Mrs. Gandhi has made a valiant effort to project the non-aligned movement as a major force in international relations. No other third world leader could have done as well. For one thing, no other developing country is as well placed as India or enjoys as much prestige in the comity of nations. For another, no other third world figure is so skilled, experienced and self-assured. If despite these considerable advantages and assets, she has not been particularly successful, the fault does not lie with her. The international environment is unpropitious for such an initiative.
It is tempting to blame the “second cold war” for the present state of affairs and President Reagan for the “new cold war”. Indeed, there is considerable merit in both these propositions. But the reality is much more complex. In a nutshell, we are witnessing the passing away of the post-war era and not so much the beginning of a new era as a drift towards a world disorder.
To begin with, we must recognise that the so-called second cold war bears little resemblance with the first except in respect of the Soviet-US arms race, the big difference being the absence of the ideological dimension. President Reagan’s anti-communist and anti-Soviet rhetoric has obscured this truth. Even so, no discerning student of the world scene can miss it.
The disintegration of the communist movement and the decay of the communist ideology have been evident for two decades and even longer. Development in China since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and in Poland since 1980 (the near total eclipse of the communist party and the open assumption of power by the army and other coercive apparatuses of the state) have only underlined this point. And whether one sees Soviet foreign policy moves in recent years as being essentially offensive or defensive, one will be hard put to it to discover an ideological content in them. If since the death of Stalin in 1953 the Soviets ever regarded the spread of communism as a central foreign policy objective, they have long ceased doing so. This is as true in Afghanistan as in Ethiopia or in Angola or in Syria.
State Interests
All these cases of Soviet intervention, direct as in Afghanistan or indirect through the Cuban proxy as in Angola, can be explained in terms of state interests. It is open to question whether Stalin was able to fuse together ideological and state interests into what MN Roy called red Napoleonism. But there can be no doubt that the two came apart after his death and that state interests have dominated the Soviet foreign and defence policies since.
The point is less clear in respect of the United States. But the American anti-communist rhetoric notwithstanding, there is no good reason why there should be any confusion on this question. The fact of their retreat from their earlier commitment to a world order should clinch the issue as decisively as did the Sino-Soviet split in the early sixties in that of the Russians.
After the end of World War II when they found that it was impossible to win Stalin’s cooperation for a world order of their liking, the Americans, broadly speaking, set themselves two objectives – to contain the Soviet Union and later China by establishing a cordon sanitaire around them and to establish in the rest of the world a reasonably stable economic and political order. And military and economic assistance on a massive scale were to be the instruments for fashioning this order, first in Western Europe and then gradually in the rest of the non-communist world.
It has often been argued against the Americans that they have never been particularly interested in promoting and sustaining democracy, especially in the third world. The evidence in support of this proposition has been overwhelming in that the United States has maintained military alliances with a host of dictatorships. But while we may take the view that these arrangements have not served the American purpose of containing Soviet influence and have instead made life difficult for democracies such as India, we should not ignore the deeper commitment and trust of US policy in favour of economic prosperity, stability and therefore democracy as well. Washington has pursued apparently contradictory policies. But with the best will and the greatest skill and maturity in the world, it could not have done otherwise.
Indifference To Poor
The retreat from this commitment began in the early seventies under the Nixon-Kissinger team. It was not an accident that as they settled for a policy of détente with the Soviet Union and gradual normalization with China, their interest in the well-being of third world countries such as India decreased. America’s relative economic and military power had declined and its self-confidence had been shaken by, among other things, the failure to win the war in Vietnam. The reality in Asia, Africa and Latin America had proved too intransigent to encourage the Americans to cherish their dream of a world order under their auspices and their resources and their will to leadership had shrunk.
The retreat is complete under President Reagan. Thus it is not his anti-communist rhetoric that has deserved attention but his opposition to bilateral aid and to a bigger role for the World Bank, especially its soft-lending affiliate, the International Development Agency, and the IMF. For without the underpinning of concern for the economic and social well-being of developing counties the US policy lacks a base.
Another point deserves attention in this context. This indifference towards poor countries with their crushing debt burden and rising social tensions commands far wider support in the United State than the rearmament programme. Indeed, there is a virtual consensus on it. In plain words, the American ideology is as much in decay as is the Soviet-communist ideology. Behind the anti-Soviet rhetoric can be seen neo-isolationism of a pretty dangerous kind. It is not an accident that the challenge to the US hegemony in central America looms so large in President Reagan’s policy.
In a manner of speaking the US and the USSR are reduced to brutes who are seeking military power for its own sake. Each of course, deceives itself into believing that it needs additional nuclear weapons to protect itself against the evil designs of the other. But in rational terms this proposition makes no sense whatsoever since both possess enough power to destroy each other and the world many times over.
We could have welcomed the decline of the ideological drive on the part of the United States and the Soviet Union if it had not been followed by a renewed arms drive and the search for bases. As event have shaped, we are getting the worst of both worlds. To cite our example, while aid from US-dominated agencies threatens to decline sharply, we have to cope with adverse implications for our security of the American military assistance to Pakistan. In West Asia the consequences have been even more disastrous.
Cultural Shock
With all this, the international scene should not have been as depressing as it is if it were not for the fact that most non-aligned countries have failed to come to grips with their own problems to seek and achieve a significant measure of self-reliance to resolve disputes among themselves without involving external powers, especially the US and the USSR, and to promote economic cooperation among themselves. But they have failed and there is no prospect that they will fare any better in the coming years.
The third world (which is what the non-aligned movement essentially represents) is a victim of circumstances. As if colonial domination and the Western influence that went with it were not enough to disrupt their traditions and divest them of cultural coherence, they have been exposed to the superpower search for domination. What is worse, even before they could come with the first industrial revolution of the 19th century variety, they are faced with the challenges of the second (chemical) and now the third (microchip) one. This state of cultural shock and incoherence has spawned corrupt, cruel and inefficient rulers who look to external powers for support precisely because they cannot trust their own peoples.
It cannot be much of a privilege to speak on behalf of such a motley crowd for the Prime Minister of India, one of the few humanely governed and one of the most self-respecting and self-reliant societies and polities in the third world. And such a crowd cannot be a source of strength for India. New York could at best be a distraction from grave problems at home.
As far as one can foresee, the world will be a much harsher place in the coming years and decades than it has been in the post-war period. And only those developing countries which do not depend too much on external assistance, guidance or models can hope to escape one traumatic experience after another.
The Times of India, 5 October 1983