeast Asian Nations Confidence Building Measures Central Intelligence Agency Council for Mutual Economic Assistance Cable News Network Communist Party of the Soviet Union Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Economic and Social Council European Economic Community National Liberation Front Front Line States General Assembly General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (The World Bank) International Court of Justice International Committee of the Red Cross International Labour Organisation International Monetary Fund Institute of World Economy & International Relations, U S S R Intermediate Nuclear Forces Committee for State Security Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola Military Staff Committee Non-Aligned Movement North Atlantic Treaty Organization Nongovernmental Organization Newly Industrializing Countries Organization of American States

xi

xii

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OAU ORCI PLO PDPA RENAMO SADCC SADF SEATO SIPRI START SWAPO TASS UK UN UNIFIL UNITA UNO UNTAG US USSR WEU

ABBREVIATIONS

Organization for African Unity Office for Research and Collection of Information Palestine Liberation Organization People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan Mozambique National Resistance Southern African Development Coordination Conference South African Defence Forces Southeast Asia Treaty Organization Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Strategic Arms Reduction Talks South West Africa People's Organization Telegraphic Agency of the Soviet Union United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland United Nations United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon National Union for the Total Independence of Angola Unión Nacional Opositora United Nations Transition Assistance Group in Namibia United States of America Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Western European Union

Introduction T H O M A S G. WEISS & MERYL A. KESSLER

The stunning developments of 1989 and 1990 in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union turned the world upside down and marked the end of the Cold War. Among the many challenges confronting policymakers in the postCold War era, none looms larger in uncertainty than the security landscape in the so-called Third World. As the 1990s unfold, it is unclear exactly what type of impact the changing context of US-Soviet relations will have on the prospects for peace and prosperity in the developing world. On the one hand, impressive progress toward resolving such long-standing conflicts as those in Afghanistan, Central America, Namibia, Angola, Cambodia, and between Iran and Iraq has become possible as a result of improved relations between the superpowers. The kinds of struggles in the Third World that fueled Soviet-US rivalry in the 1970s and 1980s are unlikely to be repeated during the next decade. On the other hand, 1990 witnessed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the US response there, Washington's intervention in Panama, and continued violence and seemingly intractable struggles in every region of the world. The World Peace Foundation and the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies, Brown University, commissioned the chapters in this book with the goal of assessing the effects of the dawning of the post-Cold War era on the security of states in the Third World. At the most general level, the authors are endeavoring to determine whether the growing cooperation of the past three to four years between the United States and the Soviet Union can be continued and possibly channeled through a strengthened United Nations. More specifically, a number of questions are addressed: Will the changing global environment lead to greater cooperation and coordination in the Third World, or instead to a new round of conflict? How will changes in the central strategic balance affect the superpowers' military policies on the periphery? What is the most ambitious yet feasible role for international organizations like the United Nations in the maintenance of peace and security there? Should developing nations welcome the convergence of US and Soviet interests, or fear it?

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There are no easy answers to such questions. Recent global developments have proceeded at a rapid pace, and the course of future developments is uncertain. As the 1990s begin, we undoubtedly stand at a historic juncture in world affairs. Even before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the unprecedented international response to aggression, there were a number of reasons for believing that this would be an auspicious moment to raise such questions and pursue research in this area. First, in a number of important areas, US-Soviet relations are undergoing a noticeable warming, despite the recent unrest in the Soviet Union. The successful completion of the INF treaty began an important process of arms control. The accelerated timetable for completion of the START treaty, the agreement on measures to reduce the risk of dangerous military incidents, and conventional arms reduction in Europe all have sustained this new phase. This improvement in relations between Washington and Moscow will undoubtedly have an impact on how each approaches relations with the Third World and may mean that they will increasingly find themselves on the same side of the negotiating table. Second, both the United States and the Soviet Union are currently facing challenges to their superpower status. The very term superpower, which has dominated social science analyses of Soviet-US relations over the past four decades, is increasingly called into question. The Soviets had until recently resisted the term on ideological grounds, because they had wished to avoid being in the same category as their capitalist nemesis. Without a doubt, the challenge is clearest in the Soviet case: the virtual collapse of the USSR as a nation-state, its withdrawal from many overseas commitments, and its failure to take part in the technological and information revolutions are unquestionable indicators of Soviet decline. Indeed, its nuclear arsenal, huge landmass, and large population are the only reasons the Soviet Union remains a great power at all. Whether the United States is in decline is more debatable, and in fact some observers argue that the United States is now the only superpower, or even a "super-superpower." Yet mounting evidence— deteriorating infrastructure, growing budget deficits and debt, rising unemployment, declining school systems—suggests that decline, if not occurring, is at least threatening. Third, due to the changing political landscape of Europe, the superpowers are undertaking a massive réévaluation of their military priorities. If all goes as planned, the United States and the Soviet Union will greatly reduce forces and weaponry on the continent. Such changes in this central military relationship are likely to affect the way each superpower approaches its bilateral relations with various Third World countries. For instance, faced with the impending reduction of their role in Europe, the US armed services may increasingly seek to shift their mission from the central theater in Europe to a capacity to intervene in the Third World, particularly after the events in the Gulf.

INTRODUCTION

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3

Fourth, the number and type of threats to global security emanating from the Third World is increasing. Dangerous new developments, such as the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and ballistic-missile weaponry, have intensified military competition among Third World states. There are growing numbers of nuclear facilities outside the international community's nuclear safeguards—for instance, in Pakistan, Argentina, Brazil, and North Korea. The use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War and the spread of ballistic-missile technologies to such countries as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and India pose a real threat to developed as well as to developing countries. Fifth, and finally, the United Nations is now experiencing a renaissance as an instrument for conflict management. The new era on the East River is largely the result of Moscow's enhanced interest in the role of the United Nations—a marked departure from previous positions. In response Washington has renewed support for multilateralism in general and for efforts to thwart Iraq in particular. In addition to international approval for the Gulf War, US-Soviet cooperation has provided the impetus for the authorization of five new peacekeeping operations in the Third World since April 1988 (in Afghanistan, Iran-Iraq, Angola, Namibia, and Central America) and has impelled the United Nations to consider action in a number of other Third World hot spots, including Cambodia and the Western Sahara. Ironically, while the Cold War order constrained direct military involvement by major powers in international actions, the new era at the United Nations may increasingly require their participation.

Soviet and US Security Interests in the Third World Against the backdrop of these global developments, and more importantly in light of the events in the Gulf after August 1990, this volume provides a basis for evaluating and planning US policy toward various regions of the Third World for the next decade. As the construction of the Berlin Wall was a watershed for the analysis of US foreign policy during the Cold War, so too the war against Iraq provides a point of departure for foreign policy analyses in the post-Cold War era. We are confident that the chapters of this book will contribute to the emerging debate in the United States over the shape and scope of foreign policy in the post-Cold War world. The Security

Legacy of the 1980s in the Third

World

In the first chapter, Augustus Richard Norton begins by looking at the central economic, military, and ideological developments in specific regions of the Third World during the 1980s. He points to the seemingly paradoxical nature of the present climate. On the one hand, a new world beckons—one that has already led to winding down or even ending a number of seemingly intractable wars in the Third World. On the other hand, the termination of

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East-West jousting may lead not to the millennium but to a world fraught with turmoil. Norton even goes so far as to predict that the "disappearance of the bipolar superpower-dominated security system will foster a much more unruly international regime." Although he does not underestimate the problems of arms proliferation and interstate conflict, Norton argues that the primary manifestation of instabilities will occur within the borders of states, not across them. He points to the "inability of governments to meet the psychopolitical, cultural, and economic needs of their constituents" as part of a widespread dissipation of legitimacy of governments, particularly in the Third World. Vulnerable to challenges, the Western notion of pluralistic democracy is not particularly useful for analyzing politics in developing countries, where more intimate groupings are the basis for political mobilization. Norton focuses on the destabilizing challenges to Third World regimes that result, in many cases, from populist political movements with religious roots. Careful to distinguish religion in politics from heightened religiosity, he notes that the "growth of political movements rooted in sacred ideals" is particularly poignant in a search for meaning and mobilization in a Third World where too frequently "repression, hunger, and injustice" are the norm. Returning to the initial paradox, Norton foresees a decade of intrastate conflicts in which interethnic and intercommunal violence is exacerbated by the processes of modernization. Because such conflicts are difficult to contain, the United States and the Soviet Union cannot remain aloof: "It is a safe bet that the global agenda for the 1990s will be shaped largely by the imperative of responding to crises originating in the Third World." Soviet

Policy

Toward

the Third

World

in the

1990s

Celeste Wallander, in the second chapter, examines the widespread perception that Soviet policy in the Third World has undergone great change in the past decade. She analyzes the relation between broad principles of international behavior and Soviet interests in order to circumscribe the nature of Moscow's past and future bilateral relations with various Third World countries. This complex task is "increased by the magnitude of change implied by Soviet new thinking, and by the ongoing process of redefinition of Soviet national interests and the relations of the Third World to the pursuit of those interests." Noting that often "Americans forget that the Soviet Union is surrounded on most of its borders by Third World countries," she underlines the extent to which regional security concerns are thus intimately linked to even the narrowest definitions of Soviet national security. She contrasts the zero-sum mentality of the pre-Gorbachev period—each new socialist state was seen as another defeat for capitalism—and the present "de-ideologization" of Moscow's foreign policy. Wallander discusses the difficult trade-offs between old and new Soviet policies, a particularly critical distinction because "Soviet policymakers do

INTRODUCTION

•

5

not begin with a clean slate." While domestic constraints always are a factor in determining foreign policy, Moscow's present situation is unusual because fledgling experiments with cost-cutting, perestroika, and democratization have an impact on foreign policy decisions. On the international side, she explains how expanded use of the United Nations serves Soviet policy: "Since the Soviet Union does not have sufficient military and economic power to secure national interests, the Gorbachev leadership has concluded that reliance on international mechanisms is a rational and efficient method." Opening relations with previously ignored developing countries is less problematic than altering those with such traditional allies as Cuba and Vietnam. Generalizations about arms shipments are difficult, and Wallander argues that "a genuine Soviet commitment to negotiated resolution of regional conflicts does not automatically entail a unilateral suspension of arms supplies to its allies." She considers expectations of massive and unilateral Soviet withdrawals a misleading interpretation of new thinking. Moreover, while the projection of military power cannot resolve conflicts by itself, Moscow has learned that resorting to military means has limited value as long as other countries also retain that option. Wallander concludes that it would be a serious mistake to think that changes in Soviet Third World policy—for example, its reliance on the United Nations and support of US positions in the Iraq crisis—demonstrate that the "Gorbachev government has caved in to US pressure. . . . This reflects a US-centric view of the crisis in which everyone has come to agree with the United States. In fact what has occurred is the development and reinforcement of a common set of interests and mutual policy adjustments." The dilemma for the 1990s, then, is to identify overlapping Soviet and Western interests, because it is simplistic to assume that there will be oneto-one correspondence. US Policy Toward in the Twenty-First

the Third Century

World

In the third chapter, Michael Clough provides a provocative counterpoint to Wallander's essay by investigating the extent to which the United States has broken free of the "Vietnam syndrome" through direct military involvement in Lebanon, Grenada, and Panama, and by increasing arms sales to the Third World. He argues that the onset of the new era has typically been defined too narrowly in terms of the end of the geopolitical and ideological competition of the Cold War. From the perspective of the United States, Clough emphasizes two other elements of the passing era: "the omnidimensional preeminence of the United States among the advanced industrial democracies, and the remarkable sway of the small, largely white and male, easterneducated and devoutly internationalist elite that guided US foreign policy." "The twentieth century is now over," Clough states, and he goes on to describe in some detail the constants that supported global containment

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during the past four decades—the US position in the international system, the nature of domestic politics, and the cultural/ideological orientation of elites. After examining the growth in US economic and military might, especially after 1940, he argues that the "onset of the Cold War convinced the foreign policy establishment that Communist ideology and Soviet expansion represented the greatest threat to the emergence of a Wilsonian world order." In particular, containment fostered a strong consensus, "the glue that bonded two old-time foes—conservative midwestern nationalists and liberal internationalists—into a cohesive force." The three primary elements of the post-World War II era have disappeared. The containment consensus fundamental to the eastern establishment's dominance was shattered by the mid-1970s. The preeminence of the United States as an economic power has eroded steadily in the 1970s and 1980s. And finally, the Cold War "continued unabated until the late 1980s, when it came to a halt amidst the rubble of the Berlin Wall." Clough examines in detail the impact of the end of the Cold War in the Third World, dousing fears that "its various brushfires were merging into a global forest fire." With the end of the Cold War, accepted criteria for US involvement in the Third World have disappeared: appeals to anticommunism by overseas groups as a means to drag the United States into foreign conflict have become irrelevant, and domestic constituencies for such issues as human rights have found their causes promoted. Clough's conclusion examines the three possibilities for US policy toward the Third World in the 1990s: a new global strategy; the abandonment of a global approach in favor of a mix of regional and bilateral policies; and a transformation that calls into question the very concept of a "foreign policy" toward the Third World. He argues that a new global strategy is not sustainable, although the members of the old foreign policy establishment are uncomfortable with the current confusion. US efforts to rebuild the consensus around the Iraqi crisis should be seen in this context because the "Bush administration's vision of a p o s t - C o l d War world differs little from the old internationalist establishment's pre-pre-Cold War vision of a post-World War II era." He also believes that a grand strategy based on the need to delineate areas of the Third World that subscribe to US policy or promote US interests is unlikely. The advice of neorealists and neonationalists is hardly operational because, while US interests are "limited and possibly shrinking, US contact with and exposure to the Third World are increasing." Clough concludes by seeing something of a "pattemless policy." With the end of the Cold War, policy toward the Third World is more likely to become regional and bilateral, with the result that such marginal areas as Africa will be neglected. To the extent that there will be involvement at all, he foresees ad hoc responses, "impulses," and a "mix of policies that are likely to be inconsistently and incoherently interventionist."

INTRODUCTION

The Third

World and the Superpowers

in a Different

•

7

Era

In the fourth chapter, Robert Legvold examines the likelihood of a convergence in the 1990s of US and Soviet interests on such objectives as curbing the drug trade, stopping terrorism, limiting arms proliferation, and containing Third World conflicts. He reviews recent debates in official journals about how extensively "Soviet foreign policy no longer bears much resemblance to the familiar forms of the past." While "Third World MarxistLenininsts still exist. . . they do their grousing off on the sidelines." Legvold believes that the sea change requires scrutiny from many angles, and he chooses to look at what has come before. In attempting to determine the essence of the problem between Moscow and Washington in the Third World, he sets forward three explanations. The first, characterized as "cryptotheory," reflects the view that when the costs of confrontation in the central theaters of Europe and Asia were so high as to preclude action, then "tussling in the hinterlands of the international order was a natural by-product." More genuine theory was that of the so-called realists who saw that in a truly bipolar world anything happening anywhere was of concern to the superpowers. Legvold is neither a partisan of theoretical explanations nor enthusiastic about the distinctly atheoretical explanations of the "players," which have been "less a systematic inquiry into first causes than a catechism of assumptions about the other side's character and modus operandi." The extent to which one would have received "generically, even literally, the same answer" from decisionmakers in Washington and Moscow about the aggressiveness of the other superpower is striking. In terms of the Third World's innumerable conflicts, "each side's explanation began and ended with the other superpower." Legvold argues that a third interpretation is closer to the truth, namely that the reality of US-Soviet rivalry in the Third World was "more dynamic and less permanent, more evolutionary and less cyclical." The consequences of choosing the third inteipretation are significant, because "regional conflict need not have devastated the US-Soviet relationship so completely as it did in the ten years between 1975 and 1985." In short, "leadership could have done more and better." Legvold believes that leadership did not prevail because both the theoretical views of analysts and especially the atheoretical ones of decisionmakers essentially held sway until the "revolution" in Soviet foreign policy. Understanding the chronology of change is crucial because "all the essential features of this revolution were far advanced before the Soviet Union's alliance system crumbled, before the country sank into deep economic crisis, and before the nation-state began to disintegrate." Beginning with the pragmatic need to get the Afghanistan "monkey off of the back of perestroika," further concrete steps were taken with respect to Angola, Cambodia, and Central America. Moscow's pragmatism toward the Third

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World intersected with other conceptual revolutions, with mutual security and interdependence as hallmarks. The new Soviet agenda and framework for action is multilateral in character, with a "new role for the United Nations, at last as a substitute for the superpowers, not as their tool or their wrestling ring." The U N ' s renaissance and ability to act in the Gulf crisis "not only owed to Soviet cooperation, but conformed to Soviet concept." Legvold notes the danger lurking as a result of the "awful state of affairs" as matters inside the "Soviet borders crumble into tumult." Gorbachev's changes in Soviet Third World policy could not be called into question despite the existence of "old thinkers" because they too realize the appalling failures of the past. However, the possibility that the collective security regime could be scuttled cannot be discounted because the smallest reversal in Soviet-Third World policy "risks doing disproportionate damage." As a result, Legvold concludes that "no imminent foreign policy task matters more—to East, West, and South—than protecting the accomplishments of the past five years, and none is likely to be more intimidating as the tragedy deepens with the Soviet Union." The United Nations Third World Security

and in the

1990s

In Chapter 5, Meryl A. Kessler and Thomas G. Weiss consider factors contributing to a revitalization of the UN's peacekeeping regime after a decade of dormancy. Continuing Legvold's argument, they scrutinize the problems and prospects for enhanced multilateral cooperation. While they support the renaissance of the United Nations in the past few years, the authors caution against seeing the increased prominence of the world organization in terms of a principled superpower commitment to collective security. Also, they are concerned that expectations may be outstripping capacities and political realities: "Much of the optimism about the UN's future is based on the dramatic change in Soviet foreign policy, not on a substantial strengthening of international institutions." In writing about the "paradox of great-power cooperation," they note that throughout the Cold War, conventional wisdom held that superpower rivalry prevented the operation of the collective security regime spelled out in the UN Charter. In fact, peacekeeping was invented to finesse the cleavage in the UN Security Council between East and West. Since 1987, however, the permanent members of the UN Security Council have acted largely in unison, their joint efforts culminating in the unified response in the Gulf. Nonetheless, Kessler and Weiss argue that great-power cooperation is insufficient to guarantee peace and security in the Third World. The fundamental causes of violence, notably poverty and injustice, have not disappeared because warmth between Moscow and Washington now exists. In addition, the concern of the great powers to contain costs can actually

INTRODUCTION

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9

undermine the professionalism of international efforts. Further, the roles given to the permanent five members of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security no longer coincide with the geopolitics of a world in which power is diffuse. In particular, the appearance of major economic and political powers in the industrialized and developing worlds, as well as of nongovernmental actors, makes the U N ' s central security mechanism in many ways anachronistic. Besides these exogenous changes and the global shift in power, Kessler and Weiss point to endogenous factors that might undermine the UN's ability to handle Third World conflicts in the next decade. Detailing a host of financial and management problems, the authors argue that the " U N ' s peacekeeping regime is ill-equipped to meet the demands that are likely to be made on it in the coming decade." They indicate that expansion of tasks in the 1990s and the host of new assignments being actively discussed may vastly overextend the world organization. Kessler and Weiss make two suggestions for reform: restructuring the organization to reflect shifts in the global distribution of power; and i m p r o v i n g the m a n a g e m e n t , professionalism, and finance of the organization's peacekeeping activities. While they are skeptical about enforcement and collective security in the next decade, the authors pose a number of concluding questions about the move from "Chapter six-and-ah a l f ' to Chapter VII, many of which have emerged with the international handling of the crisis in the Gulf. Foremost in their minds is the potential "downside" of greater cooperation when viewed from Washington, where international coalition-building and patience with multilateral diplomacy are frequently seen as "un-American." The Impact

of Superpower

Collaboration

on the Third

World

In the sixth chapter, S. Neil MacFarlane reverses the superpower analytical lens used by most other authors to evaluate from the perspective of the developing countries the prospect of US-Soviet collaboration on security issues. He notes that the most basic aspect of recent changes in SovietAmerican relations pertaining to the Third World has been the reduction in the "ideological universalistic component of policy" and a shift toward an emphasis on mutual interests, specifically Northern ones. MacFarlane sees three main implications of the end to the Cold War. First, the superpowers will be increasingly unwilling "to commit scarce resources to the Third World." However, this does not mean total withdrawal, because both the Soviet Union and the United States will continue to be involved in specific regions. This second implication leads MacFarlane to develop a framework to differentiate regions where both have concrete interests, where neither has interests, and where there exist large differences. Accordingly, the superpowers may cooperate, ignore, or give each other a free hand.

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The third implication of the end of the Cold War, according to MacFarlane, is that new issues—drugs, terrorism, arms proliferation—will emerge as common concerns. While the negative connotations of "condominium" are raised, he finds it plausible that comprehensive agreements, or a "code of conduct," for superpower relations in the Third World might usefully emerge in the next decade. He also stresses the impact on international cooperation of increasingly obvious asymmetries in power, noting that "the United States is now alone at the top and to some extent may be expected to resist regimes that dilute this primacy." From the point of view of Third World countries—although once again generalizations will vary by region—there will be pluses and minuses. They will have greater margin to maneuver in domestic experiments and no doubt better prospects to end many conflicts, although the leverage of both the United States and the Soviet Union will decrease. At the same time, both military assistance and development aid will be harder to acquire. Smaller states will no longer find themselves in spheres of influence, and even larger ones will be unable to manipulate the superpowers. Finally, "the capacity of regionally powerful states to exert hegemony may increase" because those countries with resources to purchase weaponry will not be affected by the end of the "free lunch in arms transfers associated with superpower competition." MacFarlane concludes that certain Third World countries will benefit and others will suffer from the end of the Cold War. "In short, the perceived possibilities appear to fall somewhere between neglect, hegemony, and condominial management, none of which is particularly palatable to elites who have no doubt of the importance of their problems and who—for historical reasons—are intensely sensitive to the issues of autonomy and selfdetermination." Critical

Commentary:

Soviet

and Third

World

Views

The final two chapters contain critical commentary from distinctly non-US perspectives; however, neither Viktor Kremenyuk, providing the Soviet outlook, nor James O. C. Jonah, commenting from the Third World view, takes serious issue with the central arguments of the other authors. In "A Soviet View," Kremenyuk reiterates two common themes: it would be "unwise to overestimate the capabilities of the superpowers to resolve Third World conflicts," but it is also true that "events in the Gulf have shown that it would be impossible to attempt to promote security in the Third World without a strong element of Soviet-US cooperation." Like other scholars in the volume, Kremenyuk emphasizes underdevelopment as the main source of dangerous instability. He distinguishes between the present period when this realization has become obvious and the intense period of rivalry during the Cold War, when zerosum calculations made it possible to underestimate and even to overlook the importance of poverty and injustice as roots of instability. Kremenyuk also

INTRODUCTION

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sees the superpowers losing leverage as they reduce levels of support for their allies, making it essential for developing countries themselves to increase their own individual and collective efforts. Loss of superpower influence means that a "power vacuum" could appear in many regions, with adventurism by more powerful neighbors a distinct possibility. The growing differentiation among Third World countries, running the gamut from NICs to "Fourth World" basket cases, provides a major analytical distinction for Kremenyuk. Nonetheless, he emphasizes that the superpowers and other wealthier states cannot ignore the plight of developing countries: "Interdependence means that it will be impossible for a nation to abstain from active counteraction to aggression under the pretext that it takes place in a remote part of the world." Self-interest, humanitarianism, and human rights concerns should guide the North in its relations with the South. Kremenyuk supports proposals to agree on a code of conduct "to reduce the possibility of unilateral involvement of the superpowers in regional conflicts." In addition to efforts to facilitate mutual restraint, he also strongly favors the Soviet "set of proposals to increase their engagement through international multilateral mechanisms, the United Nations first of all." Jonah, in "A Third World View on the Implications of Superpower Collaboration," is careful to indicate that sweeping generalizations cannot adequately represent the diversity of views in developing countries. As Jonah acknowledges, since the expression Third World came into the "political and diplomatic lexicon, it has been viewed with skepticism by those who argued, correctly, that the terminology is imprecise." Although many of the contributors call into question the utility of the concept, Jonah states quite clearly that because it is a "state of mind . . . we should not be too surprised if the term is used even in the post-Cold War world." With this in mind, he reflects on the broad perceptions of Third World observers who are looking somewhat askance on the warming between Moscow and Washington. The central question of Jonah's essay emerges from the juxtaposition of two possible descriptions for the emerging world order—"community" versus "emerging directorate." While he denies that Third World countries have a "nostalgia" for the Cold War, he carefully delineates the growing concern that the new solidarity among the permanent members of the UN Security Council may have removed the "checks and balances" that have characterized international deliberations since the end of World War II. More specifically, Jonah argues that many Third World countries interpret the changes in world politics as reflecting more a "Soviet retreat" and a "vindication of US policies" than a truly cooperative approach by Moscow and Washington. He uses such examples as recent compromises concerning Angola and Namibia and speculates about forthcoming negotiations in Mozambique and South Africa to illustrate the extent to which the agenda has become a Western one. Many Third World governments

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now believe that President Gorbachev cannot afford to maintain an inflexible stance on any foreign policy issue in order to uphold his "good boy behavior" and image in the West. In spite of these perceptions, Jonah joins others in seeing that "the most appropriate way for Soviet-US cooperation to enhance regional security would be for them to concert their efforts in the Security Council." The Emerging Policy Context for Regional Security in the 1990s To the host of questions posed at the beginning of the project there is a range of answers in the eight chapters that follow. The final versions of these essays benefited immensely from two days of discussions in December 1990 at Brown University. In addition to the authors, discussants from the United States, the Soviet Union, Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa included academics, officials from governments and the United Nations, and journalists. As one would expect throughout a wide-ranging discussion, there were disagreements about how to analyze current events and forecast future ones. In the 1990s the changing global environment will undoubtedly have an impact on the prospects for peace and prosperity in the Third World. The following is an attempt to distill the essence of these papers and discussions, highlighting areas of consensus. Distribution

of Global Power in the Post-Cold

War Era

The bipolar distribution of power that had characterized the postwar era is disappearing from a world where power grows diffuse and interdependence emerges. The exact shape of the new world order and its implications for Third World security are, however, points of disagreement. There appear to be three possible new distributions of global power: the emergence of a single super-superpower, multipolarity; or a new bipolar order characterized by jconflict between rich and poor states, with the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Latin America occupying intermediate positions. In the first scenario, the Soviet Union's domestic economic crisis and crumbling internal system of republics forces abrogation of its global aspirations and responsibilities, leaving the United States as the "supersuperpower." The Soviet Union has already reduced its involvement in the Third World, while the United States remains deeply entrenched. This has important implications for Third World security, because Washington will be less constrained by the prospect of Soviet intervention and will consequently have more freedom to respond in developing countries. According to this view, there is no evidence that the United States is in a state of decline. Indeed, the entire response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait represented a virtuoso diplomatic and military performance by the United

INTRODUCTION

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13

States of the type we might expect to see increasingly in the future. This view envisions the United States during the next decade as the only superpower, with the capability to project military might anywhere around the globe at any time it wishes. In contrast, the second scenario reflects a decline of US diplomatic influence, analogous to that of Britain earlier in this century. Coupled with the waning of the Soviet Union, a truly multipolar global system emerges in the 1990s. The end of the Cold War, combined with subsiding US influence, means less domestic consensus within the United States on where and when to intervene in the Third World, and that certain domestic Third World groups lose their ability to mobilize US support on anticommunist grounds. As a result, we are unlikely to see the United States carrying out grand ideological struggles in the Third World. However, while the decline of the former superpowers may mean a reduction in the number of externally motivated or supported Third World conflicts, the disappearance of the bipolar system may actually exacerbate indigenous problems and hence inter- and intrastate strife. A number of factors could lead to regional conflict in a more multipolar world—including the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and ballistic weaponry; the collapse or "lebanonization" or "balkanization" of many Third World states; changing Third World demographics; the impact of modern technologies, such as TV, radio, and satellite communication; disagreements over the sharing of resources (e.g., fishing rights in the South China Sea or water in the Middle East); intrastate ethnic and religious rivalries; and the crisis of legitimacy among Third World governments. Such conflicts would invariably spill over national boundaries. Finally, a third possibility is the emergence of a new bipolar era marked by deep division between the world's rich and poor countries. In this scenario, desperate insurgencies by the poor are met with retaliation by the rich. One manifestation of this new era may be an attempt by rich states to stem immigration of citizens from poor states. In Europe, for example, this would amount to the construction of a "new Berlin Wall" along a prosperity divide. Causes

of Instability

in the Third

World

The origins of regional conflicts are primarily domestic. While superpower tensions fueled and exacerbated Third World conflicts, the de-ideologization of Soviet-US relations has exposed the extent to which ideological overlays had only temporarily obscured the most important sources of instability, namely poverty and the fragility of many Third World governments. The possible projection of power by regional hegemons now that the superpowers have withdrawn is an obvious concern, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is perhaps a harbinger of more widespread instabilities. The obvious asymmetries between superpower interests in various parts of the world and

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among the actors in regions themselves may make some observers develop a nostalgia for the certainties of the Cold War. There is little evidence among officials or observers in developing countries that the end of the Cold War will be a source o f discontent. In fact, the long and consistent record of the Non-Aligned Movement and other Third World caucuses supports UN collective security and an end to Cold War rivalries. Moscow's

Role in the Post-Cold

War Era

The Soviet Union's global influence has radically declined in both the Second (i.e., socialist) and the Third worlds. There is no agreement on the precise definition o f a superpower. However, the Soviet Union is no longer one, having lost its global policy—the hallmark of a superpower—and has, rather, a domestic policy with foreign implications. M o s c o w ' s behavior during the Gulf crisis may seem to reflect a capitulation to US demands and the abrogation by the Soviet Union of its superpower role in counterbalancing Washington's policies. T o meet Washington's expectations and gain U S and Western support for domestic reform, the Soviets chose to support US policy in the G u l f rather than pursue a separate peace initiative. However, the Soviet Union is still a major actor in the international arena. It attempted several independent diplomatic initiatives early in the Gulf crisis before teaming up with the United States, and also sought to broker an agreement before the ground war was launched in February 1991. M o s c o w ' s coordination with Washington could be interpreted not as a "caving in" but as an honest attempt by the Soviets to pursue their genuine interests in the area—namely, reestablishment o f the status quo, the avoidance o f war, and punishment of the Iraqi aggressor. Moreover, M o s c o w ' s decline from superpower status does not necessarily mean the end o f Soviet interests in the Third World. Even "great" (vis-à-vis "super") powers need allies abroad. Although Moscow has largely forsaken its previously strong relationships with such countries as Nicaragua, Angola, and Vietnam, its continued support of and close ties with Cuba suggest that the Soviets will continue to pursue what they see as vital strategic interests in the developing world. Moreover, the way in which Moscow defines national security interests is likely to continue to be at least informed by ideology. In a similar vein, the Soviet Union's growing support for the United Nations since 1987 could usefully be interpreted as a pragmatic strategy by which Moscow hopes to cope with and perhaps counter its declining status. Through its involvement in the United Nations, the Soviet Union is attempting to exert global influence and gain legitimacy cheaply. Moscow has unilaterally disengaged from much of the Third World because it can no longer afford to pay to protect others' interests. Moscow's enthusiasm for the United Nations is thus a compensatory strategy designed to use less expensive international mechanisms to counterbalance a Soviet withdrawal

INTRODUCTION

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15

and to prevent the development of power vacuums that could be exploited by the West. "Third

World"

as a Concept

"Third World," as an analytic reference to some 125 developing countries, or the nations of the South, is a misnomer. The emergence of NICs and the stagnation of most of Africa is indicative of the increasing economic differentiation among Third World countries. Problems once associated exclusively with the Third World are emerging in other states, most notably in Eastern Europe and even in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the term is likely to remain in the international political lexicon because developing countries will continue to use it themselves. The United Nations

in the New Era

Optimists foresee a central and emerging role for the United Nations in the management of regional conflicts and eventually in the implementation of a collective security regime. According to this interpretation, the U N ' s response to the Kuwaiti crisis has been an exercise in collective security that may well result in the rehabilitation of a Wilsonian concept of world order. Even if this sanguine view is correct, however, international support for collective security is fragile, and a protracted and bloody war in Kuwait would no doubt have undermined support and threatened collective security for years to come. A more plausible perspective is that the United Nations has a transitional role as the world moves from the Cold War to the post-Cold War era. Once bad commitments are liquidated and the transition is achieved, it is likely that support for collective security will erode. For example, the UN's response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was far from the truly collective one envisioned in the UN Charter. The United States has effectively used the United Nations to legitimate its own policies and as an alternative to containment. The highly controversial Korean operation could be considered more multilateral than the Gulf response because, despite the Soviet absence in 1950, the United Nations was consulted before rather than after military forces were moved. Moreover, requisite international financial support and diplomatic leadership to implement a collective security system are sorely lacking. The United States is unlikely to bankroll any form of collective security action beyond the Iraq-Kuwait conflict, and Soviet financial support for collective security and leadership is even less likely. Paradoxically, Gorbachev's foreign policy revolution makes collective security through the United Nations possible, but Soviet domestic problems may limit Moscow's ability to participate. The current structure of the UN Security Council, in particular the central role of the "five policemen," has excluded other international

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players, such as Japan and Germany, who might provide financial assistance and leadership in a more representative, financially solvent—and hence, viable—collective security system. Consensus among UN member states on the use of force is central to developing a collective security system. Should military force be deployed to deter warfare as well as to maintain peace? Are committee-run applications of force, envisioned in the UN Charter, practicable? What types of armaments should be used? Should the group of troop-contributing countries be expanded? Answers to these questions are fundamental to collective security, and they will emerge as the 1990s unfold. What is clear from the international handling of the Gulf War, however, is that the first crisis of the post-Cold War era has and will continue to determine the new foreign policy agenda for the 1990s. Third

World Reactions

to US-Soviet

Cooperation

The Third World is generally ambivalent toward recent responses by the United Nations to regional conflicts. On the one hand, observers from developing countries have long championed the greater use of international organizations and recognize that UN operations can be successful only with superpower cooperation. On the other hand, they tend to interpret US-Soviet cooperation as a retreat or even a defeat for the Soviet Union and a victory for the United States. Consequently, they worry that Soviet withdrawal will leave the United States free, with Soviet acquiescence, to pursue its interests in the Third World. Many Third World leaders fear that without an independent, active Soviet foreign policy, no state will be able to "check and balance" Washington's global ambitions. It is this fear of an international directorate that led Third World delegates to reject last year's UN Security Council proposal on international drug interdiction. Bilateral cooperation between Moscow and Washington could, however, be useful in other ways. Many observers in developing countries view favorably the idea of a code of conduct to govern superpower behavior in the Third World. There is obvious support to augment joint Soviet-US activities in economic and social development as well as in human rights. Third World fears of condominium between the United States and the Soviet Union are overblown. Moscow lacks the resources to project its power, as may the United States after the Gulf War. Moreover, Third World countries have consistently rejected domination of one sovereign state by another. Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait was more a threat to Third World stability than to Western oil prices. Thus, the Third World will support US intervention, as in Kuwait, to protect sovereignty (although there may be some rhetorical grousing to satisfy domestic constituencies). The end of the Cold War may introduce an era of "benign neglect" by the United States and Soviet Union of such pressing Third World problems as poverty, human rights, disease, and famine. The traditional impetus for

INTRODUCTION

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17

supplying aid and assistance abroad will diminish along with superpower competition. As a result, the gap between the richest and the poorest countries is likely to grow.

• 1 • The Security Legacy of the 1980s in the Third World AUGUSTUS RICHARD NORTON

For a few precious months of the new decade the promise of a new world beckoned. The 1980s ended with some very mellow episodes of political accommodation and peacemaking, especially considering the shrill invective that marked much of that period. In particular, the dampening of conflicts in Central America and Southeast and Southwest Asia spring to mind. Any list of notable accomplishments would also have to include the Namibia settlement and the general, if uneven progress, toward peace in southern Africa. The return of representative government to Chile and Nicaragua, in both cases presaged at the end of the 1980s, has to be listed among the decade's highlights. Central America provides an encouraging example of what can be accomplished when the United States and the USSR agree to cooperate rather than compete. Acting on the conclusion that a continuation of the fighting in Central America serves neither Washington's nor Moscow's broader strategic and economic interests, both sides took important steps to limit the flow of arms, chasten regional clients, and orchestrate diplomatic messages to foster a conciliatory political climate in Nicaragua. The result was the peaceful transfer of power from the Sandinista government to the freely elected government of Violeta Chamorro, followed by the gradual disestablishment and disarming of the contra militia. Initially, Nicaragua appeared to be a model that might even be copied to bring an end to the internecine violence in El Salvador. Unfortunately, Nicaragua instead illustrates the familiar dilemma facing Third World states whose internal conflicts are stoked by major outside players—that the lifting of outside interference often reveals an array of indigenous problems and divisions. The new government in Managua faced formidable economic problems that would not be solved painlessly or quickly. Moreover, the election was only a step toward national reconciliation; reciprocal mistrust marked the relationship between the UNO—the ruling coalition of 14 parties—and the Sandinistas, and neither side escaped ideological and personalistic factionalism. Within months of the February 1990 election,

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rampant factionalism and economic disruption eroded the hopes of many observers, not to mention the Nicaraguan people. 1 Meanwhile, just as many of us were savoring the stimulating uncertainty of the post-Cold War era, the Gulf crisis came along as a reminder that the end of the East-West conflict does not signify the triumph of peace on earth. The curtain has come down on the great drama of EastWest jousting, but tragedies will still be staged throughout the world. Let there be no doubt, the new era is likely to be fraught with turmoil and instability. The strong response to Iraqi aggression may be an important measure of the degree to which the world community is equipped to deal with some of the challenges that lie ahead; however, many horrendous conflicts are likely to evolve—initially, at least—within rather than across the borders of states. Thus, the efficiency with which the UN Security Council passed forceful resolutions in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait is not wholly relevant, given the institution's consistent reluctance to involve itself in the internal matters of sovereign states. In the aftermath of the Gulf War, it is tempting to point to Iraq as some sort of harbinger for the 1990s. To a degree, it is. The spectacle of Iraq, bristling with arms, confronting the world, points up the continuing significance of military might in defining the power of states. Contrary to the perspective of some observers, who see the Cold War as "steadily reducing the importance of military power," Iraq's aggression and obduracy signal a different conclusion. 2 The disappearance of the bipolar superpower-dominated security system will foster a much more unruly international regime in which Third World players may be prone to try to throw their weight around. In fact, the anarchic qualities of the international system have been exacerbated by the global dispersion of weapons (including nuclear and chemical weapons), the availability of sophisticated and lethal military technology through licensing arrangements, and the development of indigenous arms production capabilities, all of which serve to diffuse military power throughout the international system. As many as 15 Third World armies possess ballistic missiles, and about 10 have active development programs. CIA estimates indicate that "by the year 2000, at least 15 developing countries will be producing their own ballistic missiles." 3 The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) indicates that 25 Third World states are currently working on ballistic missile programs. The states that have or are developing short, intermediate or long-range capabilities are presented in Table 1.1. It is notable that 11 of the 25 are in the Middle East. In addition, at least 22 countries, most in the Third World, have or are trying to develop chemical weapons, according to published CIA estimates. Most of these are also working on ballistic missiles. In general, nuclear proliferation has evolved slowly. In addition to the

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Table 1.1 Twenty-Five Countries Having or D e v e l o p i n g Short, Intermediate, or LongRange Ballistic M i s s i l e Programs Africa

Middle East

Asia/Pacific

Latin America

Europe

South Asia

South Africa

Afghanistan Algeria Egypt Iran Iraq Israel Kuwait Libya Saudi Arabia Syria Yemen

Indonesia North Korea South Korea Philippines Taiwan Thailand

Argentina Brazil Cuba

Greece Turkey

India Pakistan

club of five, the consensus is that two states—India and Israel—possess or could quickly possess nuclear weapons. India tested a device in 1974, and the sensational revelations of a former employee at the Dimona facility in the Negev underline that Israel has already assembled a formidable number of weapons. Moreover, according to authoritative estimates, serious programs are under way in as many as eight other countries: Argentina, Brazil, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Pakistan, and South Africa. Using the superpower balance of terror as their model, some scholars have argued that nuclear weapons could actually stabilize a troubled region, such as the Middle East. 4 The argument is not limited to Third World cases. One specialist, writing in a leading security journal, argues that nuclear weapons in German hands would stabilize Europe. 5 Unfortunately, most such arguments overlook the degree to which both the Soviet Union and the United States worked conscientiously, and often in collaboration, to design stable systems and procedures. Such systems not only require the will to construct them, but the resources as well. In contrast, many of the prospective nuclear weapons states would be deploying vulnerable systems in situations where the warning times are two to three minutes. "Use them or lose them" would be the operative principle. In 1987, India and Pakistan came close to war because they misinterpreted one another's training exercises. 6 Who would like to wager that nuclear weapons would have made the close call in 1987 less dangerous? Some Third World armies have equipped themselves, in part at least, to counter the threat of great-power intervention. The end of the Cold War notwithstanding, it is by no means clear that intervention by either the Soviet Union or the United States will, in practice, be forsworn. Many Third World countries now possess the means to thwart limited military operations, thereby rendering military intervention less attractive and certainly more costly for the great powers. Nonetheless, the shift away from zero-sum thinking, at least in the bilateral relationship, plausibly offers

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Washington and Moscow considerably more freedom for unchecked unilateral action, especially in regions that are close to their respective doorsteps. The zero-sum mentality that defined the Cold War helped ensure that moves would be met by countermoves; that dynamic can no longer be anticipated. The US invasion of Panama in December 1989 may be a modestly instructive example. It is arguable that threats which will concentrate the minds of Third World leaders and military planners will not spring from Moscow or Washington, or other great-power capitals, but from sources closer to home. Persistent regional and internal conflicts, as well as the axiomatic dedication of military establishments to the protection of national sovereignty, will ensure that defense budgets continue to consume a disproportionately large share of income in the Third World. It remains to be seen whether the rejuvenation of the UN system, and especially the rehabilitation of the collective security doctrine under the considerable influence of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, will reduce insecurity and serve to dampen military spending in hard-pressed developing countries. The Iraqi case may well be the exception that proves the rule: collective security will be notable for application in the breach. Iraq's blatant aggression against the very concept of juridical statehood, a concept dear indeed to fragile Third World governments, predictably evoked a staunch chorus of criticism from the UN General Assembly. Equally important is that the invasion jeopardized the economic interests of virtually every industrialized state through its effect on the price and supply of oil. Thus, Iraq acted at a novel moment in Soviet-US relations, when neither would wield the veto to check its opponent, and under circumstances in which the international community would speak with something approaching unanimity. It is difficult to imagine a feasible Third World setting, outside of the Middle East, in which international aggression would provoke a similar response. In addition, the costs of applying collective security against Iraq, even short of war, have been high, especially for the affected developing countries. Mustering enthusiasm for doing it all again will not be easy despite the lopsided outcome. In other words, the Gulf War might become a negative exemplar, especially if the aftermath of the war leads to continuing chaos in Iraq or severe geopolitical disequilibrium. If so, this novel experiment in collective security could, like the Congo operation of three decades ago, inhibit rather than encourage the use of the United Nations as an instrument for quelling, much less reversing, threats to international order. It is just too early to tell. Yet, it would be a mistake to assume that developing world problems of the 1990s will leviathans, waiting avariciously to gobble up weaker neighbors. This is not to minimize the

the major problem among the be the emergence of aspiring the territory and resources of likelihood of interstate war—

THE SECURITY LEGACY

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23

quite to the contrary. One can envisage flashpoints in Asia, Africa, and Latin America where armies or navies might be set in motion to avenge old claims or pursue new ones. So, it is not that interstate war is a minor problem, but that it pales in significance alongside the potential for intrastate violence. Of course, the distinction between internal and external conflicts is an artificial one. In fact, internal conflicts often spill over borders, disgorging refugees, inflaming ethnic loyalties and enmities, and attracting external actors intent on shaping conflict to their benefit. In short, wars within states often become substitutes for wars between states—wars in which the participants fight and die for literally remote purposes. Sometimes wars within states simply grow to become wars between states. Instability: The Central Problem for the 1990s The central problem for developing and developed countries in the 1990s will be the growing inability of governments to meet the psychopolitical, cultural, and economic needs of their constituents. The legacy of the 1980s is a crisis of legitimacy and political coalescence that is going to shake, rattle, and roll around the globe. In this sense, the model for the era we have just entered is less Iraq than Kashmir, less Iran than Yugoslavia, less Argentina than Peru. As Egyptian scholar Saad Eddin Ibrahim noted in a recent interview, "Now that the ideological cold war is over and now that national liberation movement countries have attained their goals, now each society is getting back to the delayed items of the agenda: how to divide power or distribute power, to distribute wealth, to distribute prestige." 7 Third World politicians confront rapidly increasing populations whose aggregate demands exceed or threaten to exceed the ability of their governments to deliver. Demographic pressures accelerate the impact of social and economic change. Throughout the world, but especially in the developing countries, the economically productive segment of the population is decreasing proportionately in comparison with the elderly as well as with the young. In the industrialized world, the major trend has been toward a graying of society, in the sense that mean ages have increased and the proportion of the citizenry that is elderly is increasing. However, in most if not all developing countries the most significant effect has been on the other side of the chronological scale. High birthrates and declining infant mortality, due in part to improvements in health care, have contributed to sharp increases in the number of children. One estimate is that 50 to 60 percent of Third World populations are 15 years of age or younger. 8 Thus, in already difficult economic circumstances, the segment of the population that is particularly prone to recruitment for political activism is expanding quickly, further complicating the task of government and increasing the likelihood of government repression. 9 In many parts of the globe, where progress was once at least a dream, the

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struggle now is to maintain what has been attained, to avoid regression. Socioeconomic change will continue to increase the loads on governments that are unequal to the demands. This resource-demand gap, in turn, will inevitably add to internal tensions and cleavages, variously following religious, ethnic, regional, or tribal fault lines. 10 In many cases, in order to fortify their political base, governments will further exacerbate tensions and deepen cleavages through purposeful efforts to promote one group over another. Moreover, political leaders must recognize that individuals are better informed than they once were. They are increasingly aware of events beyond national borders and decidedly disinclined to suffer the status quo in silence. New attitudes toward authority are emerging, signifying, arguably, a new stage in the empowerment of the individual, but also contributing to the political turbulence that marks this era." Access to global communication, especially television and satellite communication, ensures that political events arc experienced simultaneously around the world. Purposeful or unintentional inattention to Third World problems on the part of the industrialized countries will continue to be thwarted by the ubiquitous eye of CNN. Government efforts to keep a lid on political protest and repression are regularly stifled by consumer technologies like the VCR and the fax machine. Governments so bombarded will find it difficult to sustain, let alone establish, legitimacy. The most precious resource of any regime is its legitimacy—that authority which rests on the shared cultural identity of ruler and ruled. 12 Every government makes its claim for legitimacy in the form of a political formula that may justify the rule of a monarch, a revolutionary class, or a popularly elected president. As Gaetano Mosca notes, political formulas are not "mere quackeries aptly invented to trick the masses into obedience." He continues: "The truth is that they answer a real need in man's social nature; and this need, so universally felt, of governing and knowing that one is governed not on the basis of mere material or intellectual force, but on the basis of moral principle, has . . . a practical and a real importance." 13 A political formula ceases to be compelling when the ruler or rulers, through neglect, incompetence, design, malfeasance, or happenstance, fail consistently or spectacularly to meet the cultural or material needs of citizens. When a government dissipates its legitimacy, it is naturally vulnerable to challenge. 14 This happened most recently in Algeria, where the June 1990 electoral victory of the Islamic Salvation Front signified the transfer of legitimacy from the National Liberation Front (FLN), which for almost three decades has rested its legitimacy on its credentials as the revolutionary instrument with which Algeria gained its independence from France. The transfer of power may follow naturally. Old glories don't fill empty stomachs, and ineffectual governments may discover that the loyalty of their citizens has been redirected to those prepared to meet their needs.

THE SECURITY LEGACY

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25

Where legitimacy is elusive, governments are forced to pound round pegs into square holes, hammering their citizens into submission. As Hannah Arendt taught, the use of violence is a symptom of the absence of legitimacy. Contemporary Iraq provides a case in point. The Arab Ba'th Socialist Party has ruled Iraq since 1968, after a decade marked by coups of the Left and the Right, purges, executions, and general political chaos. Rooted in the concept of an all-encompassing Arab nation struggling to free itself of imperialism, the Ba'thists gradually overwhelmed and emasculated their major adversary, the broadly based Iraqi Communist Party. But xenophobia survives and networks of imperialists and Zionist spies are endlessly discovered and expunged. Over time, the Ba'thists have manufactured a formidable social base of 1.5 million supporters and sympathizers (nearly 11 percent of the population) and nearly one million state workers, not to mention a network of youth militias. Thus, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein does not sit atop a fragile junta but an institutionalized and deeply invasive party. Civil society, the mélange of guilds, clubs, organizations, and groups that exists as a buffer between the power of the state and the life of the citizen, has been eradicated by the ruling ABSP. Instead, the citizen's sense of self is wrapped up in the all-encompassing Ba'thist regime, whatever its momentary failures and enduring disasters. And the regime has achieved some notable successes. It has made real strides in spreading literacy, increasing per capita income, and freeing women from many but not all of the bonds of traditional Arab culture. Of course, these advances have not come without cost: a critical word against the regime, which embodies Arabism, is, by definition, a treasonous rejection of the regime's raison d'etre. But, as Samir al-Khalil argues compellingly, the binding cement of the Iraqi state is fear. 15 Not just fear of the torturer, like the infamous interior minister Nadhim Kzar, who enjoyed using the eyeballs of his victims as ashtrays, but the fear inherent in a system so enveloping, so ensnaring that any alternative is unimaginable. It is the intimidating power of the state that keeps primordial sentiments in check. Released from the state's iron grip, al-Khalil claims, "Iraq could at some point in the future make the Lebanese civil war look like a family outing gone slightly sour." 16 Abiding insecurity is the hallmark of many governments in the developing world. 17 Internal security structures have grown tremendously, a trend first documented nearly a decade and a half ago by Morris Janowitz. 18 The informal group, not the political party or the interest group, is often the key political unit. Informal groups, defined by blood, ethnicity, or locality, are the locus for politics and patronage, as well as for conspiracy. In short, Ibn Khaldun's assabiya is a surer conceptual guide than the rationality of Max Weber. 1 9 In oppressive settings, the informal group is an ideal action set for the political opposition. It is hard to penetrate, and it is bonded by the most basic and enduring of ties. Under the circumstances it is not

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surprising that Third World politics are personalistic, intimate, and often covert. 20 It almost goes without saying that the US theory of pluralist democracy is not particularly useful for analyzing politics in the Third World. 21 Indeed, the competitive political party, the very epitome of Western democracy, is viewed suspiciously in some Third World settings. In Africa south of the Sahara, where one-party rule is prevalent, multiple parties are seen—and not without reason—as an invitation for divisive tribal politics to emerge at the state level. Islamic groups draw on a dogma that associates the political party with failed experiments in Western liberalism and view the party as a socially divisive instrument. Whereas pluralist theory argues that the basic unit of politics is synthetic groups of shifting and overlapping membership, in much of the world the basic political units are intimate groupings of remarkable durability. Everything we know about the Third World indicates that social mobilization does not push people away from the ties of family, lineage, and village but instead reinforces those ties. Even the presumed cauldron of modernity, the city, becomes an extension of the values of the countryside, and the engine of urbanization may be a misnomer; "ruralification" may be more apt. The stresses, strains, and crowding of the city revive, stimulate, and create new passions for real and artificial national identities. In many instances, the labels will be ethnolinguistic, but in others they will be the labels of religion. Social mobilization in and of itself is directionless. It is political mobilization that mediates social mobilization, giving it direction and meaning. Thus, it matters a great deal that men and women, as they gain a sense of themselves as part of a larger or different community, do not leave behind the institutions and ties that an earlier consensus of scholars predicted would be overwhelmed by modernity. In many developing countries, it is precisely those traditional institutions (temporal and sacred), earlier thought to be anachronisms, that are challenging the secular modemizers. As though compensating for earlier oversights, in recent years many observers have assumed that sectarian or communal ties are somehow immutable. It is as though all one needed to know was that a people were Sikhs, Sindhis, or Kurds and the rest would explain itself. Of course, this is a form of not-so-veiled racism that would not be tolerated for a second if the people described were members of less exotic groups, like Mormons or Jews. Thus, it needs to be emphasized that social and, for that matter, national identities are by no means fixed for all time; they are cultural constructions conditioned by the swerves and blows of history. 2 2 It is extremely misleading to presume that people—whether in Cairo, Egypt, or Cairo, Illinois—carry within them a primordial nugget or essence that, when all of the pretenses of modernity are peeled away, somehow determines who they really are.

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An apt example is the case of the Arab Shi'i Muslims who have been encumbered with all sorts of unpleasant images in recent years. In point of fact, the Shi'a were not conscious of themselves as members of an overarching community of Shi'i Muslims until recent decades, and even now there is by no means a unified sense of what it means to be a Shi'i Muslim, either in political or social terms. Identity is flexible and variable; it is hardly a permanent fact. As Hanna Batatu notes, as recently as 1921 "Iraq's Shi'a did not constitute a closely knit body of people. Though sharing similar traits, they were split up, like the other inhabitants of Iraq, into numerous distinct, self-involved communities. In most instances, they did not identify themselves primarily as Shi'a. Their first and foremost loyalty was to the tribe and the clan." 23 The most far-reaching effect of the revolution in Iran nearly six decades later was that it gave the Shi'a a sense of themselves as part of a community that transcended provincial and national boundaries. Even so, the extent to which individual Shi'i Muslims in places like Lebanon and Bahrain, not to mention Iraq, actively identified with their coreligionists in Iran has been much exaggerated. As problematic as the performance of the state may be, it should not be ignored as a significant potential locus of identity, particularly for regional minority groups, like the Shi'a in the Arab world, for whom the state offers a buttress against the assaults of the regional majority, the Sunni Muslims. In socially heterogeneous developing states, which describes the vast majority, political elites are steadily under challenge from populist political movements, many of which spring from religious roots. Religion has always been a focal point for social identity, and where politics are personalistic, informal, based on affinity or consanguineous ties, and local rather than national in their scope, it should not come as revelation that religion may define political behavior even if it does not organize it. As Ali Banuazizi notes, "traditional ideologies seem to be at least as efficacious in articulating the demands of a movement for social change and in inducing collective action of a radical nature as any of their modern, secular counterparts." 24 Whether in the form of Liberation Theology, radical Judaism or Shi'ism, or militant Sikhism, religion continues to gain momentum as a factor in Third World politics. But in the rush to spot religion in politics there is a tendency for sectarianism and ethnic politics to be mistaken for heightened religiosity. In other words, religious labels often stand for merely social ones. But there can be no question that the spread of new ideologies, grounded in religion, have promoted a reshuffling of identities and new political agendas. Decidedly, the subject is not religion, but politics. It is a simple fact that the energy of those involved in religiopolitics is not directed principally at external policy issues, but at domestic power arrangements. The issue is who rules and for what purpose.

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Religiopolitics, 2 5 the intersection of religion and politics, is not quite the novel occurrence that headline writers and others would like us to believe. Nor, despite the fact that some observers find the idea reassuring, are most religious activists driven to resist modernism or modernization. Activists inspired by Islam, Judaism, or Sikhism may seem to have emerged overnight, but the suddenness of their appearance has more to do with observers' inattention than to sporelike feats of growth. In much of the world, especially developing countries, secularism has always been an idée fixe for Western-oriented intellectuals and visiting scholars. Until recently, some Western diplomats, journalists, and intellectuals exaggerated the appeal of secularism and underestimated the enduring significance of religion as a focal point for social identity; this view often reflected only their choice of company. The leading religiopolitician of the 1980s, Ayatolla Ruholla Khomeini, vehemently denounced the West and particularly the United States. But Khomeini was breaking ranks with some of the great thinkers of Islamic modernism—Muhammad 'Abduh chief among them—who went to lengths to link Islam and the West. Contemporary Muslim thinkers, more representative of majoritarian Islam than Khomeini, have emphasized ecumenical themes and underlined the unity of Islam with Christianity (and, less often, with Judaism). As Leonard Binder argues in Islamic Liberalism, Islam is not inherently anti-Western or antiliberal. 26 The goals of religious movements are sometimes, indeed often, not unlike the goals of secular interest groups and parties. Populist religious movements often espouse social justice, if not democracy, and reject the staid religious institutions associated with the dominance of the state. The concept of jahiliyya—the Arabic word denoting the corruptness of the present government and society—plays a central role in the social critique by Islamic groups and is as much a critique of the religious establishment as of the secular authorities. To a significant degree, the emergence of populist Islamic groups reflects the increasingly widespread literacy. Once the privilege of the social elite, including functionaries of religion, education has simultaneously become more accessible and less beneficial to those who attain it. Those active in populist religious movements may be the peasants and the uneducated urban masses, but they are also the thwarted bourgeois, who have been educated and have glimpsed modernity but do not enjoy the fruits of prosperity they believe they deserve. Literacy, and education more broadly, may have failed to bring the anticipated rewards of political access, but it does undermine established patterns of religious authority by obviating the need for mediated access to the truth. Although he is writing about Morocco, the anthropologist Dale F. Eickelman's discussion of the new generation that has been drawn to militant Islamic doctrines is much more broadly applicable.27

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A s t r o n g c a s e can be m a d e f o r linking the rise of m i l i t a n t I s l a m i c associations, especially a m o n g educated youth, in particular those f r o m social categories with minimal access to education in earlier generations, to long-term changes in styles of religiosity, especially those m a d e possible by the greatly increased access to schooling over the last three decades. In the past, traditional men of learning were recognized as religious authorities by nearly all Moroccans. Younger militants now appeal to the Q u r ' a n and to essays on Islam by militant leaders for their authority. More so than in the past, the m e m b e r s of these movements use their own faculties to assess the merits of arguments, rather than relying upon established authorities. 2 8

Parallel observations are offered by Daniel Levine in his writing about Latin America. Levine notes the especial importance of the availability of the Bible in the vernacular: The priest now faces the people, the mass is understandable, average people participate and comment. They also read the Bible, hear it read, and discuss it. T h e y e x p r e s s o p i n i o n s and m a k e c o n n e c t i o n s with daily life: it is important that these are mostly people who were always given to understand that their o p i n i o n s had no value. If these c h a n g e s are c o m b i n e d with o r g a n i z a t i o n a l innovations pulling men and w o m e n into active roles in church life, the effect is tremendous. 2 9

The growth of political movements rooted in sacred ideals is simply a manifestation of the changes that have marked the world, and especially developing countries, where the search for political meaning is especially poignant and relevant in a setting marked by repression, hunger, and injustice. The appeal of Liberation Theology—which has had a more geographically widespread impact than is commonly presumed—provides an example. For instance, Robert Bianchi notes that both Protestant and Catholic church groups in South Korea, influenced by the example of Liberation Theology, began to focus their campaigns for human rights on the struggling union movement during the late 1960s. This was in the context of more than a doubling of Christian adherents from some four and one-half to about ten million. 30 The real danger is that the pressures on Third World governments will overwhelm them and that pandemonium will reign. In some cases, the new movements may be the only force that will hold the state together, but there is every reason to be skeptical about their prospect for success. Bruce Lincoln notes: Ironically, victory and defeat alike spell the end of a religion of revolution. Its rising defeated, it falls back to become a religion of resistance again, or disappears completely. Successful, it becomes a new religion of the status quo in the service of that party which it helped bring to power. . . . The new d i s p o s i t i o n of w e a l t h , p o w e r a n d p o s i t i o n w h i c h e m e r g e s f r o m the r e v o l u t i o n is n o w a c c o r d e d legitimation, a n d the f o r m e r r e l i g i o n of revolution now sets about propagating its creed throughout society. What

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remains of its revolutionary thrust are some superficial trappings: a new set of festivals, system of nomenclature, or hagiographic corpus made up of martyrs to the cause. The story of the revolution attains the status of c o s m o g o n i c myth, and deviations from the official version are branded heterodox or "counter-revolutionary." 31

The Demons of the 1990s As we embark on the last decade of a violence-ridden century, the 1990s may hold marvelous new opportunities for people everywhere to savor the elixir of freedom. But familiar demons may also lurk ahead—and not only in the Third World. In Europe, revived nationalistic and ethnic sentiments come in train with old grievances that might well spark violent irredentist campaigns seeking to repair old tears in Europe's political geography. Persistent, stubborn conflicts, especially in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, show little hint of ending. Saddam Hussein's success in evoking support among the politically disenfranchised and frustrated Arabs has dramatically highlighted the fault lines that divide the Middle East. The conflict in Lebanon may actually have turned an important comer. Meanwhile, the all but unnoticed carnage of the southern Sudan shows no sign of ending, and the dying in Ethiopia just goes on and on. These conflicts—each in its own way—illustrate a major danger of the 1990s, the spreading of interethnic and intercommunal combat exacerbated by the unpredictable, but unavoidable, process of modernization. In its most extreme form, the result is the breakdown of the state, commonly referred to as "lebanonization." Weak, insecure, semilegitimate governments, exposed to demands that increase steadily in both volume and complexity and are voiced in divisive particularistic terms, may simply cease to be relevant. Of course, Lebanon is only a metaphor, not a prediction. Lebanon was particularly vulnerable because of the weakness of its army, the competition of outside powers for influence within the country, and the presence of a large, autonomous, armed, and militarized power within the state—the Palestine Liberation Organization. But the metaphor does seem roughly apt for states like Cambodia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and the Sudan (and Yugoslavia might not be far behind). It may also be appropriate to describe Peru and Colombia. In the former case, the government is largely irrelevant outside Lima, and in the latter, the government is struggling to maintain its control in the provinces. In November 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev publicly warned of the dangers of lebanonization of his own country under the pressure of ethnic and national divisions. At a September 1990 meeting in Moscow of Middle East scholars and former policymakers from the Soviet Union and the United States, there was little Soviet interest in discussing Lebanon per sei but the problem of lebanonization was very much on the minds of Soviet

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participants. In the Soviet Union's Central Asian republics, one suspects that the steady delegitimizing of the Communist Party may signal calamitous chaos, particularly if Moscow resorts to a mailed-fist approach. Conclusion Cold War bipolarity entailed a competitive symmetry in the Third World that may be superseded by a new symmetry as vast realms of previously contested Third World terrain become irrelevant in the view of the two leading military powers. The Soviet Union clearly has no appetite for new commitments in the Third World. Its internal economic and political crisis, the lingering memories of the misadventure in Afghanistan, and a widely shared sense that the Third World is wracked by primordial, visceral violence combine to counsel inaction. 32 And is the United States very different, notwithstanding its exceptional involvement in the Gulf? The new symmetry is not sustainable, however. The "Third World" label has been used in this chapter to subsume the developing countries of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Many of the general observations offered here will be particularly inapplicable to the so-called newly industrializing countries of East Asia. Excluding these states, it is certainly true that even in combination the states of the Third World pale in economic significance next to Japan or Europe. However, this reductionist perspective fails on two levels. First, even putting aside compelling humanitarian arguments for an active strategy in the Third World, and economic comparisons notwithstanding, it begs common sense to presume it is possible to ignore three-quarters of humanity. Second, Third World problems will continue to intrude in the international system in the form of regional and internal conflicts and political violence. The problems that dog Third World governments—building coalescent societies, winning legitimacy, and meeting the basic needs of citizens—will neither respect borders nor be quietly or easily resolved. In point of fact, it is a safe bet that the global agenda for the 1990s will be shaped largely by the imperative of responding to crises originating in the Third World. Notes 1. See the informed account by Luis Guillermo Soli's, "Nicaragua: Staying the Course," Hemisphere (Summer 1990): 15-16. 2. See Edward N. Luttwak, "From Geopolitics to Geo-Economics," The National Interest, no. 20 (Summer 1990): 17-23, quote at 23. 3. CIA director William Webster as quoted in Robin Wright and Doyle McManus, "Seeking a New World," Los Angeles Times, 18 Dec. 1990, sec.

H-6.

4. A widely read example is Shai Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence: Strategy for the 1980s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).

A

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5. John J. M e a r s h e i m e r , "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe A f t e r the C o l d War," International Security 15, no. 1 (Summer 1990): 5 - 5 6 . 6. Sumit Ganguly, "Avoiding W a r in Kashmir," Foreign Affairs 69, no. 5 (Winter 1991): 70. 7. Quoted in Wright and McManus, "Seeking a New World," sec. H-7. 8. Y a z i d Sayigh, Confronting the 1990s: Security in the Developing Countries, Adelphi Paper no. 251 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, S u m m e r 1990): 32. 9. An o v e r v i e w of trends in global population growth m a y be f o u n d in G r e g o r y D. Foster, et al., " G l o b a l D e m o g r a p h i c T r e n d s to the Year 2 0 1 0 : Implications for U.S. Security," Washington Quarterly 12 (Spring 1989): 5 - 2 4 . 10. In his intellectually a d v e n t u r o u s and valuable new book, J a m e s N . Rosenau argues that declining governmental effectiveness is both a cause and a c o n s e q u e n c e of the i n c r e a s i n g s a l i e n c e of s u b g r o u p s that o f t e n c h a l l e n g e government authority directly. Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), see esp. C h a p t e r 14. 11. Note, for instance, "the greater complexity and dynamism of individuals constitute the single most important source of the turbulence that marks our time," ibid., 103. 12. See C l i f f o r d Geertz, "The Judging of Nations: S o m e C o m m e n t s on the Assessment of Regimes in the New States," Archives Europeenes de Sociologie 18, no. 2 (1977): 2 4 5 - 2 6 1 , see esp. 250. 1 3 . G a e t a n o Mosca, The Ruling Class: Elementi di Scienza Politico, ed. Arthur Livingston, trans, by Hannah D. Kahn (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939): 71. 14. Jerrold D. Green and I are developing this argument in our forthcoming book, Rulers Under Siege: Middle East Politics in the 1990s (San Diego, Calif.: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1992). 15. S a m i r al-Khalil, Republic of Fear: The Inside Story of Saddam's Iraq ( N e w York: Pantheon Books, 1990). 16. Ibid., 2 7 6 . 17. T h e factor of insecurity is emphasized by a number of scholars of the Third World, most recently by M o h a m m e d Ayoob, in a review article, " T h e Security Problematic of the Third World," World Politics 43, no. 2 (Jan. 1991): 2 5 7 - 2 8 3 ; and " T h e Security Predicament of the Third World State: Reflections on S t a t e - M a k i n g in a C o m p a r a t i v e P e r s p e c t i v e , " in The Insecurity Dilemma: National Security of Third World States, ed. Brian J o b (Boulder, Colo.: L y n n e Rienner, f o r t h c o m i n g ) . 18. Morris Janowitz, Military Institutions and Coercion in the Developing Nations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977). 19. See the seminal essay by Clifford Geertz, " T h e Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States," in Old Societies and New States: The Quest for Modernity in Asia and Africa, ed. Clifford Geertz (New York: T h e Free Press, 1963): 105-157. 20. For an excellent case in point, see Paul St. Cassia, "Patterns of Covert Politics in P o s t - I n d e p e n d e n c e C y p r u s , " Archives Europeenes de Sociologie 24 (1983): 115-135. 2 1 . F o r a p e n e t r a t i n g a n a l y t i c a l r e v i e w of the political d e v e l o p m e n t literature, see Leonard Binder, " T h e Natural History of Development T h e o r y , " Comparative Studies in Society and History 28, no. 1 (1986): 3 - 3 3 . 22. T h e d i f f i c u l t y of objectively identifying nations a priori is c o g e n t l y discussed by E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme,

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Myth, 1.

Reality

(Cambridge:

Cambridge

University

Press,

1990),

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Chapter

23. H a n n a Batatu, " I r a q ' s Shi'a, Their Political Role, and the Process of Their Integration into S o c i e t y , " in The Islamic Impulse, ed. Barbara F r e y e r S t o w a s s e r ( L o n d o n : C r o o m H e l m , in a s s o c i a t i o n w i t h the C e n t e r f o r C o n t e m p o r a r y A r a b Studies, Georgetown University, 1987): 2 0 4 - 2 1 3 , quote at 204. See also Augustus Richard Norton, Amal and the Shi'a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987). 24. A l i B a n u a z i z i , " S o c i a l - P s y c h o l o g i c a l A p p r o a c h e s to P o l i t i c a l Development," in Understanding Political Development, eds. Myron Weiner and Samuel P. Huntington (Boston: Little, Brown, 1987): 2 8 1 - 3 1 6 , quote at 306. 25. T h e term was coined by Jerrold Green. 26. Leonard Binder, Islamic Liberalism (Chicago: University of C h i c a g o Press, 1988). 27. Dale F. Eickelman, "Changing Interpretations of Islamic M o v e m e n t s , " in Islam and the Political Economy of Meaning, ed. William R. Roff (London: Croom Helm; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987): 13-30, see 21. 28. Ibid., 27. 29. Daniel H. Levine, "Conflict and R e n e w a l , " in Religion and Political Conflict in Latin America, ed. Daniel H. Levine (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986): 2 3 6 - 2 5 5 ; quote at 240. 30. Robert Bianchi, "Interest G r o u p Politics in the Third W o r l d . " Third World Quarterly 8 (April 1986): 5 0 7 - 5 3 9 , see 5 2 7 - 5 2 8 . 31. Bruce Lincoln, " N o t e s Toward a Theory of Religion and Revolution," in Religion, Rebellion, Revolution, ed. Bruce Lincoln (New York: St. M a r t i n ' s Press, 1985): 2 6 6 - 2 9 2 ; quote at 281. 32. For a s u m m a r y of c h a n g e d Soviet attitudes, see Augustus R i c h a r d Norton, "Soviet Policy in the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Navigating a Sea C h a n g e , " in Domestic Determinants of Soviet Policy Towards South Asia and the Middle East, ed. Hafeez Malik (London: Macmillan, 1990): 2 6 0 - 2 7 5 , esp. 2 6 0 - 2 6 4 .

• 2 • Soviet Policy Toward the Third World in the 1990s CELESTE A. WALLANDER

Soviet foreign policy operates on many levels, from broad and abstract principles based on a general worldview to concrete day-to-day decisions. To understand Soviet policy toward the Third World and to outline what that policy is likely to be in the next decade, it is necessary not only to enumerate Soviet thinking on actions at various levels, but to trace the relationship among principles, prescriptions, policies, and actions. The broad precepts of the Soviet Union's new political thinking are now commonly known and widely accepted as a substantial change from the past self-articulated Soviet worldview. That does not mean that one can definitively map specific Soviet policies working only from notions of mutual (or common) security, global interdependence, or the inadmissibility of the use of force. It also does not mean that one can project the effect of new thinking by listing Soviet-Third World trade agreements or arms shipments. At a time when much of Soviet foreign policy is undergoing enormous change, we should expect the implementation of its relations to be a puzzle. This is evident in the now quite open discussion and disagreement over specific policies and actions in the Soviet Union itself. Does Soviet economic support for Cuba violate the principle of common security when the United States continues to impose an economic blockade on that country? Does support for political national reconciliation require the Soviet Union to end military shipments to regimes that are actively challenged by military oppositions? In general, what is the relation among broad principles of international conduct, Soviet national interests, and bilateral relations with Third World countries? These issues are complex enough under normal conditions. In the Soviet case, the complexity is increased by the magnitude of change implied by Soviet new thinking, and by the ongoing process of redefinition of Soviet national interests and the relation of the Third World to the pursuit of those interests. Change is overlaid on and must deal with sets of existing relations with Third World countries. These relations often entail serious drawbacks for

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the Soviet Union in light of its new priorities, but they also provide tangible and intangible benefits that make abrupt change costly. Any attempt to understand the likely form of Soviet policy toward the Third World in the 1990s therefore requires that one look at how the Soviet government now defines its national interests, what the sources of those interests are, and how international relations and relations in the Third World affect those interests. This means taking into account domestic political and economic changes in the Soviet Union as well as adaptations in theory and policy. Finally, it means assessing a broad range of Soviet behavior to identify where change and continuity in policy appear in order to understand the types of dilemmas decisionmakers will encounter in implementing policies, and to comprehend how they will choose to resolve them. The Problem: What Is Soviet Policy Toward the Third World? T o understand contemporary Soviet policy toward the Third World, it helps to have a sense of what it was before 1987 and of the pattern of relations thus established. Although important shifts occurred from Stalin to the mid1980s, I will focus on continuities and on the state of Soviet policy in the period preceding the Gorbachev leadership. 1 Soviet policy was premised on a worldview that saw no room for ultimate coexistence of capitalist and socialist systems, largely because capitalism had to be an international system to survive and therefore could not tolerate the existence of socialism. With time (and given the realities of nuclear weapons) it was made explicit that this conflict need not be waged by military means, but it was a zero-sum conflict nonetheless in which each new socialist state was another defeat for the West. Furthermore, it was assumed that the capitalist world, led by the United States, would resist such transformation by all economic, political, and military means. T h e threat to Soviet national security was therefore the presence of capitalist states and the solution was their disappearance. Because Third World countries have not achieved a level of development necessary for a socialist e c o n o m y , Soviet support went to a variety of anti-Western, progressive, and socialist-oriented states. The Soviets came to favor socialistoriented states because these were seen to have progressed furthest from capitalism, had closer ties with socialist countries, and had established domestic social and political conditions that made them unlikely to reverse their support for the Soviet Union, as had Egypt. By the end of the 1970s and early 1980s, the Soviet Union focused its resources on socialist-oriented regimes, such as Afghanistan, Angola, and Ethiopia, although it continued to maintain good relations with nonsocialist regimes as well, such as India. T h e key to these relations, in Soviet eyes, was that they enabled Third World countries to resist Western domination in both military and economic

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terms. Soviet military assistance took the form of building and advising defense establishments and actively supplying military equipment to regimes engaged in internal or external conflict. Because these regimes were "progressive" or socialist-oriented, it was assumed in Soviet policy that any resistance or opposition must be Western- or capitalist-inspired, thus engaging Soviet security interests. In economic terms, M o s c o w ' s relations with the Third World were meant to be conducted for mutual economic benefit and development, rather than for domination and exploitation, as were capitalist relations with the Third World. Therefore, trade was not conducted through market mechanisms, but through barter or credit arrangements using nonconvertible rubles. Soviet ownership or joint ventures were forbidden for similar reasons, and economic assistance took the form of projects designed to construct socialist methods in a form as "advanced" as possible, so that developing countries could skip as many developmental stages as Soviet experience could make possible. The Soviet U n i o n ' s policy and activity in the 1970s became more consistent with this worldview. Western analysts are sometimes tempted, as a result, to conclude that Soviet relations with the Third World were driven more by ideology than by real national interests or security. There are at least two problems with such a conclusion. First, Soviet practice never conformed precisely to its pronouncements, and it maintained good relations with states that did not meet the theoretical criteria. This was especially true of M o s c o w ' s Middle East policy. Deviations from the main principles were justified as tactical adaptation to existing world conditions that still served the larger Soviet strategy, and as consistent with the larger purposes of Soviet security. Second, one must resist the tendency to present a simple dichotomy of subjective ideology on the one hand and objective national interests on the other. National interests are defined by leaderships or societies through the filter of their worldview, or ideology. Every state's foreign policy is in this sense ideological. New thinking alters most of the basic principles of Soviet foreign policy. It does not abandon the socialist ideal in Soviet domestic matters (although the economic program adopted in October 1990 may now lead to precisely that result), but it calls for the de-ideologization of Soviet foreign policy, 2 which means that international relations are no longer to be viewed as the locus of capitalist-socialist conflict and that the presence of different types of national social systems is not a threat to the existence or security of others, but is a normal and permanent state of affairs. In analytical terms, this is not really the de-ideologization of Soviet foreign policy, but the adoption of an alternative set of values and beliefs. The change disengages Soviet national security from the precise nature of internal development of other states and shifts it to more tractable issues of geographical security from external threats and a potentially wide variety of relations with other states. The de-ideologization of Soviet foreign policy might appear to imply an

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end to legitimate Soviet security interests in the Third World. If zero-sum conflict between capitalism and socialism no longer drives Soviet actions, what legitimate role can the country have beyond its borders? The problem with this view is that it neglects the positive or constructive part of new thinking. Much Western analysis has focused on what Soviet new thinking has to say about what Soviet foreign policy should not be and what the Soviet Union should not do: the Soviet Union should not intervene as it did in Afghanistan, it should not send military aid to any and all anti-Western regimes, it should not seek to undermine capitalist-oriented Third World regimes, and it should not seek to obstruct the operation of international institutions. The list of proscribed Soviet actions implies Moscow's retreat from the Third Worid. The positive or prescriptive side to new thinking, which has been developed and elaborated more recently, implies a decided, if problematic, role for the Third World in Soviet security and foreign policy. First, the United States forgets that the Soviet Union is surrounded on most of its borders by Third World countries, and therefore its relations with at least this subset of states remain linked to even the most narrow definitions of national security. Issues of military and economic development in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Southwest Asia, and the Near East have geopolitical implications for even a nonexpansionist Soviet Union, so its political relationships with the countries in each of these regions are likely to have some relation to Soviet security. Second, new thinking posits a different international environment in which the Soviet Union must pursue its interests with a different set of incentives and constraints. It does not posit that the international system has no impact on Soviet interests—in fact, the emphasis of new thinking is quite the opposite. Whereas before the only real constraint on Soviet policy was the existence and hostility of an antithetical West, now the international system is seen as an interdependent and integrated whole. In new thinking, the system and the parts (states) constantly affect and constrain one another. Therefore, Soviet security and interests cannot be maintained or pursued in isolation. A rational and efficient policy must take into account the likely effects of the system, of the actions of other states on Soviet objectives, and of Soviet actions on other states. Therefore, the most important issues in Moscow's foreign policy at the beginning of the 1990s are how to reconcile the opportunities and constraints in the international system with national objectives. Although the Third World may be less of a priority than Europe, it is far from irrelevant. Soviet National Interests Moscow's definition of national interests becomes increasingly complex as new thinking is elaborated. The Soviet leadership has begun to define

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national interests not only in terms of domestic objectives and priorities, but also in terms of opportunities and constraints in its relations with other countries. But Soviet decisionmakers do not begin with a clean slate. They seek to shift relations within the context of an existing set of relations that have been in one way or another beneficial and problematic themselves. Therefore, any shift in Third World policies will be costly in military, political, and economic terms. The aggregate benefits of new policies and relations may be worth the costs, but individual trade-offs may be more difficult to accept or absorb. Reconciling these competing costs and benefits is a major source of the complexity in Soviet relations with Third World countries today. Domestic

Reform:

Perestroika

and

Democratization

Theorists of international relations debate whether the sources of a country's behavior lie in the international system or in its domestic political and economic structure. It is impossible to explain the emergence and content of new thinking solely in terms of the international distribution of power, and the principles of new thinking are directly linked (by the Soviets themselves) to Gorbachev's domestic reform. The weight of domestic political economic factors is especially pronounced in contemporary foreign policy because of the magnitude of domestic change. National interests are being defined by the domestic program, and their international expression is new thinking. However, even given the overwhelming importance of internal change, we have to take into account the reciprocal effects of the international system in the articulation of new thinking, and in the formulation of actual Soviet policy toward developing countries. Soviet economic reform focuses on three factors—shift to reliance on market mechanisms, acceptance of private ownership, and government spending priorities—all of which require change in foreign policy in an interdependent global system. A free market based on current Soviet production capacities would produce a limited range of goods, would be distorted by limited competition in quality and price, and would have little use for much of what Soviet industry produces now. Soviet analysts argue that a healthy market requires foreign participation as well as the end of state production orders and subsidies. That is, part of the process of achieving a Soviet economy that produces and produces well involves its relation with the outside world. This entails the convertibility of the ruble, because current barter and hard currency clearing arrangements are an obstacle to foreign participation in the Soviet economy, and to the foreign activities of Soviet enterprises that can compete effectively. Similar reasoning links the development of private ownership with its international relations. The Soviets have found that the existence of quasiprivate enterprises (such as cooperatives and trade associations) is of limited value if every transaction must be overseen and arranged by state

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bodies, notably the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, whose activities have multiplied in the past two years. Relying on old methods of economic transaction with foreign states or companies is likely to multiply, rather than eliminate, the centralizing and controlling functions of the Soviet state, maintaining all the inefficiencies and repressive effects reform is meant to eliminate. Finally, there is the effect of shifting Soviet budget priorities on Soviet foreign policy. The changes in government spending priorities entail several related objectives. In order to achieve internal market reforms at a socially acceptable price, the Gorbachev leadership chose to reorient spending toward consumption. The resources for this shift have come in part from cuts in defense spending. A reduction in the budget deficit (necessary to control inflation and move toward achieving some stable value for the ruble), which may be as high as one-tenth of Soviet GNP, requires substantial spending cuts, and defense has been a particular target. By 1990 Soviet foreign aid also came under attack, in part for its role in absorbing scarce resources that could be better spent on internal reform and consumption. The most recent reform budget envisions cuts of 75 percent in Moscow's next foreign aid budget. Besides these budgetary reasons for cutting defense spending, the leadership seeks to reduce the size of the defense sector in the economy as part of the program to reform state control and centralization of the economy. A highly state-subsidized (one might even say, indulged) defense sector commanding a large portion of government and national resources operated by state planning undermines any effort to reduce the role of the state in the economy. Defense industries do coexist with capitalist market systems, but not in the size and form of the Soviet defense industry. The role of marketized defense production may be open to debate (as indeed it has become in the Soviet Union, as will be discussed), but the need to reform existing methods in defense procurement and production is clear. All three d o m e s t i c e c o n o m i c issues have clear implications for Moscow's policy toward developing countries, because they have altered the definition of national interests. Reliance on market mechanisms and private ownership imply that the government should develop closer ties with those countries that have more to offer in terms of trade and investment both in the Soviet Union and abroad. For the most part, this means relations with precisely those capitalist-oriented developing countries that in the past were viewed as a security threat. It does not necessarily mean cutting ties to traditional allies, but it does favor a reduced willingness to subsidize socialist or socialist-oriented states merely because of the value of their political character. This basic change in the assessment of the value and form of e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t , combined with Soviet domestic interests in shrinking the military, implies that the Soviet Union has no particular national interest in supporting revolutionary change in the Third World. Because Soviet security is no longer seen to require the disappearance of

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capitalist states, military security would appear generally to be more confined to defense of Soviet territory and perhaps support for friendly states o n its periphery. Domestic

Reform

and Soviet

Policy

Toward

the Third

World

Domestic political and economic conditions therefore play a relatively direct role in Soviet policy toward the Third World through their role in defining contemporary national interests. T h e y also play an indirect role through the ongoing process of struggle over domestic reform. Because foreign economic and political policy is linked to its internal program, and because there is n o w serious discussion about the latter, a broad, well-documented debate on important issues in M o s c o w ' s Third World policy has emerged. 3 T h e situation in 1990 was somewhat different for two important reasons. First, the coalition of "perestroikans" and new thinkers in government, party, and the institutes has begun to split on concrete issues of i m p l e m e n t i n g reform in d o m e s t i c and foreign policy. S o m e d i s a g r e e m e n t arises f r o m c o n t i n u i n g w a r n i n g s and d o u b t s of more conservative e l e m e n t s of the l e a d e r s h i p that w e r e g r u d g i n g l y c o - o p t e d . But the s h a r p e r and m o r e substantial disagreements today are among those who are strong supporters of new thinking. T h e i r differences arise over competing views of the policies necessary to implement broad theoretical precepts. Second, disputes are more open and m o r e directly linked to the politics of d o m e s t i c p o l i c y m a k i n g because of the processes of democratization and political interaction that involve elected legislatures. M o s c o w ' s Third World policy is n o w held not only to standards of foreign policy rationality (e.g., its effect on Soviet-US relations) or theories of world development, but also directly to criteria of domestic political priorities. A substantia] portion of the public debate is a result of the political m a n e u v e r i n g o v e r military e c o n o m i c and organizational reform. D e f e n s e spending and institutional privileges have come under sustained scrutiny and attack in the S u p r e m e Soviet and the press. T h e military does not advocate intervention in the Third World, nor is there an obvious military self-interest in f a v o r i n g traditional Soviet allies in the Third World. H o w e v e r , p r o p e r criteria for setting the defense budget and the size and organization of the armed forces are linked to the nature of the international system and the threat to Soviet national security, and it is in this m a n n e r that Third World policy affects the military establishment. The Gorbachev leadership argues that the p r i m a r y threat is e c o n o m i c b a c k w a r d n e s s and stagnation, and t h e r e f o r e relations with the Third World must focus primarily on mutually beneficial e c o n o m i c development and exchange. The instruments of such a policy are primarily economic and diplomatic, and this idea is further reinforced by new t h i n k i n g ' s p r o n o u n c e m e n t s o n the limited u s e f u l n e s s of f o r c e in contemporary conditions. This situation creates a happy coincidence for the leadership: a large

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military not only costs too much, it is also not particularly useful. The Soviet military and the defense industries must make the case that it is useful and worth the expense. In terms of the Third World, that means justifying the value of long-term military allies, which in turn means making the case that other states are quite capable of launching (and indeed, are likely to launch) aggressive military action. When Gorbachev announced plans in August 1990 to implement comprehensive military reform the following year, Krasnaya zvezda printed the text of his speech along with that of one by Defense Minister Dmitriy Yazov with pointed observation of events in the Third World: "We do not have the right to be weakened, despite the positive process of reducing military opposition and of strengthening confidence between different states. 'Hot spots' remain and new ones appear, and under certain conditions they can grow into global conflict. Such a 'spot' appears now in the Near East. And Grenada and Panama are not yet forgotten." 4 But the Gorbachev leadership has been generally united in the campaign to reorganize the military, and it seems to be in a position to prevail. In contrast, foreign aid is an issue that the leadership has not orchestrated, and it has been raised by some who have carried new thinking to its more radical (and perhaps more logical) implications. Two arguments are important. First, can the Soviet Union afford to subsidize the military and economic spending of Third World countries when it does not have the resources to finance its own development? One critic has pointed out that Soviet aid to Cuba alone is three times the budget subsidies to the Soviet republics of Kirghizia and Tadzhikistan. Second, are the recipients of Soviet aid chosen to serve the official policy of economic development and international integration? Critics conclude that this is clearly not the case; the focus and recipients of Soviet aid under new thinking are determined by the political criteria of old thinking. 5 Soviet aid to Cuba has come under particular attack. In a very few countries, such as Iraq, arms sales were paid for by hard currency or by barter of petroleum at prices approximating market values. Cuba receives military equipment, Soviet oil (much of which Cuba resells for hard currency), and development assistance on credit. The prices for Cuban sugar and nickel are set far above world market prices. Therefore, the Soviets lose on trade in both directions: they subsidize Cuban imports and pay inflated prices for Cuban sugar. In early 1990 Leonid Abalkin, one of Gorbachev's economic advisors and a strong advocate of perestroika, made an official trip to Cuba in which he defended Soviet policy, claiming that it is mutually beneficial. Other officials and academics who are leading advocates of new thinking have advanced justifications for the maintenance of existing relations with Cuba. Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov was eventually forced to release government figures on Third World debt to the Soviet Union in the name of glasnost and democratization after people's deputies complained of continuing secrecy in foreign policy. 6

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Another manifestation of diverse views in democratization has been opposition to the conservative argument and tacit leadership practice that arms sales to the Third World can serve new thinking by supporting defense conversion and/or earning hard currency. The figures show that the largest debts are owed by those countries to which the Soviet Union has provided considerable arms. A Soviet official warns against the delusion that arms sales or recovery of these debts would be a lucrative aspect of Soviet-Third World relations because the overwhelming majority of arms deliveries are to countries the government has considered necessary to support for political reasons. Only a limited number of Third World governments can actually pay for arms, and these countries tend to favor Western suppliers and technology. Furthermore, the basic notion of financing Soviet economic development through the international arms market has come under political criticism as the result of a scandal over the attempt by a trade cooperative to export excess goods produced by defense enterprises. The storm broke when a newspaper reported that the cooperative was planning to export T-72 tanks, which it had allegedly obtained from a defense enteiprise for as little as one-fourth the actual cost. The cooperative had been permitted to operate without export licenses, apparently with the approval of Ryzhkov. 7 Calls for democratic control and information on the defense budget and defense matters by the Supreme Soviet committees on defense and state security are joined by similar calls for control of foreign aid by committees on international affairs. But in this instance, the target of glasnost and democratization will be the Gorbachev establishment, not its conservative opponents. We can no longer assume in using the Soviet press as a guide that policies advocated in the name of new thinking and perestroika are official or are soon to be official. They are often genuine and substantially different views on how to implement those programs. Official Soviet policy takes on a mixed quality of old and new as a result, with new elements often prevailing in specific economic issues and old elements lingering more stubbornly in political and military areas. Gorbachev told the Congress of People's Deputies that new thinking does not mean a cooling of relations with the Third World, and that Soviet solidarity with those struggling for social and democratic progress is unchangeable. Nevertheless, he also issued a presidential decree in July 1990 which ordered that measures to expand economic cooperation with developing countries be implemented "on mutually beneficial principles of interest to all parties concerned . . . conducted in accordance with relevant international standards and practices." The decree also noted that any economic aid "should be rendered with due regard for the realistic possibilities of our country." Then Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze joined an almost identical statement on the need for new, mutually beneficial economic relations and a shift from reliance on military relations to a qualification that "in general we should not seek to curtail military cooperation." The qualification of this

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qualification, however, was that the policy would be discussed with allies in the Third World on the basis of the principle of defense sufficiency. As an example, he referred to discussions with the Angolan government in which "a prerequisite for cutting arms sales"—the diminishing risk of war—plays a role in determining levels of defense sufficiency. 8 Soviet relations with the Third World in these official statements seems to be well characterized by an ongoing Marxist dialectic. There is no question that the priority of economic relations has risen and that a new set of economic criteria are being put in place. But the Gorbachev leadership wants this reordering of priorities to be understood as a genuine strengthening of Soviet cooperation with the Third World insofar as it will be based on a more rational and productive set of relations. Because the Soviet Union is not to be seen as abandoning former partners, political and military support remains a policy instrument, the degree and form of which depends on case-by-case conditions. International Sources of Soviet Third World Policy It would be a relatively straightforward task to identify Soviet national interests defined in terms of domestic priorities and look for their expression in Third World policy. But the form of the policies is shaped by the international system, perhaps to a larger degree than before. It is not enough to know that the Soviet leadership seeks market-based economic reform— why should that necessarily alter Soviet relations with Vietnam, Cuba, or North and South Korea? In order to understand this, one must understand that Soviet policies must take account of how the international system works. A major portion of new thinking deals with precisely this problem, as Soviet policies have had to become specific and concrete. The primary change is Soviet participation in international institutions as a necessary measure for bilateral foreign economic relations and for resolution of political and regional conflicts. One might be inclined to conclude that this is simply a cynical and tactical maneuver with little concrete effect, but it entails real policy adjustment and structural change that has in some cases appeared in Soviet behavior. In a frankly defensive report on Soviet foreign policy to the 28th CPSU Congress in July 1990, Shevardnadze defended the parallel rationales. Soviet security is greater today under new thinking, he claimed, because it relies primarily on political and negotiated solutions to disputes rather than maximum military power and confrontation. National economic interests are served by new thinking through the peaceful environment it creates, and because the Soviet Union "has no future if it does not become integrated into the global system of economic and financial institutions and relations." 9 The change in attitude toward the United Nations was an early indication of this reasoning. Gorbachev announced support for UN mechanisms as early

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as 1987 and Soviet policies in the negotiations on Afghanistan and Namibia relied heavily on the United Nations. The key to Soviet support of the world organization as a forum for resolution of security problems is reciprocal restraint. It does the Soviet Union and its Third World allies little good to follow new thinking's prescriptions of reliance on political means when other parties can resort to military means. The risk of unilateral restraint is that in waiting for a response one may be militarily defeated. UN talks create incentives for all parties to demonstrate that they have ended military operations, and they focus attention on actions that contradict such claims. If the United Nations observes elections, the excuse that they will be unfair can be eliminated. By accepting constraints on its own options and operations in the context of a public and stable institution, the Soviet Union is more likely to be able to impose those constraints on others. This can be a more powerful tool than escalating arms deliveries. The reasoning advanced by officials is not simply that the Soviet Union must participate in international institutions because problems are global or because of moral commitments to universalist principles, but also because these institutions are resources necessary for the realization of Soviet objectives. 10 Because the Soviet Union does not have sufficient military and economic power to secure important national interests, it appears that the Gorbachev leadership has concluded that reliance on international mechanisms is a rational and efficient method. This is why Soviet officials discuss UN activities in terms of achieving a "balance of interests." As an alternative to the "balance of power," it relies not on power to prevail, but on a process of negotiation in which legitimate perspectives and interests can be expressed and common ground negotiated. In advancing these ideas, Soviet officials now routinely discuss past Soviet misbehavior and reliance on balance of power and confrontation. However, they have become more explicit that the United States must alter its behavior as well: " W e do not pretend to a monopoly on self-purification." This argument is clearly based on new thinking, but it shifts emphasis from earlier analyses that focused on changes in the nature of the international system and on Soviet sins. Now it is made clearer that "political methods" will work only in the context of established mechanisms and universal selfcriticism. T h e reason for the shift seems to be experience in the past years that unilateral actions designed to improve the atmosphere go only so far because the United States, the Soviet Union, and Third World countries will continue to have important differences in their interests. Even when all parties prefer political conflict resolution and will accept some compromise, they may u n d e r m i n e an agreement by seeking some marginal advantage. " O u r consistency in these spheres will give us grounds for demanding the same consistency of the West and to establish extensive rather than selective cooperation." The rationale offered to justify Soviet acceptance of restraints is to achieve restraints on other states. Shevardnadze adopted a similar rationale

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in a proposal to the UN secretary-general for creation of a register that would provide information on the amounts of arms sales and supplies as well as member states' national legal procedures governing sales. The information provided would enable members to assess more reliably the military potential of other states, contribute to the solution of competitive arms transfer cycles, and reduce unpredictability in state relations.11 Similar but more elaborate reasoning has only recently appeared to justify the more radical change in Soviet participation in international economic institutions. Official policy has called for Soviet participation in the world economy and "international division of labor" for some time. But as critics point out, despite a series of legal and procedural changes in the activities of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, the structure of foreign trade has not changed much and remains largely based on export of raw materials and unfinished goods. Individual bilateral agreements are of limited value in changing the structure of foreign trade. The Soviet Union "remains outside of interdependence" as long as the Soviet Union cannot participate in the international monetary and financial system and cannot even provide data on Soviet reserves and credit.12 In this respect, focus shifts from analysis of the problems and deficiencies of Soviet partners in the Third World to deficiencies in Soviet participation in international trade and finance. As the government has begun to implement new thinking, it has become clear that constraints on Soviet economic growth are a result not only of its relations with poor, socialist, and socialist-oriented developing countries such as Ethiopia, Cuba, and Vietnam, but also of its lack of links to more advanced developing countries. The new Soviet willingness to pursue economic relations with more prosperous Third World countries has produced some successes, but the volume and sophistication of these relations is low and unlikely to effect the transformation of Soviet participation in the international economy. Some Soviet analysts have begun to argue that in order to function in the world economy, Soviets must actively participate in international economic institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, and GATT. This participation requires costly adjustment in Soviet policies (such as nondiscrimination against foreign trade and investment and, most costly of all, convertibility of the ruble) but offers benefits. Participation in GATT would allow the Soviet government and enterprises to gain information on product standards, foreign certification requirements, and real market values of enterprises and products. At a basic level, the Soviet Union would gain the right to negotiate terms of international economic relations, and Soviet participation would require other participants to confer most-favored nation status on the Soviet Union. Adaptation to the forms and procedures of international financial institutions, such as the IMF, is necessary for any shift to direct investment in the Third World, which is in turn necessary for economic relations of mutual benefit and possibly the only way Moscow

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will ever realize any return of large debts owed by many developing countries. 13 Government officials accept portions of this reasoning to varying degrees. In January 1990 Gorbachev endorsed the idea of Soviet participation in international economic institutions but warned that present members would have to make (unspecified) adjustments in the terms and their policies in order to achieve these higher levels of economic cooperation. Deputy Foreign Minister Ernest Obminskiy has written on the progressive economic and social developmental role of market relations for developing countries, and he advocates Soviet use of market relations and participation in international organizations and agreements. Yet he also expresses fear that "blind abidance" by market laws could go beyond common sense, and that existing procedures of the IMF, IBRD, and GATT as established by the powerful developed countries do not always work when applied to developing countries. 14 The problem in this view is not the idea of reform, maricet, and Soviet international economic integration. In fundamental ways, these are seen as necessary for securing Soviet national interests and require substantial change in Soviet relations with Third World countries. But the Soviet leadership seeks to accede in some respects and bring about change in others. So far, the Soviets have been having more success in self-adaptation in economic spheres and somewhat greater success in system change in political-military cases. In what is likely an important step in creating a convertible ruble, the Soviet government plans to implement agreements adopted at the January 1990 CMEA meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria. As of January 1991, "settlements" for intra-CMEA trade no longer are made in fixed-value rubles, but instead they are made in hard-currency payments at world market prices. Thus the system of preferential credits and settlement rates that were effectively bilateral barter arrangements and that concealed Soviet economic subsidy of certain Third World countries—Vietnam and Cuba—will cease. The Soviets may still choose to aid Cuba, but the size and nature of such economic assistance will be clear. The purposes behind the change—the shift to mutually beneficial economic relations and the need for a single, market-value ruble—demonstrate how the different aspects of domestic economic reform affect Soviet policy toward the Third World. 15 In political-military affairs, the Soviets have been relatively successful in pressing Gorbachev's call for a greater UN role as a forum for negotiation and a mechanism for implementing conflict resolution procedures. Namibia was a case in which opposing sides did not hold irreconcilable positions and in which both superpowers were willing to push more recalcitrant local states for important concessions (South African and Cuban military withdrawals). A key factor was the UN role in policing the cease-fire and monitoring the elections, which made the interventionist powers willing to risk military withdrawal in the first place. The principles have been further strengthened by Soviet acceptance of Sandinista defeat in Nicaragua in 1990, because that case

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reinforces Soviet claims that it supports a process of conflict resolution and not j u s t o u t c o m e s that it favors. The progress toward UN supervision of elections and temporary administration in Cambodia is also a major success for the Soviet agenda, although the c h a n g e in US policy toward K h m e r R o u g e participation was a necessary condition as well. Finally, constructive Soviet i n v o l v e m e n t f r o m the outset of the Iraq-Kuwait crisis enabled the Soviet leadership to play a m a j o r role in formulating and maintaining the central legitimating (and restraining) role of the U N Security Council, its resolutions, and c o n s e q u e n t l y the negotiating process in determining the scope and timing of action against Iraq. T h e international system continues to play a more straightforward and traditional role in the Soviet definition of its national interests with respect to the Third World as well. Although I have focused on the new elements of interdependence and institutions, the distribution (or balance) of p o w e r is closely related to Soviet security policy in the Third World because it is a m a j o r determinant of Soviet ability to secure its interests. It should c o m e as little surprise that calculations of p o w e r and military balancing continue to play a role in arms transfers and conflict resolution, and the most dramatic b i e a k t h r o u g h in political relations has c o m e via Soviet economic relations with South Korea, as I discuss in the following section. Soviet-Third

World

Relations

A s I argued, c h a n g e s in the highest or most abstract levels of M o s c o w ' s definition of national interests and policy do not produce coherent or entirely consistent c h a n g e s in bilateral relations for t w o primary reasons: b r o a d p o l i c i e s m a y be p u r s u e d by a v a r i e t y of m e a n s , and they m u s t be i m p l e m e n t e d in bilateral relations that represent different mixes of existing benefits and liabilities. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to expect some e f f e c t s of new t h i n k i n g to alter existing relations to s o m e extent and to create incentives f o r new relations in other cases. By c o m p a r i n g the degree of change o r influence of n e w priorities across bilateral relations, it should be possible to identify the points at which the Gorbachev leadership finds n e w thinking m o s t problematic. Economic

Relations

B y the end of the 1980s, the structure and pattern of Soviet e c o n o m i c relations with the Third World had not changed much. With a nonconvertible currency and lack of private enterprises, Moscow relies almost exclusively on bilateral barter agreements through state enterprises regulated by the Ministry of Foreign E c o n o m i c Relations. The Soviet Union conducts over half of its Third World trade with socialist developing countries, and of its trade with nonsocialist d e v e l o p i n g countries, 83 percent is accounted f o r by only 10

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trading partners. Of Soviet export trade with nonsocialist developing countries, 55-60 percent goes to the poorest countries (hence their large debts to the Soviet Union), whereas nearly 50 percent of Soviet imports from nonsocialist developing countries come from the richest. The Soviet trade balance with the more advanced countries of the Third World would be in far worse shape if it were not for the "residue" of unreported trade, which is probably arms deliveries. The composition of Soviet trade with the Third World betrays similar structural weaknesses. Approximately 85 percent of imports from these countries were food and raw materials including fuel in 1986 (down from 88 percent in 1980). Civilian manufactured goods accounted for 34 percent of exports to the Third World, machinery and equipment 24 percent, and the "residue" 36 percent, making it the single largest category of Soviet exports to the Third World. 16 These statistics help explain the Gorbachev leadership's interest in fundamental reform in foreign economic relations. More significantly, they help us understand why changes are not occurring overnight and cannot be accomplished by simply cutting off ties with economically burdensome clients in favor of wealthier and more advanced trading partners. Existing Third World trade provides vital food and material resources for an economy that is constantly in short supply of both. It pays for these imports in different ways, however. To socialist developing countries, it maintains trade balances, even surpluses, by exporting civilian manufactured goods. Because these countries are poor and without many import options themselves, they accept lower-quality Soviet manufactured goods as a matter of course. These goods did progressively worse on open international markets as the 1980s went on, however, and were not enough to cover trade with nonsocialist developing countries. Trade imbalances with these countries, therefore, had to be covered either by trade in the "residue" or by hard currency, which also meant arms sales. Thus, Soviet trade with the Third World has its own peculiar logic. It depends not on economic efficiency or rationality, but on patterns of trade dependence created by centralized state control and the nonconvertible ruble. This logic creates the present situation in which it is in some sense rational for the Soviet Union to heavily subsidize some of the poorest Third World economies, because they provide assured vital supplies in exchange for unmarketable Soviet goods. This particular rationality is very fragile, however, and tends to breed further irrationalities. For example, in the late 1980s the falling price of oil reduced the ability of certain countries to pay for Soviet arms in hard currency. This has resulted not only in constraints on Moscow's ability to pay for imports from the wealthier developing countries that require hard-currency payments, but also in substantial debts by those oil-exporting developing countries to whom the Soviets chose not to suspend arms deliveries, such as Syria and Iraq. Some of these dynamics have been apparent in recent difficulties with

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certain Third World allies. When Soviet officials defend trade relations with Cuba, they emphasize the import of sugar and nickel, which otherwise would have to be bought with hard currency. The primary reason for Soviet support is of course political rather than economic, but the argument demonstrates how complete the break with the old system of relations must be in order to realize new benefits at acceptable cost. The Iraq-Kuwait crisis and the Soviet decisions first to cut off arms deliveries and then to observe the UN embargo have had two costly effects. First, the embargo on Iraqi oil cuts Soviet fuel imports that were used in its east and central Asian regions, thus putting demands on oil production meant for export and cutting the volume of hardcurrency sales (whether the increase in world market oil prices offset losses is unclear). Second, the Soviet Union's position on the invasion raises the possibility that for economic and political reasons, the 3.8 billion ruble Iraqi debt will never be repaid or even recovered in the form of joint ventures or debt-equity ownership by Soviet enterprises. Of course, Western countries stand to suffer costs as a result of the war as well—such is the risk of interdependence. But these cases serve to illustrate that the traditional form of Soviet economic relations with the Third World have made it subject to most of the risks of interdependence with access to only a very skewed form of the benefits, and at very high political cost. However, change in economic relations is under way in slow and piecemeal form, despite often substantial political disruptions with traditional allies. Reforms in 1987 legalized joint ventures within the country and Soviet ownership of enterprises in other countries. The economic rationale and benefits of such changes have in one case caused a major change in political relations. Negotiations with South Korea to establish a Hyundai furniture manufacturing plant and a ship repair enterprise in Soviet east Asia quickly followed the opening of South Korean consular offices in Moscow in February 1990. These negotiations in turn smoothed the way for trade missions and shows in Moscow aimed at future ventures. However, the radical and delicate nature of the activities required official declarations that the measures were taken in the context of improving North Korean-South Korean relations, and that the Soviet Union would not grant South Korea diplomatic recognition. Improved ties were clearly in the works when Gorbachev met South Korean President Roh Tae-Woo in June 1990, but the meeting was carefully staged in San Francisco and implied no clear official change. It was followed by a month-long observance of Soviet-North Korean friendship and solidarity, accompanied by Soviet naval visitations and highlevel military consultations. As late as August, rumors that Shevardnadze's autumn visit to several Asian countries would include a stop in Seoul were quickly denied by officials. Yet, perhaps because North-South talks did go relatively well in August-September, or perhaps simply because of the degree of Soviet determination, the Soviet Union announced in September that it would

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establish diplomatic relations with South Korea. On his Asian tour, Shevardnadze told reporters that in any decision on relations with the Republic of Korea, the Soviet Union will "be acting primarily on the basis of Soviet interests." He softened this statement somewhat in talks with Kim Il-sung by emphasizing that Soviet efforts were aimed at aiding North-South détente in order to reduce the numbers of foreign military forces on the peninsula, but this was clearly a reversal in political relations opposed by North Korea. 17 This is the most dramatic example and clear linkage of Soviet redefined national interests and its behavior and relations in the Third World. The decision to end CMEA payment arrangements despite the enormous disruption in Soviet-Cuban economic and political relations is another important indicator of one strain of Soviet policy in the 1990s. The settlement in Namibia and the modification of South Africa's domestic policy also seem to have smoothed the way for Moscow's agreement with the South African-based De Beers company to market Soviet diamonds. 18 Further examples illustrate the same point: Prime Minister Ryzhkov's trip to ASEAN countries to discuss trade and economic ventures, talks with Saudi Arabia on diplomatic relations in September 1990, negotiations with other Gulf states on oil technology, and the Soviet-Iranian rapprochement (the first concrete results of which were resumption of Iranian export of natural gas to the Soviet Union). The list continues. All these examples indicate that the changing definition of the terms and form of Soviet economic interests in the international system requires certain political changes in Soviet policy that (he leadership is increasingly willing to make. Opening new ties with previously neglected Third World countries is somewhat less complicated than altering existing political-economic ties with traditional allies, although the case of Cuba suggests that the Soviet leadership is willing to let economic reform disturb political-military ties. This has been less problematic when allies seek to implement perestroika in domestic and foreign economic relations themselves. Soviet newspapers and scholarly journals carry approving reports of economic reform in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and their beneficial effects on economic relations with the Soviet Union. 19 There is a discernible absence of severe criticism of aid and subsidies to Vietnam, which are of comparable size and form as those to Cuba. Whereas the latter was the victim of a substantial and still largely unexplained disruption in wheat shipments in January 1990, the course of Soviet relations with Vietnam has been far smoother. It is not clear whether Moscow will have to make exceptions to the CMEA reform in order to maintain the smooth path, but officials seem confident that subsidies will become less vital to the Vietnamese economy if reform continues. A similar accommodation of viewpoints and economic policies has characterized relations with certain African allies. Angola was accepted as a

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m e m b e r of the I M F and World Bank in 1989, and the Soviets have subsequently rescheduled its 2 billion ruble debt. Although Soviet-Angolan trade has m a d e little progress toward the new model of market and interdependence, officials claim to be pleased by Angolan joint ventures with Western enterprises. Once again, the basis for approval is the prospect that economic ties with a developing state may become an asset rather than a liability. On his trip to several African countries, Shevardnadze emphasized the Soviet position that change in South Africa and Namibia should make the political settlement of other conflicts—particularly Angola—possible. T h e head of the African department at the Foreign Ministry in turn emphasized that a political settlement would be "quite profitable" for the Soviet Union, because it would make possible regular economic and trade relations, in addition to the direct savings from the end of the military conflict. 2 0 Another piece for the puzzle of Soviet objectives in economic relations with developing countries is provided by policy toward India. Although India is also in debt to the Soviet Union and economic relations are also structured by barter, bilateral ties, and "nonmarket" methods, it more closely meets the condition of "mutual benefit" that new thinking prescribes. Soviet-Indian trade is diverse, including raw materials, food, consumer goods, and advanced manufactured goods. The relatively advanced level of the Indian economy means that trade does not entail only transfer of Soviet technology, but it can serve as a source of Soviet development as well. Yet India is not so advanced or competitive on world markets that ventures are too expensive or require first the wholesale transformation of the Soviet economy and integration into international business standards. Economic ties with India are therefore particularly well suited to the transitional period (which one should by no means assume will be brieQ from old thinking to new thinking policies. 21 Arms

Transfers

Information on Soviet arms transfer agreements and deliveries is notoriously incomplete, and systematic compilations are (to date) available only from Western sources. Indeed, this is one of the major charges leveled against the Gorbachev government in the domestic debates over foreign policy: critics cite disturbing statistics on defense spending or arms sales and then point out that they get their figures from Western sources because they are unavailable in the Soviet Union. Although glasnost has not produced Soviet figures on its military sales, somewhat useful are official announcements of the suspension of arms deliveries, with Iraq in August 1990 as the most recent example. In October 1989 the Soviet government announced suspension of arms deliveries to Nicaragua in connection with progress toward elections and a peace settlement. In January 1990 it issued a similar announcement on further arms transfers to Cambodia. It has offered to cease arms transfers to Afghanistan if all other parties (i.e., not only the United States) agree.

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These positions therefore seem clearly linked to Soviet policy on conflict resolution rather than an overall arms policy or policy toward individual states. The Gorbachev leadership has been willing to use suspension or maintenance of arms shipments to certain allies as part of its bargaining strategy with armed opposition groups and their supporters. Shevardnadze's harder line on Soviet rights and responsibilities to provide military assistance to Angola, which he explicitly justified in terms of strong interest in and loyalty to allies facing uncompromising opponents, is evidence that certain political relations remain important enough to the Soviet government that it will hold out for a preferred compromise at some cost. 22 Overall, Soviet arms transfers to the Third World fell in the late 1980s, but this was part of a reduction in arms transfers by all major suppliers in that period, in large part because of the end of the Iran-Iraq war. In 1989 the Soviet Union remained the largest supplier of arms to developing countries, accounting for 38.4 percent ($11.2 billion) of agreements and 57.1 percent ($17.4 billion) of deliveries. It was the major supplier to the Third World for eight of the top ten recipients of arms in 1989. Saudi Arabia was the largest recipient (with the United Kingdom its major supplier) and Iran was fifth (with China its major supplier). The Soviet Union was the primary source of arms deliveries to Afghanistan, India, Iraq, Vietnam, Cuba, Syria, Libya, and Ethiopia. 2 3 Of these eight, half (India, Iraq, Syria, and Libya) can be considered lucrative partners, whereas the other four are essentially unmitigated drains on the treasury. Varying effects of different Soviet motivation for arms deliveries can be seen in changes in arms supplied in 1982-1985 and 1986-1989. Deliveries to Iraq fell in the later period from $11.4 billion to $10.7 billion, while those to Cuba grew from $5.3 billion to $6.2 billion. Similarly, total arms deliveries to Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Angola (all of which are supplied almost entirely by the Soviet Union) increased in the 1986-1989 period, while countries such as Libya and Syria reduced their purchases. Afghanistan went from being the tenth largest Third World recipient of arms in 19821985 to second in 1989, receiving $3.8 billion in that year alone. 24 These variations illustrate the role of market and demand in Soviet arms transfers to friendly paying customers, exemplified by Iraq. They show that such factors still meant little under new thinking for close socialist allies (Cuba and Vietnam), where political ties and alliance commitments ensured a steady supply of arms despite the recipients' inability to pay. Finally, they demonstrate that the implementation of new thinking in some conflicts meant a substantial increase of Soviet assistance to allied governments fighting resistance groups armed by external powers. Therefore, the future of Moscow's arms transfers to the Third World must remain a matter of considerable speculation based on different incentives and contradictory trends. The Soviet Union has had and continues to have an

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interest in selling arms for hard currency (or for oil that can be converted into hard currency). But those sales depend on demand, which is uncertain and which the Soviets themselves help depress by seeking resolution of regional crises. Further, the Soviet suspension of arms to Iraq shows that the domination of political rationale over economic incentives in Third World arms sales can under certain conditions lead to reduced arms sales. In other cases, Soviet political rationale and commitment to allies is likely to support arms assistance programs to a few Third World countries regardless of cost or efficiency. Finally, a genuine Soviet commitment to negotiated resolution of regional conflicts does not automatically entail a unilateral suspension of arms supplies to its allies. The form and magnitude of Soviet aid in these cases seems to depend on a number of conditions that are part of the intricate international political bargaining over the terms of conflict resolution. Conflict

Resolution

The third area in which we expect changed Soviet policy toward the Third World is military conflicts—primarily between Soviet allied and internal opposition groups funded and supported to varying degrees by other countries. Because new thinking claims a major réévaluation of both the usefulness of military force and the validity of socialist-capitalist dichotomy for Soviet security, the basic j u s t i f i c a t i o n for supporting weak, nondemocratic regimes seems out of date. The early call for "national reconciliation" and political negotiations in local and regional conflicts, however, seems to many observers to be contradicted by continued and even increased Soviet arms transfers to allies engaged in such conflicts. 25 However, expectations of massive and unilateral Soviet withdrawals from Third World conflicts are based on a misreading of new thinking. Soviet analysts concluded that strong opposition movements and foreign support were a result of (1) ill-conceived radical domestic political and economic programs and (2) large and direct Soviet military intervention. The result of the latter was strengthening of internal resistance and the development of the Reagan Doctrine as rationale for counterrevolutionary support. Therefore, the expectation had been that the removal of direct Soviet intervention would lead to the collapse of support for armed oppositions, while some measure of political-economic change would eliminate overly ambitious and illconceived domestic policies. The result would be a broadening and strengthening of existing regimes by political means. From the official Soviet perspective, continued Soviet military aid is necessary when armed oppositions and their patrons fail to meet these expectations and refuse to agree to a cessation of the arms flow and to negotiations under an amnesty and/or a process of UN-sponsored elections. Thus, practice in the past few years illuminates an important qualification in new thinking: the military instrument is not useless. It may be less useful than political means and it cannot be used to resolve conflicts by itself, but it clearly has a role.

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The successful Namibia-Angola settlement of 1988 is an example. The agreement provided for parallel withdrawal of Cuban and South African troops, and elections under UN supervision. Both the outcome and the process of negotiations are often held up as examples of national reconciliation and political resolution of conflicts by Soviet officials. 26 Unfortunately, the condition that permitted symmetrical positions of political and military terms in the Namibian case was the absence of an existing government allied with any one foreign power, and this condition was unique. The resolution of armed conflict in Nicaragua illustrates the confounding influence of competitive arms transfers in Soviet policy. Until 1989 it was plausible to conclude that new thinking did not mean an end to substantial support for inflexible "reconciliation" policies and military solutions to political disputes, because high levels of military and economic aid to the Sandinista government provided little incentive to seek negotiations and compromise. When the erosion of US congressional support for military aid to the contras reduced the importance of military balancing, Gorbachev announced a suspension of military deliveries to the Nicaraguan government in October 1989. Mutual restraint did not have symmetric effects, because the Sandinista army was far better equipped than the contras. But this misses the point. The political process was advanced—and the Sandinistas not only lost but abided by the elections—because the principle of mutual restraint supported Moscow's argument that it relied on military aid only to defend an ally against armed conflict. Soviet officials were probably surprised by the outcome of the February 1990 elections, but having bargained themselves into a position where they had to support the principles of new thinking despite the loss of an allied regime, the leadership endorsed the new government and promised to observe its economic assistance commitments for the year. 27 The continuing role of "balance of power" factors and material support for existing allies has played a major role in Soviet behavior and negotiating positions on conflict resolution in the past few years. As discussed earlier, military deliveries to many allies (especially Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, and Ethiopia) increased in 1987-1989. There are still 1,000 Soviet military advisors in Angola (though not in combat roles), and Soviet aid for 1990 is estimated at $800 million. That in turn seems small when compared to the $300 million per month Moscow spends to support the government in Afghanistan. The reason consistently given by officials for this aid is to counterbalance foreign aid to armed opposition forces. These patterns make clear that Soviet security policy has retained and even reinforced the fundamental notion of state sovereignty and distinguishes the legitimacy of its state-to-state aid from that of foreign-backed insurgencies. Nevertheless, there is some flexibility on this issue that hints of modification in competitive arming of allies, as the Nicaraguan case shows. In fact, even after the US invasion of Panama, which Moscow strongly

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condemned as a violation of international law and as a source of further instability in the region, the Soviet Union did not even threaten to reverse its suspension of a r m s to the region. Furthermore, the Soviet Union has implicitly recognized some equivalence between its aid to states and that of "foreign interference" in calling for mutual suspension of arms transfers in Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Angola rather than in demanding a unilateral suspension of aid to nonstate groups. In addition, Shevardnadze has exhibited some willingness to acknowledge the fact that states would have advantages over opposition groups in any mutual cessation of arms deliveries by raising the possibility that settlement terms could include provisions for reducing arms stockpiles as well. The government has also announced its plan to reduce the size of the Soviet air and naval presence at Cam Ranh Bay. From this, it seems that Soviet policy implementation of conflict resolution under new thinking requires at least that Soviet allies not be seen as driven from power by force of arms. At worst they should be removed from office by internationally supervised and legitimate elections. 2 8 The key is the Soviet Union's ability to maintain its status as a primary international actor that can guarantee a legitimate and just process of conflict resolution, if not a particular outcome. M o s c o w ' s policy toward Ethiopia at the end of 1989 did not fit this argument. T h e Eritrean and Tigrean oppositions are funded by outside powers, but the amount of arms is not itself the basis of a military threat. Indeed, it has been suggested that Ethiopian military incompetence is viewed as a greater source of threat. Reports show that the opposition forces capture much of their military material from the army, and that they make more effective use of it. 29 Yet military deliveries continued in substantial amounts, and Soviet military advisors were actively involved in military operations. There were plenty of indications that Moscow pressed Ethiopian president Mengistu Haile Mariam to negotiate, but ongoing military support in this case belied any Soviet preference for a suspension of military activity in support of negotiations. T w o developments in Soviet-Ethiopian relations indicate that new thinking rationales are finally beginning to affect Soviet policies more consistently. First, in February 1990 the Soviet government announced the withdrawal of Soviet military advisors from counterinsurgency operations in Ethiopia. This announcement was accompanied by extensive and selfcongratulatory coverage in the Soviet press that noted that for the first time in years, no Soviet soldiers were engaged in fighting overseas. A spokesperson noted that the terms of the Soviet-Ethiopian treaty provided for Soviet assistance in defense against foreign invasion, a condition that conflict in the Horn does not meet. Second, the Soviet government reversed a decade-long campaign to get the Mengistu regime more firmly on the path of a socialist orientation at the end of March 1990, when it supported the Ethiopian government's decision

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to relegate the goal of socialism to the distant future and to approve the use of private enterprise and market mechanisms to reform the economy. The Gorbachev leadership may have begun to take more seriously the need for internal modification and compromise in national reconciliation policies, rather than merely the need to offer amnesty and free elections. Hints of such a change have emerged in other cases as well. When the two Yemens merged in May 1990, the new unified government also announced its move away from socialist political and economic policies. A major factor in progress on the C a m b o d i a n conflict was the Hun Sen g o v e r n m e n t ' s acceptance in principle of a joint national council with opposition leaders before actual elections are held. 30 Similarly, Soviet prompting is likely behind the P D P A ' s decision at its party congress in July 1990 to declare an end to the party's political monopoly. A f g h a n president Najibullah made several trips to Moscow. While expression of support and solidarity are always in the forefront, there have also been hints that the Gorbachev leadership has increased its emphasis on internal refonn and compromise as part of its conflict resolution package. The Soviet foreign ministry released a report of talks between Mohammed Najibullah and Gorbachev that emphasized the Soviet leader's discussion of Afghan perestroika and improvements in its socioeconomic situation as the path to solving its problems; the talks did not focus on external interference or arms shipments. M o s c o w ' s official position still focuses primarily on international behavior and demands that arms to the rebels be stopped as the condition necessary for elections and peaceful resolution. But it is another indication that the leadership's national reconciliation formula takes seriously the internal component of conflict resolution that requires Soviet allies to implement some form of political and economic reform as a precondition for genuine cease-fire and elections. This has appeared also in the case of Angola. Along with the normal discussion of external interference by South Africa and Zaire that enables UNITA to operate, coverage in the Soviet press emphasizes the Angolan government's planned constitutional changes, liberal economic reforms, and guarantee of full rights of political participation to all UNITA members. 3 1 W e should be cautious in concluding that the Gorbachev leadership is willing to move very far in pressing for internal compromise as a method of resolving regional conflicts. First, we do not know but can only guess that the Soviets are pressing moderation on reluctant allies. In the case of Ethiopia, for example, the Soviets for years pushed a reluctant Mengistu to radicalize his party, so the recent shift is not a simple result of Soviet pressure. Second, most Soviet conflict resolution activity still focuses on arms suppliers, cease-fire terms, and negotiations or elections under international supervision. The preceding examples are important because they illustrate a new element in Soviet policies that may contribute to solutions because regime dominance is precisely what is at issue for most Third World

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opposition movements. But even dependent Soviet clients may resist when faced with internal reform (such as Cuba), and the ultimate Soviet sanction (an end to support and assistance) is a costly option. Soviet policy does not encompass abandoning commitments to allies in every instance in order to resolve militarized conflicts. Another suggestive shift in some Soviet discussion of Afghanistan, Angola, and Cambodia is the willingness to distinguish US positions and behavior from that of other outside states or from that of opposition groups. Of course, any Soviet willingness to make these distinctions depends first on US willingness to make the same distinctions. In June 1990, the Soviet foreign ministry reported on a Shevardnadze-Hun Sen meeting by praising the progress made in earlier talks between Hun Sen and Norodom Sihanouk, but it came to pessimistic conclusions regarding regional security because of the persistent "obstructionist position" of the Khmer Rouge. Until the United States itself took a clear stand on its opposition to the Khmer Rouge within the rebel coalition, such Soviet distinctions could be suspected as attempts to divide the enemy. With the US change, prospects for more superpower consensus and leadership as a condition for conflict resolution became a major point of emphasis in Soviet reporting on the negotiations. Increased discussion and common positions by Washington and Moscow "as guarantors of the Geneva agreements" on the internal terms for transition and elections in Afghanistan reported in August also distinguish the US position from Pakistani support for the more radical and intractable rebel groups in that conflict. The trend has most recently extended to talks on Angola, in which the United States and the Soviet Union are close to an agreement on terms for a cease-fire, elections, and joint superpower monitoring of the process. 32 The Gulf War in two important respects is very different from these cases of conflict resolution under new thinking, because it does not involve a close Soviet ally, nor is it an internal armed conflict. Yet most of the issues discussed in this chapter are also important in Soviet policy toward the crisis and war despite Soviet-US agreement on the fundamental issues. This demonstrates the furthest extent to which abstract new thinking precepts have come to affect concrete Soviet policy toward security in the Third World. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait quite simply presented a stark test for the major claims of Soviet policy. It was a clear violation of international sovereignty, and it immediately engaged the issue of the acceptability and usability of military force in international matters. The Soviet government could not have defended Saddam Hussein, or remained silent, with these principles intact. Moscow not only condemned the invasion and called for unconditional withdrawal in a highly visible joint appearance by Shevardnadze and US Secretary of State James Baker in Moscow, but it was also perhaps the first state to back its condemnation with action by immediately suspending arms deliveries to Iraq.33

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The second factor dominating Soviet policy has been its reliance on international institutions, the United Nations in particular, to manage and resolve the crisis. The initial UN Security Council resolutions condemning the invasion, calling for withdrawal, and imposing economic sanctions are less important in this regard than the development of strong differences in the right to unilateral policing of the blockade and approval by the United Nations of military action. The Soviet government did not object to the US military presence and defense of Saudi Arabia, although some have pointed to the threat of a new permanent US overseas military presence. Gorbachev stated that the US deployment was the legitimate response to the Saudi Arabian government's request for defense assistance. At the Helsinki meeting on September 9, 1990, he was careful to note that the US forces were stationed there only temporarily to defend against the Iraqi threat. But a very clear conflict emerged when the United States claimed the right to enforce the blockade or use force to eject Iraq from Kuwait without explicit UN Security Council approval and Moscow held that any unilateral military action (other than in self-defense) was not legal. As early as August 9 the Soviet government proposed activation of the UN Security Council's Military Staff Committee as the means by which to implement any military action in the crisis. The Soviet position on the use of its military in the crisis remained consistent throughout: the Soviet Union would only consider sending military forces under the UN flag. 34 Soviet behavior in the Iraq crisis therefore gives us an idea of how the Gorbachev leadership can implement its new Third World policies under certain conditions, especially when the choices are fairly sharp. It also demonstrates that Moscow's Third World policy is not merely a function of superpower relations. It is not correct to conclude that the Gorbachev government has caved in to US pressure on the crisis in order to gain economic aid. This reflects a US-centric view of the crisis in which everyone has come to agree with the United States, when in fact what has occurred is the development and reinforcement of a common set of interests and mutual policy adjustments. Both the disagreement on use of military forces and the presence of Soviet military advisors in Iraq were evidence of conflicts of interest and policies. In the Soviet case, we are observing the behavioral and policy effects of the shift in priorities and self-defined interests in the international system and the Third World. It is common for Soviet analysts to point out that under new thinking the Soviet Union has linked its national interest to the development of a particular international political and economic order that is directly threatened by Iraq's action. It is true that Soviet material interests are involved, but as with many other governments supporting the embargo, interests are engaged mostly indirectly, through support for a particular international order exemplified in this case by the United Nations. Soviet officials seem much more concerned by the potential for and effects of escalation than do US officials, probably

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because of relative Soviet proximity to the Gulf. Furthermore, Moscow argued early in the crisis that continued contacts with Iraq were an advantage, because the Soviets could aid in finding a political solution. Although Soviet-Iraqi contacts did not produce a breakthrough, the Soviet position may be seen as a reflection of its comparative advantage in the crisis, which results from its better ties with many Arab states and its long-standing support for an international conference on Arab-Israeli issues and the Palestinian question. Soviet policy did not waver from the basic position that Iraq must unconditionally withdraw from Kuwait, although Gorbachev sought to use Soviet access to Saddam Hussein to construct some means for an Iraqi withdrawal up until the United States launched military action on January 16, 1991. 35 This case clearly demonstrates at least some of the effects of new thinking on Soviet policy toward regional conflicts. The Soviet position against Iraq has been taken despite the benefits of Soviet-Iraqi relations because of larger, more long-term interests in economic development and international participation. The Soviet positions for the United Nations and against the unilateral use of military force are consistent with the broad principles of new thinking as well. But the crisis demonstrated that Soviet new thinking does not mean a one-to-one correspondence in Soviet-Western interests. S u c h d i f f e r e n c e s are not the result of duplicity or cynical opportunism, but genuinely different national interests and positions. The question in other cases and crises that will arise in the 1990s is whether Soviet policies and stakes are such that there is enough common interest to p e r m i t c o m p r o m i s e and negotiation under bilateral or multilateral mechanisms. The evidence from Soviet economic, military, and conflict resolution policies as of 1990 is that the early implementation of new thinking does create such space, but that the degree depends on context and may take time and effort to develop. Some

Conclusions

Any realistic appraisal of likely Soviet policy toward the Third World in the 1990s must recognize that the turmoil in official statements and behavior as of early 1991 are an uncertain basis for prediction. Yet we can begin to identify more reliable indicators because patterns emerge that point to Soviet reasonings and stakes that are likely to be more durable. In this respect, the most important pattern is the degree to which the Gorbachev leadership is willing to alter political relations in pursuit of both profitable bilateral economic relations and international integration. The Korean case was in some respects easy because the economic benefits were so great and S o v i e t North Korean political relations have often been so rocky. Many Soviet socialist and socialist-oriented allies have made the choice easier themselves by adopting various economic and political reforms that the Soviets approve.

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Yet the slow pace of expansion in economic relations with capitalist Third World developing countries, despite plenty of evidence of Soviet eagerness for such ties, suggests that a large-scale change in economic relations with most Third World countries will be a long time in coming because of the structural weaknesses of the Soviet economy. Individual agreements between Soviet and Third World enterprises or governments may be quite profitable, but we are very unlikely to see much effect of these relations in overall Soviet trade with and investment in the Third World. Soviet arms sales to the Third World are unlikely to be driven entirely by economic factors. They earned hard currency in the 1980s but now seem more likely to add to Soviet debt figures. Soviet arms sales will continue, but they are unlikely to contribute much to the solution of hard-currency or development problems. Arms transfers (not sales) probably will continue to play a major role in Soviet regional conflict policies as long as these conflicts are characterized by the efforts of multiple states and actors to achieve military balancing. By 1990, Soviet leaders made it very clear that new thinking in Soviet policy toward the Third World will support close allies that are fighting groups funded or supplied by other states. T h e issue for conflict resolution policy has become the form of mechanisms and compromise that Moscow believes its allies should find acceptable. Through the late 1980s, these terms were rather inflexible, and the Gorbachev leadership proved willing to pay the political and economic costs of increased arms shipments to press them. But by 1990, there were some indications that the Soviet leadership expected its allies to be more adaptable on several points: political and economic reforms, terms of political amnesty, and terms for interim government structures and election procedures. Because the US position on these issues also seems to have undergone some change, advances in negotiations are likely to produce some agreements that will enable the Soviet government to stop arms supplies in support of a political process it can justify as an international power. But as Shevardnadze stated, Soviet security relations with Third World allies will be based on criteria of " d e f e n s e sufficiency," so we are going to see a continuing, if different, mix of military and economic relations in the next decade. Ultimately, new thinking in policy and practice depends on the direction and resilience of Soviet domestic political and economic reform. Under a different leadership, or a Gorbachev leadership that alters its goals and priorities, the incentives for participation in the international economy could easily become less compelling. On the one hand, leadership that defined Soviet security in isolationist terms would be likely to pursue politicalmilitary relations with neighboring Third World countries to safeguard its borders and would exhibit little interest in an elaborate set of economic ties. On the other hand, a reversion to traditional Soviet goals and worldview would produce an activist policy similar to that of the past. Both views are

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expressed by important groups and individuals in Soviet politics. It would take a substantial, though by no means impossible, change in Moscow's domestic politics for either view to replace new thinking. Unless such a leadership change occurs, new thinking's version of internationalism will be the basis of Soviet policy toward the Third World in the 1990s.

Notes 1 . F o r detailed analyses of Soviet policy toward the Third World, see Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World: An Economic Bind ( N e w York: Praeger, 1983); S. Neil MacFarlane, Superpower Rivalry and Third World Radicalism: The Idea of National Liberation (Baltimore: J o h n s H o p k i n s University Press, 1985); Francis Fukuyama, Moscow's Post-Brezhnev Reassessment of the Third World (Santa Monica, Calif.: R A N D , 1986); Mark N. Katz, The Third World in Soviet Military Thought (Baltimore: Johns H o p k i n s University Press, 1982); G e o r g e W. Breslauer, "Ideology and Learning in Soviet T h i r d W o r l d P o l i c y , " World Politics 39, no. 3 (1987): 4 2 9 - 4 4 8 . On n e w thinking, see V. Kubalkova and A. A. Cruickshank, Thinking About Soviet New Thinking, R e s e a r c h Series, no. 74, Institute for International and Area Studies, U n i v e r s i t y of C a l i f o r n i a , Berkeley; Stephen M . M e y e r , " T h e Sources a n d Prospects of G o r b a c h e v ' s N e w Political Thinking on Security," International Security 13, no. 2 (1988): 124-163. 2. G . S h a k h n a z a r o v " V o s t o k - z a p a d : k v o p r o s u o d e i d e o l o g i z a t s i i m e z h g o s u d a r s t v e n n y k h o t n o s h e n i y " [ E a s t - w e s t : t o w a r d the i s s u e of deideologization of interstate relations], Kommunist, no. 3 (1989): 67-78. 3. See especially Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World; Katz, The Third World in Soviet Military Thought; and Jerry F. Hough, The Struggle for the Third World: Soviet Debates and American Options (Washington, D.C.: T h e B r o o k i n g s Institution, 1986). I do not propose to document and categorize this debate, only to s h o w how the existence of dissent relates to the difficulty in translating abstract principles of new thinking to concrete policies. 4. " V y s o k a y a otvetstvennost ofitsera: vystupleniye chlona presidentskogo soveta, ministra oborny SSSR Marshala Sovetskogo Soyuza D.T. Yazov pered o f i t s e r s k i m s o s t a v o m v r a i o n e u c h e n i y a 17 a v g u s t a 1990 g o d a " [ H i g h e s t responsibility of the o f f i c e r : address of m e m b e r of the Presidential Council, Minister of Defense, Marshal of the Soviet Union D.T. Yazov before staff officers in the area of exercises, 17 August 1990], Krasnaya zvezda, 19 Aug. 1990, p. 2. 5. A n d r e i Kortunov, "Soviet Foreign Aid," Moscow News, no. 49, 3 - 1 0 Dec. 1989; Yelena A r e f y e v a , "Miloserdiye ili vsyo zhe ideologiya?" [Charity or all the s a m e ideology?], Izvestiya, 24 July 1990, 1; Aleksei Izyumov, " A Voice ' A g a i n s t , ' " Moscow News, no. 7, 25 F e b . - 4 Mar. 1990. 6. Critical perspectives include Yuri Kornilov, "Idut tankery na Kubu . . ." [Tankers go to C u b a . . .], Ogonyok, no. 7, Feb. 1990, pp. 2 5 - 2 6 ; S e r g e i T a r a s e n k o , " A b o u t Sugar with a Bitter T a s t e " Moscow News, no. 52, 31 Dec. 1 9 8 9 - 6 Jan. 1990. Defense of government policy is advanced in Sergo Mikoyan, " A Voice ' F o r ' " Moscow News, no. 7, 25 F e b . - 4 Mar. 1990; interview with Valentin Falin (head of the C P S U Central Committee International Department), "Narody v s p o m n a t " [Nations will remember], Rabochaya Tribuna, 8 July 1990, p. 3; A. K a m o r i n , " S S S R - K u b a : uvelichen obyom torgovli" [USSR-Cuba: increased volume of trade], Izvestiya, 19 Apr. 1990, p. 4; interview with Leonid I. Abalkin,

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deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, "We Value Friendship with Cuba," Pravda, 20 Apr. 1990, p. 6, in FBIS-SOV-90-078, 23 Apr. 1990, pp. 45^46. Ryzhkov's disclosures were reported in "Unikalnyy dokument: komu my dali 'v dolg' 85,800,000,000 rubley?" [A unique document: to whom did we give 'in duty' 85.8 billion rubles?], Izvestiya, 1 Mar. 1990, p. 1. 7. Interview with A. V. Kozyrev, head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs International Organizations administration, "My i nashe oruzhiya" [We and our weapons], Izvestiya, 20 Feb. 1990, p. 5 (the largest debts are owed by Cuba, Vietnam, Mongolia, India, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Algeria, North Korea, Angola, Yemen, Egypt, and Libya); "The ANT Syndrome: Three Questions Arise over a Co-op Scandal of State Importance," Moscow News, 1-8 Apr. 1990, p. 6; "Who Needed the Tanks: Admissions by Leaders of the ANT Concern," Moscow News, 8 - 1 5 Apr. 1990, p. 10. 8. "Rech Prezidenta SSSR M. S. Gorbacheva na vneocherednom tretyem sezde narodnykh deputatov SSSR" [Speech of President M. S. Gorbachev at the extraordinary third Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR], Veslnik Ministerstva inostrannykh del SSSR (hereafter, Veslnik MID), no. 7, 15 Apr. 1990, pp. 4 - 6 ; p. 5. "In line with international practice: on changes in the foreign economic practices of the Soviet Union," Veslnik, Sept. 1990, p. 4; Interview with Foreign Minister Shevardnadze, 30 Mar. 1990, in FBIS-SOV-90063, 2 Apr. 1990, pp. 24-25. 9. "Vystupleniye E. A. Shevardnadze" [Address of E. A. Shevardnadze], and "Otvety E. A. Shevardnadze na voprosy delagatov sezda" [Answers of E. A. Shevardnadze to questions of Congress delegates], Veslnik MID, no. 14, 31 July 1990, pp. 3 - 9 . 10. For an extremely critical analysis of Soviet policy—past and present— for the self-defeating effects of unilateral and aggressive political-military policy, see Andrei Kolosov, "Reappraisal of USSR Third World Policy," International Affairs, no. 5 (1990): 34-42. 11. Quote is in Andrei Kolosovsky, "Risk Zones in the Third World," International Affairs 8 (1989): 39-49, at 44. (Kolosovsky is Assistant Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.) Other points are found in Vadim Udalov, "Balance of Power and Balance of Interests," International Affairs, no. 6 (1990): 14-22 (Udalov is First Secretary of the Scientific Coordination Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs); Vladimir F. Petrovskiy, "Postkonfrontatsionnaya perspektiva O O N " [A postconfrontation perspective on the UN], Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya, no. 4 (1990): 16-23, esp. 22 (Petrovskiy is Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs). Shevardnadze's letter was printed in "Pismo E. A. Shevardnadze generalnomu sekretaryu OON" [Letter of E. A. Shevardnadze to the General Secretary of the UN], Izvestia, 16 Aug. 1990, p. 4. 12. A. Kortunov and A. Izyumov, "Shto ponimat pod gosudarstvennymi interecami vo vneshney politike" [What to understand by state interests in foreign policy], Literaturnaya Gazeta, 11 July 1990, p. 14. 13. Igor Ye. Artemov and Sergey S. Stankovskiy, "GATT i interesy SSSR" [ G A T T and the interests of the Soviet Union], Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya, no. 8 (1989): 3 4 - 4 4 , esp. 36-37; Nikolai Volkov, "Cooperation with the Third World," International Affairs, no. 9 (1989): 103-110, esp. 109-110. 14. "Vstupitelnoye slovo M. S. Gorbacheva" [Introductory words of M. S. Gorbachev], Pravda, 19 Jan. 1990, pp. 1-2, at p. 2; Ernest Ye. Obminskiy and Boris I. Slavnyy "Perspektivy progressa i 'tretiy mir'" [Perspectives of progress and the 'third world'], Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya, no. 4 (1990): 7 2 - 8 5 , at p. 81; Ernest Obminskiy, "The World Economy:

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A p p r o a c h e s to R e g u l a t i o n , " International Affairs, no. 5 (1990): 9 - 2 2 ; at pp. 9, 18-20. 15. O n government reasoning for a ruble market value see Ivan D. Ivanov, " P e r e s t r o i k a v n e s h n e e k o n o m i c h e s k i k h s v y a z e y v S S S R : p e r v y y e itogi i o s n o v n y y e p r o b l e m y " [Perestroika of foreign economic relations in the Soviet Union: first steps and basic problems], Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya, no. 10 (1989): 5 - 1 4 , esp. 8 - 1 0 ; Interview with K. F. Katushev, Minister of Foreign E c o n o m i c Relations, 30 July 1990, F B I S - S O V - 9 0 - 1 4 8 , 1 Aug. 1990, p. 1. 16. G i o v a n n i Graziani, Gorbachev's Economic Strategy in the Third World ( N e w York: Praeger, 1990): 3 1 - 3 3 , 39, 46. M.Foreign Trade, issued by the Ministry of Foreign E c o n o m i c Relations, regularly reports on trade agreements and successes. On relations with Korea, see M. Yusin, " S e u l i M o s k v a gotovy ustanovit diplomaticheskiye o t n o s h e n i y a ? " [Are Seoul and M o s c o w ready to establish diplomatic relations?], Izvestiya, 11 Sept. 1990, p. 5; " S S S R - K N D R : rabochiy vizit E. A. Shevardnadze v K N D R " [ U S S R - D P R K : working visit of E. A. Shevardnadze to the DPRK], Vestnik MID, no. 18 (30 Sept. 1990): 11-12. 18. Ye. G u s e y n o v , " N o v y y pokupatel sovetskikh a l m a z o v " [New buyer for Soviet d i a m o n d s ] , Izvestiya, 26 July 1990. p. 4. 19. Yevgeni Leng, "Vietnam: Private Sector and C o m m o n Interests," Asia and Africa Today, no. 2 (1989): 4 2 - 4 5 ; V. Golobokov and V. Trubnikov, " V y b o r puti r a z v i t i y a — L a o s s k i y v a r i a n t " [Choice of the path of d e v e l o p m e n t — t h e Laotian variant], Kommunist, no. 9 (1989): 9 7 - 1 0 6 ; B. Vinogradov, "Staraya k o l e y a i n o v y y m e k h a n i z m : na p u t a k h perestroiki s o v e t s k o - v y e t n a m s k i k h e k o n o m i c h e s k i k h s v y a z e y " [An old rut and a new m e c h a n i s m : t o w a r d a restructuring of Soviet-Vietnamese economic ties], Izvestiya, 4 Feb. 1990, p. 5. 20. " R a b o c h i y vizit E. A. Shevardnadze v Angolu 1 8 - 1 9 m a r t a " [Working visit of E. A. Shevardnadze in Angola, 18-19 March], Vestnik MID, no. 8 (30 Apr. 1990): 8 - 9 ; Interview with Yuriy Yukalov in F B I S - S O V - 9 0 - 0 8 6 , 3 M a y 1990, p. 18. 21. T h e s e observations are based on arguments made by Soviet government officials on the advantages of economic relations with India. See interviews with G. A . S h c h e r b o v , Soviet trade representative, and L. A. Voronin, first d e p u t y chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers, "Kogda kredity oplachivayutsya v s r o k " [ W h e n credits are repaid in time], Izvestiya, 19 July 1990, p. 5; and "Partnery so s t a z h e m : na voprosy otveshayet pervyy zamestitel Predsedatelya Soveta Ministrov S S S R " [Partners with a length of service: first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers], Pravda, 20 Feb. 1990, p. 5. 22. "Vizit E. A. Shevardnadze v Nikaragua" [Visit of E. A. Shevardnadze in N i c a r a g u a ] a n d " Z a y a v l e n i y e na p r e s s - k o n f e r e n t s i i " [Statement at the p r e s s c o n f e r e n c e ] , Pravda, 6 Oct. 1989, p. 5. Shevardnadze explained the decision as Soviet recognition that the region was "oversaturated" with arms. "Otvety E . A. S h e v a r d n a d z e na v o p r o s y i s p a n s k o g o i n f o r m a t s i o n n o g o a g e n t s t v a E F E 8 d e k a b r y a " [ A n s w e r s of E . A. S h e v a r d n a d z e to q u e s t i o n s of the S p a n i s h information a g e n c y EFE, 8 December], Vestnik MID, no. 1 (15 Jan. 1990): 2 0 21. His other c o m m e n t s are in "Intervyu E. A. Shevardnadze korrespondentam vyetnamskogo informatsionnogo agentstva i kambodzhiyskogo informatsionnogo agentstva 6 y a n v a r y a " [Interview with E. A. Shevardnadze by c o r r e s p o n d e n t s of t h e V i e t n a m e s e i n f o r m a t i o n a g e n c y a n d C a m b o d i a n information agency, 6 January], Vestnik MID, no. 2 (31 Jan. 1990): 17-18; E. A. Shevardnadze, " A f g a n i s t a n — t r u d n a y a doroga k miru" [Afghanistan—the difficult road to peace], Izvestiya, 14 Feb. 1990, p. 5; "Rabochiy vizit E. A. Shevardnadze

SOVIET POLICY

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65

v Angolu 1 8 - 1 9 marta" [Working visit of E. A. Shevardnadze to Angola, 1 8 - 1 9 March], Vestnik MID, no. 8 (30 Apr. 1990): 8. 2 3 . C o n g r e s s i o n a l R e s e a r c h S e r v i c e , Trends in Conventional Arms Transfers to the Third World by Major Supplier, 1982-1989 (Washington, D.C.: US G o v e r n m e n t Printing O f f i c e , (1990): 4 1 ^ t 2 , 5 0 - 5 1 , 60. 24. Ibid.: 5 8 - 6 1 . See also Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (Washington, D.C.: U S G o v e r n m e n t Printing O f f i c e , 1990). 25. For such perspectives, see Howard J. Wiarda, " U . S . S . R . - C u b a Alliance and R e g i o n a l Conflicts: Trust but V e r i f y , " and Jiri Valenta, " M o s c o w ' s ' N e w T h i n k i n g ' a n d T h i r d W o r l d R e g i o n a l C o n f l i c t s : S o m e C o n c l u s i o n s , " in Gorbachev's New Thinking and Third World Conflicts, eds. Jiri Valenta and Frank Cubulka ( N e w Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1990). 26. Shevardnadze repeatedly invoked the Namibian settlement as a model for Angola, and for conflict resolution in general, on his March 1990 trip to Africa. " M a r s h r u t — k yugu ot Sakhary: intervyu E. A. Shevardnadze korrenspondentu agenstva pechati ' N o v o s t i ' " [Route—south of the Sahara: interview with E. A. S h e v a r d n a d z e by correspondent of the press agency ' N o v o s t i ' ] , Izvestiya, 17 Mar. 1990, p. 5. 27. S e r g o A. M i k o y a n , "Soviet Foreign Policy and Latin A m e r i c a , " The Washington Quarterly 13, no. 3 (1990): 1 7 9 - 1 9 1 , at 184; Ye. B a y and M. K o z h u k o v , " S a n d i n i s t y perekhodat v o p p o z i t s i y u " [Sandinistas m o v e o v e r to o p p o s i t i o n ] , Izvestiya, 27 Feb. 1990, p. 4; Interview with D e p u t y Foreign Minister V. G. Komplektov, Pravda, 22 Apr. 1990, p. 5, in F B I S - S O V - 9 0 - 0 8 2 , 27 Apr. 1990, p. 35. 28. " Z a y a v l e n i y e s o v e t s k o g o p r a v i t e l s t v a " [ S t a t e m e n t of the S o v i e t g o v e r n m e n t ] , Pravda, 22 Dec. 1989, p. 1; E. A. Shevardnadze, " A f g a n i s t a n — trudnaya doroga k m i r u " [Afghanistan—the difficult road to peace], Izvestiya, 14 Feb. 1990, p. 5; " B r i f i n g v presstsentre MID S S S R " [Briefing in the Foreign Ministry press center], Pravda, 19 Jan. 1990, p. 5. 2 9 . Strategic Survey: 1989-1990 ( L o n d o n : International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1990): 8 8 - 9 2 . 30. Report on statement by Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesperson Gennadi Gerasimov by M o s c o w International Service in FBIS-SOV-90-032, 15 Feb. 1990, p. 33; " D v a Y e m e n a — o d n a strana" [Two Yemens—one country], Pravda, 24 May 1990, p. 5; " S h e v a r d n a d z e Meets with C a m b o d i a ' s Hun Sen," FBIS-SOV-90-112, 11 J u n e 1990, p. 21. 31. " S S S R - A f g a n i s t a n : prezident Nadzhibulla v S S S R " [USSR-Afghanistan: President N a j i b u l l a h in the U S S R ] , Vesnik MID, no. 14 (31 July 1990): 2 - 3 ; V. Tyurkin, " R a u n d tretiy nachalsya" [Round three begins], Pravda, 30 Aug. 1990, p. 4. 32. " V s t r e c h a E . A. S h e v a r d n a d z e c Khun S e n o m " [Meeting of E. A. Shevardnadze with Hun Sen], Vestnik MID, no. 12 (30 June 1990): 74; A S P report (Paris), 19 July 1990, in "Rogachev Lauds U.S. Policy C h a n g e on C a m b o d i a , " F B I S - S O V - 9 0 - 1 4 0 , 2 0 July 1990, p. 5 (Igor R o g a c h e v is a d e p u t y foreign m i n i s t e r ) ; " I t o g i s o v e t s k o g o - a m e r i k a n s k o y vstrechi v I r k u t s k e " [Results of Soviet-American meeting in Irkutsk], Pravda, 3 Aug. 1990, p. 4. 33. See the Soviet coverage in Vestnik, Sept. 1990, pp. 14-20. 34. "Press-konferentsiya prezidentov SSSR i S S h A " [Press conference of the presidents of the U S S R and U S A ] , Pravda, 11 Sept. 1990, pp. 1, 4, at p. 4; Statement by Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesperson Gennadi G e r a s i m o v , F B I S S O V - 9 0 - 1 8 8 , 27 Sept. 1990, p. 12. 35. " Z a y a v l e n i y e M I D S S S R " [Statement of the Soviet Foreign Ministry],

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Pravda, 10 Aug. 1990, p. 4; "Krizis v raione Persidskogo zaliva" [Crisis in the area of the Persian G u l f ] (interview with Shevardnadze on decision of the U N Security C o u n c i l to e n f o r c e sanctions against Iraq), Vestnik MID, no. 18 (30 Sept. 1990): 2 5 - 2 6 ; T A S S report of Moscow News interview with G o r b a c h e v , F B I S - S O V - 9 0 - 1 6 9 , 3 0 A u g . 1990, p. 13; " Z a y a v l e n i y e P r e z i d e n t a S S S R " [Statement of the president of the USSR], Izvestiya, 17 Jan. 1991, p. 1.

• 3 •

US Policy Toward the Third World in the Twenty-First Century MICHAEL CLOUGH

Foreign policies are determined by a mix of factors. Some—such as a state's position in the international system, the nature of its domestic political system, and the cultural-ideological orientation of policy elites—are relatively stable and enduring. Others—such as the identity and psychology of individual officials and the events that provide the stimuli for specific responses—are more unsettled, episodic, and ephemeral. The objective of this chapter is to identify the most important of the more stable and enduring forces, international and domestic, that are likely to influence policy toward the Third World. Normally, such forces function as constants in the foreign policy equation, shaping and limiting policymakers' choices in stable and predictable ways. But we are not living in normal times. The "constants" are in flux—and without an understanding of what the constants are likely to become, predictions about the future are just idle speculation. The first section of the chapter defines key terms used; the second section describes the constants that underpinned US foreign policy in the post-World War II era. The third section describes how the constants changed and set the stage for a transformation of US policy. Finally, the fourth section speculates about the future of US policy toward the Third World.

Definitions and Observations The Twenty-First

Century

The twentieth century is now over. It ended, the historian John Lukacs tells us, in 1989 with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, 75 years after it was ushered in by the onset of World War I. 1 Lukacs's observation provides an important corrective to the tendency to define the passing era narrowly in terms of the end of the Cold War. The geopolitical struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union was only one, albeit the most salient, of the distinguishing features of the 40-odd-year period that began with the preparations for ending World War II and ended with the

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collapse of the Berlin Wall. Two equally important defining elements of that era were the omnidimensional preeminence of the United States among the advanced industrial democracies and the remarkable sway of the small, largely white and male, eastern-educated and devoutly internationalist elite that guided US foreign policy. Although the roots of these elements trace back to the beginning of the twentieth century, the global preeminence of the United States and the internationalists' position in the foreign policy community were finmly established during World War II. If the end of the Cold War were the only change that had occurred, the pattern and trajectory of change in US policy toward the Third World would be different than if all three elements of the post-World War II era had changed. Moreover, using the end of the Cold War as a starting point for predicting the future direction of policy causes us to lose sight of the fact that the beginnings of the end of the post-World War II era can be traced back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. Understanding the impact on foreign policy of changes that started to occur t h e n — for example, the erosion of US economic hegemony, the collapse of the Cold W a r consensus, and the emergence of a more activist Congress— is just as important as understanding the impact of the end of the Cold War. Global Strategy, and Bilateral

Regional Policies

Policies,

There is no such thing as US foreign "policy," or US policy toward the Third World. Instead, US policy is a jumble of "policies" addressing many issues and different objects of varying geographical and political scope. In this chapter, I distinguish between three levels of policy: grand strategy, regional policies, and bilateral policies. Grand strategies such as containment or the policy of isolation spelled out in George Washington's Farewell Address provide a conceptual framework or set of axioms to guide foreign policy makers. 2 Regional policies such as Franklin Roosevelt's "good neighbor" policy toward Latin America are less global in scope. Bilateral policies— i.e., policies directed t o w a r d individual c o u n t r i e s — a r e e v e n m o r e particularistic. US policy toward the Third World is a mix of global, regional, and bilateral policies. In places where the United States has few specific interests (most of Africa, for example), policy is usually determined by global considerations. 3 In countries where the United States has specific interests that are significant, such as Mexico and Saudi Arabia, policy will be more bilaterally oriented. This distinction is crucial because the collapse of the global strategy of containment may mean that bilateral and regional policies become more important. If this occurs, it will cause a major shift in policy toward the Third World because so many of the policies that composed that "policy" in the past derived from global strategy.

US POLICY

Interests

and

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Impulses

Few political science concepts are as disputed as the term interest.4 In this chapter, I distinguish between interests and impulses in order to capture an important dynamic in the policymaking process that is missed by simply differentiating types of interests. Interests are articulated, perceived, and reconciled. Impulses arise, are felt, and evoke reactions. Officials and analysts debate the importance of interests; they respond to impulses. Interests, whether concrete (e.g., investments and bases) or more abstract (e.g., a stable world order) point at specific objects. Impulses—e.g., to protect the environment, to end apartheid, to promote democracy—are more indeterminate. Throughout the early years of the postwar era, US foreign policy was interest-driven. Officials sitting mostly in the executive branch assessed US interests around the world and formulated policies accordingly. Debates within the policy establishment centered on disagreements about what interests were and how they could best be protected and promoted. Policy is now more impulse-driven. Politicians in the White House and Congress assess the political strength of various pressures for action on particular issues and respond accordingly. Instead of designing policies to serve interests, they adopt measures to quell domestic impulses. The Third

World

The "Third World" is a concept, not reality. Because it has always been part geopolitical and part economic, it has never been very precise. Geopolitically, the Third World roughly coincided with the nonaligned world, i.e., those nations that were not formally aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. Never mind that many of the "nonaligned"—e.g., Cuba, Ethiopia, the Philippines—were clients of one or the other or in some cases, over time, both superpowers. The Third World was the contested terrain of the Cold War. Whereas the superpowers more or less accepted the status quo in Europe, most of the Third World was always potentially up for grabs and that is where almost all of the Cold War's battles were fought. Economically, the Third World encompassed those countries that were neither advanced industrial nations nor part of the CMEA. This distinction made sense at a time when analysts believed that there were two paths to development, capitalism and socialism, and the Third World was in the throes of deciding which path to take. In practical terms, however, "Third World" was a convenient label used to refer to countries that were, depending on the biases or sensitivities of the writer, otherwise called backward, less developed, underdeveloped, or developing. In this chapter, I focus on policy toward what we used to call the Third World: Asia (except Australia, China, Japan, and New Zealand), Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. But the old Third World no longer exists. 5 Without an East-West divide, there cannot be a "third" world. One

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possibility is that the Third World will become "the South." This too is unlikely because the differences among the nations and regions of the South are as great as their collective differences with "the North." The Third World that is emerging, whatever it comes to be called, will encompass much less of the world than the old Third World. And the economic and political gaps between it and the rest of the world may be even greater than the gap between the old Third World and the "first" world. With the end of the Cold War and the erosion of US global preeminence, more and more people will ask why the United States should take responsibility for what is left of the Third World. US Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century Three developments in US foreign policy marked the beginning of the twentieth century. 6 First, the United States emerged as a major economic and military power. Second, the United States began to assume a more active international diplomatic role. Third, a debate began over the need for the United States to have a global strategy. World War I provided President Woodrow Wilson a chance to assume the mantle of world leadership. In 1920, however, neither the world nor the United States was ready for US preeminence. The United States was still only one of several major powers. Most of the others, especially those with colonial empires, had doubts about Wilson's vision of a desirable world order. 7 Moreover, as the debate over entry into the League of Nations demonstrated, the political establishment in the United States was not of one mind on the issue of how the country should relate to the world. The guiding texts for most US politicians were still Washington's Farewell Address, with its powerful warnings against becoming entangled in foreign quarrels, and the Monroe Doctrine, with its assumption that our interests were hemispheric rather than global. Most in the United States were not convinced that what happened beyond their shores would seriously affect their welfare and security. Until World War II, there was no US global strategy toward those areas of the world that would come to be known as the Third World. Officials and, to an even greater extent, the US public were indifferent when it came to the bulk of the embryonic Third World, most of which was then under colonial rule. Instead, policy toward these areas consisted of a regional policy toward Latin America derived from the Monroe Doctrine and dollar diplomacy, a bilateral policy toward China based on the open-door principle, an awkward colonial presence in the Philippines, occasional rhetorical denunciations of the colonial powers, and not much else. After World War I, Ho Chi Minh and other emerging Third World revolutionaries quickly discovered that the United States had little interest in promoting the Wilsonian principle of selfdetermination outside of Europe.

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World

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71

War II

By the onset of World War II, the United States had become the world's preeminent industrial power. 8 This is clearly documented in Table 3.1. Between 1880 and 1938, the US share of total world manufacturing exports more than doubled, from 14.7 percent to 31.4 percent, while the combined share of Britain, Germany, and France declined from 39.2 percent to 27.8 percent. But the United States was slow to translate its economic power into military strength. As Table 3.2 shows, as of 1937 the United States had spent considerably less of its national income on defense than other powers. On the eve of World War II, the United States lagged behind the world's other major powers on most measures of military power. In 1937, for example, the United States produced only 949 airplanes, whereas Great Britain produced 2,153, Germany 5,606, and Japan 1,511. As late as 1940, the United States had an army that was only as large as that of tiny Belgium. When war spread across Europe, and Japan moved eastward toward the US Pacific shore, the United States was forced to become a military power. By 1944 the United States was producing 4 0 percent of all the armaments in the world, including 100 times the number of aircraft it had produced in 1937. Along with military power came diplomatic influence. By the end of 1941, the Roosevelt administration had assumed the lead in the effort to defeat Germany and Japan and, more important for the purposes of this chapter, it had taken upon itself the task of preparing for the peace that would follow the war. U S diplomatic dominance was first confirmed in August 1941 when Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter. This declaration, with its promise of a new liberal postwar order, was the price the old colonial powers had to pay for US participation in the war. 9 Over the next four years, as the allies made progress on the battlefield, US officials were busy developing rules and structures to govern the postwar world. 10 Their efforts culminated in the Bretton Woods conference of July 1944 that created an international financial system centered on the dollar, and the Dumbarton Oaks meeting of August-October 1944 and the San Francisco conference of June 1945 that established the UN system. These agreements reflected compromises between the allied powers, but in all cases they were compromises heavily loaded toward the preferred US position. With Europe devastated and Japan under US control, only the Soviet Union, with its large military presence throughout Eastern Europe, represented a significant counterpoint to Washington's efforts to reorganize the world. The Soviets used their power to secure a hold on Eastern Europe and limit the power of the United Nations, which they feared would become a tool o f the United States. But Moscow otherwise played only a minor role in shaping the international norms and institutions that would govern the world in the postwar era.

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Table 3.1 Total Industrial Potential of the Powers in Relative Perspective, 1880-1938 (Britain in 1900 = 100) 1880

1900

1913

1928

1938

Britain

73

100

127

135

181

USA

47

128

298

533

528

Germany

27

71

138

158

214

France

25

37

57

82

74

Russia

25

48

77

72

152

Italy

8

14

23

37

46

Japan

8

13

25

45

88

Table 3.2 Percentage of National Income Spent on Defense, 1937 USA

1.5

Britain

5.7

France

9.1

Germany

23.5

Italy

14.5

USSR

26.4

Japan

28.2

The US ability to dominate postwar planning was underpinned by its economic and military predominance. By the sheer fact of its economic weight, the United States could not avoid affecting the rest of the world, including the emerging Third World. During the war, GNP of the United States increased by more than 50 percent, whereas Europe's fell by about 25 percent. After the war, the former great powers of Europe (and Japan) needed US resources to rebuild, and the price they had to pay for those resources was US global hegemony. US-dominated institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were created to aid in the rebuilding and stabilization of Europe, but they quickly became important forces in the economic life of the Third World. In short, postwar realities made the United States a global power. But it was the ability of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations to tap a pool of like-minded individuals with clear ideas about what was

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necessary for peace and prosperity that enabled the United States to use its resources so conceitedly and effectively. Following Wilson's failed effort to win support for US entry into the League of Nations, internationalists began to organize. Informal networks were established among lawyers, bankers, academics, and officials, all of whom believed that the United States had to assume a greater role in world affairs to bring about an order built around the principles of free trade, self-determination, and collective security. 11 Before World War II, the emerging eastern internationalist establishment's influence over foreign policy was limited. They had to compete with a number of prominent figures like Senator William Borah of Idaho, Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, the pioneer aviator Charles Lindbergh, historian Charles Beard, and others who rejected the assertion that US interests could be threatened by events abroad and opposed calls for greater US participation in international institutions like the League of Nations. Until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, public opinion favored the internationalists' foes. But then everything changed. As Selig Adler wrote, "The grim events that followed Pearl Harbor taught us a tragic and expensive lesson on the geographical unity of the modem world. . . . For the first time since the War of 1812, the American masses realized that events beyond the seas were intimately related to their own future peace and security." 12 Pearl Harbor, and Munich before, gave the internationalists the upper hand in the strategic debate. With the isolationists in total disarray in the early 1940s, they began to dominate opinion-forming circles and monopolize the rapidly growing wartime bureaucracy. By 1945, the US foreign policy community was uniformly and enthusiastically internationalist, and more politically influential than ever. 13 Two of the basic underpinnings of postwar policy, the US global preeminence and the internationalist elite's domestic dominance, were thus well in place by 1945. The third, a multifront cold war pitting the United States against the Soviet Union, took shape in 1946-1947. 14 The emergence of a bipolar competition between two militarily preeminent and ideologically hostile superpowers created a structural impetus for US globalism, but the character of that globalism had already been determined. A strategy of containment was adopted in response to threat of Soviet competition. 15 But there were always many ways to contain communism and the Soviet Union, some ambitious and far-reaching, others more modest and limited. That US officials chose the more ambitious and far-reaching approach was not dictated by the nature of the threat. George Kennan, 16 George Ball,17 and other foreign policy sages consistently argued that developments in the Third World were not a significant factor in the geopolitical equation. Most of the Third World was never very important to US interests, however defined. US trade and investment in other industrial countries always outpaced US trade and investment in the Third World. Oil and strategic minerals created special interests in some regions (e.g., the Middle East) and countries (e.g.. South

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Africa), but even those interests were neither extensive nor substantial enough to form a basis for a global grand strategy. US interest in the Third World derived in the final analysis from a desire to create an economically and politically stable world order. US wartime efforts to reorganize the world created a strong momentum for the idea of a US global mission. This was to be "the American century," and that required doing more than just keeping Moscow in check. After Bretton Woods, Dumbarton Oaks, and the historic summits of 1943-1945, limited containment may have seemed, to many, too unseemly for a power so great as the ascendant United States. Washington intended to lead. The world expected Washington to lead. And leading meant assuming responsibility for far-flung areas of the world, even if they were of limited direct interest to the United States. Hence those in the United States committed themselves, in the words of President Harry Truman, "to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures," without any clear geographic qualification. Global containment was also in keeping with the emerging internationalist establishment's vision of its own mission in the world. Realpolitik efforts to protect narrowly defined economic and security interests were unbecoming for heirs of Wilson and Roosevelt. Just as important, they were not likely to offer as many opportunities for exciting employment, or to provide a rationale for preserving a far-reaching bipartisan consensus and rationalizing and assuring the new establishment's dominant position in the foreign policy system. In sum, the US omnipreeminent position in the international system and the predispositions of the new foreign policy establishment naturally inclined Washington to assume a leading responsibility for the Third World. The Cold War reinforced this predisposition and engendered the global strategy of containment. Had it not been for the commitment to the idea of a global mission, however, the United States might have pursued containment far less vigorously in the Third World. The events leading to the adoption of a global strategy of containment are well known and need not be reviewed here. For purposes of this chapter, two points need to be made concerning the Cold War and containment. First, the onset of the Cold War convinced the foreign policy establishment that Communist ideology and Soviet expansion represented the greatest threat to the emergence of a Wilsonian world order. Containing communism thus became a necessary (and in the minds of some, a sufficient) condition for world progress. Second, containment, by playing on fears of communism, fostered the emergence of a strong consensus in support of an internationalist program. Anticommunism provided the glue that bonded two old-time foes— conservative midwestem nationalists and liberal internationalists—into a cohesive force. It also provided a weapon that the internationalist establishment would use to mobilize support for their international

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initiatives (e.g., foreign aid) and silence potential domestic challengers. Theodore Sorenson, a close aide to President John F. Kennedy, writes: Nine successive presidents, both Republicans and Democrats, invoked the threat of communism to help market unappetizing national commitments to the American Congress and public—commitments to station large numbers of American forces abroad in peacetime, to put American cities at risk for the protection of West European cities, to provide military, economic and technical assistance to dozens of countries around the world, and to pay for a huge defense establishment when we were not at war. 18

By deliberately heightening US fears of the Communist threat to the Third World, US officials strengthened their political base, but they also paid a price. They made it possible for others to use appeals to anticommunism to influence the direction of US policy in the Third World. In a sense, the internationalist establishment became a prisoner of anticommunism. That is what happened in part to policy toward Communist China. Had it not been for the domestic political potency of anticommunism, Washington would have probably found a way to minimize or accommodate Mao Tse-tung's victory. Many officials, including Secretaries of State George Marshall and Dean Acheson, seem to have been inclined to do just that. But others, like ousted Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek and his determined US supporters, mobilized to prevent them from doing so. And they used appeals to anticommunism to prevail, setting a precedent that others would follow. 19 As the Cold War progressed, the liberal veneer of US policy faded. Containing communism became an end in itself. Liberal rhetoric was occasionally revived—especially during the Kennedy years—but seldom pursued. A number of regional studies have documented the extent to which containing communism became the dominant theme in US policy toward the Third World. 2 0 Containment was responsible for the globalization of US military intervention in the Third World. The United States became an interventionist power at the turn of the century with the decision to enter the Spanish-American War. Before World War II, however, US interventions were motivated by regional and bilateral considerations and largely confined to the Western Hemisphere. In the early 1950s, global strategy began to provide the principal impetus for intervention, and the United States became involved in places that most people in the United States had never heard of. Global interventionism begot the Vietnam War, the first phase of which began as containment was being formulated. In the words of Leslie Gelb, "There was no way President Truman could avoid the commitment to Vietnam, given the doctrine of containment. . . . Vietnam was another arena in the cold war, another domino, and as such it was covered by the doctrine that Communists would not be allowed to take over territory by force, that salami tactics that succeeded in the 1930s would not succeed in the postwar era." 21

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The United States had no significant regional or bilateral interests in Southeast Asia; it had only a global strategy and hence a global interest. The Vietnam War was thus, prototypically, a post-World War II era "Third World" war. Paradoxically, it also started to turn out the lights on the postwar era. The End of the Post-World War II Era Signs that the postwar era was beginning to end first became visible in the mid-1960s. By the mid-1970s, one of the hallmarks of that era, the containment consensus that had underpinned the eastern internationalists' dominance over the foreign policy community, had been shattered. The US position as a preeminent economic power eroded more slowly, but nevertheless steadily. The third postwar constant, the Cold War, continued unabated until the late 1980s, when it crashed to a halt amidst the rubble of the Berlin Wall. The Decline

of the "Best and the

Brightest"

The Vietnam War caused an earthquake within the foreign policy establishment. It created two opposed policy coalitions, one convinced that continuing the war was a mistake, the other convinced that accepting defeat was a mistake. 2 2 As the war ended, a bitter debate began over its "lessons." That debate continues, with the policy community divided among four groups: •

•

•

•

Neointernationalists, like Cyrus Vance, who remain convinced that the Third World is "vital to our own well-being at home" and favor an active policy emphasizing economic development, social justice, and multilateral cooperation. 2 3 They are the true heirs to the Wilsonian tradition. Neorealists, like Richard Feinberg 24 and Steve Van Evera, 2 5 who argue that US interests in the Third World are limited or not threatened and therefore see little reason for the United States to pursue an interventionist policy in the Third World. These analysts are the children of Henry Morgenthau, Kennan, and Ball. Neoconservatives, like Charles Krauthammer, who are convinced the Third World is still an important and dangerous place and advocate intervention including military aid to "freedom fighters" seeking to overthrow erstwhile Marxist governments. 2 6 They have few p r e World War II antecedents. Neonationalists, like Patrick Buchanan, who share the neoisolationists' anticommunist fervor but not their crusading zeal. 27 They are the lost descendants of Senator Robert Taft.

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The Vietnam War (along with the Watergate crisis) also caused major institutional changes in the foreign policy community. 28 The collapse of the Cold War consensus emboldened critics and dissidents of all political persuasions in Congress and the media. Established authorities lost their authority. A political revolution occurred in Congress, weakening the executive branch's institutional primacy in foreign policy. 29 A grass roots revolution began that would eventually erode Washington's monopoly over foreign policy matters. Inspired by the success of US Jews in influencing US policy toward the Middle East after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, ethnic groups previously cut out of the foreign policy process began to organize. In short, the old foreign policy establishment lost its hegemonic position in the foreign policy community. With the establishment in disarray, US foreign policy began to lose its coherence. Sometimes on its own and other times in response to domestic pressure, Congress started to legislate foreign policy with greater frequency. The result was a steady stream of legislation that included the following: • • • • •

• •

the War Powers Act of 1973 limiting the president's authority to commit US forces to war; a series of acts to make human rights a criterion in the distribution of aid monies; the so-called Clark Amendment of 1976 prohibiting covert intervention in Angola; restrictions on US aid to countries such as Angola and Mozambique; restrictions on aid to US allies in Central America, including the socalled Boland Amendment, which was a major factor in the Irangate fiasco; efforts to ensure that aid from the Reagan Doctrine flowed to anticommunist guerrillas in Afghanistan, Angola, and Cambodia; and the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, which imposed sanctions on South Africa.

The contradictory nature of these various actions clearly evidences the degree of disarray that now exists not only within Congress, but in the foreign policy establishment as well. The Erosion of US Global

Hegemony

By the late 1960s, the relative economic power of the United States had declined substantially. 30 In the years immediately following World War II, the United States accounted for roughly one-third to two-fifths of the total global product, yet by the mid-1960s it accounted for slightly less than onequarter. As Joseph Nye has argued, much of this decline was an inevitable result of the fading of "the World War II effect." 31 But he is wrong in trying to suggest that because this decline was to be expected, it has not caused a

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fundamental change in US ability to exercise global leadership. In early 1990, Senator David Boren, chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, outlined the reasons for declining US influence: We must recognize that, as our allies become less concerned about the extreme Soviet military threat, they will feel less need for the shield of American military protection and become less willing to follow our lead in the international arena. Economically, the allies no longer need the US the way they did in 1950, when we had two-thirds of the world's assets and nine of the ten largest banks in the world. Today, we have none of the ten largest banks. Our share of world assets is now half of what it was in 1950. . . . Lastly, the need to gain access to the U S market, which in the past has induced friendly actions on the part of other nations, will no longer be more important than access to European or Japanese markets. 32

After observing the July 1990 economic summit in Houston, R. W. Apple wrote, "Once upon a time, the United States was able, within the bounds of good sense and good taste, to get what it wanted at the annual meetings of the seven strongest industrial nations. At this week's meeting, . . . that was manifestly no longer true. It will probably not be true again any time soon." 33 Moreover, US relative economic power is being further eroded by the emergence of a common European market; the development of NICs, such as South Korea and Brazil; and the growing autonomy of international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. By whatever measure one chooses, the US global economic preeminence has declined dramatically since the end of World War II. Table 3.3 provides two measures of the shift that has occurred in the relative economic weight of the United States and Japan since 1965. US diplomatic influence has also declined substantially. Washington's ability to dominate the United Nations and its various organs ended long ago. Contrary to some claims, the diplomatic maneuverings that have taken place during the present crisis in the Gulf have served to confirm the ebbing of US influence. At the time of the Korean War, the United States was able to count on the relatively unquestioning support of all of the permanent members of the UN Security Council—except, of course, the Soviet Union—and an overwhelming majority of members of the UN General Assembly. In the Gulf, the Bush administration had to bargain feverishly to ensure that its fragile coalition did not collapse. In the process, it was forced to modify its strategy in the crisis; to alter its bilateral policies toward Syria and China; and to consider significant changes in its stand on the Arab-Israeli issue. A second indicator of declining US diplomatic clout is the relatively passive role it has played on the question of German reunification. Despite much concern about the possible destabilizing effects of reunification on Western unity and a number of efforts to influence the process, the pace of

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Table 3.3 Relative Economic Weight of the United States and Japan, 1965 and 1987 1965

1987

Percentage of GDP

us

40.1 5.2

Japan

29.7 15.7

Percentage of Import US Japan

18.2 5.8

10.6 11.8

reunification was determined almost entirely by German realities. Similarly, the United States has not been a significant factor in the process of building a new European community. In sum, despite the Bush administration's claims to the contrary, the United States is no longer the power it used to be; and that is not likely to change no matter what the eventual fallout from the war to roll back Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. The

End

of the

Cold

War

During the postwar era, there was little constancy in the pattern of superpower competition in the Third World. The Cold War's flames burned in different places with varying regularity and intensity. They burned longest and hottest in Asia, resulting in two wars: Korea and Indochina. They constantly smoldered and occasionally flared in the Middle East, prompting US military interventions at various times in Iran and Lebanon and, from the 1967 war forward, ongoing diplomatic involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict. In Africa and Latin America, the flames were fanned in the early 1960s, exhausted themselves in the late 1960s, and rekindled in the mid1970s. The Cold War was the last of the three principal elements of the postwar era to break down. Its continuation limited the immediate policy consequences of changes in the other two elements. Despite the collapse of the Cold War consensus, containment continued. Neointemationalists—e.g., the Cyrus Vance faction within the Carter administration—argued for alternatives to old-style containment and sought to promote new goals such as human rights and limits on conventional arms sales. They achieved some ad hoc success but failed to effect a change in global strategy because the world remained essentially bipolar. As long as the structure of bipolarity survived, the Soviet factor remained dominant in the policymaking process. The examples of southern Africa and Latin America demonstrate this point. In the mid-1970s, US policy toward southern Africa underwent a major transformation. Starting with the Ford administration in the spring of 1976,

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the United States assumed a leading role in negotiating the end of white rule. During the Carter years in particular, the tone and emphasis of policy shifted markedly, and the administration achieved major successes. It played an instrumental role in the end of the Rhodesian war and the birth of Zimbabwe. It established a diplomatic framework for Namibian independence. And the administration distanced the United States from apartheid South Africa. The officials responsible for this shift—principally Cyrus Vance, Andrew Young, Donald McHenry, Richard Moose, and Anthony Lake—were not primarily motivated by a concern with the Soviet threat in southern Africa. In fact, many of them believed that threat had been seriously exaggerated by conservatives. Nevertheless, the main reason they succeeded in winning support for their approach was that it could be defended as the best way to contain Moscow. Similarly, Chester Crocker was able to persuade President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State Alexander Haig to allow him to take the lead in negotiating Namibian independence by arguing that it was the best way to get Moscow and Havana out of Angola. In Central America the abiding influence of the Cold War was even more obvious. Initially, the Carter administration adopted a tough line on human rights abuses by the governments in El Salvador and Nicaragua. These pressures played an indirect but significant role in the overthrow of the old regime in El Salvador and the fall of Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua. By 1980, however, the Carter administration had begun to pursue policies toward these two countries that differed little from old-style containment. The Cold War ended in the Third World just as many critics had begun to fear that its various brushfires were merging into a global forest fire. US analysts vigorously disagree over what put out the fire. Some argue that the Reagan Doctrine caused the Soviet Union to decide it could no longer stand the heat. Others argue that both superpowers had begun to realize that they were paying high fuel bills and getting little comfort in return. Whatever the reason, the Cold War is over and US foreign policy is certain to be transformed as a result. What are the main consequences of the end of the Cold War for policy toward the Third World? First, and most important, it means the end of "Soviet threat" and hence the elimination of the global strategy that gave coherence and consistency to US involvement in the Third World. As a result, the policy establishment no longer has any accepted criteria by which to determine why and where the US should be involved. In previous policy debates such as those concerning Indochina, Central America, and southern Africa, considerable agreement existed on these two issues; what was in dispute was how we should be involved. Second, the end of the Cold War reduces the ability of some groups to use appeals to anticommunism to drag the United States into foreign c o n f l i c t s . P o s t - C o l d W a r analogs to the Shah of Iran, Ferdinand Marcos, Augusto Pinochet, and apartheid South Africa will find it much

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more difficult to gain a sympathetic hearing in Washington. As Jonas Savimbi and the other beneficiaries of the now dead Reagan Doctrine are discovering, this will also be true of the new era's "freedom fighters." Similarly, Third World tyrants will no longer be able to market their ideological fealty. Finally, the foreign policy establishment will find it more difficult to quiet and marginalize domestic constituencies such as those focused on human rights. The "soft on communism" slur has lost its efficacy. The remarkable shift in US attitudes and policy toward the African National Congress is a clear example of this new dynamic. Prior to the demise of the Cold War, Randall Robinson and others who are antiapartheid would have had a much harder time marketing Nelson Mandela and the ANC. The Future of US Policy Toward the Third World The post-World War II era is now definitively over. A new world and a new era in US foreign policy are taking shape. What will US policy toward the Third World be in this era? There are three main alternatives. First, a new global strategy could evolve to replace containment. Second, the United States could abandon global strategy in favor of a mix of regional and bilateral policies. Finally, the policymaking process and the US modes of relating to the Third World could be transformed in ways that call into question the very concept of foreign policy. The following assessment of these alternatives is based on some assumptions about the shape of the future: • • • • •

The international system will evolve toward a multipolar order; Military conflict and competition among industrialized countries will be very limited; The power of nation-states will decline, while the roles and influence of supranational and subnational actors will increase; The media/communication/transportation/technological revolution will continue to shrink the world; and The modem ideological struggle between capitalism and socialism will give way to a postmodern lattice of ideologies and impulses.

A New Grand

Strategy?

Members of the old foreign policy establishment long for a new grand strategy. They abhor the current confused, chaotic, and politicized state of affairs, which is at odds with all of their deeply held notions about the need for a sense of national direction supported by a bipartisan consensus about the US role in the world. Just as important, whether consciously or not, the

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old establishment is threatened by the reality that absent a grand strategy and a national consensus, their own domestic role in the foreign policy process will be endangered. The Bush administration's efforts to use the Iraq crisis to create a new national and international consensus must be understood in these terms. The Bush administration's vision of a new world order differs little from the old internationalist establishment's pre-pre-Cold War vision of a postWorld War II world. We now live in the twenty-first century, and a policy toward the Third World based on this vision is not sustainable for four reasons. First, the United States lacks the resources and global preeminence necessary to play the leading role in a "new American century." Second, the US people are unlikely to join ranks behind a neointemationalist/ neoconservative establishment in support of a foreign policy based on a renewed sense of mission. Third, other emerging global powers are not likely to continue to grant the United States the authority to define the rules of the game internationally, especially as they are now expected to pay an increasing share of the costs of enforcing those rules. Fourth, the problems of the twenty-first century's Third World will defy neo-Wilsonian solutions. The threat of naked aggression like Iraq's invasion of Kuwait is not the major problem in most of the Third World. Poverty, environmental degradation, and societal collapse are more serious threats; and Ethiopia, Mozambique, Cambodia, Liberia, Sri Lanka, and Peru are more useful examples. The End of Grand

Strategy

Neorealists and neonationalists would have the United States adopt a policy toward the Third World based on the real and limited nature of our interests in specific countries and regions. This strategy, which is what Kennan argued for as director of the Policy Planning Staff in the late 1940s, has been embraced by a number of writers, including most students of Kenneth Waltz, 3 4 and it could be reconciled with the neonationalism of Patrick Buchanan. But it is unlikely to become the dominant theme in US policy toward the Third World. The reason is simple: while US interests there are limited and possibly shrinking, US society's contacts with and exposure to the Third World are increasing, 35 creating pressures that US politicians will find difficult to ignore. Societal pressure on the foreign policy process is being intensified by the changing composition of the US population. "People of color"—i.e., Third World ethnics—constitute a larger percentage of the population, and they are beginning to mobilize around foreign policy issues. The most dramatic example is the impact of African-American mobilization around the South Africa issue and the ability of the Congressional Black Caucus to increase US aid to Africa by $260 million in the latest aid authorization. 36

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Impulse-Driven

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Policy

What is U S policy toward the Third World going to look like in the twentyfirst century? It is likely to have three main characteristics. First, with the end o f the Cold W a r and the demise of the Third World as we used to know it, policy will become much more regional and bilateral. Second, the United States is likely to reduce significantly its official commitments in areas of marginal interest such as Africa. Finally, to the extent that the United States does involve itself in the Third World, it will be the result of pressure ( " i m p u l s e s " ) from groups in U S society. Some o f those pressures will be ethnic, others will be humanitarian, and others ideological. Combined, these three characteristics will result in a mix o f policies that are likely to be inconsistently and incoherently interventionist.

Notes 1. John Lukacs, "The Short Century—It's Over, " New York Times, 17 Feb. 1991, sec. 4, p. 13. 2. See Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977). 3. See Michael Clough, Africa and the U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1991). 4 . See James Rosenau, "National Interest," International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 11 (1968); and Stephen Krasner, Defining the National Interest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). 5. See Nigel Harris, The End of the Third World (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986). 6 . See Foster Rhea Dulles, America's Rise to World Power, 1898-1954 (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), Chapters 2 - 3 ; and Robert Osgood, Ideals and Self-Interest in America's Foreign Relations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953). 7 . See Arno Mayer, Wilson vs. Lenin (New York: Meridian Books, 1964). 8 . The data and tables in this section are drawn from Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987), Chapters 5 and 6. 9 . See Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978). 10. See Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, 1939-1945 (Washington D.C., Department of State, 1949). 11. See Walter Issacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987). 12 . Selig Adler, The Isolationist Impulse (New York: The Free Press, 1957): 291-292. 13. Robert Divine, Second Chance (New York: Atheneum, 1967). 14. See John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972). 15. See John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982). 16. Ibid., Chapter 2. 17. See George Ball, The Discipline of Power (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), Chapter 12.

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18. Theodore Sorenson, "Rethinking National Security," Foreign Äff airs (Summer 1990): 1-18. 19. See Ross Koen, The China Lobby in American Politics (New York: Harper & Row, 1974). 20. See Stephen D. Krasner, Defending the National Interest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), Chapter 8; Lars Schoutz, National Security and United States Policy Toward Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); Cole Blasier, The Hovering Giant (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976); Robert Price, U.S. Foreign Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa (Berkeley, Calif.: Institute of International Studies, 1978); Clough, Africa and the U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda; and Leslie Gelb, with Richard Betts, The Irony of Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1979). 21. Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, p. 366. 22. See Earl Ravenal, Never Again (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978). 23. See Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices (New York: Simon & Schustcr, 1983): 429-433. 24. Richard Feinberg, The Intemperate Zone (New York: Norton, 1973). 25. Stephen Van Evera, Wars of Intervention: Why They Shouldn't Have a Future, Why They Do, CCS Report, no. 3. (Cambridge, Mass.: Committee on Common Security, June 1990). 26. See Charles Krauthammer, "The Poverty of Realism," The New Republic, 17 Feb. 1986, pp. 14-22. 27. Patrick Buchanan, "America First- and Second, and Third," The National Interest (Spring 1990): 30. 28. See I. M. Destler et al., Our Own Worst Enemy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984). 29. See Thomas Franck and Edward Weisband, Foreign Policy by Congress (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980); Michael Malbin, Unelected Representatives (New York: Basic Books, 1980); and Robert Loomis, The New American Politician (New York: Basic Books, 1988). 30. See Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. 31. Joseph Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead (New York: Basic Books, 1990). 32. New York Times, 19 Jan. 1990, p. AIO. 33. New York Times, 12 July 1990, pp. A l - 1 5 . 34. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979). 35. See Clough, Africa and the US Foreign Policy Agenda. 36. On the history of African-American interest in foreign policy, see Henry Jackson, From the Congo to Soweto: U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Africa Since 1960 (XXX): 121-168; Herschelle Challenor, "The Influence of Black Americans on U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Africa," in Ethnicity and U.S. Foreign Policy, ed. Abdul Aziz Said (New York: Praeger, 1977): 143-182; and Ronald Walters, "African-American Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy Toward South Africa," in Ethnic Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy, ed. Mohamed Ahrari (Greenwood, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1987): 65-82.

• 4 b The Third World and the Superpowers in a Different Era ROBERT LEGVOLD

In the summer of 1990, an interesting exchange took place in the pages of International Affairs, which for years had been the virtual house organ of the Soviet Union's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. International Affairs was a spiritless, predictable journal—until 1989. Then a brash new editor, Boris Pyadishev, arrived and began publishing conspicuously provocative articles, often as critical of current as of past policy. He opened the journal's pages to virtually anyone with a bold, original, or, sometimes simply vigorous idea. The takers were prominent Soviet commentators. Western academics and politicians, and even young serving officials from the foreign ministry; but in general they were fresh, independent voices who previously had not been given much of a chance to be heard. One of these was Andrei Kolosov. The May issue included a piece by him entitled "Reappraisal of USSR Third World Policy." 1 In it he roundly attacks his government for persisting too much in what he regards as the foolish, even ruinous policies of the old leadership. These, at root, he argues, trace back to an utterly misconceived notion of the Soviet stake in the Third World and a misplaced set of Soviet priorities among Third World countries, particularly the most radical. Nothing, he ultimately suggests, has contributed more to this state of affairs than a warped and distended reading of the competition with the United States. A few months later, Andrei Urnov answered him.2 Urnov was until recently the deputy chief of the International Department of the Communist Party's Central Committee. Although he rose to prominence under Valentin Falin, he had worked in the International Department for many years, concentrating on Third World issues, particularly problems of southern Africa. Over the years he has been an intelligent and relatively liberal influence within the party foreign policy establishment.3 His disagreement with Kolosov, it seems to me, represents the fulcrum of argument in today's Soviet Union. Kolosov, like many other younger foreign policy intellectuals, was immensely impatient with the failure of the Gorbachev-Shevardnadze

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leadership to make a clean break with the past. The old policy, he argues, was founded on a "confrontational approach to the West," leading the Soviet Union to divide the Third World into countries that were "ours" and "not ours." 4 It also led to an excessive militarization of Soviet policy in the Third World. As a consequence, the Soviet Union not only became an obstacle to a peaceful resolution of regional conflicts, but it also locked itself into relationships with dictatorial, troubled, and often doomed regimes. However, Kolosov says, whatever security interests the Soviet Union has in the Third World are "extremely limited." "The specifics of our geographical location and economic development level, and the nature of economic ties do not make it possible to seriously talk about our having vital interests in the developing world," certainly not ones that "need to be protected with the aid of weapons." 5 The Soviet Union should long ago have gotten out of the business of aiding Third World countries against internal or external foes. "Economic expediency," not "ideological and political preferences," should be the touchstone of policy. When it comes to the turmoil in various parts of the Third World, the Soviet Union's only interest—indeed, its "moral obligation"—is to help end it, if necessary by coming down hard on former clients. Any moral commitment on the side of the Soviet Union is not to governments or regimes, but to people, and that is, above all else, in the form of promoting their "free development," "wellbeing," and human rights.6 Urnov, while not finding great virtue in previous policy, thinks Kolosov and people like him go overboard. He objects to what he sees as an indiscriminate indictment of Soviet policy and an equally indiscriminate blindness to the faults in US policy. Deficient as the regimes may be in places like Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Cambodia, he argues, the opposition is frequently worse. To feature the sins of only Najibullah, dos Santos, and their like, while ignoring the character of the mujaheddin, UNITA, RENAMO, and the Khmer Rouge, makes "a detached assessment of the situation" difficult, and obscures the search for a realistic point of departure for policy. 7 Urnov agrees that the Soviet Union should focus on achieving settlements where violence reigns, but solutions, he insists, do not come easily, not when the interests of many parties must be reconciled. Simply cutting off Soviet "partners" and forcing them to capitulate, he says, is neither wise nor fair. Rather the Soviet Union, while preserving "reasonable and mutually beneficial" relations with these governments, should encourage them to find accommodations assuring "freedom of choice, democracy, and human rights."8 Moreover, while it is true that Moscow turned its Third World policy into too much of a competition with Washington, it is one-sided in the extreme, Umov says, to exempt US behavior. "Confrontation was whipped up on both sides, and it would be wrong to blame one of them for it only." 9

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In fact, the United States is far from reforming itself on this score. On the contrary, until recently, it has not hesitated to provide military and other material assistance to friends or to support intransigent stands. Kolosov asks whether his contention that US moves in the Third World, "even the unfair ones, 'should be of no concern to us' unless they actually clash with our interests" corresponds "to the concept of an integrated and interdependent world and the principles of new thinking." Does the Soviet Union have no responsibility to the many people—conservative as well as liberal—who are "increasingly uneasy, wondering whether or not the Soviet Union is turning away from the Third World and leaving it 'face to face' with the West?" If this is, indeed, the argument, then most remarkable is its location. Something extraordinary has transpired when the debate sets those who would wash their hands of the Soviet Union's former revolutionary allies and largely abandon a great power's role in the Third World against those who, while less ready to walk away from involvement, nonetheless do not defend any of the old goals or any of the old slogans, including support for "national liberation struggle." The protagonists of more traditional views—people who believe in the old truths, who think the United States is an imperialist bully that the Soviet Union should stand up to, who preach "class struggle," and who remain loyal to Third World Marxist-Leninists—still exist. But they do their grousing off on the sidelines. 10 What It All Means When the center of gravity of debate in the Soviet Union is this, then the world of Soviet foreign policy no longer bears much resemblance to the familiar forms of the past. Nearly every aspect of Soviet engagement in the Third World is silently evoked and transformed, including the contest with the other superpower. The very proposition of contest between the superpowers now has a questionable ring, and, thus, so does everything about the place of the Third World in the national security policies of the Soviet Union. Remarkable things are being said on this score in the Soviet Union. For example, Andrei Kozyrev, who now serves as the Russian Republic's foreign minister, claimed late in 1990 that the issue of the US military presence in the Third World should cease—in fact, had ceased—to be a matter of antique bias, and it should be judged from the perspective of "common sense." 11 "In a number of cases, far from threatening the Soviet Union's territory or interests, it serves as an essential factor of stabilization." Indeed, if the United States had not been able to bring military force to bear so promptly in the Gulf crisis, he asserts, "our losses from the crisis would be much more serious." Andrei Kozyrev, one can imagine, does not sit well with the likes of General Vladimir Lobov, chief of staff of the Warsaw Pact, who has—or, at

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least, early in the crisis, had—a different view of US military moves in the Gulf. Having watched the flow of US troops into Saudi Arabia, he suggested to a TASS interviewer that perhaps the United States meant to extend its forces along the Soviet Union's southern flank, "establishing a bridgehead from which to control Middle East oil flows, and put pressure on Moscow." 12 Perhaps the United States was seizing on the crisis to "open new possibilities," given the likelihood that US forces would soon be leaving Western Europe. Already the US presence had drastically altered the strategic balance in the Gulf, and might, he warned, threaten arms control talks in Europe. The latter turned out to be an empty bluff, but the spirit of his comment implies, at a minimum, that some in the Soviet high command are not about to anoint the armed forces of the United States as guardians of stability. Suspicions of the Soviet military aside, Soviet leaders are obviously viewing the role of US military power in the Gulf crisis differently from anything before. In fact, Soviet leaders are viewing everything about the United States and the Third World differently—beginning with their own stake in competing with them, or curbing them, or alienating them, or, for that matter, cooperating with them. Such a reordering of the world deserves comment from many perspectives. Judging the depth and durability of the change requires comparison with historical benchmarks. In turn, such a radical break with precedent puts the past in a different light. Some past events seem more basic, even simple, whereas others, once so urgent, even tyrannical, fade away. If from this extraordinary new remove we reduce the issue to first principles, what was the essence of the problem between the Soviet Union and the United States in the Third World? What would it take to resurrect the problem, as this is the question with policy implications? Over the years the first question was answered in many ways, but basically the answers fell into three categories. First were the academic answers, although not all of them were the handiwork of academics. For example, it was often argued that tussling in the hinterlands of the international order was a natural by-product of an adversarial relationship when the implications of real war at the system's core, in Europe and Asia, held such terror. Because neither dared move against the other where the stakes were equally high and the military power of each potentially devastating, they naturally sought safe places to compete. So the two superpowers, one a revisionist power bent on transforming the prevailing order, the other the great protector of the status quo, with their allies in tow, carried on their duel in the outlying regions of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. This is crypto-theory, which is not to say that it is without merit. Not by accident, as the Soviet expression goes, competition between the Soviet

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Union and the United States in the Third World gathered real momentum once Khrushchev had a chance to think through the likely consequences of an ongoing confrontation over Berlin, a reflection aided by the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. So long as the Soviet Union retained any of its revolutionary vocation or simply the urge to cut the United States down to size or to edge it aside, the Third World and the tinder it provided remained the only sane target of opportunity. Because the United States could hardly be expected to oblige Moscow, trouble followed naturally. But trouble also flourished to the degree that the United States viewed all manner of events in the Third World through the prism of this competition, even when the competition was not terribly pertinent. Another more genuine theory provided a different sort of structural explanation. The very nature of bipolarity, Kenneth Waltz contends, swept the Third World into the preoccupations of the two hegemons, because "in a bipolar world there are no peripheries." 13 When only two states have a global reach, "anything that happens anywhere is potentially of concern to both of them." In a multipolar world, Waltz teaches, "who is a danger to whom is often unclear," and, therefore, the urgency of responding to any and all "disequilibrating changes" disappears. But when bipolarity reigns, every change within and beyond alliances matters, because each titan cares about the precise condition of the other and almost any change affects one or the other differently. As a result the two have a natural tendency to turn "unwanted events into crises." 14 However, the crises the two produce tend to be "relatively inconsequential," because, though everything matters, only a few stakes are strategically vital, and "each [superpower] can lose heavily only in war with the other." Seen through Waltz's eyes, the course of events from the first Middle East crisis in 1956 through the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the US invasion of Grenada was more or less in the nature of things. Bipolarity—not national agendas—made it so. For the place of the Third World in US-Soviet relations to change, the underlying order had to give way. Because Waltz saw bipolarity as deeply entrenched, he would not have expected the change that has occurred, but, as it has, the reason is to be found in the passing of bipolarity. There are other theoretical explanations for why the United States and the Soviet Union made the Third World into the kind of battleground they did. Many of these explanations are of causes inside rather than outside the state. Many, too, are structural in nature, locating impulses in the dynamic produced by the nature of political competition at home or in the logrolling encouraged by the lineup of political contenders. As Jack Snyder, a skilled partisan of this view, might put it, the thrust and counterthrust of the 1970s originated in Brezhnev's embrace of "offensive détente," which was his way of buying the support of groupings who differed greatly on what the Soviet Union should be doing in the outside world and how it should be handling

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the imperialists. 15 Only when the structure of the competition or what it takes to build a leader's power changes will the behavior of the country on the make shift as well, at least qualitatively and permanently. And this kind of structural change occurs only through the evolution or modernization of the domestic political order, not as the result of changes in the international environment or because of what some other nation might do. If today the Soviet Union is taking a radically different approach to superpower competition in the Third World, it is because the political game within the Soviet Union is radically different. Although hardly to their discredit, none of these theoretical constructions corresponds to the way, over the years, the players in both countries have explained matters. The players, the source of my second category, have preferred distinctly atheoretical explanations. In effect their explanations were necessarily free of theory, because they were almost always intermediate or partial. They accounted for the interaction of East and West by laying it at the doorstep of the other side. But even the behavior of the other side was not so much explained as described. What passed for an answer to the "why" question was less a systematic inquiry into first causes than a catechism of assumptions about the other side's character and modus operandi, which disappeared in the heat of events. On the US side, the problem originated in Soviet expansionism. Central and unwavering as the belief was, weaving itself to greater or lesser degree through ten US administrations, never were the contrasting assumptions about the sources of this expansionism sorted out. Never were they even much debated. In George Kennan's original essay on containment in 1947, the reasons given are twofold. First, there was the illegitimacy of the regime, driving it, out of fear of its own people, to do things arousing the outside world against it, producing in turn a menacing, overweening behavior on Moscow's part. Second, Marxist-Leninist ideology was said to foster a messianism, nearly always self-absorbed and narrow-minded, but real nonetheless. Others, however, found the source of Soviet expansionism deep in the Russian past. The militarism, the intimidation of subject and neighbor alike, and the relentless absorption of others' lands had all been there for centuries. The Bolsheviks simply persevered on a somewhat grander scale. Still others—indeed, most others—simply assumed that expansionism grew out of tyranny. Regimes that enslave their own people seek to enslave others; regimes that do evil at home by their nature do evil elsewhere. The Soviet notional counterpart was the US compulsion to dominate. The difference between the theme of domination and the theme of expansionism is the difference between a revisionist and a status quo power. In the Soviet case, the explanation for the US deformation was systematic and consolidated, indeed, an orthodoxy. Lenin had provided the explanation in 1916 in his treatise Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, and no one needed or was allowed to offer another more modern one.

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In both cases, however, when it came to the nitty-gritty of competing in the Third World, these primal truths faded into the background, and the explanations became more strategic, immediate, and disembodied. It does not much matter whether the time was the early 1970s in the Middle East, the mid-1970s in southern Africa, or the early 1980s in the Gulf; the explanations are structurally identical. It is not surprising, therefore, that Soviet and US behavior also displayed a leaden consistency. Ask a Soviet leader—say, Brezhnev in 1970 or Brezhnev in 1975 or Brezhnev in 1979—what the United States (under Nixon, Ford, and Carter) was up to in the Middle East, and you would have received generically, even literally, the same answer. The United States sought to undermine the Soviet position in the region in order to undermine progressive regimes. In this way the United States and its rapacious friends could continue with the same levels of exploitation as before. Ask a US leader—say, Foster Dulles in 1956 or Henry Kissinger in 1970 or Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1978—what the Soviets were up to in the Middle East, and the answer would have been equally consistent. The Soviets were trying to install their power in the area and outflank the United States. The Soviets, or they and their clients, could then dominate the politics of the region and ultimately turn the international order against the West; they would make others follow if not the Soviet image, then Soviet will. The corollaries were equally simple. For the United States, the Soviet Union would probe until stopped, and, only the United States could do the stopping. But if stopped, the Soviets might be counted on to show restraint and even seek to cooperate. In archetypal fashion, Kissinger in his memoir looks back over the year 1970—the year of the US invasion of Cambodia, the "canal zone" crisis, war in the Middle East, the Jordanian civil war, and the affair over Soviet submarine tenders in Cienfuegos, Cuba—and concludes "that it was our ultimate decision to resist these probes that provided the basis for the eventual turn toward negotiations, both in the Middle East and with the Soviet Union generally." 16 The Soviet version was not so different, although they never assigned themselves quite so direct a role in disciplining the United States. But the United States was thought to be willful and arrogant in its use of force, and they were certainly not thought to be people who would peacefully accept the advance of "progressive forces" in the Third World, unless constrained to do so. The constraining influence was to be a shifting strategic terrain, or what in ideological lingo used to be called the "correlation of forces." To an enhanced correlation of forces the Soviet Union had a great deal to contribute. Vitaly Zhurkin's offhand observation in 1969 about the United States in Vietnam is typical, and all the more significant because it comes from someone who is not given to robotic formulas. "The futility of continued aggression," he wrote, "derived from the fact that the outcome of the Vietnam adventure was not resolved only on the field of battle in Vietnam." 17 Vietnam

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was the "first important war occurring under the new correlation of forces in the world, where the growth in the might of the socialist system, the collapse of the colonial system of imperialism, and the general growth in the forces of peace and democracy had radically changed the global situation." When people like Admiral Sergei Gorshkov after 1972 began enthusing about the peacetime role of the Soviet navy, particularly its mission of protecting the "national liberation movement," the contrast between Soviet and US thinking disappeared almost entirely. Neither side sought to explain the phenomenon of superpower interaction in the Third World. These were secondary and derivative—a function of the other side's character and behavior. One's own behavior scarcely figured in the picture. It was simply the natural and unremarkable consequence of the opponent's actions. In 30 years that did not much change. Each side's explanation began and ended with the other superpower. For much of this period, no matter how often US leaders acknowledged that the roots of conflict in the Third World were elsewhere (in the enmities of the locale, in ethnic violence, in the residue of the colonial past, in social and economic injustice), the compelling dimension remained Soviet involvement. Similarly, much as the Soviet leadership pretended that the national liberation struggle transcended mere superpower rivalry, its immobile notion of international politics as ultimately a struggle between two social systems made this rivalry a constant part of the turmoil in the Third World. Each in his own fashion did leave room for the possibility of the other's behaving with restraint and even cooperating. But restraint was always without exception attributed by the United States to an effective US deterrent and by the Soviets to a chastening shift in the correlation of forces. Cooperation, too, tended to be seen as induced rather than voluntary and, for the most part, confined either to avoiding the spillover of local conflict into big power confrontation or to easing the predicament of one or the other, as when the United States pressed the Soviet Union to aid in its exit from Vietnam or when the Soviet Union looked to the United States for help in dealing with its other formidable foe in the Third World, China. Potent explanations, however, are not always good explanations, and dominant though these have been where it counts—among those who have the power to decide—they do not really go very far. For understandable reasons, many observers in both countries have long sought other more complete answers. Generally they have found them in the interaction of the two countries' apprehensions, ambitions, biases, and antidotes. These constitute the third category of explanations. Like the first category of explanation, but unlike the second, the third treats the interplay of the superpowers in the Third World as beyond the particular policies of either country. What one country does in any particular instance obviously shapes events, and the actions of one side may, indeed,

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warp or intensify the trouble between them. But the phenomenon is broader. What happens between the two arises from causes outside the behavior of either. Unlike the first category of explanation, however, the third views the reality of US-Soviet rivalry in the Third World as more dynamic and less permanent, more evolutionary and less cyclical. The interaction between superpower rivalry and setting is also seen as more immediate and extensive, in large part because the setting that is taken to matter is not the deep structure of the domestic or international system, but the messy collection of problems and prospects that surround national leaderships at any one time. Indeed, at the heart of this last category of explanation exists a dual interaction: on the one hand, between the two superpowers, and, on the other, between the state of their competition and the state of a changing world. The effect begins with the way policymakers frame the problem. Powerful consequences flow from happenings at this level, without one ever pursuing the issue to first causes. For example, Henry Kissinger believed and apparently persuaded President Nixon that in India's 1971 conflict with Pakistan, Washington's stake was to face down the Soviets. To ensure that "the Russians retain their respect for us," Kissinger argued, the United States had to "prevent India from attacking West Pakistan." 18 There is no evidence that India had any intention of moving against West Pakistan or that Soviet leaders were egging them on. On the contrary, they had clearly encouraged the Indians to show restraint. But Kissinger imagined the whole "structure of the international order" to be threatened by what he saw as an impending aggression by a partner of the Soviet Union and for good measure by the risk of Soviet intimidation of China, the new attraction of the United States. On these grounds he dispatched US naval forces into the region. Some Soviet observers seemed to appreciate that Kissinger's diplomacy in the Indo-Pakistan conflict was designed for China's benefit, but they could not have grasped its basis. 19 Instead they almost certainly attached to it a different and more predatory meaning. To the extent that they were not deterred from doing something that they had no intention of doing, the effect was doubtless simply to add to the accumulated biases about US purposes in the Third World. Similarly, the Soviet interpretation of what lay behind the US effort to bring about the 1978 Camp David accords in the Middle East sorely confined their useful potential in US-Soviet relations. As Karen Brutents, a senior official of the Central Committee's International Department, put the matter: Camp David was a "neocolonialist plot" intended to prepare a "reconquista" of lost US strategic positions within the region. 20 The United States was acting to firm up the position of Egypt, which by 1979 it saw as the logical successor to Iran as a "sub-imperialist center." It is irrelevant that neither objectively nor subjectively did this come

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close to capturing US motivation. Judging US policy in this fashion, Soviet leaders were bound to react inappropriately. The interaction between the two countries was subject to distortion in nearly every instance of Soviet and US involvement in postwar Third World instability. The excesses, the misreadings, and the dynamic to which these gave rise are neither something for which one needs to seek explanation in the architecture of the international system or in the peculiar dynamic of national politics nor do they deserve to be overlooked or diminished because one side is thought to be historically more culpable or because the whole problem is thought to originate in the other country's outlook and character. More than any other factor, the minor and major misconceptions of each side by the other, when acted upon, determined the course of superpower involvement from Suez to Afghanistan. Arguably, given the character of the postwar international order, the United States and the Soviet Union were bound to compete in the Third World. But when, where, and, in particular, how they competed, the third category of explanations would argue, depended on the insights each brought to the problem and the way these then mixed. Explanations in the third category are also more attuned to the complexity in the interaction and the degree to which it has evolved over time. For example, commentators in both countries have striven to alter the character of the interaction or to give ammunition to those who could. The article by Zhurkin, cited earlier, is in fact an argument that because of its failure in Vietnam, the United States was moderating previous assumptions, trimming policy, adjusting to the limits of power, and, by implication, becoming more reasonable and constructive adversaries.21 Many accepted his argument. In 1974, with détente still in bloom, Viktor Kremenyuk, then one of Zhurkin's younger colleagues at the Institute for the USA and Canada, explained in nuanced terms how vastly the United States was changing its approach to regional conflicts. 22 "Regionalism," as he called the US highprofile involvement in the Third World, was not a fixed feature of US policy. On the contrary, it had emerged as a particular focus in the 1960s and was now, again, undergoing transformation. From his argument, a reader would come away with the image of a country increasingly sensitive to its environment, ready to pass on to others the burdens that it could no longer shoulder alone, eager to free itself from costly Third World entanglements, and even disposed to take greater account of the legitimate interests of others, including the Soviet Union. Even as late as 1979, after the wreckage of Angola and the Ogaden War, another prominent academic and today the Chairman of the International Affairs Commission within the Russian Parliament, Vladimir Lukin, would stress the growing US awareness of the limits of force and readiness to avoid intervention in all but the most urgent cases. 23 Published one month before

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the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Lukin's assessment served not only to soften the image of US policy and encourage a more refined notion of its motivation, but also to urge Soviet restraint. Brezhnev, Gromyko, and probably Kosygin were open to persuasion (Suslov, Ponomarev, Grechko, and the like, apparently less so). In the early 1970s at least, they seemed ready to believe better of the United States, and, given the benefit of the doubt, they would likely have responded to cooperative efforts and formulas for mutual restraint. When Brezhnev, Gromyko, and the others exclaimed how much more dangerous the October 1973 War would have been in the absence of détente, as they so often did in 1974, they appeared to be genuinely convinced. The trouble was that at the least sign of difficulty, they reverted to their traditional suspicions of US malevolence. Worse, they never felt it sufficiently urgent to take the lead in devising a regime of restraint for the superpowers in Third World turmoil. On the contrary, rather than capitalize on détente's other accomplishments to extend its sphere into the Third World, Soviet leaders spent far more of their time worrying about the costs of détente in their Third World policy. The United States did not much notice, but détente put Soviet leaders on the defensive when it came to the Third World. Brezhnev and his colleagues spent a good deal of time stressing that détente created "favorable conditions for the solution of the economic and social problems of all countries," and in no way contradicted "the oppressed peoples' right to use every possible means in the struggle for liberation and the right of all states to use outside support to repel aggression." 24 Eventually Brezhnev also began to recognize that turmoil in the Third World posed dangers to détente, and that more attention should be given to limiting these effects. In 1977 he insisted that the Soviet Union saw "clearly the dangers lying in wait for détente," "hotbeds of acute regional tensions" that must be extinguished as quickly as possible, "before they threaten the larger community." 25 But he did little to translate his perception into action, and after the Ethiopian-Somali War in 1977, the two countries largely gave up any thought of approaching these matters cooperatively. The last moment of serious conversation had been in the summer of 1977, before Sadat's historic trip to Jerusalem, when the United States and the Soviet Union began edging toward a Middle East conference under their cochairmanship. US leaders did not do much to create a regime coping with the East-West dimension of conflict in the Third World. US leaders would later complain that the Soviet Union had violated the rules of détente by maneuvering for advantage in the violent struggles in southern Africa and along what came to be known as the "arc of crisis." But, in truth, the two sides had never devoted much time to developing the rules of détente for this part of the superpower relationship and this was one of the lethal inadequacies of détente—the most serious of its conceptual gaps.

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The Revolution Those who share the views of the third school—and the reader can tell by now that I do—believe that the superpowers' stake in regional conflicts need not have devastated the US-Soviet relationship so completely as it did in the 10 years between 1975 and 1985. Had leaders in the two countries focused on the issue and made it as central to the agenda as strategic arms control; had they understood the damage that it would eventually do when left unattended; had they really tried to find in one another's position and thinking elements on which to build, the problem could have been kept within bounds and perhaps even turned to detente's advantage. In short, it was within the power of the leaders of the two countries to control, albeit perhaps not to eliminate, the effects of their competition in these parts of the world—if only it also had been within their ken. None of the causal chains featured in the first and second category explanations need have had the final word. The assumptions that lie behind this proposition, in fact, relate to a larger set of assumptions. Well we might remind ourselves—lest the wearying chaos of a post-Cold War world lead us to pine for the predictability and stability of the earlier era—that the postwar East-West contest was not good for regional instability and regional instability was not good for the East-West contest. The jealousy with which the two superpowers regarded each other either urged them on to a meddling that compounded, rather than mediated, the local conflict or, when their imaginations could not be stretched to see a danger from the other side, prevented them from lifting a constructive finger. And, in the other direction, because violent conflict within and among Third World countries fed the competitive rather than the cooperative side of the superpower relationship— or, at a minimum, failed to capture much attention from leaders in either country when in the late 1950s, early 1960s, and early 1970s efforts were made to put the relationship on a safer and more constructive basis—regional instability was forever sustaining the larger confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The most good that one might say is that in those conflicts where the local antagonists were beholden to the superpowers, when these conflicts risked dragging Moscow and Washington into something dangerous, the two often helped to put a lid on or keep a lid on. This was true in several of the Middle East wars and on the Korean Peninsula in the post-Korean War period. For the rest, whatever the two did to ease or confine Third World quarrels, they did in nearly all instances despite, rather than because of, their own contest. The point with which I began a moment ago, therefore, is a larger one: just as the postwar superpower struggle added little of constructive value to the violence of the Third World, and Third World violence brought little good to the superpower struggle, so, too, regional conflict might have been less

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damaging to US-Soviet relations than it almost always was, and the USSoviet contest might have been less deleterious to the management of regional conflict than it too often was. Leadership could have done more and better. But that did not happen, largely because the second category of explanation retained too much power. The great changes in our own day are occurring because the second category of explanation has collapsed. It collapsed on the Soviet side, and when it did, it took all the wind out of the US version. The profound change in the "superpower" relationship in the Third World (I use quotation marks because the label no longer makes sense for the Soviet Union) is of Soviet making. Without the transformation of Soviet foreign policy, not much of anything would be different, for the US side has not had any separate reason to rethink its role in the Third World. If its approach today is modified—and surely it is—and if its notion of how the Third World figures in US security is different, it is as a function of the Soviet foreign policy revolution. If this is so, we have one further reason to believe that our other categories of explanation, particularly some of the structural ones, fall short. For, in fact, the East-West contest (including the place of the Third World in it) was already being transformed by Gorbachev's dramatic recasting of foreign policy before the last structural features of bipolarity collapsed. That is, Gorbachev's foreign policy revolution redid the superpower relationship before the Soviet Union ceased to be a superpower. All of the essential features of this revolution were far advanced before the Soviet Union's alliance system crumbled, before the country sank into deep economic crisis, and before the nation-state began to disintegrate. Today the Soviet Union is an almost thoroughly different actor in the Third World. Its approach to nearly every aspect of Third World affairs—from the question of socioeconomic change to the problem of regional instability—has been or is being recast. By now the change reaches down into the deepest recesses of Soviet belief and concept. That, however, is not the way the revolution began, not the part of it that has to do with the Third World. Its origins were altogether more pragmatic. Afghanistan was a monkey on the back of perestroika, and Gorbachev wanted it somehow removed. So by 1986—Gorbachev's people claim, even by 1985—he and the others began wrestling with the steps necessary to extricate the Soviet Union. Gorbachev's arduous domestic agenda gave him a similar, albeit less acute, reason to whittle down Soviet exposure in other parts of the Third World. But Afghanistan provided the impulse concentrating the mind. Most of the formulas invented for Afghanistan formed the basis for a new Soviet approach to regional instability throughout the Third World. Indeed, from the moment he announced the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, Gorbachev put the decision in a broader context. "When the

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Afghani knot is untied," he said in February 1988, "it will exert the deepest influence on other regional conflicts. . . . It will be an important breach in the chain" of these wars. 26 The new formulas stressed for the first time the need to achieve political rather than military settlements, and to do so by fashioning governments of "national reconciliation." By this, Soviet leaders evidently had in mind processes, even negotiations, sacrificing the existing regime to a new one uniting (or excluding) most of the warring parties. These same ideas would then be applied to Angola, Cambodia, and even Nicaragua, where in fact they came to have more of an impact—not least because Moscow had less trouble giving them full force in these more distant places. But the pattern was an accretionary one, with expediencies and concepts slowly accumulating until they became more substantial and coherent. To give these notions practical content and begin the process of shedding the Soviet burden, Moscow had to draw Washington in and persuade it that it wanted to end the local turmoil, or at least the Soviet part in it, not simply to prosecute the interests of its clients by other means. Announcing a withdrawal schedule from Afghanistan, and then keeping it, helped, but the first actual test came in Angola. There over a six-month period the two countries fashioned a settlement of sorts, including the withdrawal of Cuban forces. A year and half later, they along with the three other permanent members of the UN Security Council did the equivalent for Cambodia. The policy, it is worth noting, did not sprout from a fundamentally revised appraisal of what the United States was up to in these conflicts. Originally Gorbachev echoed the standard explanation of US behavior. The United States, he said soon after becoming general-secretary, seeks confrontation. It pursues it in Nicaragua, against Libya, against Afghanistan, even against the Soviet Union by provocatively sending naval contingents into Soviet territorial waters. 2 7 (He was speaking of the Reagan administration's rather high-handed assertion of the right of passage in the Black Sea). All this they do, plus accelerating the arms race, in order "to exhaust the USSR" economically. We are familiar with these calculations, he said, "but they are ancient and frankly stupid." Some have also argued that Soviet behavior in the Iran-Iraq war during 1986-1988 showed little sign of a new approach. Francis Fukuyama, one who makes this case, sees in Soviet maneuvering with Iran and Kuwait in 1987 and after and in its unfriendliness to the US naval presence in the Gulf a lingering aspiration to see the war prolonged rather than settled under US auspices.28 During this period, however, more fundamental changes were occurring in other conceptual realms. When these eventually intersected Gorbachev's new pragmatism in the Third World, the revolution became complete. Two dimensions were particularly important. The first involved the concept of national security and its meaning in the 1990s, and the second, the core dynamic of international relations.

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By 1987-1988, the Soviet leader was insistently sounding the theme of a less militarized foreign policy. It should be so, he said, because national security to an ever-diminishing extent depends on military answers. Economics and politics hold more of the key. Mutual security is at the base of national security, and so on. Military answers offer no more of a solution for anyone else, including Third World regimes too long bankrolled by the Soviet Union. When, on top of this far-reaching reconceptualization, the Soviet Union's military position in Eastern Europe collapsed, the effect was total. How could one justify military commitments far from home, once the forward defense of the homeland even in Europe was no more? The other conceptual turnabout was even more direct and profound in its impact. By 1987, even to a degree at the 27th Party Congress in early 1986, Gorbachev had begun suggesting that the core and decisive international dynamic was that of interdependence. Class struggle, which always before had occupied pride of place, was not at first repudiated, but instead subordinated. Eventually it would largely disappear as a Gorbachev theme, and in its place he stressed the importance of common human values, common national problems, and common international solutions. If the concept of class struggle had a practical embodiment for Soviet leaders, it was the Third World. Class struggle and national liberation struggle were synonymous. Deny the one, and the other became an empty shell. Deny the one, incidentally, and what is left of the second category explanation? Thus, in one swift, massive gesture, Gorbachev wiped away the foundation of postwar Soviet policy in much of the Third World, along with the assumptions underpinning everything the Soviet Union had placed at the center of the US challenge. Once this was done, the Soviet Union could begin formulating a new agenda and looking for a new framework of action. To this point the new alternative is multilateralism. In practice, this means a new role for the United Nations, at last as a substitute for the superpowers, not as their tool or their wrestling ring. People who were surprised by the degree of Soviet cooperation with the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council and by the strong support given the United Nations in the course of the Gulf crisis had simply not been paying attention. 29 For more than three years Gorbachev had been exhorting a greater, indeed, a decisive role for the United Nations and its key agencies. In September 1987, Pravda published a major article by him appealing for a whole new approach to the problem of international security and to the role of the United Nations. 3 0 His argument was that an increasingly "complex, diverse, and interdependent" world needed "a mechanism" capable of addressing transcendent problems, a mechanism adequate to underpin an alternative "comprehensive system of international security" built around drastically lower levels of nuclear and conventional arms, and a mechanism able, in place of the superpowers, to keep or make

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peace in troubled regions. The United Nations must be that mechanism, he contended, and, for it to be, much would have to be done to strengthen the organization. Beginning that fall and at each subsequent UN General Assembly session, the Soviet Union came with a varied and detailed program for accomplishing this goal. For the most part, others, including the United States, largely disregarded or even dismissed these initiatives. In December 1988 Gorbachev delivered the most important foreign policy address of his leadership. He spoke before the UN General Assembly on the eve of a new US administration, conveying his notion of a world at a crossroads, a world either that would find new enhanced forms of cooperation to deal with old forms of conflict and new threats and would enthrone "the supremacy of the common human idea over the countless multiplicity of centrifugal forces" or that would prolong the history of "ubiquitous wars, and sometimes desperate battles, leading to mutual destruction." 31 In what he called "this specific historical situation," states, he said, needed to "rethink" their "attitude to such a unique instrument as the United Nations Organization, without which world politics is no longer imaginable." Then, as part of a sweeping reformulation of Soviet foreign policy concepts on every matter from the meaning and character of national security to the "freedom of choice" for all states (including Eastern Europe), he presented a vastly upgraded set of tasks for the United Nations. These touched all spheres of its activity, beginning with the military-political and extending to the economic, the scientific and technical, the ecological, and the humanitarian. Thus, long before Saddam Hussein set the world on edge and gave the United Nations a new reason for being, Gorbachev had begun working for a stronger UN. He did this, to judge from his argument, not merely to enhance this institution, but also as an integral part of an altered image of the role of the superpowers. He meant for international politics to be reformed, for many of the rights arrogated by the superpowers to be curtailed and transferred to collective institutions, for the policing of the peace to be done by the community, and for the United Nations to become a vehicle and symbol of a new international order. Thus, the sudden effectiveness of the UN Security Council in the Gulf crisis not only owed to Soviet cooperation, but it also conformed to Soviet concept. Despite flickering moments of unease, the Soviet leadership remained a durable part of the coalition in the war against Iraq, at least through its early stages. Gorbachev's eleventh-hour attempt to reach Saddam Hussein, with a warning that the blow was about to be struck unless he retreat, was consistent with his dread of what a war would bring. From the start of the crisis in August 1990, the Soviet leadership placed overwhelming emphasis on a political solution; and, as events raced forward in the fall, Moscow struggled to draw Saddam Hussein into a negotiation and to slow the US slide toward war. Having failed, Soviet leaders followed the coalition into

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war, but even in war, Soviet leaders continued to have their scarcely concealed differences with the US leaders over the war's end, the conduct of the battle (when too many civilian casualties resulted), and planning for peace. Most remarkably, however, these elements of potential discord were kept tightly controlled, as Soviet leaders, even after Eduard Shevardnadze's resignation, subordinated every other consideration to the preservation of this new international approach to regional violence. Meanwhile, quietly and far from the war's glare, Soviet policy continued its steady evolution toward a restraining, constructive, prosaic role in the lingering unsettled conflicts of Southeast Asia, Central America, and southern Africa. Soviet representatives worked with US diplomats in ways roughly similar to those of allied diplomats in the vexed struggle to push forward the Cambodian settlement agreed on by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in 1990. They cooperated with US officials in tracing the origins of Nicaraguan heavy arms that had found their way into El Salvador's internal war. And, in January 1991, they joined with Portuguese and US diplomats in designing a plan that, at long last, promised to end the civil war in Angola. For months beforehand, they had made themselves active participants in the peace negotiations between the Luanda government and Jonas Savimbi's UNITA group, initiatives that led Shevardnadze in December to meet with the rebel Angolan leader in Washington. 32 Surely some, perhaps even much, of the inspiration for this great shift in Soviet policy derives from the awful state of affairs at home. Gorbachev doubtless wants—desperately wants—to keep the United States, Germany, and Japan interested in his problems and well disposed to their solution. He also presumably wants to keep the setting beyond his borders as stable as possible—at least, as little distracting as possible—while matters inside his borders crumble into tumult. Here, of course, also lurks a danger. The innovations of the Gorbachev era are so stunning precisely because they depart so radically from the way Soviet leaders for years acted and apparently thought. To conclude that old thinking has vanished fully and forever would be hasty and incautious. One does not have to look hard to find surviving echoes of the earlier Soviet outlook in the columns of conservative Soviet newspapers, in the comments of hidebound political circles like the parliamentary group Soyuz, and in the grumblings of party ideologues, foreign and domestic. Crucial parts of the Soviet military and KGB, to the degree that they harbor a far more traditional and malevolent view of US and NATO intentions than do the architects of the new Soviet foreign policy, would presumably not be much of a hindrance were these "old thinkers" somehow, again, to get their hands on power. They might not care much about socialist solidarity with the "national liberation struggle," but the notion of striking imperialism at its rear, a long-standing impetus to Soviet actions in the Third World tracing back to the 1920s, would have its strategic appeal.

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Thus, when in early 1991 discouraging signs of a swing toward hardline, antireform policies at home began to multiply, many observers grew understandably nervous about the twists Soviet foreign policy might yet take. With Gorbachev himself opening the door to counterreform and the cosponsors of the foreign policy revolution (Shevardnadze and Yakovlev) eclipsed, even the Soviet leader's ongoing presence failed to reassure them. For even if Gorbachev remained committed to the new directions in Soviet foreign policy, it was not clear that these could survive a conservative onslaught—one that either made Gorbachev a prisoner of the hard-liners or pushed him aside. In these circumstances, it became important to steady the mind with a clear understanding of the roots of the Gorbachev foreign policy revolution and the likely limits to its erosion. All of this had happened not only in response to the decay and trauma within the Soviet Union and as a function of Gorbachev's personality, but also as a result of the foreign policy elite's perception of the failures of past policy—including those in the Third World—and its adjustment to the requirements of a changing international setting; therefore these roots were sturdier than many might fear. No matter what happened to the Gorbachev leadership or who might emerge from the chaos, Soviet leaders of any stripe would not be able to gainsay either of these last two realities, nor for that matter to escape the constraints of the deepening crisis at home or to reverse the consequences already produced by the Gorbachev revolution in Europe and elsewhere. Even the most reactionary and tyrannical leadership would not be free to indulge its biases and tastes, not be free to undo what in its eyes have been the excesses of the Gorbachev era, and not be free to chart a radically new foreign policy course. Least of all would it be in a position to throw itself into a new global competition with the United States, to re-ignite the arms race, or, in the context of the topic at hand, to prosecute energetically the aggressive aims of clients in local quarrels or wars. But even a partial retreat, even a slight shift in demeanor, would send waves of doubt and suspicion through Western policymaking circles— particularly if accompanied by the return to an iron hand within the Soviet Union. A larger regression, even if still within the grip of forces compelling a general foreign policy retrenchment, could do substantial damage to the new relationship between Moscow and Washington in the Third World. Foreign policy retrenchments come in very different forms: Gorbachev's has been constructive, moderate, and creative; another might be far more mean-spirited, bitter, and inward-looking. As a consequence, the Soviet Union would not necessarily reemerge the challenger of the 1950s and 1970s, but neither would it continue to contribute to the fashioning of new institutions, practices, and regimes for containing the turbulence of the Third World. Under Gorbachev, the Soviet Union's revolutionary vocation, greatly transformed over the years, has at last been buried. Buried alongside is the

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Soviet Union's historic struggle with imperialism. The United States and the Soviet Union will no doubt compete and differ in the future, but these differences now have a chance to be garden-variety. The burial has liberated the one idea that could not have been formed while the other two lived: the principle of collective security on which both the League of Nations and the United Nations were founded—all that, if the United States and its Western partners wish to seize the opportunity. Along the way, the Soviet Union has become a potent working partner of the United States in confining and sometimes in snuffing out the long-burning fires of civil war in various parts of the Third World. Even where these fires still smolder, the two great erstwhile antagonists have removed the flammable agents of their o w n historic contest. The smallest backward turn of the wheel, therefore, risks doing disproportionate damage. As a result, no imminent foreign policy task matters m o r e — t o East, W e s t , and S o u t h — t h a n p r o t e c t i n g the accomplishments of the past five years, and none is likely to be more intimidating as the tragedy deepens within the Soviet Union.

Notes 1. Andrei Kolosov, "Reappraisal of USSR Third World Policy," International Affairs, no. 5 (May 1990): 34-42. (He is identified as a "political analyst" but is a young official in the Foreign Ministry.) 2. Andrei Umov, "The Third World and the USSR," International Affairs, no. 8 (August 1990): 69-72. 3. In the fall of 1990 Umov was named the new Soviet ambassador to Namibia. 4. Kolosov, "Reappraisal of USSR Third World Policy," 37. 5. Ibid., 40. 6. Ibid., 41. 7. Urnov, ' T h e Third World and the USSR," 70. 8. Ibid., 71. 9. Ibid., 72. 10. For a sampling, see Michael Dawidow's article in Sovetskaya Rossiya, 1 May 1990, pp. 1 and 3. 11. Andrei Kozyrev, "Building a Bridge—Across or Along the River," New Times, no. 44 (Oct. 30-Nov. 5, 1990): 18. 12. See Bill Keller, "Soviets Issue Their First Criticism of American Presence in the Gulf," New York Times, 31 Aug. 1990, p. 13. 13. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Relations (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1983): 171. 14. Ibid., 172. 15. See Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambitions (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991). The reader might also look at Dick Anderson, "Competitive Politics and Soviet Global Policy: Authority Building and Bargaining in the Politburo, 1964-1972," Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 1989, and his article, "Why Competitive Politics Inhibits Learning in Soviet Foreign Policy," in Learning in US and Soviet Foreign Policy, eds. Philip Tetlock and George Breslauer (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991).

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16. Henry A. Kissinger, The White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979): 560. 17. Vitaly Zhurkin, "Budut li izvlecheny uroki?" [Will the lessons be learned?] Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, no. 4 (April 1969): 17. 18. Kissinger, The White House Years, 903. 19. See, for example, L. Stepanov, "Tekushchie problemy mirovoi politiki" [Current problems of world politics] Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, no. 4 (April 1972): 87. 20. B r u t e n t s ' s r e m a r k s are in " N e o k o l o n i a l i z m na poroge 80-x: 'modernizatsiya' strategiya" [Neocolonialism on the threshold of the 80s: a strategy of modernization] Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, no. 7 (July 1979), cited in Ted Hopf, Testing Assumptions of Postwar Foreign Policy : Soviet Learning from American Victories and Defeats in the Third World, Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, Spring 1990. 21. Zhurkin, "Budut li izvlecheny uroki?" 18-21. This article is a forerunner to his book, SShA i mezhdunarodno-politicheskie krizisy [Will the lessons be learned?] (Moscow: Nauka, 1975), where the argument is presented in still stronger terms. 22. V. A. Kremenyuk, "Regionalnye napravleniya vo vneshnei politike SShA" [The regional course of political developments of the USA] SShA: Ekonomika, politika, ideologiya, no. 5 (May 1974): 41-51. 23. V. P. Lukin, "SShA, razvivayushchiesya strany i protsess razryadki" [The USA, developing countries, and the process of détente] SShA: Ekonomika, politika, ideologiya, no. 11 (November 1979): 16-26. 24. This is contained in Leonid Brezhnev's report to the Twenty-fifth CPSU Congress, in March 1976. 25. L. I. Brezhnev, Pravda, 19 Jan. 1977, p. 2. 26. Gorbachev, February 9, 1988, speech on Afghanistan, Izvestiya, 10 Feb. 1988, p. 1. 27. Interview, Izvestiya, 3 Apr. 1986, pp. 1 and 2. 28. Francis Fukuyama, Gorbachev and the New Soviet Agenda in the Third World, RAND Report 3634-A (Santa Monica, Calif.: The RAND Corporation, June 1989): 4 1 - 5 4 . 29. The following paragraphs draw on my "The Gulf Crisis and the Future of G o r b a c h e v ' s Foreign Policy Revolution," The Harriman Institute Forum (November 1990). 30. "Realnost i garantii bezopasnogo mira" [Realities and guarantees of a secure world] Pravda, 17 Sept. 1987, pp. 1-2. Reportedly the article was a speech that he had intended to deliver before the UN General Assembly on a trip to the United States that never came off. 31. The speech is reprinted in Pravda, 8 Sept. 1988; and Izvestiya, 8 Sept. 1988, pp. 1 and 2. 32. Kenneth B. Noble, "Angola Accepts Plan to End Its 15-Year War," New York Times, 24 Jan. 1991, p. 7.

• 5 • The United Nations and Third World Security in the 1990s MERYL A. KESSLER & T H O M A S G. WEISS

Following 10 years of political paralysis, the United Nations emerged in the late 1980s as a critical player in the management of international conflicts. Between 1988 and 1990, this world organization contributed to the resolution of five lingering Third World conflicts and maintained international peace and security by establishing five new peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan, Angola, Namibia, Central America, and on the Iran-Iraq border. These accomplishments demonstrated the UN's underused capacity to separate belligerents and resolve disputes. Two unprecedented examples of the UN's growing importance in all aspects of conflict management occurred in August 1990. The UN Security Council's strong stand against Iraqi aggression in the Gulf illustrated the U N ' s proactive, not simply reactive, role in conflict management. The full endorsement by the UN Security Council's five permanent members of a framework to place a massive UN force in charge of sovereign aspects of Cambodian affairs reflected a new importance for the world organization as an overseer of democratic transitions in the Third World. These recent successes in conflict management have created optimism within the United Nations and support from outside. "1988 Was, at Long Last, the Year of the U.N.," exclaimed a New York Times headline, 1 a sentiment echoed by the Nobel Committee's decision that same year to award its Peace Prize to the half-million soldiers who have worn blue helmets during the past four decades. UN secretary-general Javier Pérez de Cuéllar has declared the world organization now "back in fashion." 2 Even longtime skeptics like former US ambassador to the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick have recognized the UN's capacity to serve the interests of US foreign policy as well as those of the so-called and now divided automatic majority. 3 Since the beginning of the crisis in the Gulf, President Bush has referred to strengthening the UN role in the context of a "new world order" and the "rule of law."

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N e w UN Initiatives Buoyed by this enthusiasm, many scholars and diplomats have proposed additional and more demanding tasks for the United Nations in the coming decade. Plans are being discussed to launch additional peacekeeping missions—not only in Cambodia but also in the Western Sahara and perhaps as part of a postinvasion transition in Kuwait. As a result of the five newest operations, the UN's annual peacekeeping budget has already increased fourfold from approximately $200 million in 1987 to more than $800 million in 1990, rivaling the size of the regular UN budget. With additional operations over the next few years, peacekeeping expenditures could routinely be twice the UN's regular budget. In fact, the Cambodian operation alone has been estimated at between $2 and $5 billion. Additional proposals would expand the UN's activities beyond peacekeeping, fact-finding, and mediation—the organization's traditional devices for conflict management—into new and untested forms of conflict management. The most ambitious of these proposals calls for the modification of the currently recognized principle that allows peacekeepers to use force only as a last resort and in self-defense, to permit UN soldiers to use armed force offensively. 4 Such proposals, often referred to as chapter six and one-half, suggest a shift from the peaceful settlement of disputes, as outlined in Chapter VI, to enforcement, as stated in Chapter VII. In this case, the UN Security Council could routinely consider multilateral military enforcement—a role permitted by Article 42 of the UN Charter, but, until now, never undertaken by the organization.5 Other proposals promote a larger role in conflict prevention through a combination of military and nonmilitary means. 6 The Soviet Union, for example, has in the last two years called for such UN measures as the establishment of "observation posts" in explosive regions, the deployment of a naval force to patrol the Gulf, and the stationing of forces along the frontier of any country that seeks to deter outside interference. 7 Still other proposals seek to enlist the assistance of UN military forces and observers in entirely new functional areas, such as drug interdiction, antiterrorism, humanitarian assistance in civil wars, and treaty verification. 8 These measures, if implemented, would enlarge the UN's present activities in international security. The UN's recent activities have thus engendered high expectations for the organization's future performance. Only a few years ago, the United Nations was the object of much derision and doubt; now observers expect dramatic improvements from the United Nations. After years of pessimism, this newfound optimism about the United Nations is certainly welcome; however, it may also be premature. Much of the optimism is based on dramatic changes in Soviet foreign policy, not on a substantial strengthening of international mechanisms. One

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longtime observer has indicated the danger of letting expectations outpace reality: "The history of the United Nations has been one of cognitive dissonance: of false expectations leading to disenchantment and cynicism." 9 Former Under-Secretary-General Brian Urquhart has recently pointed out the irony of this: "The United Nations appears to be regaining its credibility with governments, as well as some degree of public acceptance, at precisely the time it is clearly in need of radical change." 1 0 Indeed, without such farreaching reform, it is unlikely that the world organization can sustain its current level of activity, let alone expand its operations into more challenging functional areas. The Paradox of Great-Power Cooperation The history of UN involvement in Third World conflict management has, in Urquhart's words, been a history of "tiptoeing around the Cold War." The U N ' s peacekeeping regime—an improvised response to the early demise of collective security envisioned by the UN Charter—has traditionally been fraught with tensions and conflict caused by superpower rivalry. During the UN's first four decades, Washington and Moscow clashed repeatedly over the question of how and when the United Nations should intervene in regional conflicts. With each superpower fearful that the other might exploit UN peacekeeping operations for unilateral advantage, both sought to dominate decisionmaking and limit the other's involvement. Early US successes in controlling this process, resulting from its decisive majority support within the organization, served progressively to alienate the Soviet Union. Some of the UN's earliest operations—in Korea, the Suez, and the Congo—soured Moscow to UN peacekeeping and led the Soviets to argue that it was actually a weapon against the Soviet bloc and its allies in the Third World. Because of their unhappy experiences, the Soviets commonly voiced the opinion that "the countries of the West strove to use [peacekeeping] operations of the UN in their goals . . . against national liberation movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America." 1 1 Although Moscow was rarely explicitly obstructionist, it was hardly supportive of peacekeeping, almost always declining to pay assessed dues and refusing to contribute to those operations financed voluntarily. Throughout the Cold War, conventional wisdom held that this East-West cleavage within the UN Security Council was the key factor preventing the United Nations from assuming a more active and effective role in managing Third World conflicts. Given the veto power of the UN Security Council's five permanent members, the ability of the United Nations to settle or limit regional conflicts was considered largely a function of consensus among them, and particularly between the superpowers. If only the permanent members could overcome their ideological differences, analysts argued, the United Nations might fulfill its potential.

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Recent events seem to support this line of argument. Over the past three years, for, example, improved political relations among the five permanent UN Security Council members has revitalized UN peacekeeping and peacemaking capabilities. Tensions in the UN Security Council, which for four decades served as a forum in which the five great powers pursued Cold War rivalries, has lessened. Thanks largely to a more forthcoming Soviet attitude under Mikhail Gorbachev—acknowledged by the Nobel Committee with its 1990 Peace Prize—the UN Security Council's permanent members are indeed displaying more collegiality in managing Third World conflicts. 12 For the first time in the postwar era, the permanent five appear to be functioning according to the principles of the UN Charter, acting in unison to limit and contain threats to international peace and security. Indeed, in certain respects the level of cooperation has surpassed that envisioned by some of the U N ' s architects. For example, the ambassadors of the five permanent members hold weekly meetings in New York under a system of alternating chairs to work out common policy in advance of UN Security Council sessions. On two occasions in late 1990, 13 of the 15 countries in the UN Security Council were represented by foreign ministers during important votes on the Iraq crisis. The U N Security Council's firm response to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, is persuasive evidence of this new era at the United Nations. Within a month of Iraq's action, the UN Security Council voted not only to condemn the invasion and implement an e c o n o m i c and financial boycott, but, most significantly, to also give individual countries the right to enforce the embargo, using force, if necessary, to halt shipping to and from Iraq. Less than four months later, "all necessary means" were approved in Resolution 678. Never in the history of the United Nations has the call for forceful response to aggression met with such widespread support within the organization. In contrast to the largely ignored UN embargoes of Rhodesia and South Africa—the only two previous instances when the UN Security Council approved sanctions—the Iraqi boycott enjoys nearly universal approval and adherence. These actions against Iraq, though championed by the United States, garnered support from virtually the entire UN membership. At least during the early months of the crisis, Washington and Moscow worked together closely, reflecting the extent to which a common set of interests had emerged. M o s c o w ' s votes in the series of UN Security Council resolutions represented an unprecedented departure from previous Soviet policy. Mutual policy adjustments have taken place, and the Soviet Union was willing to work with the United States toward common goals. In a demonstration of this solidarity, Washington and Moscow jointly led UN Security Council deliberations during the early months of the Iraq crisis: former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze presided over the UN Security Council's ministerial-level meetings to tighten sanctions against Iraq; three months

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later, Secretary of State James A. Baker presided over the decision to employ force if necessary. These historic developments could not have occurred without improved political relations among the UN Security Council's permanent five members and particularly between the United States and the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War and the convergence of superpower interests have undoubtedly contributed to the revitalization of the United Nations. The critical question remains whether great-power cooperation alone can assure the U N ' s continued improvement and future successes in conflict management. Given the geopolitical importance of the superpowers and the veto power of the UN Security Council's permanent members, agreement among them is clearly a necessary condition for the authorization of peacekeeping operations. But is entente among these so-called great powers also a sufficient condition for taking maximum advantage of the UN's peacekeeping regime and eventually of extending it to meet new challenges? Mounting evidence suggests not. Exogenous Factors: The International System

and Domestic

Politics

Two sets of factors are likely to hinder the great powers' ability to promote the UN's conflict management regime. The first are factors outside the structure of the United Nations itself and related to constraints and limitations originating in the international environment, either within the international system or within states themselves. These exogenous limitations on great-power conflict management take a number of forms. First and foremost is that Third World conflicts often have their own indigenous roots, making them resistant to solutions imposed from outside the region. External forces have sometimes played a central role in creating conflict in the Third World: the great powers have at times used smaller, developing countries as proxies in their own global conflicts; and, at the same time, the manipulation by these countries of Cold War tensions to secure amis and assistance fueled regional conflicts. Nonetheless, widespread poverty and egregious disparities in the distribution of wealth throughout the Third World constitutes fertile ground for civil strife. In fact, since 1945, warfare has become a distinctly Third World matter. One hundred twenty-five wars have caused 22 million deaths there and taken a substantial toll in suffering and missed economic development. 13 The seemingly intractable ethnic, religious, and national differences dividing the developing world will not disappear simply because the EastWest conflict has abated. 14 As the Iraqi invasion seems to suggest, the Cold War's end may actually encourage expansionist regional hegemons to exploit the era of good feelings between the superpowers. The withdrawal of Washington and Moscow or their proxies from regional conflicts may even expose new tensions requiring resolution. Given the proliferation of ballistic,

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chemical, and nuclear weaponry in the developing world, the disengagement of the superpowers could actually contribute to more violence there. Some have conjectured that the end of the Cold War means the end of the Third World. It is likely, however, that what may emerge from the demise of the superpower conflict is a developing world simultaneously more conflictridden and less amenable to solutions emanating from the developed world. 15 Second, domestic budgetary concerns of the UN Security Council's five permanent members can have an adverse effect on the UN's ability to deploy the resources required for Third World conflict management. This paradoxical effect of great-power cooperation is evident in a least one of the UN's latest peacekeeping operations, the effectiveness of which was impeded by the permanent five's decision to limit its size and scope. The UN Security Council's deliberations in 1988 and 1989 on financing and troop authorization for the UN Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) in Namibia illustrated that the permanent members' goal of cutting costs and troops for peacekeeping can outweigh the requirements for highly professional military operations. The UN Security Council's initial decision to decrease UNTAG's funding by almost $300 million and to eliminate approximately 3,000 troops contributed to an embarrassing situation in which some of the highest casualties in the 23-year guerrilla war occurred just as the United Nations was taking charge in April 1989. Thus, while unanimity among the permanent members may be necessary to gain approval, it provides no assurance that the resulting operation will be of the appropriate size and strength or that the functional tasks and mandate of operations will take precedence over financial imperatives. Third, in the evolving international order and the post-Cold War diffusion of global power, the UN Charter's emphasis on the central role of the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Britain, and France becomes less relevant. By providing these five states with veto power and awarding them the status of permanent members of the UN Security Council, the UN Charter recognized and reflected the distribution of power in the international system at the end of World War II. In practice, the decision has reaffirmed their leadership by assigning them the greater financial burden. They assume about 57 percent of the cost of peacekeeping operations and over 40 percent of the regular budget. Over the four decades since the UN Charter was drafted, however, other powers have emerged: financial ones like Japan and Germany, with the latter likely to become more critical with unification; political ones, especially the Non-Aligned Movement; and regional hegemons like India, Nigeria, and Brazil. Other than increasing the size of the UN Security Council in 1965 following decolonization, member states have routinely defeated amendments to the UN Charter that would bring the organization more in line with the evolving structure of the international system. Although an alteration in UN practice has bestowed on the Non-Aligned Movement a

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"sixth veto" when they act as a group, the permanent five continue to dominate the authorization and financing of UN peacekeeping operations at the same time the emergence of other important powers challenges their preeminence. As a result, the UN's peacekeeping regime has not exploited the important diplomatic and financial possibilities of these emerging powers. Fourth, and related, an international conflict management regime coordinated by the permanent five is likely to encounter serious opposition from much of the developing world. Representatives of the Non-Aligned Movement (and even some smaller Western countries) have expressed concern that the permanent five's blossoming entente will grow into a threatening directorate. Fearful that the UN Security Council's permanent members will use their preferential position to enlarge their authority and arrogate additional powers to themselves, many developing states have attempted to rein them in. For example, a coordinated Third World effort early in 1990 succeeded in blocking a British proposal to provide the UN Security Council with increased power to stop drug trafficking. Moreover, the same coalition of developing countries mobilized initially against the UN Security Council's sending military observers to Haiti to monitor national elections. Such actions suggest a widening rift between North and South that, if allowed to continue, could greatly impair the UN's ability to manage and prevent conflict. Fifth, the state-centric rationale for the UN Charter is outmoded. Brian Urquhart has argued that the complexity of global problems demands that private and nongovernmental institutions be included in the work of the United Nations and that the "overall objective is to transform the UN from an intergovernmental into an international organization." 16 In security activities, the importance of actors such as nongovernmental organizations, insurgent forces, and other multilateral institutions must be recognized. The recent history of SWAPO in Namibia illustrates that yesterday's guerrilla group may become today's ruling party. Furthermore, as humanitarian pressures build in regions such as the Horn of Africa, nongovernmental actors are coming to rival both governments and intergovernmental relief agencies in importance and influence. 17 The structure of the UN does not currently reflect this global order. The United Nations is thus in the midst of a rapidly changing—and somewhat paradoxical—global environment. On the one hand, the world organization is experiencing the benefits of unprecedented cooperation among the permanent members of the UN Security Council and increasing demands for its services. On the other hand, contrary to the expectations of the UN's architects, important shifts in the global distribution of power have made it increasingly difficult for the permanent five by themselves to ensure the smooth and reliable functioning of the U N ' s conflict management regime.

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Factors:

The UN Organizational

Structure

In addition to these exogenous constraints, other factors conspire to undermine the U N ' s ability to handle Third World conflicts in the 1990s. These factors lie in the UN's military organization and leadership, its civilian infrastructure, and its financial health. If consensus within the UN Security Council is maintained and greatpower cooperation continues, the world organization in the next decade will face growing demands for peacekeeping operations. In the past, all peacekeeping operations have been ad hoc responses to distinct situations. Yet, this improvisation can scarcely sustain ongoing operations, much less meet future demands. The likely proliferation of peacekeeping operations will tax the UN's already overburdened peacekeeping regime. The shortcomings of the UN's military forces and leadership constitute the first endogenous limitation on its ability to manage Third World conflicts. The United Nations has never possessed a standing reserve force or even the military oversight envisioned in the UN Charter, but rather it has at its disposal forces composed of national contingents provided by certain member states. Consequently, its peacekeeping forces have suffered from the disparities in expertise that often characterize multinational forces from countries that are not allies and do not share the same levels of development and sophistication. Discrepancies in levels of preparedness, inconsistencies in preparation among national contingents, and differences about the nature of UN authority versus that in capitals can lead to difficulties and unevenness of performance in the field. For instance, the inability of UNIFIL forces, other than the Nepalese, to slow down the Israeli invasion in 1982 has often been criticized from this viewpoint. 18 Second, UN peacekeeping suffers from uneven military leadership. Serious problems exist with the effectiveness of advice available within the UN secretary-general's staff in headquarters. The senior military officer has no battle command experience at the national or international level, and he is assisted by only a few junior officers. Peacekeeping, at the headquarters and in the field, is no place for inexperienced or marginally competent personnel or for shoestring operations. Political expertise is obviously important. Yet if operations like those currently in Iraq or future ones like those contemplated for Cambodia or postinvasion Kuwait become commonplace, the need for military professionalism will be more evident. A third endogenous limitation is the current state of the U N ' s civilian infrastructure. Even before the retirement o f the founding generation of peacekeepers, experienced civilian personnel were barely adequate to cover ongoing operations. This has been exacerbated by a hiring freeze brought on by budget constraints implemented during the 1980s and by the current rapid increase in the demand for peacekeeping services that are all under the supervision o f one overworked and peripatetic under-secretary-general. Without an increase in the number of competent personnel, UN operations

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will be hampered by the inadequacy of the international civil service in New York and in the field. Fourth, and finally, the existing peacekeeping regime suffers from insufficient financial support, which is likely to become more acute. Although the world organization has begun to recover from the financial nadir of 1985-1987, it still has serious cash-flow and financial problems. Even though Secretary of State Baker arrived in New York with a $185 million "carrot" for the UN's good behavior in November 1990, the United States, the organization's largest contributor to both peacekeeping and regular budgets, still owes the United Nations approximately $450 million. Such fiscal shortfall compromises the organization's ability to engage in future conflict management. The events of August 1990 illustrate that weaknesses in the existing peacekeeping regime are likely to be exacerbated as more demanding operations develop. During what one US diplomat called "the most historic month in the 45-year history of the United Nations," 19 the UN Security Council invested the United Nations with enormous responsibilities and engendered huge commitments for the organization. The UN operation contemplated for Cambodia—in which 20,000 troops and international civil servants are expected to take part—would be the largest since the controversial Congo undertaking three decades ago. If implemented, the operation would amount to the UN's assumption of virtually all Cambodia's internal and external affairs. The United Nations would administer the government until elections, oversee the disarming of military factions, organize and conduct elections, implement and monitor human rights guarantees, and ensure the neutrality of the country. Similarly, UN Security Council resolutions on the Iraq-Kuwait crisis have also committed the United Nations to a large and possibly costly role in conflict management. The resolutions authorized the incremental multilateral force against Iraq, beginning with the application of Article 41 of the UN Charter (Resolution 661), which provides for sanctions against aggressor states without the use of armed force, and culminating in the application of Article 42 (Resolution 678), which allows the UN Security Council to order action by air, sea, and land forces to enforce the embargo. Through the force of these resolutions, the United Nations has now initiated its first genuine enforcement action. Although these two new operations have been widely supported by the international community, many questions remain about their implementation: How will the United Nations find enough qualified personnel? What countries will supply them? Who will manage these operations? Who will fund them? These issues are, for the moment at least, most seriously affecting the proposed Cambodian operation, a multilateral deployment along traditional lines, with UN observers and troops. Deployment of 20,000 blue helmets

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and international civil servants who do not speak the local language to a country bereft of infrastructure would pose a major challenge even in the unlikely event that all four parties to the conflict continue to respect their commitments to the peaceful settlement of their long-standing dispute. Such a deployment would double the demand on the UN's already overextended peacekeeping machinery. 20 Although the international forces presently deployed in the Gulf are unlikely to come under some form of UN management, future operations will almost certainly involve the United Nations. If multilateral enforcement did become more usual, problems of support and administration would worsen. It is unclear how the United Nations will pay for new commitments, particularly the $ 2 - 5 billion Cambodia operation. Given the level of the US indebtedness to the United Nations, its unseemly record of expediently ignoring international legal obligations in the 1980s, 21 as well as Congress's evident reluctance to allocate funds for payment, Washington is unlikely to honor future commitments. US financial backing of international conflict management would be even more doubtful if there is a setback in the Gulf operation or if the international community makes a decision that irritates a powerful lobby or members of Congress. The implications for operations about to begin could be disastrous: as one observer has noted, there is reason to believe that the Cambodian plan "was agreed to without a financing commitment from the President or support from Congress. And if the United States won't pay, neither will . . . the Soviet Union, China, Britain, and France." 2 2 Thus the Cambodian operation could resemble the debacle at the outset of UNTAG. The much-heralded actions against Iraq and proposed undertakings in Cambodia or in Kuwait after the withdrawal by Saddam Hussein's troops thus pose many questions. Uncertainties about military training, civilian expertise, and financial support linger. By hastily taking on commitments without adjusting internally to the post-Cold War world, the United Nations runs the risk of failure by being overextended and underprepared. Unless reform is undertaken within the next decade, the United Nations is likely to find itself overburdened, underfinanced, and ill-equipped to fulfill its mandate. Institutional Reform for the 1990s Analysis suggests that two categories of reform are necessary if the United Nations is to meet the demands of its current security commitments in the Third World and achieve some of the more ambitious tasks now being proposed. First, UN member states must consider ways to improve the m a n a g e m e n t , professionalism, and financing of the o r g a n i z a t i o n ' s peacekeeping activities. Second, the organization must be restructured to reflect and capitalize on recent shifts in the global distribution of power.

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To meet the demands of upcoming peacekeeping operations, the United Nations must improve its operational capacity to deploy troops and civilians in regional conflicts when belligerents agree to stop fighting. The creation of a more professional and consistently prepared military force is a prerequisite for UN peacekeeping activities in the 1990s. To this end, the United Nations should consider maintaining a type of standing reserve force consisting of units identified for multilateral service but based at home. This idea was put forward by then secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold in his 1960 report on the work of the organization and provides the model for the national standby forces actually maintained by the Nordic countries. Similar preparedness and commitment to multilateral soldiering should become the approach of countries with large military forces, as has been the case with smaller and neutral countries, which have been the backbone of UN peacekeeping in recent years. The concept of a multinational reserve force—which in the past was supported by the United States and is now championed by the Soviet Union—makes particularly good sense in situations where peacekeeping troops are deployed on dangerous assignments such as in Cambodia or in ensuring the delivery of humanitarian aid in civil wars where food deprivation is part of the arsenal of a government and insurgents. 23 A standing reserve force should be distinguished from a UN permanent force, whose prospects remain poor in the 1990s. 24 In theory, it would have been easier had the Military Staff Committee (MSC) and a permanent force been operational in August 1990. But because they were not, it was necessary for the United States and Saudi Arabia to make key decisions. This situation is likely to continue in the foreseeable future, because a permanent force would be prohibitively expensive and inefficient. Having well-trained soldiers exclusively employed by the world organization and under the direct and permanent control of the secretary-general would necessitate progress beyond prevailing views toward sovereignty. Whereas rapid response to large-scale crises such as the one in Kuwait would probably be left to the United States, 25 a UN standing reserve force would ensure more professional response in cases where belligerents have agreed to peacekeeping and where small countries (for instance, Trinidad or the Maldives) are threatened and request assistance from the world organization. In any event, the existence of a reserve force, including logistics support and backup troops, might allay some of the problems and dangers of ad hoc multilateral intervention, as reflected in the Iraqi crisis. At the same time, to be truly effective, a standing UN reserve force would have to be combined with a more adequate corps of professional civilian and military leaders at the United Nations itself. The place to begin a discussion of civilian reform is at the top of the organization, the office of the secretary-general. A number of proposals related to strengthening the

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autonomy of the position have surfaced and should be considered when a new secretary-general is elected in December 1991. One proposal deserves particular mention here: Brian Urquhart and Erskine Childers have argued persuasively for the need to create three deputy positions so that the secretary-general can increasingly work through a managed delegation of authority and spend the requisite time and attention on major crises. An integral part of the proposal is choosing carefully—through the use of an independent search committee—a person of the highest integrity who could act autonomously for a single seven-year term. 26 Examination of the civilian infrastructure must include scrutiny of the military leadership. The secretary-general's own cabinet needs more seasoned military personnel. The secretary-general should have a list of experienced officers for senior command and advisory positions who can be released quickly by their governments for service to the United Nations. More professional military leadership demands better coordination of command and control functions, possibly in a functioning UN "peace room." 2 7 The military oversight group called for in the UN Charter and composed of the military representatives of the UN Security Council's five permanent members has never functioned as planned. In the past three years, Soviet proposals to revitalize the moribund MSC met with little support from other countries. However, Moscow's approval of the use of force to implement sanctions against Iraq was apparently part of a quid pro quo that included a fresh look by member states at the MSC. While coordination of Gulf efforts necessitated a meeting of generals of the permanent five, member states that have traditionally contributed troops as well as important regional powers will probably resist revival of the MSC. An informally expanded MSC might be an acceptable form of command and control for peacekeeping operations and needs further discussion. The members of the MSC could, for instance, invite states contributing troops to a particular operation to participate in relevant discussions. Open deliberations and an improved intelligence service would improve the effectiveness of the MSC. Member states, especially the United States and the Soviet Union, are unlikely to support independent intelligence gathering by the United Nations. In fact, the US Senate at one time proposed a bill to abolish even the UN's innocuous Office for Research and Collection of Information (ORCI) on these grounds. There are advantages, however, to a system of intelligence sharing among member states. Currently, only the United States and the Soviet Union (and, to a lesser degree, China and France) possess appropriately sophisticated satellite technology. By sharing with the secretary-general, ORCI, and members of the UN Security Council information such as that which was generated in the Gulf, these states could enhance the responsiveness of the United Nations during crises. 28 As one observer has noted, a voluntary system of intelligence sharing involving the superpowers and possibly other states "would turn out to be surprisingly

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comprehensive; in just about every case it would be in some nation's interest to share the relevant information." 29 Because the United States and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council are reluctant to meet likely costs, and because the UN's annual peacekeeping budget is likely to balloon during the next decade, a redistribution of assessments for peacekeeping that relies more heavily on countries like Japan and Germany would be both desirable and necessary to put the United Nations on a more solid financial footing. For a reallocation to occur, however, new donors must be offered a larger voice. Measures such as the sanctions applied against Iraq will not work in the future without Japan's and Germany's cooperation. Yet as the domestic debates within these countries over funding the Gulf operation indicated, they will decline to boost their financial contribution without a concomitant increase in authority. Reallocation of voting strength is a possibility. For example, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) correlates voting power with capital contributions. In the spring of 1990, Japan and Germany increased their contributions to that organization, reflecting the new global distribution of economic power, and in turn they were allocated greater voting status. At the same time, Britain and France decreased their contributions and consequently lost voting strength. Although voting within the United Nations is not weighted, other options exist to recognize the new economic order. For example, Japan and Germany might be assigned a permanent rotating seat and an informal veto similar to the "sixth" veto of the Non-Aligned Movement in the UN Security Council. Observer status in an invigorated MSC might be conferred on the two financial giants to furnish them a larger role in peacekeeping management. Based on domestic debate about the nature of their contributions, Japan and Germany might be encouraged to participate directly in certain aspects of peacekeeping operations. The Japanese have informally suggested the creation of six new permanent seats on the UN Security Council, without a veto, which would be filled by the most significant regional powers. Seats would be reserved for Japan and Germany as well as for India, Egypt, Nigeria, and Brazil. Now that the UN Security Council is more active in safeguarding international peace and security, its composition and authority will once again become an issue. Amending the UN Charter would raise a host of questions—including the abolition of permanent seats altogether and the utility of vetoes—that would hardly be attractive to the permanent five. Nonetheless, as the international community begins to take the United Nations more seriously, these constitutional issues cannot be ignored or finessed indefinitely, and a UN Charter revision will probably be required by the dawn of the next century. The UN Charter as currently written is based on a vision of the world in which five "police officers" are disproportionately responsible for global issues and enjoy a reciprocal portion of global rights. In essence, the reforms

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previously described call for a diffusion of power and responsibility within the United Nations to mirror and codify the ongoing redistribution of power in world politics. Implicitly, it recognizes that in a system in which most rights and responsibilities are concentrated in the few, the many can become hostage to their whims. Although it does not call for radically revamping the world organization, it does give more authority to emerging and regional powers while reducing the central role of the superpowers. This reform is arguably unacceptable to the five permanent members because it dilutes their power. Visionary thinking has advanced more in Moscow than in the capitals of other permanent members, 30 and the question remains: How can the suggested reform be made acceptable to the permanent five and particularly to the superpowers? Although they may find their rights reduced by such a reform, they may also be relieved of some of their responsibility. For the United States, this trade-off might be worthwhile because Washington is unwilling to provide its mandated share of funding for both the regular budget and for peacekeeping. Similarly, the Soviets may be willing to forgo some of their privileges at the United Nations in exchange for a lower contribution to the budget, thereby conserving precious hard currency and counterbalancing US dominance in decisionmaking. Both superpowers have a long-term interest in measures that give emerging powers a somewhat larger and more responsible role in the UN system. Superpower control will continue to erode as postwar bipolar coalitions give way to greater multipolarity. At the same time, the diffusion of power may stimulate the emergence of regional hegemons with their own agendas. Accordingly, the interests of both Washington and Moscow would be served by relinquishing some prerogatives to act unilaterally in order to secure the commitment of emerging powers to future multilateral approaches in international relations. This does not mean that the superpowers will lose status in the United Nations. Their nuclear capacity assures them a distinct position in matters related to international security. As we have argued elsewhere, 3 1 the superpowers have a special role at the United Nations and make unique contributions. Under the proposed financial reform, the special position of the permanent five and their vetoes would largely be maintained. The measure redistributes the burden of UN operations in a way that better reflects the distribution of economic and political power in the world. Moving

Toward

Chapter

VII

Although the need for reform is great, it is not a forgone conclusion. Threats to global order and stability evidenced during the Gulf crisis might be obviated in the twenty-first century by a meaningful collective security regime. 3 2 The components of such a system might include use of untried sections of the UN Charter to create truly multilateral enforcement; innovative interpretation of the UN Charter, such as peacekeeping operations;

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more effective use of the peacemaking potential of the secretary-general; and expansion of the UN's role in overseeing conventional arms reduction in the Third World. Restructuring the United Nations as we have outlined is, at the very least, necessary to guarantee the effective use of peacekeeping in this decade. Such restructuring is a precondition for expansion of UN conflict management in the direction of Chapter VII, enforcement operations, as anticipated by the decisions in the heady month of August 1990, and in monitoring conventional arms control agreements. Moreover, many new tasks—stopping drug traffic and terrorism and improving the security of small states—also depend for their success on implementation of similar reforms. The move from Chapter six and a half (peacekeeping) to Chapter VII (enforcement) is a challenge requiring additional changes in administration, staffing, and oversight. While discussion of the maintenance of international peace and security assumes a continuum between peacekeeping and enforcement, the two as currently implemented are discrete. The institutional reforms suggested previously are necessary first steps in developing continuity; yet other separate organizational and doctrinal issues must be addressed by the international policymaking community before multilateral enforcement activities become a reality. For example, what types of preventive positioning of troops are feasible and desirable? To what extent will the United Nations seek to intervene in the internal affairs of states, and how can such intervention be justified with Article II, section 7 of the UN Charter? What relationship should the United Nations have with organizations such as an enhanced Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Western European Union, and regional groupings (e.g., the Organization for African Unity or the Organization of American States)? What are the comparative advantages of using a revamped NATO force combined with UN peacemaking capability, or, alternatively, UN soldiers in tandem with diplomacy and mediation from regional organizations or the Commonwealth secretariat? Answers to these questions are beyond the scope of this chapter, which is concerned primarily with a discussion of the types of reforms necessary to ensure the smooth and professional functioning of the UN's conflict management system in the present decade. However, the next generation of UN leaders must grapple with such questions in planning for the challenges—and dangers—of the post-Cold War world. Meanwhile, the United Nations continues to have an important role in Third World conflict management. As the international system moves beyond the postwar system and as assumptions about interstate blocs, alignments, and relations are dispelled, the United Nations can serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas and information. Such communication, elucidating the preferences and expectations of international actors, may increase

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predictability and improve international coordination, which may avert or contain conflicts. Member states would do well to revamp the United Nations for the challenges of this decade and the next century. Reform of the organization's conflict management system along the lines proposed in this chapter will not come easily and, if revision of the UN Charter is undertaken, will engender disagreements over the status and power of member states. These disagreements should not, however, overshadow recognition of the contribution of the United Nations in international conflict management or distract member states from initiating reforms to promote that role. US Interests

in Collective

Security

This admonition is directed particularly at the United States, which continues to equivocate on its support for multilateralism. The Bush administration's reliance on the United Nations during the initial months of the Iraq-Kuwait crisis represented a positive departure from the distinctly anti-UN policies of the Reagan era. Nevertheless, Washington consulted the United Nations less and less frequently after military hostilities began on January 16 and sought to avoid scrutiny by the UN Security Council of efforts to oust Saddam Hussein's troops from Kuwait. The question remains whether the US's initial willingness to work through the United Nations represents a new, more positive orientation toward mulitlateralism in general or, as cynics suggest, an isolated event unlikely to be repeated. The response by the international community to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was the first test of the post-Cold War era and may be judged as a superior and significant step toward a new international security regime. Criticism of the UN's inability to respond as energetically in previous crises—for example, against Israel's occupation of territories in the Middle East or India's incorporation of Sikkim—is misplaced. To judge the present by past performance is to forestall the possibility that human beings and their institutions can actually make progress. Another test will come soon, no doubt in a part of the world without the same economic or strategic interest to the United States and other major powers. If the international community does not act as quickly or authoritatively as it did against Iraq, the cynics will have been vindicated. Beyond the uncertainty of US support for UN military action against aggressors in areas of the globe in which it has fewer vital interests looms a larger question: Is the United States consistently willing to rely on collective decisionmaking and pursue the multilateralism made both possible and necessary by the end of the Cold War? Working in multilateral diplomacy is slow, public, and inefficient. Compromise is the means, and its results are often half-baked. The true test of multilateralism will arise when the United States does not get its way. Most important, international standards are meant to be uniformly applied. Washington has sought to maintain that the

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Iraqi occupation of Kuwait was distinctly different from Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, and southern Lebanon; but such double standards do not sit well. If intervention and occupation are illegal, then future Grenadas or Panamas are going to be judged harshly. If international law is of consequence, then judgments by the International Court of Justice in favor of Nicaragua's cannot be ignored. To demonstrate a clear commitment to George Bush's "new world order," the United States could pay its outstanding U N dues in full, and future assessments in a timely manner. E v e n though it is imperative for Washington to scale back expenditures in light of the budget deficit, the United Nations is not the place to realize economies. The US share of annual costs to the world organization, approximately a dollar and a half per capita, is about one-quarter the cost for one day of combat in the Gulf. With US support, both financial and political, the United Nations can begin the challenging task of pursuing necessary reforms and constructing a workable collective security system. Notes 1. Paul Lewis, "1988 Was, at Long Last, the Year of the U.N.," New York 1 Jan. 1989, sec. 4, p. 2. 2. Washington Post, 24 Oct. 1989, A10. 3. See Kirkpatrick's column in Washington Post, 11 Dec. 1988. 4. See George L. Sherry The United Nations Reborn (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1990):29; see also the reflections by two military officers, Gustav Hagglund, "Peace-keeping in a modern war zone," and John Mackinlay, "Powerful peace-keepers," Survival 12, no. 3 (May/June 1990): 233-250. 5. The peculiarity of the Korean operation is not considered here. This essentially US military force under the command of General MacArthur was authorized against the Soviet Union's allies while Moscow was boycotting the UN Security Council. 6. See James Sutterlin, "Strengthening the Role of International Organizations in Dealing with Conflict," in The Future Role of the United Nations in an Interdependent World, ed. John P. Renninger (London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1989): 89-98. 7. See Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Petrovsky, "Towards Comprehensive Security Through the Enhancement of the Role of the United Nations" (aide-mémoire), 22 Sept. 1988, and his speech before the UN General Assembly, 17 Oct. 1988, "Statement by V. F. Petrovsky," mimeograph, Soviet Permanent Mission to the United Nations. 8. See Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze's address to the UN General Assembly, Pravda, 28 Sept. 1988, p. 4. 9. Thomas M. Franck, "Soviet Initiatives: US R e s p o n s e s — N e w Opportunities for Reviewing the United Nations System," The American Journal of International Law 83 (1989): 532. 10. Brian Urquhart, "The United Nations and Its Discontents," New York Review of Books 37, no. 4 (15 Mar. 1990): 12. Times,

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11. A. L. Narochnitzkii, ed., Soveiskii Soyuz i OON (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1981): 40. 12. For more on this change in Soviet attitudes toward the United Nations, see Thomas G. Weiss and Meryl A. Kessler, "Moscow's U.N. Policy," Foreign Policy, no. 79 (Summer 1990): 94-112. 13. See Ruth Leger Sivard, World Military and Social Expenditures 1989 (Washington, D.C..: World Priorities, 1989). 14. See Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), and Mohammed Ayoob, "The Third World in the System of States: Acute Schizophrenia or Growing Pains?" International Studies Quarterly 33, no. 1 (March 1989): 67-79. 15. Robert J. Samuelson, "End of the Third World," Washington Post, 18 July 1990. 16. Urquhart,"The United Nations and Its Discontents," 16. 17. See Larry Minear et al., Humanitarianism Under Siege (Trenton, N.J.: Red Sea Press, 1990). 18. For this case and others, see discussions by John MacKinlay, The Peacekeepers (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989); Alan James, Peacekeeping in International Politics (London: Macmillan, 1990); Pierre LePeillet, Les Berets Bleus de l'ONU (Paris: Editions France-Empire, 1988); and a special issue of Survival 32, no. 3 (May/June 1990). 19. Steven Erlanger, "Cambodian Rivals Said to Accept U.N. Peace Plan," New York Times, 10 Sept. 1990, A l . 20. See John MacKinlay, "A Role for the Peacekeeper in Cambodia," RUSl Journal (Autumn 1990): 26-30. 21. See David P. Forsythe, The Politics of International Law: US Foreign Policy Reconsidered (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1990), and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, On the Law of Nations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990). 22. See Michael J. Horowitz, "The 'China Hand' in the Cambodia Plan," New York Times, 12 Sept. 1990. 23. See Leon Gordenker and Thomas G. Weiss, eds., Soldiers, Peacekeepers, Disasters (London: Macmillan, 1991). 24. It is notable, however, that the Soviets proposed the idea of a UN "permanent contingent" at an unofficial meeting in Moscow in April 1989. See Lincoln Bloomfield, "Coping with Conflict in the Late 20th Century," Internalional Journal 44, no. 4 (Autumn 1989): 797. 25. It is interesting to note that this type of use of US "hand power" was not specifically identified by Joseph S. Nye, Jr., in his Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990). But it would grow naturally from his line of reasoning. 26. Brian Urquhart and Erskine Childers, A World in Need of Leadership: Tomorrow's United Nations (Uppsala: Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, 1990). See also A Successor Vision: The United Nations of Tomorrow, ed. Peter Fromuth (New York: United Nations Association of the USA, 1988). 27. See Augustus Richard Norton and Thomas G. Weiss, U.N. Peacekeepers: Soldiers with a Difference (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1990). 28. On the concept and prospects for "early warning," see John Renninger, "Early Warning: What Role for the United Nations?" in The Future Role of the United Nations, ed. Renninger, 207-219. 29. Zachary Citron, "We Aren't the World," New Republic, 15 May 1989, p. 22. 30. See Andrei Kozyrev, "The U S S R ' s New Approach to the UN,"

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International Affairs (July 1990): 12-19. For a discussion of divisions about the new Soviet thinking in regional conflicts, see Andrei Kortunov, "The Gulf Crisis: A Soviet Approach," Moscow News, no. 2, 1991. 31. See Weiss and Kessler, " Moscow's U.N. Policy." 32. See Brian Urquhart, "Learning from the Gulf," New York Review of Books 38, no. 5 (7 Mar. 1991): 34-37.

a 6a

The Impact of Superpower Collaboration on the Third World S. NEIL MACFARLANE

This chapter discusses the impact of change in the Soviet-US relationship on Third World security. 1 The first problem is to define the nature of change. Second, I consider the implications of change for superpower behavior in the Third World. Third, I discuss the impact of changing Soviet and US behavior on the security environment in the Third World. I conclude with some speculation as to how these changes are likely to be perceived by Third World policymakers. T h e focus o f this volume on the end o f the Cold War and its implications for the Third World necessarily directs this chapter and others toward superpower policies and how they have changed. However, it bears mention that although the policies of the superpowers and the competition between them have frequently been important variables in influencing the course and conduct of regional conflict, they have seldom been determined with regard to either the sources of conflict, its outbreak, its management, or its resolution. The principal factors impinging on regional security in the Third World, as shall be argued, have on the whole been indigenous. The same is true o f factors affecting the capacity to manage or resolve conflict. Change in the superpower relationship is of significance. But it is no panacea for the regional security problems of the Third World. Change in the Soviet-US Relationship in the Third World T o a considerable extent, the Third World has been important to each superpower in terms o f the global competition between them for influence and strategic position. Gains and losses in the Third World were seen by the superpowers from the 1 9 5 0 s through the 1 9 7 0 s as o f considerable significance in the overall "correlation o f forces." This perception induced competitive superpower involvement in Third World conflicts. 2 There were and are instances when interests not obviously related to the Cold War have driven superpower policy. Whether or not there exists a global superpower 125

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competition, for example, the USSR perceives vital interests to be at stake in the Middle East, given that region's contiguity to Soviet borders and the existence of cross-border cultural affinities. 3 The stake of the United States in the region has, since World War II, been strongly tied to the question of security of access to energy supplies. Much has been made of the importance of US access to minerals in southern Africa. The US interest and propensity to intervene in Central America predates the Cold War and again reflects the sensitivities associated with contiguity. 4 But the effort to pursue these more tangible interests has generally been strongly affected by Cold War considerations as well. The importance of regional security in the Middle East to the USSR has been enhanced and shaped by the perception that the United States has sought to exclude the USSR from a region of vital Soviet interest, and to manipulate regional politics in such a way as to diminish Soviet security. 5 From the US perspective, the question of access to oil took on particular urgency because of a widely perceived Soviet effort to jeopardize that access and because of the reliance of N A T O allies of the United States on these supplies to sustain their defensive posture vis-à-vis the Warsaw Pact. The issue of acccss to strategic minerals in southern Africa has been colored by the perception that the USSR is attempting to limit that access through the installation of Communist regimes hostile to the United States. 6 Moreover, the demand for such minerals has been greatly increased in the recent past by the arms race with the Soviet Union. US sensitivities regarding Central America since the Cuban revolution of 1959 have been couched in terms of the need to resist Soviet-inspired Communist revolution in the region. US policymakers have perceived the proximate threat in the region to emanate from a purported Soviet desire to manipulate revolutionary processes there in order to acquire influence at US expense. 7 Likewise, the Soviet U n i o n ' s policies in the Third World have at times been strongly informed by competition with China. This again has its roots in n o n - C o l d War factors (e.g., the ideologically based competition for influence within the world Communist m o v e m e n t and a m o n g the broader array of forces struggling for liberation). But here too, a glance at Soviet c o m m e n t on Chinese behavior in the Third World—particularly in the 1 9 7 0 s — s h o w s how Cold War considerations strongly informed Soviet perspectives on the Chinese challenge. China was seen in objective terms as an ally of the United States in the struggle to contain the USSR. 8 Perhaps the most basic aspect of change in Soviet-US relations as they pertain to the Third World is the easing of Cold W a r tensions. Both sides appear to have reevaluated their relationship in the Third World in such a way as to emphasize mutual interests (e.g., the avoidance of complications in their central relationship emanating from disagreements over Third World conflicts). They have redirected the focus of their diplomacy away from Third

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World issues and toward more obviously "Northern" ones (e.g., arms control and disarmament and the redefinition of the European security regime). In addition, the Soviet Union in particular is attempting to reduce the ideological, universalistic component of its policy in the Third World as part of an effort to rationalize resource allocation and reduce the perceived threat to the United States emanating from Soviet policy in the Third World. This occurs in a broader context of an increasing emphasis on domestic issues in resource allocation at the expense of foreign policy. At the root of the shift in both superpowers' approaches to the Third World is the deepening crisis in the USSR and the consequent necessity to reformulate the Soviet approach to foreign policy. 9 Implications for Superpower Behavior in the Third World There are several implications of this apparent end to the Cold War for superpower policy in the Third World. First, the overall willingness of the superpowers to commit scarce resources to the Third World will diminish. Soviet statements recently have made clear that the "free lunch" in their relationship with Third World allies—to the extent there ever was one—is over. 1 0 This includes both state and nonstate actors. From a rational actor perspective, the Soviet emphasis today is on the use of resources to address domestic needs as a matter of priority." Resources are likely to be diverted to Third World contingencies only to the extent that these carry significant promise of tangible return to the Soviet domestic economy. This is, however, not merely a matter of the judgment of policymakers regarding the best interests of the Soviet state. The changing character of Soviet foreign policy process—and in particular the growing role of a reasonably free legislature in the formulation of policy—means that policy is increasingly vulnerable to domestic political variables. Recent Supreme Soviet debates and comment from the press suggest that the issue of diversion of scarce resources to unproductive relationships with friends in the Third World is highly explosive. For example, there has recently been profound criticism in the press of the massive Soviet subsidization of Cuba, one author noting provocatively that the USSR spends one-third more on foreign assistance (Cuba receiving more than 25 percent) than on science or law enforcement and a sum approximately equal to that budgeted for the improvement of domestic living standards. 1 2 In the past, Soviet policy has been to some extent immune from such criticism as a result of the ability to limit the access to information. In early 1990, however, Supreme Soviet deputies compelled the publication of data on official assistance in order to inform an increasingly acrimonious debate on the subject. 13 Conscious of this, Soviet leaders will be reluctant to risk domestic opprobrium by sustaining expensive

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relationships with traditional Soviet allies. This extends also to the Soviet capacity to undertake military action in the Third World. Eduard Shevardnadze noted that any decision to deploy Soviet forces to the Gulf in the context of collective action against Iraq would require the approval of the Supreme Soviet. 14 The effects of change in Soviet domestic policy on Soviet international behavior extend also into the evolving relationship between the central government and the union republics. To the extent that the latter acquire control over resources, the flexibility of the central government in foreign policy is limited. For example, early in 1991, a subsidiary of the Anglo-American Corporation signed an agreement with the Soviet ministry responsible for diamond extraction, in which the Soviets agreed formally to market their production through the Central Selling Organization. In return, Anglo-American provided a substantial credit to the Soviets that was apparently to be used to cover foreign exchange shortfalls at a time of rising import of consumer goods. The Russian Republic, within whose borders the diamonds are found, rejected the agreement, asserting sovereignty over its resources. As a result, the fate of the agreement is unclear. The other side of the coin is evident in the empirical proposition that US assistance to the Third World is closely correlated to the perception of Soviet activity. Absent the Cold War threat from the USSR, there is no substantial US domestic constituency supporting deep US involvement in the Third World as a whole. Indeed, economic assistance to the Third World has been in secular decline since the early 1960s. US assistance has increasingly focused on arms transfers and military advisors with a view to addressing the problem of Soviet expansion, except in specific instances such as US support of Israel. Given the diversity and intensity of US demands on the exchequer, one may therefore expect a diminution in US resources devoted to the Third World, except in specific instances. 15 The immediately preceding caveat suggests a second implication. Although the decline of the Cold War implies a diminution in superpower activity in the Third World, there are areas in which each superpower can justify continuing involvement and commitment of resources. One may expect the USSR and the United States to focus on such areas in which interests exist independent of the Cold War. In other words, although the end of the Cold War is global in character, its effect on superpower policy in the Third World is regionally specific. From the perspective of the bilateral relationship between the superpowers, the Third World is made up of three types of region: • •

Areas in which concrete interests of the two superpowers overlap (e.g., the Middle East and the Gulf); Areas in which one superpower or the other has an asymmetrically

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strong interest (e.g., Central America for the United States and Afghanistan for the USSR); and Areas in which neither side possesses significant concrete interests (e.g., sub-Saharan Africa).

In the current context of superpower relations, we may expect areas of type 3 to be ignored by the superpowers, except (as in the case of the Horn) where extreme hardship brings humanitarian considerations into play or where (as in South Africa) significant domestic constituencies have a special stake in the affairs of the region. For instance, ample evidence exists of a decreasing level of superpower interest and involvement in the conflicts of the Horn. Levels of technical and military assistance to the Ethiopian government from the USSR are clearly declining. There is some reason to expect that the military agreement that governs the SovietEthiopian military relationship will not be renewed when it expires in 1991. There is no evidence of any US willingness to fill the consequent vacuum, despite Ethiopian interest in an improved relationship with the United States. With regard to the second zone, the decline of universal Cold War competition in the Third World means that—all else being equal—each superpower is likely to have a freer hand in areas where it views its interests to be in play while the other superpower's are not. This pertains most clearly to the United States, as the USSR has never possessed an exclusive preserve in the Third World. The region potentially most clearly affected is the Caribbean Basin. The US intervention in Panama would appear to confirm the proposition. Certainly it was so perceived by many in Moscow. 16 It is legitimate to question whether Soviet involvement in the region in the past has indeed deterred the United States from more forthright action in defense of its perceived interests in this region against smaller states who are perceived to be trespassing on US prerogatives. Superficially, there is little evidence that Soviet involvement was a determining factor in restraining the United States. In the case of Cuba, the United States does not appear to have considered the military option as a solution to the Castro problem since the Kennedy era. The question has not really emerged in the policy and decisionmaking agenda and as such there was arguably little to deter. In the Nicaraguan case, the dominant factor constraining a forceful US reaction to the Sandinistas appears to have been a lack of domestic support for such action. This in turn was a product of post-Vietnam sensitivity to possible costly involvements in the Third World coupled with a lack of consensus on the appropriateness of use of force to extinguish revolutionary regimes in the region. However, in each instance, Soviet involvement in the region may have acted at a deeper level to influence US decisionmaking. In the Cuban case, one reason that the option of "going to the source" has not been seriously

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considered is that the Soviet buildup of Cuban military capability has greatly altered the balance of cost and benefit facing the United States in any military action against Cuba. The ambiguity of the Soviet commitment to Cuba in the event of US military action has also served to keep Cuba off the US military agenda, despite considerable incentive in the 1970s and 1980s to act. Finally, the Soviet deployment of missiles to Cuba in 1962 resulted in what was widely perceived to be a Soviet-US agreement that in return for removal of these missiles, the United States would refrain from military action against Cuba, which would infringe an interstate agreement and draw into question Soviet prestige. In the Nicaraguan case as well, Soviet assistance may have affected the calculus of cost and risk affecting the domestic political process. Perhaps the principal distinction between Grenada and Nicaragua was that in the former case the United States could apply sufficient force to ensure that the operation would be short and completed at a low cost in lives. The potential domestic political liabilities were thus limited. There was no such assurance associated with the use of force against Nicaragua. This difference was in part the result of geography and population. It was also, however, the result of the comparatively underdeveloped capacity of Grenada to offer resistance, in contrast to Nicaragua's possession of a loyal, reasonably well-trained and very well equipped military establishment. This owed much to Soviet bloc assistance. In the current period, there is to my knowledge no evidence that greater Soviet restraint in the region was a significant factor in the US calculus of cost and benefit associated with the option of invasion of Panama. Soviet restraint or no, the probability of a significant Soviet response was insignificant. There was never any serious Soviet connection or commitment to Panama. The prevailing factors in US decisionmaking were the ease of the operation, the costs to the president's domestic prestige from inaction in the face of open Panamanian defiance, and the expectation that a success would greatly enhance the president's standing at home. This does not, however, alter the more basic conclusion implied previously that Soviet assistance and commitment to friendly regimes did constrain US decisionmaking regarding the Caribbean Basin and that the decline of Soviet interest reduces this constraint. There are two qualifications appropriate here. To the extent that US activism is perceived in part to be a response to Soviet passivity, such activism may affect Soviet domestic politics in such a way as to complicate the positive transformation in Soviet-US relations. To the extent that this linkage is understood in Washington and that the United States remains desirous of such improvement, this indirectly constrains US use of force despite the decline in the direct Soviet role in the region. Moreover, and independent of the question of Soviet-US relations, the Vietnam experience is likely to continue to constrain the US consideration of force as an instrument

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of policy, except where policymakers are convinced of the prospect of easy victory. In the first zone, although the ideological edge of competition between the USSR and the United States is disappearing, the overlap of concrete interests implies continuing involvement and potential conflict, though the growing capacity of the two superpowers to consult meaningfully on such issues may mitigate this persisting tendency toward conflict. The issue in these instances is not so much one of the disappearance of the superpower rivalry, but one of its management and de-escalation. This was perhaps most evident in the Gulf, where the supeipowers—sensitive to the possibility that their perceived interests in this region may collide—took considerable care to consult and to coordinate their policies. The decline of Cold War issues in the Third World leaves space for the emergence of other concerns as determining variables in superpower policy there. The significance of drugs in US policy toward Latin America and Central America is a reflection of this, as is the US invasion of Panama. Arguably, the role of concern over oil in US decisionmaking on Iraq's invasion of Kuwait is a further case in point. Further factors impinging increasingly on US and broader Western policy are migration and environmental deterioration. An example from the Soviet side would be the evidently growing concern with profitability in relations with Third World states. Another is the previously mentioned concern over the role of Islam within the Soviet Union and its relation to Soviet policy vis-à-vis the Islamic world. Two other examples that are already playing an increasing role in Moscow's and Washington's calculations are terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons and sophisticated means of delivering them. Related to this is the likelihood that the disappearance of the overriding concern with bipolar competition and the consequent decreasing strength of the linkage between Third World issues and the global agenda of the superpowers may create a situation in which groups with specific interests, in particular Third World issues, come to play an increasing role in policy formulation. This is encouraged further by the growing pluralization of the policymaking process in both countries. To take an example from recent US experience, the disappearance of the Cold War spin to the southern African issue leaves an opening for domestic US constituencies with an interest in reform in South Africa to play a more prominent role in the determination of policy. George Bush's embrace of Nelson Mandela is one consequence. A more pernicious example is the continuation of US assistance to UNITA. Precisely because the Angolan conflict is no longer seen to be central to US foreign policy, that policy is driven by a narrow group of conservative zealots who apparently perceive it to be the US's responsibility to bring their understanding of democracy into being in Angola, and who apparently perceive Jonas Savimbi to be the chosen agent

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in this God-given mission. The incoherence of US policy in the region as a whole is a product of the abdication of policy to narrow groups with contradictory interests. In some of these non-Cold War issues, there is substantial prospect for cooperation, as the interests of Moscow and Washington are mutually consistent. Both, for example, are increasingly sensitive to the domestic damage associated with the import of drugs. Both are aware of their vulnerability to terrorism. Not surprisingly, there are numerous ongoing efforts to consult, to exchange information, and to coordinate action in these areas as well. Coordination of positions on the Gulf, on terrorism, and on drugs are specific examples of a more general trend in Soviet and US policy. The rapid positive evolution of the central relationship between the United States and the USSR and the evident Soviet awareness that this much-desired process is in some respects vulnerable to disagreements over Third World issues conduce to deliberate efforts by the superpowers to coordinate their positions in the Third World and to manage and resolve crises in such a way as to limit damage. The Soviet Union and the United States consulted closely in laying the basis in Geneva for an orderly withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. Though the settlement was incomplete (both sides continued to assist their Afghan proxies after Soviet withdrawal and the internal war has continued), the United States and the USSR have continued to work on the issue. They have nudged local actors into negotiation and attempted to reach agreement on a cessation of assistance, to the point where Eduard Shevardnadze confidently predicted final agreement on Afghan issues at the foreign ministers' meeting in December 1990. As time passed, their efforts went beyond the resolution of conflicts in which one or both of them was directly involved. The Soviets were instrumental in pushing the Vietnamese toward a withdrawal from Kampuchea and toward acceptance of the necessity of including the Khmer Rouge in ongoing negotiations. Both the United States and the USSR have cooperated in the definition of a transitional regime and of a role for the United Nations in effecting a resolution of the crisis. Perhaps the best—and best documented—example is that of US mediation of the tripartite accord between Angola, South Africa, and Cuba. This was the basis for the implementation of Resolution 435 concerning Namibia, and for the withdrawal of South African troops from Angolan territory. This accord in turn was instrumental in unfreezing the situation within South Africa itself. In comment subsequent to the signing of the accord, the United States recognized the critical Soviet role behind the scenes in keeping the Angolans and Cubans at the table, and in inducing them to compromise on a number of issues, including the timetable of Cuban withdrawal from Angola and the delinkage of the issues of external intervention and internal conflict within Angola. 17

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More generally, the decline of superpower competition has greatly increased their capacity to use the United Nations in pursuit of shared objectives in the Third World. The United Nations was useful to neither (except as a forum for influence building and rhetorical posturing) as long as there was insufficient congruence of perceived interests to permit concerted action in the UN Security Council. In the current context, and despite the earlier comment, the basis for collaboration has expanded substantially, as reflected in the broadened horizons of the organization in the realm of peacekeeping. The actual capacity of the organization to respond effectively to this opportunity is, of course, another matter, as is demonstrated elsewhere in this volume. Such close diplomatic coordination on issues of Third World conflict raises the question of superpower condominium. It is unclear as yet just how far the structure of superpower cooperation on regional conflict will proceed. Soviet and US behavior suggests considerable enthusiasm for expanding their cooperation to other conflict arenas. When Indo-Pakistani tension over the Kashmir rose in mid-1990, for example, the United States and the Soviet Union sent parallel missions to Islamabad and New Delhi to dissuade the local actors from conflict, on the basis of a common and coordinated position that the outbreak of war on the subcontinent would run counter not only to superpower interest but also to that of the global community at a time when both sought to focus attention on the Gulf. Elsewhere, Soviet cooperation and goodwill in the Gulf seem to have softened US opposition to the idea of an international conference on the Middle East under joint Soviet-US chairmanship. More generally, it is plausible that recent initiatives may be followed by comprehensive arrangements governing superpower behavior in the Third World. These might include: • • • • •

Agreement on the nondeployment of Soviet and US forces in Third World conflicts except by agreement; Limitations on the use of proxy forces; Limitations on the provision of military advisors; Restrictions on arms transfers coupled with efforts to engage other suppliers in such restrictions; and Joint monitoring of developing crises in the Third World. 18

Although the general lines of development of the superpower relationship are reasonably clear and its foundations quite durable, 1 9 its endpoint is not a foregone conclusion. Soviet and US perspectives on Third World security are substantially closer than they were, but there remain significant differences. For example, there are clear disparities between US and Soviet attitudes on the use of force in the Gulf, the Soviet position being considerably more cautious. To the extent that Soviet caution on this score persists, the extent to which the Soviet Union and the United States can act

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together to impose their desires is significantly limited. The recent resignation of the individual most closely associated with Soviet cooperation with the United States on Gulf issues, Eduard Shevardnadze, suggests, if anything, that these constraints will grow in strength. Another example is the divergence in Soviet and US perspectives on the United Nations. Although the United States has warmed considerably to the organization, it retains a far greater ambivalence on the question of surrendering its policy flexibility to multilateral fora than does, apparently, the Soviet Union. 20 A further constraint on condominium is the development of an apparent disagreement on the extent to which the Soviets are a useful partner of the United States in the Third World. The USSR is sensitive to being treated as unequal or, for that matter, irrelevant in issues of Third World security. Many in the United States, by contrast, ask why Soviet concerns should be taken seriously and why the Soviet Union should be treated as an equal in the context of decline. This too is an impediment to the development of a thoroughgoing structure of cooperation. This is related to a final point. The Soviet Union is now far less encumbered by close bilateral relationships with Third World states than is the United States. The US capacity to enter into substantial accords on arms transfer limitation, for example, is constrained by its relationship with Israel and the deep impact that the question of Israel has in US domestic politics. This is part of a broader asymmetry of relevance in assessing the prospects for condominium. The United States has a broad presence and substantial interests throughout much of the Third World that exist independent of the Cold War context. The Soviet Union does not, at least beyond its immediate periphery. It is easier for the USSR, consequently, to embrace bilateral and multilateral regimes of collaboration than it is for the United States. Indeed, the Soviet Union has a strong incentive for such regimes, because they may give Moscow a role it would not otherwise enjoy. By contrast, the United States is now alone at the top and to some extent may be expected to resist regimes that dilute this primacy. Given this asymmetry, it seems somewhat obsolete to retain the bilateral emphasis on the superpowers in discussing the impact of change in the Soviet-US relationship on Third World security. There is now only one. For that matter, historically the involvement of the United States in the Third World (with the exceptions of the Caribbean Basin and the Middle East) has been so closely tied to the now disappearing competition with the USSR that the United States is beginning to feel the pain of overextension. It is legitimate to ask whether the United States will maintain its traditional levels of activity outside areas of concrete vital interest. In this sense, we may be moving into a period in which both superpowers are far less relevant to issues of Third World security than they once were.

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Implications for Third World Security In order to understand the potential implications of the evolving superpower relationship for regional security, it is necessary to consider what impact the superpowers have had on security in the past. As with so many other aspects of this subject, generalization is a perilous task. There are areas (e.g., the Middle East) where the superpowers have substantially affected the security environment. There are conflicts (e.g., Sudan or Uganda since 1979) in which there is little evidence of any impact. It is hard to identify any regional conflict that began as a result of superpower policy. The origins of conflict lie predominantly in the local environment: in territorial disputes, intercommunal tensions, deprivation, questions of resource distribution (e.g., the land question), and so on. To some extent, conflict results from the artificiality of the territorial legacy of the colonial powers, but the superpowers were in general not involved in the territorial dispensation of decolonization. To some extent, it is produced by the inequitable price structure in the global economy. Here too, however, it is difficult to trace this to specific policies of the Soviet Union and the United States. Perhaps at root, those who argue that the fundamental problem is the weakness, inviability, and illegitimacy of the state in the Third World are closest to the mark in the effort to posit a general explanation of the origins of conflict in the Third World. 2 1 The states created by the colonial powers have had little time to consolidate their authority over their diverse populations and to impose control over territories formally under their sway. The process by which these objectives are pursued and perhaps achieved almost necessarily involves conflict. It is nonetheless reasonably clear that the superpowers have affected the course and the substance of conflict in the Third World. Their Cold War competition has affected conflict in several ways. First, flows of weapons from the superpowers to Third World actors have greatly increased the availability of military instruments. 22 This availability has contributed to the intensity and lethality of conflict. Some degree of intercommunal conflict in Angola was quite probable in the aftermath of independence, given the ethnic makeup of the country and the history of the struggle for liberation. But the tanks, aircraft, precision-guided munitions, and mines with which that war has been fought, and the consequent very high level of casualties in the civilian population, are largely a product of the superpowers' manipulation of the conflict in pursuit of their own ends. Access to superpower support, moreover, has on occasion induced or encouraged conflictual behavior in local actors. The treaty of friendship signed between Vietnam and the Soviet Union in 1978 negated Chinese deterrence of a Vietnamese attack on Cambodia. The associated arms transfers agreements enhanced the Vietnamese capacity to undertake and sustain this

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military action and to beat off the limited Chinese punitive action, which followed the invasion of Cambodia. Moreover, the availability of external support of this type logically affects the willingness of parties to a conflict to compromise, thereby complicating the process of conflict resolution. To the extent that the Salvadoran military can rely on continuing support from the United States, it apparently sees little incentive to accept compromises with the opposition that would reduce its command over scarce national resources. Likewise, until recently the apparently inexhaustible supply of Soviet weaponry provided the Ethiopian government with the illusion of a military solution to the internal war, allowing it to avoid serious negotiation on the question of Eritrean autonomy. Large-scale US financial support and arms transfers have increased the capacity of Israel to avoid serious negotiations with the Palestinians on the issue of the West Bank. Superpower assistance may also have affected prospects for conflict and conflict resolution by distorting the domestic politics of recipients. If the superpower's agenda is not suited by compromise, it will seek to strengthen the most intransigent elements of the local political spectrum. In Nicaragua, for example, US efforts focused on the contras rather than on more moderate elements of the opposition to the Sandinistas. More generally, the strong emphasis in recent superpower assistance programs on military instruments—in the local context of a general dearth of resources—has tended to strengthen military establishments in local politics at the expense of other groups. The Salvadoran example is a case in point. Elsewhere, the channeling of US assistance to the Afghan guerrillas through Pakistan's military, and the benefits that this institution has obtained as a result of its intermediary role, have given it a vested interest in the persistence of the conflict. 23 Beyond these effects, the competition between the two superpowers for influence in the Third World has in all likelihood affected the room for maneuvering of various regional actors. It has done so in different ways, depending on the power, stature, and circumstances. In some cases, Third World states have found it possible to play one superpower against another in the effort to maximize resources available to them in foreign and defense policy. The competition between the superpowers for the favor of Egypt is perhaps the most obvious example. As implied earlier, in regions where one superpower has enjoyed a strong sphere of influence, the capacity to draw in the other has on occasion enhanced the capacity of regional actors to defy the wishes of the local hegemon. For example, Cuba's capacity to draw the USSR into the Caribbean Basin increased that country's security at a time of considerable tension in the relationship with and pressure from the United States. On the other hand, in conditions where a regional power aspires to regional hegemony, the superpowers have acted in a number of instances to

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frustrate this aspiration. During the Iran-Iraq war, for example, the concerns of both the United States and the USSR to maintain influence in the region (objectives that would have been jeopardized by the victory of either Iran or Iraq) led them to balancing behavior. This is particularly clear in the Soviet case, where Moscow's diplomatic focus and arms assistance tilted back and forth between the adversaries, depending on which was in the ascendant at any given time. In South Asia, US support for Pakistan, informed largely by Cold War considerations, served to blunt the Indian quest for primacy in the region. In southern Africa, the USSR's support for the frontline states again served to limit South Africa's capacity to establish regional dominance at acceptable cost. As the superpowers' relationship evolves, and as the role of the Third World in that relationship is transformed, we may expect many of these impacts to disappear or to alter in intensity. There are several areas of potential change: conflict prevention, conflict management and resolution, the behavior of the superpowers in traditional spheres of influence, the flexibility of regional actors, regional balances of power, the significance of Third World security issues on the global agenda, the role of other extraregional actors in regional conflict, and the perceptions of Third World actors of their place in world affairs. With regard to the incidence of conflict, just as the superpower rivalry was only in a limited sense a cause of conflict, change in their perspectives relating to Third World cooperation has only limited implications for the prevention of conflict. Superpower cooperation on Third World conflict does little to address the fundamental problems conducive to conflictual behavior. So too, the growing interest of the superpowers in cooperative conflict management and resolution would appear unlikely to be determining in the quest for settlement. The superpowers have had the luxury of a certain detachment from the specifics of regional conflict. The stake used to be influence at reasonable cost in regions on the whole peripheral to their vital interests. They won some; they lost some. Now, they seem to have concluded that the avoidance of perturbations in their central relationship is paramount, and that previously they had overestimated the significance and the feasibility of durable gains in the Third World at the expense of each other. The incentive to competitive involvement thus has diminished. The incentive for collaborative efforts at containment not of each other, but of Third World crises impinging on their relations, has increased. Their survival was never really at stake in these conflicts in the past, except to the extent that they feared escalation. Given the improvement of their central relationship, it is even less at stake today. 24 Indigenous parties, by contrast, seldom have this luxury. What is at stake in these conflicts is often exactly survival, or at least their capacity to control limited resources in impoverished societies. In Ethiopia, for example, it is comparatively easy for the Soviet Union and the United States to

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contemplate elegant compromises addressing what they deem to be the best interests of all parties. But for Ethiopian president Mengistu, it is not so simple. So far as one can tell, the basic objective of the Tigrean opposition is his removal from power, hardly a promising basis for compromise. The Eritrean demand for secession (or the more moderate position of meaningful regional autonomy) constitutes the destruction of Mengistu's idea of what the Ethiopian state should be. In general, the history of superpower policy in the Third World suggests that the Soviet and US capacity to control events has been substantially constrained by this asymmetry of interest. In Angola, absent the Cold War and ideological competition, the supeipowers have found it possible to come up with numerous ideas for national reconciliation through power-sharing between the MPLA and UNITA. It is somewhat more difficult for the MPLA to accept such notions, given their experience of 15 years of civil war against Savimbi and their recognition that the ethnic base of UNITA is sufficiently large to guarantee electoral success should UNITA be capable of maintaining Ovimbundu loyalty. It stands to reason that although the superpowers can play a significant role in conflict resolution when local actors are ready for it, they lack sufficient leverage on the whole to force local actors to come to the table. If no party achieves victory, the Ethiopian question will come to term when the parties succeed in defining some middle ground between the Eritreans and the central government on the question of Eritrea's relation to central authority, and between the Tigreans and Addis on what the nature of that central authority is to be and who is to be in power. In these respects, change in the supeipower relationship may not have fundamental consequences for Third World security. That said, the diminution of superpower competition in the Third World does have more proximate importance. To the extent that the manipulation of regional conflict is a less important instrument in the policies of the two superpowers, one might expect them to be less generous in the allocation of resources to Third World actors. As such, military assistance will be more difficult to obtain on terms affordable to many Third World states traditionally benefiting from Soviet or US largesse. This effect would be strengthened by superpower agreement on the limitation of arms transfers. In this sense, to the limited extent that regional arms races have any independent causal role in the incidence of Third World conflict, one would expect such conflict to diminish. To the extent, moreover, that superpower restraint in this regard reduces the overall flow of aims into the Third World (see the following discussion), this may diminish the lethality of conflict that does occur. The diminished availability of arms on favorable financial terms may also limit the duration of conflict. There will be less to fight with. Moreover, just as the assurance of military support may have enhanced the intransigence of local parties and predisposed them to avoid compromise,

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the greater difficulty of securing external support may weaken this predisposition and make compromise easier to achieve. In this sense, changing superpower policies may facilitate the ripening of conflicts for resolution. Arguably this accounts in part for the approach to negotiated settlement recently in Angola. 2 5 Similar conclusions follow about the willingness of countries and other actors in the Third World to opt for force as an instrument of policy. Finally, if it is true that the infusions of military assistance from the superpowers distorted the national politics of recipient states in favor of those with interest in pursuing conflict, then again, the reduction in these flows will have the opposite effect. These are specific components of a more abstract proposition: to the extent that the universal and permanent global competition between the USSR and the United States operated to sustain conflicts and impede resolution, the declining significance of this competition may promote the limitation and resolution of conflict. This conclusion requires some qualification, however. With reference to arms transfers, there are many firms and governments that sell purely for economic reasons. Given the breadth of the arms market, the number of parties involved in the trade, and the dependence of many of these parties on amis transfers as an important part of hard-currency revenue and as a means of underwriting indigenous arms industries, the likelihood of building on superpower interest in arms transfer limitation to achieve a universal regime governing and constricting the trade in weapons is extremely low. 26 Moreover, the superpowers are not the only outside actors who may perceive interests at stake in specific regional conflicts. Their departure in this sense creates space that others may fill for reasons of their own. Perhaps the best example is the effect of declining superpower involvement in the Horn. Here we find the Soviet Union to an extent replaced in its support of the Ethiopian government by Israel, while Iraq took on an increasingly substantial and visible role in the transfer of weapons to the government's opponents. In this sense, one proxy conflict has replaced another. There are other less salutary implications of the decline of global competition as well. One is the point discussed earlier to the effect that the more cooperative nature of Soviet-US relations in the Third World may enhance the flexibility of each superpower (and particularly the United States) in areas where it has concrete interests and a historical presence while the other does not. To some extent, this may reduce the autonomy of smaller states finding themselves within such spheres of influence. At a more general level, reduction in the intensity of Soviet-US competition in the Third World, and the consequent growing indifference of the superpowers to Third World issues lying outside the sphere of concrete and significant interests, diminishes the capacity of Third World states to manipulate the superpowers in the pursuit of their specific interests. The fact that influence is now less important to the superpowers diminishes the leverage that many regional actors have derived from the superpower contest for influence.

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This is related to a further point. The status of Third World states and Third World issues in global politics has been a function in part of the perceived significance of the Third World in the Cold War competition. The bilateral competition exaggerated the importance attributed at the global level to regional conflicts. The diminution in competition will reduce the salience of Third World actors and of the conflicts in which they are involved at the global level. 27 One implication of this is that the capacity of regionally powerful states to exert hegemony may increase, the propensity of the superpowers to balance them diminishing. It may be that Iraq was banking on this judgment in its efforts to establish dominance. As it turned out, in this instance the judgment was incorrect. The Gulf is a unique region in the extent to which concrete interests (and notably the price of and access to oil) of the United States and its allies are perceived to be at stake. The situation is also peculiar because of the boldness of the Iraqi contravention of international norms. 28 But the proposition may be relevant in other regions, where fewer tangible interests of the great powers are at stake. As the Cold War-oriented US commitment to Pakistan weakens and Soviet interest in Afghanistan diminishes, for example, and as the United States is less concerned about the Indian link to the Soviet Union, India's capacity to establish primacy in South Asia may be enhanced. The same may be true for South Africa in the southern African region, though this case is complicated by the question of apartheid. Assuming, however, that the question of apartheid is settled in a more or less orderly fashion and that the republic does not rip itself apart in the process, South Africa will be in a position to establish primacy in the region. It is hard to conceive of a situation in which some combination of external powers would act to prevent this. This is a significant qualification to the earlier proposition that the decline of superpower competition may reduce the flexibility of Third World states in the pursuit of their own parochial concerns. Although it probably applies to the policies of weak states who are dependent on the support of outsiders to maintain their positions, it may have the opposite effect in comparatively strong ones that already possess some capacity for independent action in foreign policy. This effect is strengthened by the likely consequences of changing superpower policies about arms transfers. The end to the "free lunch" in arms transfers associated with superpower competition means only that those countries with a limited capacity to enter the arms market and without patrons whose interests converge with theirs in the conflict in question (see the previous comments on the roles of Israel and Iraq in the Horn) will be constrained in the use of force. Those governments with a capacity to pay will continue to be able to acquire weaponry. The balance of forces, therefore, is likely to shift in favor of those countries with resources available for cash and credit (at market rates) transactions.

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The final impact of change in the role of Third World conflict in the superpower relationship also concerns the issue of the political space created by diminished competition between the United States and the USSR. As the superpower propensity for involvement declines in regions where their immediate interests are not at stake, there is room for other great powers and other institutions to pursue their own agendas regarding regional conflict. In Europe, this converges with the process of European integration and the growth in the power of Europe relative to that of the Soviet Union and the United States. As a result, Western Europe (either in the EEC or in the WEU context) will consider ways to develop an independent capacity for out-of-area operations in pursuit of its particular interests in the Third World. This is likely to be accompanied by a more assertive European diplomacy in the Third World. One might expect a similar development in Japanese diplomacy, though for the foreseeable future it is unlikely to have a military dimension. Events such as those in southern Africa, Cambodia, and in the Gulf suggest, moreover, that the more cooperative posture of the superpowers and their growing appreciation of the utility of the United Nations in the effort to stabilize their own relations have enhanced the capacity of the organization to be a player of significance in regional conflict. In Place of a Conclusion Just as interesting and potentially significant as the implications of change in the superpower relationship for the security environment in the Third World is the probable response of the Third World to this change and its impacts. Here again, one must raise the question of the appropriateness of generalization. In the first place, as already noted, the impact of change in the superpower relationship varies by region. Second, there are parties who may benefit from the evolution of the superpower relationship (e.g., regionally dominant powers in areas where tangible interests of vital importance to the superpowers are not perceived to be in play), just as there are parties who may see their interests to be significantly damaged by such change (e.g., weaker states in regions judged by the superpowers to be of peripheral importance, such as sub-Saharan Africa, or Caribbean Basin actors who wish to maintain their independence from the United States). Third, Third World states vary in the strength of their economic and political linkages to players in the North. The extent of economic connections between oil producers and major debtor states (e.g., Brazil) to the North is such that they will continue to be significant preoccupations of the West whatever the transformation in Soviet-US relations. By contrast, there are states (e.g., Ethiopia or Somalia) whose connection to the North has rested almost exclusively on their utility as objects in the Cold War. Without the latter preoccupation, they are likely to be increasingly marginalized. The dampening of superpower competition in the Third World and their

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efforts to facilitate peaceful settlement of regional disputes (as in southern Africa or in Cambodia) have been greeted by many in the South with considerable enthusiasm. But these specific positive responses, and what is perhaps a more general sense of relief that the era of superpower competition at the expense of the Third World appears to be over, are accompanied by a profound unease about what will replace it. It has been argued elsewhere that a sense of having been excluded underlies the identity of the Third World. 29 Third World states have traditionally been acted upon rather than treated as actors in their own right. They were objects of rather than subjects in the process of colonization. They are on the whole objects in rather than subjects of global economic exchange. It is perhaps the well-grounded sensitivity to the phenomenon of exclusion that continues to define a Third World identity despite the deepening objective differentiation among Third World states. In this context, there are a number of perceived dangers emanating from the end of the Cold War in the Third World. 30 The first is the perception (which I believe to be justified) that the waning of Soviet-US competition will result in neglect of many Third World issues by the Northern powers. Other consequences of change in the Soviet-US relationship, such as the transformation of Europe, contribute to this effect. This is of particular concern at a time when the economic, demographic, and environmental situation in much of the Third World is deteriorating rapidly. A second danger is the perception that the withdrawal of the USSR as a serious player leaves the Third World at the mercy of the United States, whose recent military activism is, to say the least, a matter of some concern. The prospect perceived here is the replacement of bipolar competition anid the capacity it provided for balancing with the self-interested hegemony of a historically exploitative power. The perception widely held among the intellectual elite of much of the Third World that the United States has traditionally acted as an impediment to necessary change does little to mitigate this concern. A third danger is that—to the extent that the Soviet Union remains a player—it will seek to preserve its interests in collusion with the United States. The prospect of condominium raises the image of a unified North dictating to or imposing its will on the South. This is certainly different from, but not necessarily more palatable than, a bipolar competition in which the superpowers attempted to subordinate the interests of Third World actors to their global conflictual agenda. Arguably, the disappearance of the adversarial relationship between East and West has removed a significant instrument used by Third World states to pursue their interests. In short, the perceived possibilities appear to fall somewhere between neglect, hegemony, and condominial management, none of which is particularly palatable to elites who have no doubt of the importance of their problems and who—for historical reasons—are intensely sensitive to the

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issues of autonomy and self-determination. To the extent that these perceptions turn out to have some validity, they have implications for the United States and the Soviet Union—and for global security—as well. Disempowerment and marginalization—in the context of increasing internal and regional stress—may well deepen considerably, as well as altering significantly, the nature of threats to the security of the North. Notes 1. My understanding of these issues has been enhanced by participation in the Soviet-US exchange of younger scholars in international security, sponsored by the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX), and in conferences on Southern A f r i c a n security in Harare, sponsored by the Southern African Political and E c o n o m i c Studies Center, and on the security of the Horn in Cairo sponsored by the I n t e r n a t i o n a l Institute for Strategic Studies. I am g r a t e f u l for these opportunities. I also wish to acknowledge the research support of the University of Virginia and the National Council for Soviet and East European Research in the preparation of this chapter. 2. O n this point, see S. N. M a c F a r l a n e , " S u p e r p o w e r rivalry in the 1 9 9 0 ' s , " Third World Quarterly 12, no. 1 (January 1990): 1 - 2 5 ; C. Jonsson, Superpower ( L o n d o n : Pinter, 1984), throughout and in particular 6 6 - 7 3 , 1 0 7 139, and 140-196. See also R. Packenham, Liberal America and the Third World (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1973). 3. See, f o r example, "Blizhnyi Vostok," loc. cit. Sovetskaya Voennaya Entsyklopedia I (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1976): 499. Current Soviet discussions of Soviet p o l i c y vis-à-vis the Gulf crisis display great sensitivity t o w a r d the potential ramifications of Soviet action against Iraq on the attitudes of Muslim minorities inside the U S S R . Conversations in Moscow, January 1991. 4. O n this point, see W. L a f e v e r , Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (New York: Norton, 1983): 7 - 8 . 5. " B l i z h n y i V o s t o k , " 4 9 9 . 6. S e e David Haglund, The New Geopolitics of Minerals (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1989): Chapter 8. 7. See J e a n e Kirkpatrick, " U S Security and Latin A m e r i c a , " in Rift and Revolution, e d . H o w a r d W i a r d a ( W a s h i n g t o n , D.C.: A m e r i c a n E n t e r p r i s e Institute, 1984): 329. 8. See, f o r e x a m p l e , Yu. Alimov and A. F e d o r o v , " S a m o r a z o b l a c h e n i e m a o i z m a v A f r i k e " [Self-exposure of M a o i s m in Africa] Kommunist, no. 14 (1977): 104-115. 9. For a fuller treatment, see S. N. MacFarlane, "Superpower Rivalry in the 1990's." 10. This predates the Gorbachev era. See, for example, Yurii A n d r o p o v ' s speech of J u n e 1983, Kommunist, no. 9 (1983), where he notes that the principal responsibility f o r development in states of socialist orientation lies with those states themselves, the U S S R assisting only to the extent of its abilities. See also the 1986 version of the program of the C P S U in Pravda, 7 Mar. 1986, pp. 3 - 8 , w h e r e the s a m e phrase is used. T h e limits on Soviet willingness to p r o v i d e assistance to the Third World are also suggested by the emphasis on profitability and mutual benefit in economic relations with other states. 11. For the perceived link between domestic needs and foreign policy, see M . Gorbachev, "Politicheskii doklad Tsentral'nogo Komiteta" [Political report of

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the Central Committee] Pravda, 26 Feb. 1986, pp. 2-10, where after a section on the acceleration of the Soviet economy, he noted: "Comrades, the fundamental tasks of the country's economic and social development also determine the CPSU's international strategy." 12. See the coverage of this article by Andrei Kortunov in Soviet East European Report 12, no. 14 (20 Jan. 1990): 1-3. The analysis includes evidence of more general unhappiness with the diversion of scarce resources to foreign assistance. 13. See, for example, the Soviet government figures on developing country debt to the USSR, as published in Izvestia, 1 Mar. 1990, p. 3. 14. As cited in the New York Times, 16 Oct. 1990. 15. The Middle East is a good example. There exists a strong domestic constituency supporting US assistance to Israel. In the Gulf, US policy is influenced strongly by the perception that cheap oil and the avoidance of monopsony are vital interests of the United States. Moreover, as shall be argued, there are instances in which small constituencies may drive specific low-cost policy initiatives, despite the overall decline in US interest. 16. Conversations in Moscow, January 1990. 17. For a fuller treatment, see S. Neil MacFarlane, "The Soviet Union and Southern African Security," Problems of Communism 38, no. 2 - 3 (March-June 1989): 7 1 - 8 9 . 18. William Gutteridge, The Case for Regional Security, Conflict Studies no. 217 (London: The Centre for Security and Conflict Studies, 1989): 11. 19. The foundations of this development lie in the Soviet reaction to a deep internal economic and political crisis, which has caused them to be far more careful about the allocation of resources in defense and foreign policy and which has thoroughly undermined the ideological rationale for global competition with the United States. It is based also on the accumulation of substantial experience in the Third World, which suggests that their traditional objectives there were and are unrealistic and unlikely to be attained. This accumulation and the possibility of objective evaluation of it under conditions of glasnost has resulted in the schema transformation briefly described in the second section. Recent events in Moscow suggest a rightward drift in Soviet politics. This may induce some reorientation in policy toward the United States. But given that the economic crisis is certain to persist for the foreseeable future, as is the desire for assistance from the West in overcoming it, the shortage of available resources for an active foreign policy, and the realization that Third World activism has produced very little of tangible benefit to the USSR, one can expect the basic lines of Soviet policy in the Third World to remain intact. For a discussion of the sources of change in Soviet foreign policy of relevance here, see S. Neil MacFarlane, ' T h e Changing Role of the USSR in International Security," in Emerging Trends in Global Security, ed. David Dewitt et al. (London: Routledge, 1991). 20. This is evident, for example, in the decision to retain national command of US forces in the Gulf. 21. See, for example, Yezid Sayigh, Confronting the 1990s: Security in the Developing Countries, Adelphi Papers no. 251 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1990), in particular Chapter 2. Mohammed Ayoob argues similarly in a forthcoming volume from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies of York University. 22. For a statistical summary of superpower arms transfers since 1977, see World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (Washington, D.C.: ACDA, 1988), in particular 119 and 123. See also earlier editions. 2 3 . 1 am indebted to Mohammed Ayoob for this point.

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24. T h e o n e m a j o r e x c e p t i o n to this g e n e r a l i z a t i o n c o n c e r n s the proliferation of nuclear w e a p o n s , and of modern delivery systems, w h i c h in theory may create significant risks for the superpowers. 25. O n the evolution of the Angolan peace process, and the role of the U S S R and the United States therein, see the New York Times, 13 Dec. 1990. 26. M o r e o v e r , in the sense that there are instances in which arms transfers may f a c i l i t a t e r a t h e r than i m p e d e c o n f l i c t resolution by r e c t i f y i n g e x i s t i n g imbalances in military capability, such a universal accord might indeed impede e f f o r t s at regional stabilization. The case of Angola in the period leading u p to the signing of the D e c e m b e r 1988 tripartite accord is a case in point. It was Soviet resupply of Angola, coupled with an increase in the size and activity of the C u b a n c o n t i n g e n t , that substantially enhanced the South A f r i c a n incentive to c o m p r o m i s e . O n this point, see Robert Jaster, The 1988 Accord, Adelphi Paper no. 2 5 3 ( L o n d o n : International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1990), a n d MacFarlane, " T h e Soviet Union and Southern African Security," 86. 27. Again, in the context of the Iraq-Kuwait conflict, it bears stressing that this generalization does not apply to the limited number of instances in which the vital interests of one or both superpowers are perceived to be at stake. 28. This is not to say that events in Iraq will have no broader effects on the policy of the Soviet Union and the United States in its aftermath. Costly failure (or for that matter costly success in military action to enforce U N resolutions on the K u w a i t - I r a q issue) may well strengthen the limits on both Soviet and U S willingness to c o m m i t resources in the pursuit of regional settlements in other areas. Conversely, easy and low-cost success may induce greater US activism in areas of lesser interest to the United States. 29. S a y i g h , Confronting the 1990s, 4 - 5 . 30. I am not claiming here that these are necessarily the likely outcomes of the end of the C o l d War in the Third World. This issue has been addressed at length. T h e f o c u s here is on how elites in the Third World may perceive the consequences of c h a n g e in the superpower relationship.

• 7b Critical Commentary: A Soviet View VIKTOR KREMENYUK

For many years, the United States and the Soviet Union pursued their security interests through their relationship with and within the Third World. Despite recent changes in national and international affairs, including SovietUS relations, the triangle created by the superpowers and developing countries will continue as one of the most dynamic and significant factors in the international system. To a large extent, it will play a role in both conflict and cooperation, encouraging the search for a common ground between the superpowers as well as imposing constraints on such a search. Significant factors include asymmetrical geopolitical settings and different types of relations with Third World regions, and also delicate issues of national security for both the United States and the Soviet Union. There can be no genuine stability in the Third World in the foreseeable future. Too many complicated problems that defy easy solutions face these nations. Security in the Third World may be more readily achievable as the United States and the Soviet Union reduce their role in conflict development and increase their part in conflict resolution. However, it would be unwise to overestimate superpower capabilities in resolving Third World conflicts. At the same time, security issues in the Third World can be controlled within this triangle. Both the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as a significant number of Third World countries, are interested in monitoring some of the most acute security issues and preventing them from becoming major conflagrations. While the present situation may be too volatile for conflict resolution, mutual interests lay a solid foundation for future cooperation. Recent events in the Gulf show that it is impossible to promote Third World security without a strong element of Soviet-US cooperation, supported by regional actors. These ideas were strongly endorsed in Moscow in the first Soviet-American declaration on the Gulf crisis in August 1990.1 To analyze the issues of security in the Third World and how they relate to Soviet-US relations, three questions can be identified: What are the major sources of instability in the Third World and how can they be explained? What will be the character of Soviet-US relations in the post-Cold War era?

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What approaches and mechanisms could be suggested to create a more stable and predictable environment in Soviet-US-Third World relations? T h e r e exist quite a variety of views among observers, including contributors to this volume. For example, although Michael Clough believes that the Soviet role in Third World security is dwindling and that there is no way to reverse this decline, Robert Legvold, Thomas Weiss, and Meryl Kessler consider the possible future Soviet role, though limited, as still indispensable f o r m e a n i n g f u l conflict resolution and other security arrangements. My views as a Soviet scholar are closer to the latter. The future should witness not new coalitions and alliances but more Soviet-US understanding and a joint search for mutually acceptable solutions. There are m a n y possibilities, including agreements on arms transfers, dispatching advisors, troop deployment, and also an active search for political solutions to military conflicts. Significantly, attention was given in several of the preceding chapters to possibilities for US-Soviet joint military responses to the security threats in the Third World. Sources of Instability Continuing political and economic instability is the most dangerous aspect of Third World reality. This instability results from and is maintained through conventional wars, guerrilla struggle, civil and ethnic strife, drug trafficking, and smuggling. Unstable political power and civic disorder in these countries can periodically cause conflicts of varying proportions outside their national borders. Frequently, the degree to which a crisis can affect the international order is proportional to the dependence that developed countries have on the stable flow of natural resources from that region. Humanitarian considerations and former colonial links, which have survived decolonization, continue to command the attention of developed societies. The major source of Third World instability is its underdevelopment, a point dramatically made by Norton. As long as these nations remain at unacceptable levels of economic, social, and political development while the rest of the world moves to postindustrialism, they will be vulnerable to despair, border disputes, and religious quarrels. Underdevelopment will continue to be a curse of both developed and developing nations, for it produces fertile ground for social, political, military, and ideological strife. Local efforts to contain these conflicts through military and other means have not been successful. For many years the problems of underdevelopment were viewed from a different perspective in the East and the West. In the latter, underdevelopment allegedly favored Communist (Soviet or Chinese) subversion. It followed that the m a i n task was to establish a sympathetic, militarized security infrastructure in the Third World. This conclusion has guided policy since the early 1950s. Although it proved irrelevant in the US experience in Vietnam,

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it still guided security assistance programs in the early 1980s under the Reagan administration. 2 Soviets viewed underdevelopment as a direct result of colonial rule and one of the main interests of "neocolonial" Western policy in the Third World. The West fostered underdevelopment to keep countries under Western political and military control. 3 Therefore, on paper at least, Soviet policy aimed to provide through military assistance the means to break colonial dependency patterns. That a group of nations in the South, like the newly industrialized countries of Asia and Latin America, has managed to achieve high development emphasizes, in many ways, the importance of differentiating conflicts. Rapid growth by NICs has increased the gap between them and their less fortunate neighbors. This has caused feelings of envy, irredentism, and a desire to improve their position through warfare, as was aptly demonstrated by Iraq in Kuwait. The increasing gap between both groups is likely to stimulate disputes and major sources of conflict in the Third World. This fact has been grounds for revisionist thinking in Soviet and other Marxist literature, which indicate that Western nations are not really interested in the preservation of underdevelopment. 4 Instead of promoting stagnation and therefore instability, as was assumed, underdevelopment actually encourages domestic and international instability and thus threatens global security. It affects the political development of Third World countries and leads to the establishment of dictatorships and other forms of authoritarian rule. Moreover, it threatens neighboring states and important international communications as well as causes concern among the countries reliant on stability in critical areas. With the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States have resolved some conflicts in the Third World. The continuing evolution of the international system enables a reconsideration of old shibboleths. One of the most common explanations of Third World security problems has been that underdevelopment invites intervention. Both government officials and academic experts in the East and the West focused on rivalry and competition. Underdevelopment itself was not typically viewed as a source of instability, but as an opportunity for confrontation. Subverting Third World regimes increased one side's influence and global posture.5 Many Third World countries were viewed as pawns in the superpowers' "Big Game." The idea of building coalitions and alliances with countries both ideologically and socially alien to both superpowers was possible only by being impractical. Gamal Abd A1 Nasser's Egypt was not ideologically closer to the Soviet Union than were the regimes in South Vietnam, South Korea, or the Dominican Republic reflective of US values and principles. Both superpowers, however, had actively sought new "friends" since the early 1950s, hoping to accomplish two objectives. First, each superpower sought to reduce the other's influence in specific areas of the Third World.

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For example, Soviet policy sought to establish close relations with Nasser's Egypt, Jawaharlal Nehru's India, or Sukarno's Indonesia to counterbalance the US "encirclement" of the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Second, each sought to establish "bridgeheads" in the other's sphere of influence. For instance, this motivated the policy of the United States in Iran after 1953 and the Soviet Union in Cuba after 1959. To a large extent, developing countries were pawns in the superpowers' shadow, but they aspired, nevertheless, to a more significant international role. This perception led both superpowers to concentrate on alliance-building in the Third World, on arms sales and transfers, and, when possible, on the incorporation of developing countries into their own security arrangement. As indicated in Celeste Wallander's chapter, this policy had a Cold War rationale because global security supposedly amounted to a zero-sum game. This view grossly underestimated the impact of underdevelopment on the stability of the whole international system. There were pleas and recommendations by critics and public figures who argued the global ramifications of underdevelopment, largely on humanitarian grounds, but they were ignored by governments who saw no direct links to security issues. At the beginning of the 1970s, the United States pursued disengagement in the Third World after its retreat from Vietnam. Both conservative and liberal critics of the policy insisted that the United States should not go "too far," so as to avoid future crises. This was one of the few issues about which Zbigniew Brzezinski and Senator William Fulbright agreed. 6 However, liberal critics (especially the chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee) indicated that, contrary to previous policy, the United States should concentrate on economic assistance to its allies and strengthen internal social and political order. Instead, as is well known, the United States progressively reduced Third World development assistance expenditures. In the late 1980s the purely East-West dimension of Third World security diminished as a result of warmer Soviet-US relations, as is clearly pointed out by Robert Legvold, Meryl Kessler, and Thomas Weiss. The end of superpower rivalry was not and could not be followed by a similar change in the Third World. Feeling abandoned by their patrons, most developing countries felt that they had to become more self-reliant in promoting stability amidst continuing decay and economic stagnation. This gave a new dimension to the inherent struggle for meager resources. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait or Libya's earlier adventure in Chad were in many ways predictable. Despite bitter rhetoric about the ideological imperatives of Third World foreign policies, the problem of access to external resources has been far more crucial. New regimes in these countries immediately sought resources to confront the problems of development. Using the superpowers' rivalry, these regimes followed the "rules of the game," using the appropriate rhetoric and ideological symbols, creating "communist" or "democratic" institutions as suited each patron. Beneath the superficial ideological veneer there was

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still, and is, the pressing need to secure foreign sources of support to sustain their power. Sometimes foreign threats would be identified to secure military resources as a means of consolidating power internally. In the absence of outside assistance, these regimes either attacked their neighbors or went even farther afield: Somalia against Ethiopia in 1977, Iraq against Iran in 1980, Cuba in Angola or in Nicaragua. The triangular link between the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Third World still predominates the analyses of regional security. There are grounds for challenging this view and insisting that priorities have altered since the late 1980s, especially since the Soviet Union and the United States have settled some challenging issues in their relationship: Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, and Namibia. The focus should be shifted now to the importance of underdevelopment. In practice, this has diminished the ability of Northern nations, including the Soviet Union, to control and manage instability in the South and contribute significantly to Third World development. As Soviet-US relations have improved, both have progressively lost leverage in the Third World. The only alternative for restoring their former influence over Asia, Africa, and Latin America was to substitute military with civilian economic assistance—or so it seemed to Third World nations. This was apparent in the UN Special Conference on Disarmament and Development in 1987,7 and the decisions of the Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Treaty Organization by 1987.8 In fact, the transfer of resources has not taken place, as MacFarlane stresses. Both East and West have domestic problems and are reluctant to share resources with the Third World. Since the initial treaties ending the Cold War were concluded (the INF Treaty in 1987 and the Geneva Accords on Afghanistan in early 1988), expectations of increased availability of resources and "peace dividends" have ceded to a more sober appreciation of domestic demands not only in the Soviet Union but also in the United States. What does this mean? Also, the economies of East and West, both largely built on military industries, slowed down with the prospect of peaceful accommodation. The linkage between expected cuts in military spending and general economic slowdown can be pinpointed. The crisis in the Gulf has postponed again any drastic reconsideration of military expenditures. Changing Superpower Relations and Their Impact on Third World Security One might conclude from this analysis that improved Soviet-US relations, which have helped move the international system toward peace and stability, have been destabilizing for the Third World. The Cold War alignment in the Third World had to be adjusted. The stability and survival of regimes like Cuba, North Korea, Iraq, and Angola, which depended on significant Soviet aid, as well as the hopes of nations like Pakistan, Egypt, Israel, which, in

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their turn, largely depended on significant US assistance, were directly affected by the end of the Cold War. These countries have been forced into self-reliance, albeit with limited success. Many Third World countries have accepted the end of the Cold War, realizing that their efforts could now be applied to economic and social development. Recent meetings and discussions among countries of the NonAligned Movement have concentrated on these issues. The approach is less rhetorical and more businesslike. There are fewer demands on the North and more attention to South-South relations. The 1989 Conference of the Heads of States and Governments of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade provided fresh insights in this regard. First, there was less "revolutionary" rhetoric; participants listened to sober economic analyses and less to heated tirades against "exploiters." Second, economic issues were not translated into new demands on the "imperialistic" North; rather, attention was focused on addressing the debt crisis, extracting lessons from the development experiments of the NICs, and finding ways to restructure the economies of the poorest countries. Third, "moderate" governments, such as Malaysia and Singapore, became visible and acceptable leaders. These more realistic and constructive Third World reactions to changes in US-Soviet relations could also help them move toward security arrangements among themselves particularly at the subregional level. 9 These efforts were applauded by the East and the West, and it seemed finally possible to restructure the entire debate about Third World security. The emphasis shifted from military to economic matters, from overreliance on foreign assistance to self-sustained efforts. Still, there are some regimes that, as "remnants of the Cold War," continue to view the emerging global order differently. For them, changing Soviet-US relations grew from a superpower reluctance to interfere in the Third World, resulting in a power vacuum. This is particularly true of highly ideologically oriented regimes like Cuba and North Korea. It is equally true of a number of countries that have accumulated arms and sophisticated weapons and that regard the continuation of armed struggle, mainly against their neighbors, as a useful means of internal mobilization and even of regime survival. 10 Therefore, Third World instability increased, in both domestic unrest and interstate conflict. This is evident in all countries with strong military establishments, or with an excessive population and scarce resources. Described by a phrase coined in the mid-1970s, the so-called newly industrializing countries (NICs) became politically visible and won global attention, which was particularly distressing because the psychological impact of its economic weight overshadowed the plight of the least developed countries, which were totally dependent on suppliers of food, energy, and weapons. The change in East-West relations has highlighted the fact that in

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the still volatile environment of Third World security, those who have less to lose acquire political importance. Their domestic stability demanded external relations that were more often disruptive than constructive. Ruling elites demanded that their armed forces be used to prevent the need to be preoccupied with domestic politics. This could lead only to a dynamic polarization between the haves and the have-nots, between the least developed and the more developed economies in the South. What is the relevance of this to changing Soviet-US relations and Third World security? The answer is straightforward, but complex. The loosening of alliances between superpowers and their Third World allies, as previously mentioned, contributed to increased flexibility and freedom in foreign policy decisionmaking. This enabled both superpowers to seek new relations in areas that had previously been off-limits to them, such as the Soviet Union in South America or the United States in Eastern Europe. Moreover, Third World security issues and superpower bilateral arms control negotiations began to reflect mutual interests. Soviet-US relations, themselves, became a new factor in Third World security equations. Although both superpowers sought to resolve conflicts in some areas of the Third World, in other areas old obligations or domestic considerations perpetuated differences in view and continued to complicate conflict resolution. One example is the Middle East. For the United States, domestic imperatives necessitate a special relationship with Israel. This is exacerbated by US and allied fears about access to oil. For the Soviet Union, relations with Syria and Iraq were equally important. The Gulf crisis, however, changed that alignment and brought together, at least temporarily, not only the Soviet Union and the United States, but such longtime adversaries as the United States and Syria. Other former alignments that remain as relics include the Koreas, Vietnam, and Cuba. Unfortunately only major crises threatening world peace and security seem to bring together the Soviet Union and the United States, such as in the aftermath of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The threat of nuclear war during that crisis played an important role in determining the psychological makeup of policymakers in both the United States and the Soviet Union. It was understood that rivalry in the Third World should never overshadow their own survival. Both sides agreed that any situation that could bring them into a direct confrontation should be avoided. Mutual recognition of the need for bilateral relations during collision-course crises in the Third World led to the "Hot Line" agreement in 1963 and a host of other crisis-management arrangements. 11 Whereas the Cuban missile crisis helped to develop what could be labeled the "rules of prudence" governing superpower behavior, the Gulf crisis in 1990 led the Soviet Union and the United States toward actual cooperation in the Middle East, and in turn toward seeking mutual understanding regarding other security threats. From crisis to crisis, post-

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Cold War lessons have quickly acquired the dimension of a new world vision. This dimension has enabled an important process that goes beyond identifying threats to security and includes establishing concrete approaches and possible collaborative mechanisms. The Gulf crisis has reminded both East and West, as well as North and South, that there can be no separate security for the Third World and for developed countries. Interdependence means that a nation cannot abstain from actively countering aggression on the pretext that it takes place outside its sphere of concern or in a distant part of the globe. No longer is the world divided into socialist and capitalist camps; the security of the international system is indivisible. The Gulf crisis has signaled the need to identify sources of potential threats and formulate preventive approaches. Identifying possible threats to global security involves several considerations. First, the poorest Third World countries are particularly vulnerable. Natural or man-made disasters can destroy their fragile stability and spill over boundaries into wider conflict. The consequences of economic and environmental upheavals in the developed world can affect the security of Third World countries and may cause serious conflict. It is the responsibility of economically developed countries to provide assistance to countries combating the possible breakdown of their economic and social fabric. It is both a humanitarian imperative and a direct security concern. Second, it is undiplomatic and illegal to interfere in the internal affairs of states. Any attempt by developed countries to overcome potential threats through some form of intervention will inevitably invite resistance to such neocolonialism in the Third World. Respect for human rights is a universal value and an integral underpinning of the international system. Human rights can play an important role in relations between North and South when dealing with potential threats and abuses. Safeguarding human rights can be achieved through cautious and consistent policies aimed at changing societies along acceptable lines of political and social development. Third, areas of vital economic importance—the Middle East and the Gulf, Southeast Asia, Central America, and the Mediterranean—are endangered by potential aggression. The resulting disruption in world trade could significantly damage all economies. These areas may be targets of terrorist attacks or suffer sharp economic dislocation, which would adversely affect lines of communication and supplies. Special international regimes could be arranged through UN agencies or through international agreements to prevent serious dislocations or damage to the material fabric of an interdependent planet. Finally, terrorism and drug trafficking can threaten Third World security. As long as there is underdevelopment, feelings of despair, readiness to use any means of improving bleak economic prospects, these activities will not only continue, but grow. This will require a sustained international response that includes the establishment of more reliable international mechanisms,

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albeit within the political and managerial limitations of the United Nations as pointed out by Kessler and Weiss. A p p r o a c h e s and

Mechanisms

Cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union is in its earliest stages. Yet, it is not premature to discuss enhanced and more specific forms of cooperation in controlling conflicts and fostering Third World security. Collaboration is based on the capabilities of both powers, their ideas of world order, their established patterns of negotiations in the area of nuclear nonproliferation, and their possible agreement in banning chemical weapons. Cooperation serves Soviet and US interests as well as those of the international community in diminishing the threat of large-scale violence. An overall approach should be formulated as soon as possible. There are two possibilities, which are interrelated but might develop in opposite directions. Neil MacFarlane has mentioned one of them: a set of proposals that reduce the danger of unilateral superpower intervention in regional conflicts and other matters related to issues of Third World security. 12 The other, suggested by Weiss and Kessler, involves a set of proposals that increase superpower engagement through international multilateral mechanisms, primarily the United Nations. 13 The first proposal emerges against the background of superpower involvement in the Third World beginning in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In the late 1940s, President Harry Truman's foreign assistance program acquired a global dimension because of the 1949 revolution in China and the war in Korea (1950-1953). US messianism, entrenched in that policy, also contained a strong anticommunist component. This "crusade" evolved, first, into alliance-building in the 1950s and then into more dramatic interventionism in the Johnson Doctrine of the 1960s. 14 Soviet policy in the Third World, initially, was a response to this US policy of containment embodied in such alliances as the Baghdad Treaty (1954), the SEATO block (1954), and US security treaties with Western Europe (NATO), Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Both superpowers, for economic and military reasons, established alliances or quasialliances with newly independent countries and adopted them as clients. Direct involvement in security matters was based on either formal alliances, inviting the deployment of forces and military actions (US policy), or indirect alliances, permitting the deployment of military advisors and, in some cases, troops (Soviet policy). The dangers became evident in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Policies of unilateral engagement became counterproductive and too expensive, and they led to overextension. Unilateral disengagement, or a revision of existing agreements—especially those in which a superpower assumes the security burden of another nation—should be considered. Failing

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to redeploy forces or move military bases could automatically engage a superpower in a local conflict. These policies are actually beginning to be pursued by both the United States and the Soviet Union, though sporadically and inconsistently. There are some examples: the Philippines, Thailand, and Taiwan, for the United States; Vietnam, Cambodia, Mongolia, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia for the Soviet Union. There are exceptions, however. The process of unilateral disengagement in US policy has not precluded periodic forays in Grenada, Libya, and Panama. These are cases of the United States as the "world police." Continuing this policy will invite growing opposition from the United Nations, Third World countries, and even the closest US allies. In the long run, such actions do not contribute to a more just world order, rather, they raise issues that deepen controversy between the North and the South. The Gulf crisis highlights this line of argument. The US rush to send troops to Saudi Arabia to counter Iraqi aggression was undertaken unilaterally. The cases of Grenada, Lebanon, Libya, and Panama are often mentioned in this context. When the threat to Saudi territory diminished, a further rationale for US troops in the Gulf was the need to liberate Kuwait. Although this view was shared by Arab countries and the UN Security Council, the Soviet and French governments made clear that such action would be supported only under the auspices of the United Nations. This position became critical as the only way to legitimize US military action and build a consensus on the issue of using force against a regional power that had committed aggression. Two conclusions may be drawn. One concerns the use of force in international relations. World leaders, including Presidents Gorbachev and Bush, have publicly declared themselves against using violence as a means of dispute settlement. Yet, the use of force against an aggressor is an exception and is authorized by the UN Charter as a cornerstone of a stable international order. Nevertheless it creates a concern among smaller states and may thus increase the arms race in the Third World. There have been two opposing US points of view on the problem of the Third World arms race. One, officially endorsed by the Nixon and Reagan administrations, regarded arms supplies as stabilizing, creating a regional balance of power. The other, officially supported by the Carter administration, regarded arms supplies as destabilizing. Arms transfer policies create unmanageable situations and contribute to the creation of "war machines" in developing countries. One of these emerged in Iraq and haunts the United States. A strong policy controlling arms supplies, and their limitation and reduction, is needed. One of the lessons of the Gulf crisis, at least for industrialized countries, is only beginning to emerge. Even collective security arrangements may be regarded by Third World nations as unfair and unjustified. They will touch the sensitive issues of their self-defense and in

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turn provide incentives to major powers to use force against the Third Worid. The other conclusion relates to the United Nations as a universal tool to achieve stability and security in the Third World. Because of its role in decolonization, the world organization paradoxically bears a share of guilt for Third World instability. At the same time, the UN Charter provides a multilateral mechanism that can address Third World insecurity. No nation in the world, be it a superpower or super-supeipower, can police other nations with impunity even with the best intentions. Inevitably, weaker states will form coalitions to check the almighty police. There is another persuasive argument in favor of the internationalist approach to Third World security. Intervention in the form of naked aggression, like Iraq in Kuwait or the French and British in the Suez in 1956, is something quite different from a collective action of the whole international community embodied in a UN Security Council resolution. Saddam Hussein would not recognize this difference and put himself in jeopardy after UN Security Council Resolution 678 of November 1990. This situation transformed the idea of a US-Iraqi conflict into a UN-Iraqi confrontation, even though US forces still predominated. Proposals to activate the UN's peacekeeping and conflict resolution potential, suggested by President Gorbachev in his September 1987 article in Pravda and gradually endorsed by President Bush, despite the skepticism of the US Congress, have increasingly led to the multilateral involvement of the superpowers in Third World security. There are still many questions, including whether the superpowers and Third World nations would be prepared to cede some element of sovereignty to the United Nations. In newly independent countries, nationalism is still a popular and powerful force that is unlikely to be sacrificed for the sake of international solidarity. Yet, the idea of enhancing collective security, based on UN mechanisms as well as on regional groupings, is acquiring more and more support. The Third World realizes that the North has increased its leverage in dealing with the South. With the end of the Cold War, the "five police" (the permanent members of the UN Security Council with the responsibility to authorize the use of force against the world's "outcasts") can create additional tensions and act counter to the interests of international stability. Yet increased "international" values and actions, coupled with the economic power of Germany and Japan, can serve to diminish Third World insecurity. Conclusions Soviet-US relations with respect to Third World security are in flux. The Soviet global role is declining because of domestic political and economic considerations, whereas there are still instances of US interventionism in

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some areas of the Third World. Changes in world politics promise a brighter future, although they may threaten an imminent crisis. However, the world is not in total turmoil. Recent alterations, started by new Soviet domestic and foreign policies, have taken place in a more or less orderly manner. Some instability invariably results from restructuring existing alliances in a more global perspective. The idea of building a more stable and fair world order lies behind President Gorbachev's new political thinking, which sustains the Soviet global role despite shrinking material capabilities. The impact of new political thinking has already changed many patterns of thought and behavior among international actors, and it suggests the potential for collective security through sustained international efforts. It is premature to speak about the realization of a comprehensive collective security arrangement. There are too many unpredictable variables, like the Gulf crisis, which can thwart or postpone more effective international arrangements and institutional mechanisms. The present is a moment for active debate among scholars and politicians, to help clarify both their understanding of what collective security is and how and when it can be achieved. This chapter reflects some of the ways Soviet scholars think about these issues; it is hoped that it contributes to a more fruitful and constructive dialogue. Notes 1. Published in Pravda, 4 Aug. 1990. 2. This may be traced in the several statements by President Reagan in 1 9 8 5 - 1 9 8 6 , e.g., his speech at the United Nations in October 1985 prior to his meeting with Gorbachev in Geneva or in his message to the US Congress on 16 Mar. 1986. Both statements were then frequently used by Soviet analysts in their comments on the Reagan Doctrine. See SShA: ekonomika, politika, ideologiya [USA: economics, politics, ideology], November 1985, pp. 6 7 - 7 2 . 3. K. N . Brutents, Osvobodivshiesya etrany na poroge 80.ch godov [Liberated countries on the threshold of 1980s] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1980). 4. One of the best analyses of this turn is in J. F. Hough's The Struggle for the Third World, Soviet Debates and American Options (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1986). 5. In the U S literature on the subject one may cite M. D. Shulman, ed., East-West Tensions in the Third World ( N e w York: Norton, 1986), or R. W. Duncan, ed., Soviet Policy in Developing Countries (Huntington, N.Y.: Robert E. Krieger, 1981). A s for the Soviet literature, one of the first judgments on this issue was published in D. Tomashevski, Leninskie idei u mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya [Leninist ideas and international relations] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1971). Later some of these issues were analyzed in V. Kremenyuk, SSSR, SShAi; Razlivayanschiyesya Strany [USSR, USA and developing countries], in Sovetsko-Amerikanskiye Otnosheniya v Sovremennom Mire [Soviet-American relations in the contemporary world] (Moscow: Nauka, 1987): 2 3 5 - 2 3 9 . 6. See Z. Brzezinskis's interview in Newsweek, 1 Feb. 1971, p. 52, and J. W. Fulbright's "The Case for N e w Internationalism," War/Peace Report (May 1971): 3 - 7 .

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7. Report of the International C o n f e r e n c e on D i s a r m a m e n t and Development, New York, Aug. 24-Sept. 11, 1987. A/Conf. 130/39. 8. " O preoclolenii slaborazvitosti i ustanovlenii m e z h d u n a r o d n o g o ekonomicheskogo poriadka" [On overcoming underdevelopment and establishing international economic order], Statement by the Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, published in Izvestiya, 10 June 1987. 9. V. Kremenyuk, "Problems of the Multifaceted Movement," Moscow News, 17 Sept. 1989, p. 3. 10. See Jeffrey Herbst, "War and the State in Africa," International Security 14, no. 4 (Spring 1990): 117-139. 11. For this assessment of the Cuban crisis see Windows of Opportunity: From Cold War to Peaceful Competition in US-Soviet Relations, eds. G. T. Allison, W. L. Ury, and B. J. Allyn (Cambridge. Mass.: Ballinger, 1989): 9-39. 12. See Richard H. Ullman, "A Superpower Code of Conduct in the Third World," in The United Nations in Conflict Management: American Soviet and Third World Views, ed. Thomas G. Weiss (New York: International Peace Academy, 1990). 13. These considerations were discussed in the Soviet press as a result of two developments: (1) withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989 and (2) Gorbachev's approach to the United Nations, first stated in his article in Pravda in September 1987 and then in his speech at the UN General Assembly in December 1988. There was a special roundtable discussion on lessons of Afghanistan in SShA: ekonomia, politika, ideologiya (June-July 1989). 14. In the Soviet literature, analysis of this period can be found in V. A. Kremenyuk, Politika SShA razvivayushchikhsiya stranakh 1945-1976 [US policy in developing countries] (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1977).

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Critical Commentary: A Third World View on the Implications of Superpower Collaboration JAMES O. C. JONAH

In offering some comments about Third World perspectives on the implications of superpower collaboration, I introduce some general elements that would seem pertinent to an assessment of the nature of the security challenges in the Third World as they present themselves in two basic contexts: long-term superpower interests in the Third World; and the economic, social, and political realities of developing countries that produce their security problems. 1 Thereafter, I give consideration to defining the characteristics of the Third World; put forward some of the views of Third World countries as they perceive the evolution of the superpower relationship; and adduce some of the concerns that have been articulated by representatives of Third World countries, particularly about the implications for the Third World of the disappearance of checks and balances in the superpower relationship. Although I may not fully share the sentiments expressed by these representatives, it is considered essential that the perceptions of Third World countries be broadly represented here. Security Challenges in the Third World: Superpower Reach and Domestic Realities In considering security challenges in the Third World, we need to bear in mind constants and currents of international affairs, power and the state of mind of peoples, and the realities of the Third World. It will readily be agreed that in the relations among nations, the power of the strong is very likely to have an impact upon the weak. In this regard, Neil MacFarlane correctly points out that from the perspective of the bilateral relationship between the superpowers, the Third World is made up of three types of regions: •

Areas in which concrete interests of the two superpowers overlap (e.g., the Middle East and the Gulf);

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Areas in which one superpower or the other has an asymmetrically strong interest (e.g., Central America for the United States and Afghanistan for the U S S R ) ; Areas in which neither side possesses significant concrete interests (e.g., sub-Saharan Africa).

T h e examples given may be open to discussion but it is, nevertheless, helpful to bear in mind the long-standing interests of the superpowers. John Kenneth Galbraith, in a presentation entitled " T h e Anatomy o f Conflict in Our T i m e , " delivered in November 1990 before the Second Committee o f the United Nations General Assembly, 2 alludes to another constant. In his presentation, Galbraith argues forcefully the basic proposition that "in this last half century conflict and death have been the unique affliction of the poor on the poor." Poverty, he emphasized, "is the source o f oppression and conflict." Hence, the ultimate remedy to the growing number of internal conflicts "lies in economic improvement and in life that is an agreeable alternative to death." His diagnosis led him to recommend that "at a time when the Cold War tensions have wonderfully abated, we must have continuing and greater concern for the tension and conflict in what we have come to call, the Third World. And we must see the extent to which these are the natural counterpart of privation. And we must accept that the only practical answer to privation is help from the rich countries to the poor." What Professor Galbraith is saying, however else we may look at security issues in the Third World, is that unless we address the economic and social roots o f conflicts, we shall not be tackling the crux of their security challenges. As Augustus Richard Norton reminds us, "Third World problems will continue to intrude into the international system in the form o f regional and internal conflicts and political violence. In point of fact, it is a safe bet that the global agenda for the 1990s will be shaped largely by the imperative of responding to Third World crises." Grim Third World realities are a leitmotiv of virtually every contribution to this volume. Norton, for instance, has advanced the argument that "the central problem for the 1990s, and not just for the developing countries incidentally, will be the growing inability of governments to meet the psychopolitical, cultural, and economic needs o f their constituents." He reminds us "that in many parts o f the world where progress was once at least a dream, the struggle now is to maintain what has been attained, to avoid regression. . . . This resource-demand gap, in turn, will inevitably add to internal tensions and cleavages variously following religious, ethnic, regional, or tribal fault lines." If Norton is right in his projections for the Third World, the security challenges of the future will be daunting. For, as he put it, "the real danger is that the pressure on Third World governments will overwhelm them and that pandemonium will reign."

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If such is the diagnosis, the relations between the developed and the developing worlds could become even more difficult, because the implications for the Third World of the military and economic power of the superpowers is ever present. As former President Nyerere of Tanzania has picturesquely told it, when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers; when they make love, it is again the grass that suffers! The Third World: A State of Mind In one form or another, contributors to this book have raised serious questions about the nature of the Third World: Is it a meaningful concept? Can one consider the term relevant after the end of the Cold War? Some of those who have taken into account the variety and divergence of views among countries considered within the Third World have totally dismissed the concept as unworkable. The fact that Third World countries have been the focus of Soviet-US competition has led some to say that with the end of the Cold War, Third World countries have become irrelevant. These doubts are not new. Ever since the "Third World" came into the political and diplomatic lexicon, it has been viewed with skepticism by those who argued, correctly, that the terminology is imprecise. No one can say precisely when and why the term "Third World" was coined. While it is generally believed that the first world represents Western countries, it is not clear whether the second world refers solely to the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. At an earlier period in the Cold War, General Charles de Gaulle, then leader of France, used to refer to what he called a "third force." He had in mind, however, countries other than the two superpowers. The late Prime Minister Nehru of India was also fond of talking about what he called a "third force for peace." This was even before the concept of neutralism or nonalignment had taken hold. Whatever the exact meaning of the expression, there is no doubt that in the context of the United Nations—and perhaps even in a wider diplomatic context—the term "Third World" has real meaning to its adherents. This is not to deny that countries constituting the Third World are quite varied and do not often share the same political viewpoint. In fact, in the present international climate, the divergence of views among Third World countries has become pronounced. So-called conservative countries do adopt political stances close to those of Western industrialized countries. Voting patterns in the United Nations have further shown that Third World countries can be found on both sides of some political issues. Although the term is also used almost as a synonym for "underdevelopment" or "developing countries," some countries within the Third World, in fact, have robust economies. Their economic status could rival some even in the first world. So it would not be accurate to consider all Third World countries as poor, even though the term is more and

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more used in that context. Some writers have been referring to the deteriorating Soviet economic situation as "a Third World economy," meaning that there is almost total breakdown in the economic activity in the Soviet Union. Countries calling themselves "Third World" believe that they are members of the grouping no matter what their economic performance. By and large, they tend to share similar historical experiences, particularly the fact that many of them emerged into nationhood from colonialism. A good many of them are exporters of primary products, with weak or nonexistent industrial bases. In general terms, they believe that they have been victims not only of colonialism but also of racial discrimination. Therefore, there is solidarity among them in their fight against racial discrimination. Perhaps because of their historical experience within the United Nations, Third World countries have consistently opposed foreign intervention and occupation. Quite often this position is misunderstood, particularly with respect to the Arab-Israeli dispute. But the record of the United Nations will show that on every occasion, Third World countries have voted in favor of resolutions condemning occupation of foreign territory. They did this even when one of their prominent members, India, was obliged to send forces into then East Pakistan, which subsequently became Bangladesh at the end of December 1971. Third World countries also surprised the government of Argentina when their delegates in the UN Security Council joined others in condemning the Argentine intervention in the Malvinas-Falkland Islands, even though most were prepared to uphold the claim of Argentina to the islands. But they were opposed to the use of force in vindicating the Argentinian claim. Fundamentally, one can say that the Third World is a state of mind. For instance, when the People's Republic of China regained its seat in the UN General Assembly in 1971, it argued vehemently that it was neither one of the superpowers nor a member of the socialist bloc, but a Third World country. Perhaps that might have been a diplomatic or political ploy by China to win support in the Third World. But whatever the reason, China continues to argue that it is a Third World country, perhaps meaning that it stands for those things for which many Third World countries are campaigning in international fora. Let me add a clarification: Within the diplomatic community, the terms "Third World" and "nonalignment" are used rather interchangeably. This has added much confusion, because some Third World countries do not adhere to the policy of nonalignment. One should, therefore, distinguish between the broader concept of the Third World and the more defined concept of nonalignment. In the circumstances, we should not be too surprised if the term "Third "World" is widely used even in a post-Cold War world.

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A Community or an Emerging Directorate? As was noted, implicit in the distinction between the Third World and the Non-Aligned Movement is the fact that Third World countries do not always share a uniform position on international policy matters. The diversity of views may be seen even on the question of the supposed end of the Cold War. A number of Third World countries will accept the basic assessment that we are now in a post-Cold War era. However, other Third World countries have not yet reached a firm conclusion on this point. While they accept that there is a growing rapprochement between the Soviet Union and the United States, and also between Eastern and Western Europe, they do not see this as evidence of the ending of the Cold War in their own regions. Some Third World countries also have reservations about the judgment that there has been a major transformation in international relations. The fundamental changes brought about by President Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, as well as his acquiescence in the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and his acceptance of German unification, have all undoubtedly shifted the focus of the post-World War II situation in Europe. The progressive weakening of the Warsaw Pact, the striving toward democratic institutions in Eastern Europe and the determination by the industrialized countries of the West to help rescue the faltering economy of Eastern Europe, all point to a radical change. But in the view of the Third World countries, these changes are evident only in Europe. For example, attention has been drawn to the fact that in many areas of the Third World, civil strife and interstate conflicts persist. Furthermore, many Third World countries have started to raise concerns about the operational implications of the post-Cold War period. This is not to imply, as has been argued in some quarters, that Third World countries have a "nostalgia" for the Cold War. It is true that when there was greater competition between the superpowers for the support of Third World countries, many leaders were able to bargain and play off one superpower against the other. But while many Third World countries welcome the rapprochement in Europe, as well as between the supeipowers, and while they also appreciate the reduction of international tension in Europe, they also see dangers for themselves. This concern has been voiced particularly in regard to the manner in which the UN Security Council tackled Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. As was noted previously, Third World countries, as a matter of principle, have opposed illegal seizure of territory. They have done so whether it has been in Afghanistan, Cambodia, or the occupied Arab territories, even though the last-mentioned is often misunderstood by those who believe that Third World votes against Israeli occupation have been bought with "Arab oil money." It is no surprise then that Third World countries have joined other members of the United Nations in opposing the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.

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What has surprised many Third World countries, however, has been the speed and determination shown by the UN Security Council. Some Third World countries have shown sympathy for the criticism made by President Saddam Hussein of Iraq that the UN Security Council has been acting on a double standard. They wonder why it has shown such alacrity and determination regarding Kuwait when, for over three decades, it has not shown as much determination to end Israeli occupation of Arab territories. In this regard, some Third World countries have wondered whether the engine of the UN Security Council's action has been from within the membership of the UN Security Council or, rather, has come about mostly because of pressure from the United States. As is widely known, such views by Third World governments and Third World countries, perhaps because of their consistent anticolonial positions, have been judged over the years to be anti-Western, particularly in the UN forum. Western disenchantment with the Third World and the United Nations was formerly related to a perceived pro-Soviet bias. Daniel Moynihan, prior to becoming permanent US representative to the United Nations, was among the first to call on the United States to challenge this Third World inclination. 3 The manner in which the Cold War ended has, in the view of several Third World countries, been responsible for lingering doubts. As seen by many Third World countries, the end of the Cold War has not been the result of a negotiated set of arrangements between the United States and the Soviet Union but what, in their quiet moments, they call "a retreat by the Soviet Union." Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, in his dramatic resignation speech before the People's Congress, hinted that his detractors in the Soviet Union had accused him of bringing about this Soviet retreat. Interestingly, a similar tendency was linked with the United States in previous years. In the wake of the Vietnam debacle and other international developments, it was fashionable to assert that the forces of revolutionary change were gaining the upper hand. Many commentators, especially those with conservative leanings, noted that the response of the United States and other Western countries was one of general retreat.4 In the view of the Third World, the perceived Soviet diplomatic retreat has thus recently brought about a potentially threatening situation: the emergence of one overwhelmingly strong superpower. This has led many in the Third World to ask, If there is one superpower, where are the checks and balances that have been present throughout the period since the end of the World War II? Those familiar with the US domestic political situation know that there are a number of checks and balances within the US system. As has been demonstrated in the case of Kuwait, much of the criticism and concern expressed about possible use of force against Iraq by the US-led coalition has come from Congress. The interplay of these checks and balances has, in fact, prompted President Bush to show greater readiness for a diplomatic solution

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than he seemed willing to make (e.g., his idea of sending Secretary Baker to Baghdad and having Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz come to Washington). Beyond the obvious lack of checks and balances in tackling the sole remaining superpower, some Third World countries have looked at the manner in which the UN Security Council has been acting lately, particularly when the five permanent members have adopted joint positions. Questions have been raised as to whether, in a post-Cold War world, the rest of the membership of the United Nations will be led and managed essentially by an international directorate. In one sense, this is a surprising concern because many Third World countries do welcome the revitalization of the United Nations, particularly the prominent role it is now playing in international affairs. But one must understand the principles of the UN Charter, which, as formulated at Dumbarton Oaks and specifically agreed on in San Francisco, did provide for a group of world police to manage international affairs. The fact that there are five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and that this organ has a primary concern (though not exclusive responsibility) for the maintenance of international peace and security, means that there was a tacit, even explicit, acceptance of the preponderant influence of the UN Security Council. What was also accepted in the UN Charter was that the UN Security Council would take account of the opinion of the international community, not only through its nonpermanent members but also through the deliberations of the UN General Assembly. One should not lightly dismiss the Third World concern about an emerging international directorate. It will be necessary for the UN Security Council, and especially for its five permanent members, to consider Third World sensitivities. On pragmatic grounds, one could argue that it is useful for the five permanent members to meet, consult, and reach agreed positions—as they did in the case of the Iran-Iraq conflict and that of Kuwait. But the impression should never be given that the five, working with the secretary-general, can decide for the rest of the UN Security Council's members. Such a posture would be a recipe for constant dispute and disagreement between the nonpermanent and permanent members of the UN Security Council. The Disappearance of Checks and Balances: The African Experience African countries have voiced their concern for Soviet-US rapprochement as it affects other Third World issues, notably regional conflicts. In the early period of their rapprochement, the United States and the Soviet Union included on their political agenda efforts to resolve regional disputes. With the warming of relations, they have already reached joint positions on a number of Third World issues, and we have witnessed the benefits in such places as Angola and Namibia. 5

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What has alarmed African countries, and perhaps other Third World countries as well, is the way that the new Soviet-US understanding has affected African interests and positions. Here again, there appears to have been a Soviet retreat. In those instances in Africa when S o v i e t - U S understanding has brought about a solution, Africans have seen it as the result, invariably, of a basic change in the Soviet position. In this context, they have evaluated the negotiations conducted by Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker as a victory for the United States because, in their view, the United States was tenacious enough to maintain its basic policy o f constructive engagement in Angola and Namibia. The United States was able, according to this interpretation, to secure the withdrawal of Cuban troops in Angola, a longtime policy objective; the interests o f Jonas Savimbi, President of UNITA, were in no way jeopardized; and linkage, which has been strongly criticized in the United Nations, was, at the end of the day, vindicated. So, the Angolan-Namibian solution was seen as a retreat o f the Soviet Union from its own previous position of strong support for the government o f Angola and S W A P O . There are further features of the negotiations surrounding these events that have fueled the African disquiet and that have strengthened their perception that there has been a retreat by the Soviet Union. When the plan for the independence o f Namibia was initially negotiated in the 1970s, S W A P O had participated in all of the negotiations. However, when discussions on the implementation of the plan took place in 1988, S W A P O was excluded from all o f the major discussions in London, Lisbon, New York, Cairo, Geneva, and Brazzaville. This phase of negotiations involved South Africa, Angola, and Cuba, under the chairmanship o f the United States and with the participation of the Soviet Union. S W A P O was excluded throughout. When the Geneva Protocol was adopted in August 1988, African governments believed that crucial interests of S W A P O had not been adequately taken into account. This was to lead to serious problems later. Paragraph 5 of the Protocol provided, inter alia, that S W A P O ' s forces would be deployed to the north of the sixteenth parallel during the implementation phase o f the settlement plan. However, this paragraph did not refer to what would happen to S W A P O forces already in Namibia before the implementation phase began. This point had, however, been covered in the understanding contained in a report of the secretary-general. Although S W A P O did not participate in the negotiation or adoption of the Geneva Protocol, it had been involved in discussions concerning the understanding, including paragraph 11: "Coincidental with a cessation of all hostile acts the South African Defence Forces ( S A D F ) and S W A P O armed forces will be restricted to base. This would involve the restriction to base o f all S A D F forces within Namibia and their subsequent phased withdrawal as outlined in the Proposal. Any S W A P O aimed forces in Namibia at the time o f the cease-

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fire will likewise be restricted to base at designated locations inside Namibia." 6 Because SWAPO had participated earlier, when the implementation phase of the settlement plan began, SWAPO claimed that it had a right to send its forces in Namibia before April 1 and that it expected those forces to be restricted to base by UNTAG. Accordingly, they moved their forces into Namibia between the evening of March 31, 1988, and the morning of April 1, 1988. The Soviet response to the incredible events that emerged at the beginning of the Namibian operations came as a shock to many African countries. While they may differ as to the cause of the debacle (that is to say, whether SWAPO violated the agreements or not), they were taken aback by the strong Soviet insistence in April 1989 at Mount Etjo, Namibia (at which SWAPO was not even invited to participate), that the settlement be put back on track by SWAPO concessions. Africans had earlier expressed similar consternation when, in the discussions prior to the commencement of operations (discussions that lasted from December 1988 to March 1989), the Soviet Union had joined the United States in insisting on a reduction of the military component of UNTAG. In 1978, the Soviet Union had been at the forefront in supporting SWAPO for a larger military component. The African concern about what they perceived as a Soviet retreat continues. In discussions regarding a settlement of the Angolan civil war, Africans view the Soviets as giving ground to the United States. In December 1990, the Soviet foreign minister met in Washington with Jonas Savimbi of UNITA for the first time, thereby giving him some recognition that he had been denied for the previous 15 years. Following that meeting, the Soviet Union began to participate, together with the United States, in the discussions on Angola. At Lisbon, in the latter part of December 1990, it was agreed that the United States and the Soviet Union would cut aid to the warring parties in Angola upon signing a cease-fire. If such an agreement is implemented, major Soviet support to the government of Angola to run its operations may be cut off. The talks on Angola will continue in 1991, and Soviet participation is expected again. The Angolan government, as well as other African countries, are fearful that the Soviet Union will continue to pressure the government to make concessions. In the case of South Africa, African countries fear Soviet pressure on the liberation movements to make concessions in negotiations. Moscow has already indicated that it intends to establish some form of diplomatic relations with South Africa. Those relations had been broken off in 1956. After the participation of the Soviet Union in the Namibian settlement, leading Soviet officials have met with the foreign minister of South Africa, who has boldly announced that Moscow could play a diplomatic role in moving negotiations toward a settlement. With regard to the situation in Mozambique, it is also feared that the

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Soviet Union could exert additional pressure on the Mozambican government in its current negotiations with the Mozambique National Resistance, sometimes called RENAMO. The perception of African countries in all of these situations is that, in every instance, the Soviet Union is making concessions and their previous balancing, or protecting, role has now been abandoned. Beyond African issues, other Third World countries have also noted that even in those regions where there has been some flexibility in the resolution of Third World disputes, movement has come invariably from the Soviet side. They have drawn attention, for example, to the situation in Central America, where, if one were to judge from outbursts by President Fidel Castro, the changes in Central America have come about not from a US retreat but rather from the diminution of Soviet support for Cuba, which has, in turn, adversely affected the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Whether it is because of its deteriorating economic situation or for other reasons, the Soviet Union, as has been pointed out in virtually every contribution to this volume, has now decided to reduce considerably its arms deliveries to Third World countries. This decision has weakened those who in the past have relied heavily on Soviet arms supplies for the pursuit of regional conflicts. Attention should be drawn to the fact that in the Soviet Union itself there has been considerable opposition to continued arms transfer to Third World countries. The capture of Soviet arms in many conflicts, particularly in the Middle East, is said to have been detrimental to Soviet arms technology. One should bear in mind, in this regard, that the Soviet Union has been placed in a rather difficult position. As Thomas G. Weiss and Meryl A. Kessler argue, Soviet policymakers, on the basis of their experience in many regional disputes, particularly in Afghanistan, have come to the realization that the costs of projecting military power in the world are prohibitively high. It is understandable that some of the latest policy options of the Soviet Union, such as reduction of arms delivery, have resulted from a review of Soviet policy. But in the perception of Third World countries, there has been an even stronger incentive for the Soviet Union to change its position. The unfolding of perestroika and glasnost has resulted in a rather curious development. All available evidence shows that President Gorbachev is far more popular outside than inside the Soviet Union. His new thinking has been applauded by Western leaders. The momentum generated by his new thinking on foreign policy has had the result that in order to uphold his "good-boy behavior," he cannot afford to maintain an inflexible position on any foreign policy issue. The litmus test is always the extent to which he is prepared to compromise when an impasse exists between his position and that of the West. Even though Gorbachev's final change of policy on the issue of German unity came as a surprise to many, when viewed in the

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context of his maintaining a "good-boy behavior," it was not that surprising at all. This remains a dilemma for Soviet foreign policy. Concluding Observations There have long been divergent views among scholars, practitioners, and public officials as to whether rivalry or conflicts between the superpowers were responsible for the persistence of insecurity in the Third World. Some have argued that in their global competition, and with a view to recruiting allies or supporters to their competing alliance system, the United States and the Soviet Union have instigated proxy wars in many Third World countries. Those who have taken a contrary view assert that the causes of regional disputes in the Third World are to be found in ethnic conflicts, border disputes, or issues of identity among Third World countries. Moscow and Washington may have exploited these differences and disputes in the past, but they should not be held responsible for instability in the Third World. The foregoing observations are in order if one is to determine the extent to which Soviet-US cooperation can have an impact on the security of the Third World. An examination of regional conflicts since World War II would indicate that support by the United States and the USSR of opposing sides exacerbated conflicts and has often made the search for a peaceful settlement exceedingly difficult. There is ample evidence to support this proposition: during the war in Vietnam, for example, Soviet arms supplies to both North Vietnam and the Vietcong contributed to the enormous difficulties the United States faced in the conduct of that war. Likewise, Washington's support of the mujaheddin in opposition to the government in Kabul complicated considerably the task of the Soviet Union in ensuring victory for its Afghani allies. While it is true that both in Vietnam and in Afghanistan the United States and the Soviet Union had strategic interests of their own to pursue, the prolongation of the conflict in both cases was a result of the behavior of both superpowers. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the search for peaceful solutions to regional disputes, particularly those in which the United States and the Soviet Union are directly or indirectly involved, one of the most frequent proposals is that arms supplies be reduced or discontinued as a means of bringing the conflict to an end. Beyond the cutoff of arms supplies, a show of determination by Washington and Moscow to find a peaceful solution to a regional conflict in the Third World can have an immediate impact. This can be achieved either by direct Soviet-US dialogue and cooperation or by concerted efforts within the Security Council of the United Nations. The leverage of the superpowers to promote a peaceful solution to Third World conflicts relates not only to the calibration of arms supplies, but also to the provision of economic and other incentives to Third World countries to end strife. Viktor Kremenyuk has written in the preceding chapter, however,

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about the limited capacities of the United States and the USSR to have a definitive impact on Third World parties in conflict. There is ample evidence that clients have the capacity to frustrate efforts by Washington and Moscow, even when the client depends on one or the other for significant matériel and military support. Although the superpowers can cajole and even pressure Third World countries, those countries cannot be compelled to end their conflicts if they are unalterably opposed to a peaceful settlement. The ups and downs in the search for peace in Cambodia is at least partly caused by the reluctance of the warring factions to heed the advice and counsel of their powerful supporters. One may justifiably ask whether any Soviet-US cooperation that might result from their disengagement from regional conflicts could enhance security in the Third World. If the matter is confined to efforts by the superpowers to promote control and reduction in armaments, Third World countries tend to believe that there might be "peace dividends" contributing to overall international security that could have a favorable impact on their own regional security. It is true that the peace dividends that were expected as a result of Soviet-US arms reduction agreements have not materialized. Nevertheless, Third World countries still promote global disarmament and comprehensive test ban agreements because they believe that Soviet-US cooperation is a vital element in ensuring global security. However, the emergence of cooperation between Moscow and Washington and the resulting disengagement could well remove some of the leverage used hitherto to compel Third World countries to seek peaceful solutions to their conflicts. Perhaps the most appropriate way for Soviet-US cooperation to foster regional security would be for the United States and the Soviet Union to concert their efforts in the UN Security Council, to jointly sponsor specific arrangements for tackling Third World disputes. As Weiss and Kessler indicate, such steps contain considerable potential in the search for solutions. This step could be done not only through the formulation of appropriate resolutions, such as those relating to the Middle East, the Iran-Iraq war, and Namibia, but could also extend to Moscow's and Washington's encouraging the UN Security Council to work out arrangements for the establishment of peacekeeping forces and observer groups. By acting in this way, they can indeed enhance the capacity of the UN Security Council and of the United Nations in general to make further contributions to the maintenance of international peace and security. Notes 1. All views expressed herein are mine, formulated in my own capacity, and should not be attributed to the United Nations. 2. The text of this lecture has been distributed at the United Nations. As far as I am aware, it has not been published.

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3. Daniel P. Moynihan, "The United States in Opposition," Commentary 59, no. 3 (9 Mar. 1975): 31-44. 4. Walter Laqueur, "The West in Retreat," Commentary 60, no. 2 (August 1975): 4 4 - 5 2 . 5. The more recent example is the joint letter from US secretary of state James A. Baker and the foreign minister of the USSR, Eduard Shevardnadze, to the UN secretary-general regarding the situation in El Salvador. UN Document (S/22060) (10 Jan. 1991). 6. UN document S/13120.

The Contributors

M I C H A E L C L O U G H is senior fellow for Africa at the Council on Foreign Relations, New Yoric. His publications include Africa and the U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda; The United States and South Africa: Realities and Red Herrings (coauthor); and articles in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy.

O. C. JONAH is under-secretary-general of the Department for Special Political Questions at the United Nations, New York. A career international civil servant, he was formerly assistant secretary-general for Research and the Collection of Information, for Field Operational and External Support Activities, and for Human Resources Development. JAMES

A. K E S S L E R , a Soviet specialist, is a fellow at the Kennedy School's Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University. Her articles have appeared in Foreign Policy and World Policy Journal. MERYL

is deputy director of the Institute on the Study of the U.S.A. and Canada, USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow. He has written extensively on Third World problems. VIKTOR KREMENYUK

is professor of political science and director of Columbia University's W. Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union. His numerous publications have appeared in such journals as Foreign Affairs. He is presently finishing a book on the past two decades of Soviet policy toward the United States. ROBERT LEGVOLD

is professor of politics and senior fellow of the Centre for International Relations, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. He is the author of The Idea of National Liberation; Intervention and Regional Security, and Gorbachev: Third World Dilemma. S . N E I L MACFARLANE

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is professor of political science at the United States Military Academy, West Point. A specialist in politics and culture of the Middle East, he is the author of Amal and the Shi'a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon, and coauthor of UN Peacekeepers: Soldiers with a Difference. A U G U S T U S RICHARD NORTON

A. W A L L A N D E R is assistant professor of government at Harvard University. Her recent published research in World Politics concerns Soviet military views of conflict in the Third World and the development of Soviet interventionism. CELESTE

G. W E I S S is associate director of Brown University's Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies. His most recent books include UN Peacekeepers (coauthor); The U.N. in Conflict Management: American, Soviet and Third World Views (editor); Humanitarianism Under Siege (coauthor); and Peacekeepers, Soldiers and Disasters (coeditor). THOMAS

Index

Abalkin, Leonid, 42 'Abduh, Muhammad, 28 Acheson, Dean, 75 Adler, Selig, 73 Afghanistan: arms transfers to, 52; conflict resolution in, 57, 58; Soviet withdrawal from, 9 7 - 9 8 . 132, 1 5 9 n l 3 ; U S aid to, 136, 171 Africa, 26, 30, 5 1 - 5 2 , 167-171 Africa, southern, 7 9 - 8 0 , 126, 137. See also South Africa African National Congress (ANC), 81 African-Americans, 82 Aid, foreign. See Foreign aid Airplane production, preWorld War II, 71 Algeria, 24 A N C (African National C o n g r e s s ) , 81 Andropov, Yurii, 143 Anglo-American Corporation, 128 Angola: African observers of, 169; arms transfers to, 44, 53, 135, 145n26; c o n f l i c t resolution in, 55, 65, 98, 101, 132, 138; U S and, 77, 131— 132, 168; U S S R and, 5 1 52 Anticommunism. See

Containment strategy Anticommunist guerrillas, 77. See also Mujaheddin Apartheid, 140 Apple, R. W „ 78 Arab Ba'th Socialist Party, 25 Arab territories, 165, 166. See also Israel, territories occupied by; Palestinians Arab-Israeli W a r (1967), 77 "Arc of crisis," 95 Arendt, Hannah, 25 Argentina, 164 Armed forces. See Military power Arms race, Third World, 156 Arms sales, 43, 44, 46, 49, 58 Arms transfers: Soviet, 5 2 54, 55, 61, 170; superpower, 135, 138, 139, 140, 145n26, 156, 171; US, 134 Arsenals: pre-World War II, 71; Third World, 3, 2 0 21, 131, 172 Assabiya, 25 Atlantic Charter, 71 Aziz, Tariq, 167 Baghdad Treaty (1954), 155 Baker, James, 58, 1 0 8 109, 167, 173n5 Balance of power: in Africa, 167-171; conflict resolution and, 55; in

Persian Gulf, 88; scenarios of, 12-13; Soviet Third World policy and, 45, 48, 1 6 6 167; Third World wealth and, 140; U N and, 118 Ball, George, 73, 76 Ballistic missiles, 2 0 - 2 1 , 130 Bangladesh, 164 Banuazizi, Ali, 27 Barter agreements, 47, 4 8 49 Batatu, Hanna, 27 Ba'thists, 25 Beard, Charles, 73 Bianchi, Robert, 29 Bible, 29 Bilateral policies, 6 8 Binder, Leonard, 28 Bipolarity, 89 Black Americans, 82 Black Sea, 9 8 Boland A m e n d m e n t , 77 Borah, William, 73 Boren, David, 78 Bretton W o o d s conference (1944), 71 Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich, 89, 91, 9 5 Britain, 117 Brutents, Karen, 9 3 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 91, 150 Buchanan, Patrick, 76, 82

Note: Entries including the term "superpower's" cover the United States and USSR jointly; material on either country separately falls under "United States" or "Soviet Union" respectively. Alphabetical order is word-by-word.

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INDEX

Budgets: Soviet, 40; UN, 106, 110, 113, 114, 117, 118, 121; US, 121 Bush, G e o r g e , 105, 121, 131, 157, 1 6 6 - 1 6 7 Bush administration, 78, 82, 120 C a m Ranh Bay, 56 C a m b o d i a : conflict resolution in, 48, 57, 98, 101, 172; invasion of, 1 3 5 - 1 3 6 ; Soviet arms transfers to, 52; U N and, 106, 1 1 3 - 1 1 4 Camp David accords, 93 Capitalism, 36 Caribbean Basin, 129, 130 Carter administration, 79, 80, 156 Castro, Fidel, 170 Central America: Carter administration and, 80; superpower cooperation in, 19-20; Third World views of, 170; U S and, 77, 126 Central Asia, 3 0 - 3 1 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 2 0 Central Selling Organization (USSR), 128 Chamorro, Violeta, 19 "Chapter six and one-half." See United Nations (UN) Charter, "Chapter six and one-half" Checks and balances. See Balance of power C h e m i c a l weapons, 20 Chiang Kai-shek, 75 Childers, Erskine, 116 China: C a m b o d i a n invasion and, 1 3 5 - 1 3 6 ; India/Pakistan c o n f l i c t and, 93; Soviet Third W o r l d policy and, 126; s u p e r p o w e r cooperation and, 92; as Third World country, 164; U S a n t i c o m m u n i s m and, 75 Churches, 29 Churchill, Winston, 71 CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), 2 0 Civil service, international, 112-113, 115-116

Civil strife. See Conflict, internal Clark Amendment of 1976, 77 Class struggle, 99. See also Conflict, internal; Revolutions C M E A (Council for Mutual E c o n o m i c Assistance), 47, 51, 6 9 Cold War, 7 3 - 7 6 , 126. See also Post-Cold War era Collective security: Gulf crisis and, vii-viii, 22; superpower cooperation and, 103; U N and, 15-16, 103, 118-120; US and, 120-121. See also Peacekeeping, UN Colombia, 30 C o l o n i a l i s m , 135, 142, 164. See also Neocolonialism Committee for State Security (KGB), 101 Communication technology, 2 4 Communism, 67. See also C o n t a i n m e n t strategy; Ideology, Soviet Communist Party (Iraq), 25 Comprehensive AntiApartheid Act of 1986, 77 Compromise. See Conflict resolution Condominium. See Superpower collaboration Conference of the Heads of States and Governments of the Non-Aligned M o v e m e n t (1989), 152 Conflict, 2 2 - 2 3 , 30 Conflict, internal, 4, 20, 25, 109-111. See also Revolutions Conflict, regional, 1 0 9 110; causes of, 13-14, 162; Gorbachev on, 9 7 98; superpowers and, 96, 1 3 5 - 1 3 8 , 171 Conflict resolution: Kolosov on, 86; superpowers in, 136, 1 3 7 - 1 3 8 , 147, 153, 172; USSR in, 47^18, 53, 5 4 60, 61, 101. See also Peacekeeping, UN

Congressional Black Caucus, 82 Conservatism, Soviet, viii, 41, 87, 1 0 1 - 1 0 2 , 144nl9 Containment strategy, 7 3 76, 7 9 - 8 1 "Correlation of forces," 9 1 92, 125 Crocker, Chester, 168 Cuba: Angola and, 98, 132, 145n26, 168; security of, 136; US and, 129-130; USSR and, 42, 50, 127; Vietnam and, 51 Cuban Missile Crisis, 89, 153 De Beers (company), 51 De Cuéllar, Javier Pérez. See Pérez de Cuéllar, Javier De Gaulle, Charles, 163 De-ideologization, Soviet. 4, 3 7 - 3 8 Détente, 89, 94, 95, 96 Debt: Angolan, 52; Iraqi, 50; Third World, 42, 43, 47, 49, 141; US, 114. 118 Defense. See Military Democracy, 4, 26, 28, 3 9 41 Demography, 23, 82 Diamonds, 51, 128 Disarmament. See Arsenals Discrimination, racial, 164 Disengagement, unilateral, 155-156 Drug traffic, 111, 131, 132, 154 Dulles, Foster, 91 Dumbarton Oaks meeting (1944), 71 East Pakistan, 164 Eastern Europe, 71, 99, 165 Economic reforms, Soviet, 3 9 - 4 1 ; of Soviet allies, 51 Economic relations, Soviet, 48-52 Education, 28, 29 Egypt, 93, 136, 149 Eickelman, Dale F., 2 8 - 2 9 El Salvador, 19, 80, 101, 136, 173n5

INDEX

Embargo of Iraq, 50, 59, 108 Energy resources, 7 3 - 7 4 ,

126 Enterprise ownership, 50 Environmental deterioration, 131 Eritrea, 138 Ethiopia, 5 6 - 5 7 , 129, 137-138, 139 Ethiopian-Somali War, 95 Europe, 78, 141. See also Eastern Europe Expansionism, Soviet, 90 Exports, pre-World War II, 71 Fear, 25. See also Terrorism Feinberg, Richard, 76 FLN (National Liberation Front), 24 Ford administration, 7 9 - 8 0 Foreign aid: Soviet, 42, 43, 47, 169; superpower, 127-128, 171-172; US, 148-149, 150. See also Arms transfers; Military assistance Foreign trade, 46, 48-52, 154 France, 117 Fukuyama, Francis, 98 Fulbright, William, 150 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 162 Gas, natural, 51 GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), 46 Gelb, Leslie, 75 Geneva Accords on Afghanistan, 151 Geneva Protocol, 168-169 Germany, 7 8 - 7 9 , 110, 117, 165, 170 Glasnost, 52, 144nl9, 170 Global containment strategy, 7 3 - 7 6 , 7 9 - 8 1 Global power distribution. See Balance of power Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich: on Afghanistan, 9 7 - 9 8 ; counterreform and, 102; on international economic institutions, 47; on lebanonization, 30; Najibullah and, 57; Nicaraguan military aid

and, 55; Saddam Hussein and, 100; on Soviet/Third World relations, 43; TaeWoo Roh and, 50; Third World perceptions of, 165, 170-171; on UN, 99-100, 157, 159nl3; UN Security Council and, 108; on US, 59, 98 Gorbachev regime. See Soviet Union Gorshkov, Sergei, 92 Governmental impotency, 4, 23-30, 3 2 n l 0 , 135, 162 Governmental legitimacy, 24-25 Grand strategies, 68, 82 Great-power collaboration, 107-111. See also Superpower collaboration Green, Jerrold, 33n25 Grenada, 130 Gromyko, Andrei Andreyevich, 95 Guerrillas, anticommunist, 77. See also Mujaheddin Gulf crisis: alliances in, 153; collective security and, vii-viii, 22; economic aspects of, 50; Kozyrev on, 87; military force in, 133-134, 156; Shevardnadze on, 128; superpowers in, 59, 131, 145n28, 153-154; Third World internal conflicts and, 20; UN Security Council in, 105, 108, 113, 157, 165-166; US in, 78, 82, 120; USSR in, 14, 48, 50, 58-60, 100101; Western interests and, 140 Haig, Alexander, 80 Haiti, 111 Hammarskjöld, Dag, 115 Ho Chi Minh, 70 "Hot Line" agreement, 153 Human rights: in Central America, 80; Cold War demise and, 81; in Kolosov/Urnov debate, 86; in North/South relations, 154; in South Korea, 29; US legislation on, 77

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Hun Sen, 57, 58 Hussein, Saddam: Ba'thists and, 25; Soviet Union and, 58, 60, 100; UN and, 157, 166 Hyundai furniture, 50 Ibrahim, Saad Eddin, 23 ICJ (International Court of Justice), 121 Identity, social. See Social identity Ideology, Soviet, 37, 90, 99. See also Deideologization, Soviet; New thinking, Soviet IMF (International Monetary Fund), 52, 72, 117 Impulses, 69, 83 Indebtedness. See Debt India: ascendancy of, 140; nuclear weapons and, 21; vs. Pakistan, 21, 93, 133, 137, 164; USSR and, 52 Industrial potential, p r e World War II, 72 INF Treaty (1987), 151 Informal political groups, 25-26, 27 Information availability, 24, 52, 127 Instability, Third World, 13-14, 2 3 - 3 0 , 148-151, 152-153, 157, 171 Intelligence service, 116— 117 Interdependence, 50, 99, 154 International institutions, 4 4 - ^ 8 , 59, 78 Internationalism, 73, 74— 75. See also Neointernationalism Iran, 51, 93, 98 Iran-Iraq war, 137 Irangate, 77 Iraq: Ba'thist rule of, 25; vs. collective security, 22; embargo of, 50, 59, 108; Ethiopia and, 139; military power of, 20; Shi'i Muslims of, 27; USSR and, 50, 52, 54 Iraq-Kuwait crisis. See Gulf crisis Islam, 26, 28-29. See also Shi'i Muslims

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INDEX

Islamic Salvation Front, 24 Israel, Ethiopia and, 139; nuclear weapons and, 21; Palestinians and, 136; territories occupied by, 120, 121, 165, 166; US and, 128, 134, 144 Israeli-Arab War (1967), 77 Janowitz, Morris, 25 Japan, 79, 110, 117, 141 Jayiliyya, 28 Jews, 77 Johnson Doctrine, 155 Joint ventures, 50, 52 Justice, social, 28 Kashmir, 133 Kennan, George, 73, 76, 82, 90 KGB (Soviet Committee for State Security), 101 Khaldun, Ibn, 25 al-Khalil, Samir, 25 Khmer Rouge, 48, 58, 132 Khomeini, Ruhollah, 28 Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich, 89 Kim Il-sung, 51 Kirghizia, 42 Kirkpatrick, Jeane, 105 Kissinger, Henry, 91, 93 Kolosov, Andrei, 85-86, 87 Korean Peninsula, 96. See also South Korea Korean War, 78, 121n5 Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolaevich, 95 Kozyrev, Andrei, 87 Krauthammer, Charles, 76 Kremenyuk, Viktor, 94 Kuwait, 98 Kuwait-Iraq crisis. See Gulf crisis Kzar, Nadhim, 25 Lake, Anthony, 80 Latin America, 29, 79 League of Nations, 70, 73, 103 Lebanonization, 30 Legitimacy, governmental, 24-25 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 90 Levine, Daniel, 29 Liberation Theology, 29 Lincoln, Bruce, 2 9 - 3 0 Lindbergh, Charles, 73

Literacy, 28 Lobov, Vladimir, 87-88 Long-range ballistic missiles, 2 0 - 2 1 , 130 Lukacs, John, 67 Lukin, Vladimir, 9 4 - 9 5 MacArthur, Douglas, 121n5 McHenry, Donald, 80 Malvinas-Falkland Islands, 164 Mandela, Nelson, 81, 131 Mao Tse-tung, 75 Marshall, George, 75 Marxist-Leninist ideology. See Communism; Deideologization, Soviet; Ideology, Soviet Mengistu Haile Mariam, 56, 57, 138 Middle East: ballistic missile development in, 20; Camp David accords and, 93; conflict in, 30, 96; superpowers and, 91, 126, 153; Third World observations of, 165166; USSR and, 37 Migration, 131 Military assistance, 37, 53, 5 4 - 5 5 , 136, 138-139. See also Arms sales; Arms transfers Military conflict. See Conflict Military leadership, 88, 101, 112, 116 Military policies: Soviet, 43^44, 99, 170; superpower, 2, 156; UN, 16; US, 129 Military power, 20-22, 115 Military reform, 41-42, 43, 115 Military spending, 40, 71, 72 Mineral resources, 73-74, 126 Missiles, ballistic, 20-21, 130 Modernization, 28, 30. See also Social mobilization Monroe Doctrine, 70 Moose, Richard, 80 Morgenthau, Henry, 76 Morocco, 2 8 - 2 9 Mosca, Gaetano, 24 Moynihan, Daniel, 166 Mozambique, 77, 169-170

MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), 138 Mujaheddin, 171 Multilateralism, 99, 118, 120 Muslims, Sunni, 27 Najibullah, Mohammod, 57 NAM (Non-Aligned Movement), 110, 117, 152, 165 Namibia, 80; conflict resolution in, 47, 55, 110; Geneva Protocol on, 168-169; Shevardnadze on, 52, 65n26; Soviet diamond marketing and, 51; SWAPO and, 111; US and, 168 National interests: Soviet, 36, 37, 38-44, 48; Third World, 139-140; US, 69, 120 National liberation struggle, 99, 101 National sovereignty, 20, 164 Nationalism, 26, 27, 157. See also Neonationalism NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 119 Natural gas, 51 Navy, Soviet, 92 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 163 Neocolonialism, 154 Neoconservativism, 76, 82 Neointernationalism, 76, 79, 82 Neonationalism, 76, 82 Neorealism, 76, 82 New thinking, Soviet: arms transfers and, 53, 55; "balance of interests" and, 45; conflict resolution and, 54-60; de-ideologization and, 37-38; domestic reform and, 39-44; economic relations and, 52; impact of, 158; Kolosov on, 87; reaction to, 102; Third World relations and, 48 Nicaragua: arms transfers from, 101; arms transfers to, 52, 55; civil strife in, 19-20; Cuba and, 170;

INDEX

Grenada and, 130; ICJ and, 121; superpower cooperation in, 19-20, 47-^8; US and, 129, 136 NICs (newly industrializing countries), 78, 149, 152, 163 Nixon, Richard M., 93 Nixon administration, 156 Nobel Committee, 105, 108 Nonalignment, 164 Nongovernmental organizations, 111 Nordic countries, 115 Nuclear weapons, 20-21, 118 Nye, Joseph, 77 Obminskiy, Ernest, 47 "Offensive détente," 89 Oil resources, 73-74, 126, 131 Oil-exporting countries, 49, 141 Ovimbundu tribe, 138 Pakistan: Afghan rebels and, 58, 136; vs. India, 21, 93, 133, 137, 164 Palestine Liberation Organization, 30 Palestinians, 136. See also Israel, territories occupied by Panama, 22, 55-56, 129, 130 PDPA (People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan), 57 Peacekeeping, UN: early, 107; enforcement of, 118-120; expansion of, 106, 112, 157; limitations on, 109-114; reforms of, 115; Security Council permanent members and, 109. See also Collective security Pérez de Cuéllar, Javier, 105 Pearl Harbor, 73 People's Republic of China. See China Perestroika, 39^11, 51, 170 Persian Gulf crisis. See Gulf crisis Peru, 30 Pluralistic democracy, 26, 28, 3 9 - 4 1

Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, 151 Political groups, informal, 25-26, 27 Political parties, 26. See also Arab Ba'th Socialist Party; People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) Politicized religion, 4, 2 7 30, 33n25 Populations, 23, 82 Post-Cold War era: collapse of communism and, 67; dangers of, 142-143, 165-167; regional conflicts in, 109-110; Third World in, 127-134, 152, 165-167; treaties of, 151; US in, 79-81 Post-World War II era, 7 2 81 Poverty, 109, 154, 162. See also Underdevelopment Power. See Balance of power; Military power Private ownership, 39^40. See also Enterprise ownership Pyadishev, Boris, 85 Racial discrimination, 164 Reagan, Ronald, 80, 158n2 Reagan administration, 98, 149, 156 Reagan Doctrine, 54, 77, 80, 81, 158n2 Reconstruction, p o s t World War II, 72 Reforms: military, 41-42, 43, 115; of Soviet allies, 57; UN, 107, 114-120; Vietnamese, 51 Reforms, Soviet, 61-62; diplomatic, 43, 97-103; domestic, 39^*4, 1 2 7 128, 144nl9; economic, 39-41, 49, 50; reaction to, 102 Regional conflict. See Conflict, regional Regional policies, 68 Religio-politics, 4, 2 7 - 3 0 , 33n25 RENAMO (Mozambique National Resistance), 170

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181

Resource allocation. See Budgets; Foreign aid Revolutions, 2 9 - 3 0 , 40, 55. See also Class struggle; Conflict, internal Rhodesian war, 80 Robinson, Randall, 81 Roh Tae-Woo, 50 Roosevelt, Franklin, 68, 71 Rosenau, James N., 3 2 n l 0 Ruble convertibility, 39, 46, 47, 49 "Ruralification," 26 Russian Republic, 128 Ryzhkov, Nikolai, 42, 43, 51 Sadat, Anwar, 95 SADF (South African Defence Forces), 168 Salvador, 19, 80, 101, 136, 173n5 Sandinistas, 19, 47-48, 55, 170 Satellite technology, 116 Saudi Arabia, 59 Savimbi, Jonas, 81, 101, 131-132, 138, 168, 169 SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization), 155 Secularism, 28 Shevardnadze, Eduard: on Afghanistan, 132; African visit of, 52; on Angola, 53; on arms transfers, 4 5 - 4 6 , 56; Asian visit of, 50-51; Baker and, 58, 108-109, 173n5; eclipse of, 102; on Gulf crisis, 128; Hun Sen and, 58; on military relations, 43—44; on Namibia, 52, 65n26; resignation of, 101, 134, 166; Savimbi and, 101; on Soviet security, 44, 61 Shi'i Muslims, 2 6 - 2 7 Ship repair, 50 Sihanouk, Norodom, 56 Sikkim, 120 SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), 20 Snyder, Jack, 89

182

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INDEX

Social identity, 27, 28. See also Nationalism Social justice, 28 Social mobilization, 26. See also Modernization Socialist developing countries, 49, 57 Somali-Ethiopian War, 95 Somoza, Anastasio, 80 Sorenson, Theodore, 75 South Africa: AfricanAmericans and, 82; Angola and, 132, 145n26; ascendancy of, 140; Carter administration and, 80; Shevardnadze on, 52; US and, 131; USSR and, 51, 169 South Korea, 29, 50-51,

60 Southeast Asia, 76 Southern Africa, 79-80, 126, 137 Sovereignty, 20, 164 Soviet Navy, 92 Soviet Third World policy, 4 - 5 , 14-15, 35-66; deideologization of, 4, 3 7 38; détente and, 95; domestic reform and, 4 1 44, 127-128, 1 4 4 n l 9 ; Gorbachev's reforms of, 43, 9 7 - 1 0 3 ; international sources of, 4 4 - 4 8 ; Kolosov/Urnov debate on, 8 5 - 8 7 Soviet Union: borders of, 38; conflict resolution and, 54-60; domestic affairs of, 89-90, 130; economic relations of, 4 8 - 5 2 , 61; expansionism of, 90; federalism in, 128; lebanonization in, 3 0 31; UN and, 14-15, 4 4 45, 106, 107, 118 Soviet Union Central Selling Organization, 128 Soviet Union Foreign Ministry, 52 Soviet Union Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, 40, 46, 48 Soviet Union Supreme Soviet, 128

Soyuz (organization), 101 Sunni Muslims, 27 Superpower collaboration, 9-10; in Afghanistan, 132; in Africa, 167-171; in Angolan-South African-Cuban accord, 132; in Central America, 19-20; collective security and, 103; in conflict resolution, 136, 137-138, 147, 153, 172; guidelines for, 133, 153, 155-157; in Gulf crisis, 59, 131, 145n28, 153154; in Indo-Pakistani conflict, 133; in Namibia, 47; preGorbachev, 92; in Soviet areas of influence, 58; Third World and, 16-17, 125-145; UN and, 118, 133, 141, 172; in US areas of influence, 129130. See also Greatpower collaboration Superpower/Third World relations, 7-8, 85-104; change in, 125-127, 151-155; preGorbachev, 88-95; regional conflict and, 96-97; Soviet domestic issues and, 89-90, 130; Soviet view of, 10-11, 147-159; superpower views of, 93-95; Third World view of, 11-12, 161-173; Waltz on, 89 Superpowers, decline of, 12-13; in each other's spheres of influence, 58, 129-130, 149-150, 153; evolving roles of, 2, 125-127, 137; policymaking by, 131132; in regional conflicts, 96, 135-138. See also Soviet Union; United States SWAPO (South West Africa People's Organization), 111, 168-169

T - 7 2 tanks, 43 Tadzhikistan, 42 Taft, Robert, 73, 76 Terrorism, 131, 132, 154. See also Fear

Third World: as concept, 15, 31, 69-70, 163-164; debt of, 42, 43, 47, 49, 141; governmental impotency in, 4, 23-30, 32nl0, 135, 162; instability in, 13-14, 23-30, 148-151, 1 5 2 153, 157, 171; major problems of, 82; military power of, 3, 20-22, 131, 172; populations of, 23, 82; regional types of, 128-129, 161-162; selfperception of, 142; trade of, 46, 48-52, 154; vs. UN Security Council, 111; US perceptions of, 166. See also Newly industrializing countries (NICs) Third World security: history of, 3 ^ , 19-33; superpowers and, 16-17, 125-145, 151-155; Third World perceptions of, 11-12, 161-173; UN and, 8 - 9 , 105-123, 164 Tigreans, 138 Trade cooperative scandal, 43 Trade, foreign, 46, 48-52, 154 Traditionalism, 26, 27 Treaties, 151, 155. See also Geneva Protocol Truman, Harry, 74, 75, 155 UN. See United Nations (UN) UN Special Conference on Disarmament and Development (1987), 151 Underdevelopment, 1 4 8 149, 150, 151, 154-155. See also Poverty Unilateral disengagement, 155-156 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. See Soviet Union Unionism, 29 UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), 57, 101, 131, 138

INDEX

United Nations (UN), 3, 1516; civilian infrastructure of, 112-113, 115-116; collective security and, 15-16, 103, 118-120; emerging powers and, 110-111, 118; establishment of, 71; expansion of, 106-107; finances of, 106, 110, 113, 114, 117, 118, 121; Gorbachev and, 44-45, 9 9 - 1 0 0 ; limitations on, 109-114; membership of, 111; military capacity of, 112, 115, 116; reforms of, 107, 114120; superpower collaboration and, 133, 134, 141; Third World security and, 8 - 9 , 105123, 157, 164; US and, 78, 114, 118, 121, 166; USSR and, 14-15, 4 4 45, 106, 107, 118; voting in, 117, 163 UN Charter; "Chapter six and one-half," 106; Chapter seven, 118-120; on great powers, 110; Gulf crisis and, viii, 113; on military force, 156; nongovernmental institutions and. 111; revision of, 117-118; Third World view of, 167 UN General Assembly, 22 UN Military Staff Committee, 115, 116 UN Office for Research and Collection of Information, 116 UN Secretary-General's Office, 1 1 5 - 1 1 6 UN Security Council: arms control and, 171; Cambodia and, 98, 105; in Gulf crisis, 105, 108, 113, 157, 165-166; in

Korean conflict, 121n5; national sovereignty and, 20; permanent members of, 107-111, 117, 157, 167; superpower collaboration in, 172; vs. Third World, 111; USSR and, 48, 59 UN Security Council Military Staff Committee, 59 UN Special Conference on Disarmament and Development (1987), 151 United States: collective security and, 120-121; decline of, 76, 77-79; demography of, 82; economic weight of, 79; global mission of, 74, 80, 81-82, 155; predominance of, 72, 90, 142; UN and, 78, 114, 118, 121, 1 6 6

US Congress, 77, 82, 114, 157. 166 US Third World policy, 5 6, 67-84; future of, 8 1 83, 134; Gorbachev on, 98; Kremenyuk on, 94; legislation for, 77; levels of, 68; Lobov on, 88; schools of, 76; on Third World arms race, 156; Urnov on, 86-87; Vietnam War and, 76-77, 150, 166; pre-World War II, 70; in World War II, 71; post-World War II, 75-76 UNO (Union Nacional Opositora), 19 UNTAG (United Nations Transition Assistance Group in Namibia), 110, 114, 169 Urbanization, 26 Urnov, Andrei, 85, 86-87

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183

Urquhart, Brian, 107, 111, 116 Van Evera, Steve, 76 Vance, Cyrus, 76, 79, 80 Vietnam, 51, 132, 135136 Vietnam War: US foreign policy and, 7 5 - 7 7 , 1 3 0 131, 150, 166; USSR and, 171; Zhurkin on, 91-92, 94 Violence. See Conflict Voting, UN, 117, 163 Waltz, Kenneth, 82, 89 War. See Conflict War Powers Act of 1973, 77 Warsaw Pact, 165 Warsaw Treaty Organization Political Consultative Committee, 151 Washington, George, 68, 70 Weapons. See Arms; Ballistic missiles; Chemical weapons; Nuclear weapons Weber, Max, 25 Wilson, Woodrow, 70 World Bank, 52, 72 World War II, 71. See also Post-World War II era Xenophobia, 25 Yakovlev, Aleksandr, 102 Yazov, Dmitriy, 42 Yemen, 57 Young, Andrew, 80 Youths, 23, 29 Zero-sum mentality, 4, 2 1 22, 36, 38, 150 Zhurkin, Vitaly, 9 1 - 9 2 , 94 Zimbabwe, 80

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