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Subregional Security Cooperation in the Third World
Subregional Security Cooperation in the Third World William T. Tow
Lynne Rienner Publishers
•
Boulder & London
Published in the United States of America in 1990 by Lynne Ricnner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London W C 2 E 8LU © 1990 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tow, William T. Subregional security cooperation in the third world / William T. Tow. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-155587-201-8 1. Developing countries—National security. 2. Regionalism (International organization) I. Title. U A 1 0 . 5 . T 6 8 1990 341.7'2'091724—dc20
90-36363 CIP
British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available f r o m the British Library.
Printed and bound in the United States of America T h e paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for P e r m a n e n c e of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z393.48-1984.
Contents List of Acronyms Acknowledgments Introduction
vii ix 1
1 SRSOs' Legitimacy Factors The SRSO as a Security Regime The SRSO's and External Powers: Self-Reliance vs. Dependency Factors of SRSO Legitimacy SRSO Principles and Management
13 13 17 18 23
2 SRSOs' Effectiveness: Case Studies The Association of Southeast Asian Nations The Gulf Cooperation Council The Organization of East Caribbean States Southern African Development Coordination Conference The South Pacific Forum Comparative Effectiveness of the SRSOs
37 37 45 57 64 70 77
3 External Responses to SRSOs The United States Europe Other External Powers The Non-Aligned Movement The Commonwealth Summary
89 90 94 107 115 116 118
4 Conclusions for Western Policymakers Do SRSOs Matter? SRSO Survival Factors Strengthening the SRSOs
127 127 128 134
Bibliography Index About the Book and the Author
137 151 155
V
Acronyms ACC ACDA ACP AMDA AMU ANC ANZAC ANZUS APEC ASEAN AUI
Arab Cooperation Council (U.S.) Arms Control and Disarmament Agency African/Caribbean Asia-Pacific Anglo-Malayan Defense Agreement Arab Maghreb Union African National Congress Australian-New Zealand Canberra Agreement Australia, New Zealand, United States (Tripartite Security Treaty) Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASEAN-U.S. Initiative
BDF
Barbados Defense Force
CACM CARICOM CBI CCOP/SOPAC
Central American Common Market Caribbean Community Caribbean Basin Initiative Committee for the Co-ordination of Joint Prospecting for Mineral Resources in South Pacific Offshore Areas Communauté économique de l'Afrique de l'Ouest Communauté économique des états de l'Afrique centrale (United States) Central Command Central Treaty Organization Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Central Liaison Office Constellation of States Committee on Regional Institutional Arrangements Commonwealth Trade Union Council
CEAO CEEAC CENTCOM CENTO CFTC CHOGM CLO CONSAS CRIA CTUC DCP
Defense Co-operation Program (Australia)
EA EC ECOSOC ECOWAS EPC
Economic Agreement European Community Economic and Social Council (UN) Economic Community of West African States European Political Cooperation
FNLA FPDA
National Front for the Liberation of Angola Five Power Dcfence Arrangements
GCC
Gulf Cooperation Council
IADS IMF ISA
Integrated Air Defense System (of FPDA) International Monetary Fund Internal Security Agreement (GCC)
KPNLF
Khmer People's National Liberation Front
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viii
ACRONYMS
LDC
less developed country
MCP MDC MIDEASTFOR MNR MOU
Malayan Communist Party more developed country Middle East Force Mozambican National Resistance Memorandum of Understanding
NAM NPA
Non-Aligned Movement New People's Army (Philippines)
OAS OAU ODA OECS OPEC
Organization of American States Organization of African Unity official development assistance Organization of East Caribbean States Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
PIDP PLO PNG PRC PRO PTA PULO
Pacific Islands Development Program Palestine Liberation Organization Papua New Guinea People's Republic of China People's Revolutionary Government preferential trading arrangements Pattani United Liberation Organization
RSS
Regional Security System
SAARC SACCAR SACU SADCC SADF SARC SATCC SEATO SELA SPARTECA SPC SPEC SPF SPNFZ SRO SRSO SSU SWAPO
South Asian Association for Cooperation Southern Africa Center for Cooperation in Agricultural Research South African Customs Union Southern African Development Coordination Conference South African Defense Force South Asian Regional Cooperation Southern Africa Transport and Communications Commission Southeast Asia Treaty Organization Latin American Economic System South Pacific Regional Trade and Economical Cooperation Agreement South Pacific Commission South Pacific Bureau for Economic Cooperation South Pacific Forum South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone Single Regional Organization subregional security organization Special Service Unit South-West Africa People's Organization
TAZARA
Tanzanian-Zambian railway project
UAE UNITA USAID
United Arab Emirates National Union for the Total Independence of Angola U.S. Agency for International Development
WEU WIAS
Western European Union West Indies Associated States
ZANU ZAPU ZNA ZOPFAN
Zimbabwe African National Union Zimbabwe Africa People's Union Zimbabwe National Army Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality
Acknowledgments By the mid-1980s, it was clcar that significant changes were occurring in how Third World security issues were being defined and applied to policy behavior. My own interest in this trend was reflected by Professor Robert O'Neill, who, in 1987, originally suggested the idea for a manuscript on the changing context of security and development beyond the East-West blocs. Over the following two years, the project took shape with the help of many individuals. Only a few of them can be acknowledged here. Initial drafts benefited immensely from strong guidance provided by the staff at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. John Cross, John Chipman, and Kenneth Hunt were particularly instrumental in providing greater focus to the text and in strengthening its conceptual framework during the early stages of writing, and the book's value as a tool for understanding emerging Third World security problems can be attributed largely to their efforts. Later versions of the entire manuscript were reviewed by Michael Fry, Douglas T. Stuart, and John F. Tow, who provided many key suggestions leading to a more cogent text. I am also indebted to Gerald Bender, Richard Deck, Richard Dekmejian, and Carol Thompson for reviewing portions of the book related to their own regional specialities. Without my USC colleagues' special concern about this project, its completion would have been impossible. Critical financial assistance was offered by U S C ' s School of International Relations for interviews conducted in Europe and the Caribbean. U S C - S I R ' s associate director, Carole Gustin, was especially h e l p f u l in facilitating related logistical support. A special note of thanks also must be extended to Kathy Matthes for typing several versions of the manuscript under time-urgent and difficult conditions. Lynne Rienner, Martha Peacock, Gia Hamilton, and Steve Barr at Lynne Rienner Publishers were gracious and supportive at every stage of the editorial process. Finally, I owe an immense debt of gratitude to my wife, Leslie, and my daughter, Shannon, for their continued patience and understanding and for sharing their lives and their love with one so immersed in scholarly pursuits. Without their support, this project and other professional endeavors I have undertaken over the past few years could never have seen the light of day.
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Introduction With the decline of the Cold War, international politics has been transformed by how states and institutions define and pursue their regional security agendas. Among Third World nations, there is a growing consensus that the postwar bipolar framework of global power shaped by the United States and the Soviet Union is ending and that a more dispersed, less "patriarchal" international security environment is emerging in its place. The implications of this new power composition, however, are relatively more uncertain for those states traditionally accustomed to gauging their own foreign and defense policies on the dynamics of East-West competition. Moreover, there is a clear deficiency of tangible and enduring mechanisms designed to reduce the frequency and scope of regional conflicts and to facilitate economic progress and economic development in Third World settings. Indeed, global security politics throughout much of the postwar era reflected the belief of the United States and its NATO allies that the strategic competition between East and West that had materialized in Europe would inevitably be extended to other regions. They engaged, throughout the 1950s and much of the 1960s, in what has since been characterized as a strategy of "pactomania"—formulating alliances along the Eurasian peripheries designed to contain Soviet military and political power in Southwest and Southeast Asia and intended to offset both Soviet and Chinese influence in the Far East. The Baghdad Pact, for example, was created in 1955 and included Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the UK. Following Iraq's withdrawal in 1958, the Pact became the Central Treaty Organization, or CENTO (the United States never became a formal member but did pledge military assistance to this alliance). The "Northern Tier" concept, as a rationale for CENTO, visualized Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey as a bloc against Soviet penetration into the Middle East. Washington formally joined with Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and the UK to create the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in September 1954. SEATO initially was advertised as a deterrent against Chinese aggression in the Pacific, but was soon t r a n s f o r m e d into an e f f o r t to help organize Thai and Filipino counterinsurgency efforts against indigenous communist forces. The cumulative experience of these regional security organizations l
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demonstrated that such groupings cannot survive if they are merely viewed as surrogates for great power competition, lack a regional justification for their e x i s t e n c e , and cannot command support from all their members. C E N T O and S E A T O gradually b e c a m e perccivcd as less important to Western security interests than originally anticipated. Indeed, the policy of preserving these collective defense arrangements was rendered increasingly anachronistic by rapid political changes that subsequently occurred in Southwest and Southeast Asia. While the West's collective defense strategy still appeared valid with respect to NATO and to the bilateral treaties Washington maintained with various security partners in the Asia-Pacific region, both C E N T O and S E A T O failed to meet the tests o f c o m m o n political ideals and defense objectives that underlie most successful alliances. They instead consisted of geographically and culturally diverse members with unstable governments that were collectively unable to maintain a cohesive security agenda. C E N T O ' s Northern Tier posture proved to be irrelevant to what were to become the most important sources of regional division and conflict: Arab nationalism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the resurgence of fundamentalist Islam, which culminated in the 1979 Iranian revolution. Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore spumed S E A T O , declining to b e c o m e formally affiliated with bloc p o l i t i c s or Western containment strategy. The Burmese and Indonesians specifically chose to follow nonalignment policies. Malaysia and Singapore simply retained their Commonwealth defense tics to Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Along with the Western-sponsored collective defense organizations, regionally indigenous security organizations also emerged during the early postwar years. These groups incorporated a large number o f states from a broad geographic area into their memberships, and concentrated primarily on s o c i o p o l i t i c a l cooperation and development, rather than on deterring common threats. Proponents o f these larger regional organizations maintained they would "fractionate" regional conflicts by isolating their members from global power politics and by allowing regional disputes to be resolved locally. These organizations were thus regarded as less likely to draw Third World states into the front line of Cold War competition. 1 The oldest of these organizations is the League of Arab States, or the "Arab League." It was founded in the mid-1940s to promote Arab nationalism at a time when much of the Middle East was still under British or French colonial tutelage. Nevertheless, it also originally served as a conduit for European—and later U.S.—security planners to interact with pro-Western A r a b e l i t e s . 2 Other large regional security organizations included the O r g a n i z a t i o n o f A m e r i c a n S t a t e s ( O A S ) , founded in 1 9 4 8 , and the Organization o f African Unity (OAU), created in 1962. Both o f these institutions were established to implement peacekeeping, conflict resolution, and political-economic initiatives or to supplement United Nations efforts in these areas. 3
INTRODUCTION
3
However, the performance of these larger regional associations fell well short of qualified success. In general, they failed to meet the security objectives embodied in their charters, i.e., preserving the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the membership and fostering joint action against external aggression. Frequent changes of government among members, combined with mutual suspicions, impeded the development of common strategic objectives. Furthermore, the politically desirable qualities of flexibility, t o l e r a n c e , and i m a g i n a t i o n w e r e o f t e n l a c k i n g in these associations. Thus, along with collective defense strategy, these indigenous approaches to regional security failed to meet the expectations of their founders. 4 The shortcomings of these initial regional security bodies can also be explained by a lack of consensus regarding what constitutes a "region." During the 1960s and early 1970s, Western governments and scholars alike offered an array of theories and policy prescriptions linking regional cooperation and integration to the facilitation of political security and economic progress in less developed countries (LDCs). Most of these concepts focused upon patterns of similar interests and behavior pursued by geographically contiguous nation-states that could be differentiated from the objectives and policies of other nation-states. They also emphasized that such geographic entities often confronted the same external threats and solicited the same outside powers to neutralize such threats. As Robert L. Rothstein has since argued, however, such explanations fell short because the "region" as a unit of international power and influence has never been more than "symbolically important." The problems confronting Third World nations have instead been either "local or global in origin, and regional institutions and processes have seemed too weak to deal with the pressures or conflicts from either direction." 5 The seminal effort in contemporary international relations literature dealing with the concept of "region," authored by Louis J. Cantori and Steven L. Spiegel, represented it as "subordinate" to a more "dominant" system of interaction at the global level, featuring competition between the "world's great powers." 6 In this context, geographic proximity constitutes only one part of a region. Other, more important variables include the nature and level of sociopolitical cohesion or integration among would-be members of a regional security arrangement; the frequency of their communications (transportation, mass media, and elite exchanges); the extent to which their national decisionmaking is adjusted to accommodate the interests of other regional actors (e.g., the transfer of power); and the sources and intensity of their cooperative or conflictive behavior toward each other. 7 However, forging these diverse criteria into a unified, regionalist perspective, understandable and acceptable to its potential subscribers, proved to be an almost impossible task. Because of the weaknesses of both the great-power-sponsored regional
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alliances and the larger indigenous organizations, developing states sought other means of ensuring regional security. T h e concept of "subregions" emerged as a more promising alternative for Third World security policy architects. A s u b r e g i o n m a y be d e f i n e d as a g r o u p of g e o g r a p h i c a l l y contiguous states united by their mutual susceptibility to a specific threat, a c o m m o n interest in neutralizing that threat in w a y s beneficial to their individual national securities, and a m e a n s of c o l l a b o r a t i o n to r e d u c e individual and collective vulnerabilities to future threats. Most subregional security actors are, in practice, relatively small or underdeveloped nationstates. They need not share the same language or commensurate levels of e c o n o m i c or p o l i t i c a l d e v e l o p m e n t . M o s t are s u p p o r t i v e — o r at least tolerant—of each other's independent security relations with outside powers, as long as such ties do not conflict directly with their own national security agendas. Yet most m e m b e r s of various subregions are often susceptible individually to external power intimidation or manipulation. The ultimate effectiveness of a subregion rests on its ability to function as an independent entity within the international community, working successfully with outside powers in the pursuit of common security interests without succumbing to external political or military predominance. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, subregional security organizations (SRSOs) increasingly emerged as mechanisms for addressing local security problems. Traditional collective defense ties were seeming more cumbersome and less relevant to their Western sponsors as détente with the USSR and rapprochement with China gained momentum. The very size and diversity of concerns inherent in the larger regional organizations seemed to restrict p e r m a n e n t l y their e f f e c t i v e n e s s in t a k i n g c o l l e c t i v e a c t i o n on important security matters. SRSOs were perceived as more effective by a number of underdeveloped nations because both their memberships and their mandates were more limited. Most were created in response to a common external threat about which there was little debate, and most purported to undertake only a very few organizational tasks that directly related to the political and economic well-being of the members. The SRSOs also took into account the limitations of their members more realistically than did their predecessor collective defense or indigenous regional security arrangements when confronting external security threats or when planning subregional economic development strategy. A l o n g w i t h a d j u s t i n g to t h e i n t e r n a t i o n a l b a l a n c e of p o w e r a n d organizational manageability, there were other reasons why the S R S O s appeared as viable substitutes f o r collective d e f e n s e strategy and larger regional organizations. The SRSOs represented an original means through which sources of regional tension could c o n c e i v a b l y be addressed and resolved without the risk of intervention by external powers. In contrast to the tendency of their predecessors to relate all security problems to global or
INTRODUCTION
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broader regional power balances, these smaller groupings were better able to focus upon disputes between their members and to respond more directly to immediate and mutual concerns about political and economic development. Because of their inclination to concentrate on only a few issues, the SRSOs were more successful than larger regional security organizations in attracting members with similar foreign policy orientations. Accordingly, there was a greater possibility of compromise on approaches to the few security issues on the SRSOs' agendas and of organizational consensus about relations with external powers. Prospective SRSO members also concluded that informal channels of security cooperation were often more appropriate to security needs than were formal treaty alliances. The small sizes and geographic proximities of memberships made it easier to engage in unofficial caucuses and agenda setting. Consultation and planning could be translated into action without the encumbrance of a formal treaty specifying duties and obligations that might constrain, as much as facilitate, the policy needs and styles of the individual SRSO members. Furthermore, members anticipated that they would be able to confront the outside world with a stronger and more unified voice. It was hoped that these newer and more streamlined organizations would provide their members with better representation in dealing with foreign governments, aid agencies, etc., than had previously been the case. The potential strength of SRSOs, as one respected analyst of Third World politics has recently noted, could be measured by their ability to d e f u s e l o c a l c o n f l a g r a t i o n s and thus to a v o i d s u p e r p o w e r interference . . . their ability to project a strong, c o l l e c t i v e voice, and . . . their talent for gaining the support of major powers with compatible interests in the region. 8
At the same time, SRSOs were acceptable to Western security planners because of their apparent willingness to sustain at least qualified security ties with friendly external powers. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) set the precedent in this respect, with the founding Bangkok Declaration in August 1967. This resolution called for the strengthening of regional stability independent of external interference and for the ultimate removal of all foreign bases from Southeast Asia. However, the Declaration avoided the rhetoric of uncompromising nationalism that had marked Indonesian President Sukarno's foreign policy throughout the early 1960s.9 Instead, it established ASEAN's intention to work with interested outside parties in pursuing economic progress in Southeast Asia, leaving the politics of nationalism to its individual member governments. This low-key approach to regional development gave ASEAN significant political and diplomatic
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weight in the aftermath of the U.S. military withdrawal from Southeast Asia. The founding of the South Pacific Forum (SPF) in August 1971 also resulted from the small Pacific island-states' aspirations to establish a more independent regional political identity without completely severing their traditional political and security ties with the Western metropolitan powers traditionally active in the area: the United States, Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand. Australia's and New Zealand's geographic and historical links with the South Pacific subregion, the role the industrialized Australian and New Zealand economies could play in their own economic development, and Canberra's and Wellington's closc strategic tics with the United States via the A N Z U S alliance led the other Forum states to extend an invitation to the two larger South Pacific countries to join their organization. The Forum was not explicitly an endorsement of continued economic dependence on traditionally supportive outside powers. On the contrary, it signaled a pragmatic Pacific islander determination that economic assistance from the industrialized democracies represented the quickest and most efficient means to move from dependency to greater economic sclf-reliance and the best guarantee to avoid internecine regional conflicts that could impede such progress. In return for the small island-states assuming greater responsibility for defining a subregional security agenda, the A N Z U S p o w e r s were reassured that their "strategic denial" posture directed toward the South Pacific would remain intact. Under this notion, a major land-based Soviet presence in the subregion would be avoided, and island-state leaders would be encouraged to "maintain a sense of collective responsibility in the region's international affairs" by deterring one or more of their numbers from defecting to the Soviet camp. 1 0 Also contributing to the rise of S R S O s in the early 1980s was the emergence of indigenous regional security threats as major challenges to the s u r v i v a l o f l o c a l g o v e r n m e n t s . A s they g a i n e d m o r e e x p e r i e n c e in negotiating with each other, it became easier for S R S O members to reach consensus regarding how their security agendas should be formulated. The Southern African Development Coordination Conference ( S A D C C ) , for example, evolved from the determination of black nations of southern Africa to resist Pretoria's efforts to gain control over their resources through economic, political, and military intimidation. This agreement represented a clear desire by southern Africa's black majority states to break from the OAU's cumbersome bureaucratic machinery and to transcend its internecine disputes. 11 Similarly, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was created in response to the threat posed to all the Persian Gulf states by the Iran-Iraq war. The Arab L e a g u e had become moribund following its expulsion of Egypt in retaliation for Anwar S a d a t ' s p e a c e treaty with Israel. G C C Secretary
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General Abdulla Yacoub Bishara noted that the Arab L e a g u e ' s political demise created a need for a new Arab consensus regarding how to face the outside world. He asserted that his organization represented visible progress in that direction. 1 2 In essence, the emergence of subregional security organizations has reflected the adoption of increasingly sophisticated perspectives and policies by Third World states. SRSO members generally are optimistic that regional conflicts can be prevented or resolved through a versatile mix of diplomacy, conflict resolution, and local deterrence. They simultaneously recognize that v a r i o u s f o r m s of external military or e c o n o m i c assistance m a y still be needed. They accept the need for pursuit of an "interim" approach to subregional security, an approach allowing for limited ties with outside powers until greater subregional organizational capability and self-reliance can be achieved. Nevertheless, the SRSOs face the need to enrich their agendas if they are to avoid the dangers of strategic irrelevance and bureaucratic impediments so characteristic of the older collective defense organizations and regional associations. T h e case of the South Asian Association f o r Cooperation (SAARC) is illustrative. S A A R C was formed in December 1985 at Dhaka, Bangladesh, at the initiative of the member-states' foreign ministers who, in turn, constituted the original Committee for South Asia Regional Cooperation ( S A R C ) . T h e revised S A A R C m e m b e r s h i p i n c l u d e s B a n g l a d e s h , B h u t a n , I n d i a , t h e M a l d i v e s , N e p a l , P a k i s t a n , a n d Sri L a n k a . T h e organization was founded on the rationale of a mutually perceived need for a regional "program of action" to overcome "dramatic challenges posed to the c o u n t r i e s of South Asia by 'poverty, u n d e r d e v e l o p m e n t , low levels of production, u n e m p l o y m e n t , and pressure of population c o m p o u n d e d by exploitation of the past and other adverse legacies'." 1 3 Most SRSOs tend to form in response to specifically delineated security issues. There is also, characteristically, a general consensus that a "pivotal" or p o t e n t i a l l y d o m i n a n t p o w e r within the coalition either be assigned politico-strategic predominance by acclamation or that such primacy be foreclosed with the expedient (if only temporary) assent of that power. In the G C C , Saudi A r a b i a ' s d o m i n a n c e was g e n e r a l l y a c c e p t e d by the o t h e r members. Riyadh presented a more accommodating posture to the smaller members, who were anxious to preserve their own political identities and to pursue their national security interests. In contrast, the other contenders for subregional hegemony, Iran and Iraq, were regarded as more predatory. Indonesia accepted self-imposed restraints on its intra-ASEAN role, out of its realization that its internal economic problems and comparative military vulnerability to potential external threats (China and/or Vietnam) foreclosed any realistic possibility to pursue subregional h e g e m o n y and exacerbate
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intra-ASEAN tensions. In contrast, S A A R C sought to build r e g i o n a l i s m without f i r s t reconciling India's potential regional predominance over South Asia's other nation-states and in the absence of New Delhi's willingness to project a low strategic profile there. Consequently, S A A R C inherited virtually all the impediments to regional cooperation that had sharply divided South Asia since British decolonization in the area nearly four decades before. At the same time, little or no legacy of politico-security collaboration among its members was accumulated. There was, as Mohammed Ayoob has concluded in a definitive assessment of S A A R C , no congruence of ideological, political, or security interests within the grouping, but instead an intraregional tension generated by "a situation of objective [Indian] preeminence that cannot be translated into predominance because this is subjectively resisted by smaller South Asian states who would have to subscribe to a consensus that would institutionalize or legitimize such predominance." 14 S A A R C thus has failed to develop material policy consensus on threat perception or to cultivate a unified strategic approach to global politics—the two fundamental criteria for effective S R S O security collaboration. This has impeded the organization's ability to establish s u f f i c i e n t policy and institutional cohesion to respond meaningfully to its members' policy interests and expectations. India is the regional threat of greatest concern to most of the other members, accused at various intervals of supporting insurgency or terrorist opposition to other South Asian elites or of impeding the resource and development aspirations of non-Indian South Asian populaces. India's unwillingness to eschew at least a tacit status as regional hegemon in South A s i a has precluded any reasonable prospect that regionalism can be cultivated by S A A R C in the near future. This study will assess the extent to which, in contrast to S A A R C , five SRSOs—the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( A S E A N ) , the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Organization of East Caribbean States ( O E C S ) , the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), and the South Pacific Forum (SPF)—have been relatively more successful. 15 It will also consider whether these organizations can endure as credible security organizations. The five regional cooperation arrangements considered here have been selected for analysis because they have become the exemplars of the promise and problems of all S R S O s in relation to international security. 16 They operate within five diverse but strategically critical regions. To a much greater extent than other SRSOs, these groups h a v e m o v e d b e y o n d the stage of i d e n t i f y i n g and i m p l e m e n t i n g predominantly low-level economic and diplomatic measures of cooperation. T h e y have gained the attention of outside powers and international institutions as increasingly legitimate representatives of their member-states' security interests. Accordingly, they most effectively strive for the goals that
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underscore subregional security arrangements: •
Broadening subregional economic and development cooperation and policy cooperation on sensitive political and security issues; • Converting shared ideological and political outlooks into a tangible mutual security approach to neutralize threats from both internal and external sources and to advance their c o m m o n security interests; • B a l a n c i n g national security with r e g i o n w i d e and international security ties; and • C o m p e l l i n g m a j o r world p o w e r s to accept their collective security agenda. T h e s e S R S O s face several distinct types of security challenges. First, m a j o r conflicts exist, or have existed, within or near each subregion under consideration except the South Pacific: the C a m b o d i a n conflict, the Iran-Iraq war, Central American civil wars that could spill over to affect Caribbean societies, and guerrilla w a r f a r e b e t w e e n South A f r i c a and the Front L i n e states of southern Africa. South Pacific Forum member-states, however, are i n c r e a s i n g l y c o n f r o n t e d with i n t r a r e g i o n a l c o n f l i c t s (e.g., Fiji and N e w Caledonia), which could erode their traditional status as benign collaborators in the West's " s t r a t e g i c d e n i a l " p o s t u r e t o w a r d their s u b r e g i o n . S e c o n d , domestic economic or social problems exacerbate regional security problems in all the S R S O states. Third, their vulnerability to external events and actors beyond their control threatens their individual and collective survival. Initially, in this text, the factors the S R S O s should weigh to o v e r c o m e their weaknesses and to strengthen their legitimacy will be considered. T h e S R S O s ' c o m p a r a t i v e e f f e c t i v e n e s s in b u i l d i n g p r e c e d e n t s a n d c r e a t i n g m c c h a n i s m s for collective self-reliance and conflict resolution will also be assessed. External responses to their initiatives will be reviewed. Finally, some policy recommendations will be offered to concerned external powers, to assist the S R S O s in overcoming their present challenges and augmenting their status as legitimate contributors to international security.
NOTES 1. This argument is advanced by John Stremlau, "The Foreign Policies of Developing Countries in the 1980s," in Stremlau (ed.), The Foreign Policy Priorities of Third World States (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982), pp. 6-7. 2. Mohammed El Sayed Said, "The Arab League: Between Regime Security and National Liberation," in Mohammed Ayoob (ed.), Regional Security in the Third World (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1986), pp. 255-256. Excellent background on the Arab League is provided by Ahmed Mahmoud H. Gomaa, The Foundation of the League of Arab States: Wartime Diplomacy and Inter-Arab Politics (London and New York: Longman, 1977) and by Yehoshua Porath, In Search of Arab Unity,
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1930-1945 (London and Totowa, N J . : Frank Cass, 1986). 3. A number of studies have addressed the larger regional security organizations. Among the best are Ernst B. Haas, Beyond the Nation-State (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1964); Joseph Nye, Peace in Parts (Boston: Little, Brown, Conflicts and 1971), especially pp. 129-172; and Mark Zacher, International Collective Security (New York: Praeger, 1979). 4. Michael Handel, Weak States in The International System (London: Frank Cass, 1981), p. 154. Also see Leslie H. Brown, "Regional Collaboration in Resolving Third World Conflicts," Survival 28, no. 3 (May-June 1986), pp. 209-212. 5. Richard Rothstein, The Weak in the World of the Strong (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp. 93-94. 6. Louis J. Cantori and Steven L. Spiegel, The International Relations of Regions: A Comparative Approach (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall, 1970), p. 3. 7. Ibid., pp. 10-20. 8. Mahnaz Zehra Ispahani, "Alone Together: Regional Security Arrangements in Southern Africa and the Arabian Gulf," International Security 8, no. 4 (Spring 1984), p. 175. 9. "The ASEAN [Bangkok] Declaration," reprinted in PJ.G. Kapteyn, et al., International Organization and Integration: Annotated Basic Documents and Descriptive Directory of International Organizations and Arrangements (The Hague, Boston, London: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983), Book II.F.2.a, pp. 1-2. 10. Richard A. Herr, "Regionalism, Strategic Denial and South Pacific Security," Journal of Pacific History 21, nos. 3-4 (July-October 1986), pp. 174-175. 11. Basil Davison, "Africa in 1984," Africa Review 1985 (Saffron Waiden, Essex: World of Information, 1984), p. 19, and Kaye Whiteman, "OAU's Road Back to Health: Light at the End of the Tunnel?" Africa Review 1986, pp. 23-24. 12. Abdulla Yacoub Bishara, "The Gulf Cooperation Council: Achievements and Challenges," American-Arab Affairs, no. 7 (Winter 1983-1984), p. 42. 13. From the Dhaka Declaration announcing SAARC's creation as cited in Giuseppe Schiavone (ed.), International Organizations (London: MacMillan, 1986), p. 249. 14. Mohammed Ayoob, "The Primacy of the Political: South Asian Regional Cooperation (SARC) in Comparative Perspective," Asian Survey 25, no. 4 (April 1985), p. 455. Emphases are his. Also see S.D. Muni, "SARC: Building Regionalism from Below," in ibid., especially pp. 397, 400-401. 15. ASEAN, founded in 1967, comprises Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Brunei. The GCC, established in 1981, is made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The OECS, also formed in 1981, consists of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Christopher and Nevis (also known as St. Kitts), S t Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the British Virgin Islands as an associate member. SADCC was formed in 1980 with a membership of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The South Pacific Forum was created in August 1971, consists of Australia, the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Western Samoa. 16. Other SRSOs include the South Pacific Commission; the West African Economic Community (Communauté économique de l ' A f r i q u e de l ' O u e s t , or C E A O ) ; the E c o n o m i c C o m m u n i t y of West A f r i c a n States ( E C O W A S ) ; the Economic Community of Central African States (Communauté économique des états
INTRODUCTION
11
d' Afrique centrale, or CEEAC); the Central African Customs and Economic Union; the Arab Cooperation Council; the Arab Maghreb Union; the Latin American Economic System (SELA); the Central American Common Market (CACM); the Andean Group; and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
SRSOs' Legitimacy Factors A unified posture promoting regional self-reliance, anticolonialism, and global nonalignment must confront at least two enduring realities of international politics. First, most S R S O members will continue to depend upon trade with and investment from the world's industrial nations, even as they assign priority to achieving greater national and regional self-reliance in economic and political development. Second, regional conflicts will still intermittently involve external powers in regional security affairs. The optimum approach to security for S R S O members, therefore, embodies the appropriate combination of the resources needed to achieve greater collective political and socioeconomic power, without unduly compromising individual national security interests. Such a collective approach must be viewed as the best means by which susceptibility to external manipulation and dependence can be gradually reduced.
THE S R S O A S A S E C U R I T Y R E G I M E The ideals and objectives embodied in an S R S O can be related to those commonly found in a security regime. A "security regime" is best defined applying the criteria of Robert Jervis: "those principles, rules, and norms that permit nations to be restrained in their behavior in the belief that others will reciprocate . . . a form of cooperation that is more than the following of short-run self-interest." 1 Some observers of international politics have attempted to differentiate "regimes"—which they regard as synonymous with "institutions"—from "organizations." They view regimes or institutions as policy behavior composed of recognized roles and rules governing relations among a regime's participants, whereas organizations are "physical entities" that manage relations among the participants. 2 Regardless of how its properties are described, a viable security regime is not imposed from above (i.e., by outside states or international institutions), but exists because of a convergence of interests shared by its members to pursue common interests and to avoid certain outcomes relative to specific regional security questions. In this context, the security regime paradigm may be applicable to explaining S R S O formation and behavior. The SRSO's relevance, and even 13
14
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY COOPERATION
its very survival, arc linked to its success in addressing " b a s i c casual variables," such as regional power equilibriums or regional penetration by an aspiring hcgemonic power, and transforming those variables in ways that are to the strategic advantage of its member-states. 3 Jcrvis f u r t h e r argues that m o d i f i c a t i o n of exploitive b e h a v i o r and encouragement of regime cooperation is determined by regime participants' a b i l i t y to r e c o g n i z e w h a t o t h e r s arc d o i n g , and to a d j u s t t h e i r o w n e x p e c t a t i o n s and s t r a t e g i e s a c c o r d i n g l y . T h i s f u n c t i o n is k n o w n as "transparency." 4 Transparency can be regarded as behavior among security c o l l a b o r a t o r s that is c o n d u c i v e to " f u l l e r , franker, and less d e c e p t i v e [relations] than those ¿vhich [usually] characterize international politics." 5 Within an SRSO, consultations and planning should proceed from a consensus about threat, norms, and strategic purpose shared by its members. In theory, this consensus should constitute much of the basis of the subregion's security agenda. In reality, the degree of success that SRSOs have enjoyed in realizing politico-strategic autonomy has been mixed. Among all SRSOs, ASEAN has perhaps been most successful, because it has developed a tangible set of informal but effective procedures for achieving continuity in policy behavior by the leaders of its respective member-states and has built up on shared visions and expectations related to regional security. By investing in ASEAN institutions and norms, the Southeast Asians have largely overcome previous intrarcgional impediments to regional political stability and cooperation: a legacy of Malay-Chinese ethnic conflict in Indonesia and Malaysia, the domestic political discontinuities in the Philippines, and the propensity of b o t h S i n g a p o r e a n d T h a i l a n d to c l o s e l y a f f i l i a t e t h e m s e l v e s w i t h extraregional power guarantees. 6 The G C C is not yet a regime, because its members are less sure of each other's willingness to diversify their economic infrastructures and shift from dependence on oil exports, to coordinate the pace of their o w n internal changes with those of their neighbors, and to establish a truly collective political approach to defining and neutralizing regional and extraregional security threats. The polarization of the Persian Gulf area brought about by the Iran-Iraq war has left the GCC itself divided over how to respond to both Baghdad and Tehran in the aftermath of the truce that ended that conflict in 1988. Oman's close ties to the Iranians, Kuwait's suspicions regarding Iraq's territorial designs on the disputed islands of Bubiyan and Warbah, and the Saudis' animosity toward Iran emanating from the historic feud between the Shia and Wahabi sects are all factors that preclude both consensus about the nature of the threat facing this S R S O and the identification of norms or procedures for dealing with it. Without greater cohesion and predictability among member-states' interests, the G C C will remain much less influential in the Persian Gulf than is ASEAN throughout Southeast Asia, and will be regarded as something far less than a respectable security regime. 7
LEGITIMACY FACTORS
15
The OECS, SADCC, and SPF have likewise fallen short of institutionalizing expectations and policy along the lines of regime behavior. These organizations are composed of small states that have yet to develop full confidence in their sovereign prerogatives, much less use "associative diplom a c y " to press their subregional security agendas more effectively in the international community. A former diplomat from Antigua-Barbuda, for example, has written that O E C S states' reluctance to integrate their policies on high politics and security has allowed the United States to exercise undue levels of cultural and political hegemony in the eastern Caribbean subregion. Subregional efforts to move toward a political federation that would allow these states to confront the outside world with more confidence and greater credibility are consequently precluded. 8 S A D C C clearly has mobilized the United States and the E u r o p e a n C o m m u n i t y (EC) to confront South African efforts to impose economic h e g e m o n y over its southern African neighbors. Z i m b a b w e ' s minister of Planning recently observed that SADCC's "economic, political, and military vulnerability" has meant that its member-states "have had to operate within the ambit of U.S. policy (and imperialist hegemony) in Southern Africa." 9 In less rhetorical and more specific terms, the other S A D C C states have had to distance t h e m s e l v e s from fully supporting the M a r x i s t g o v e r n m e n t s in Angola and Mozambique to enjoy unqualified access to Western capital and technology. In conjunction with some S A D C C states continuing to trade primarily with Pretoria, the members of this particular SRSO have foreclosed their ability to synchronize their policy interests in the manner necessary to facilitate regime behavior. T h e S P F ' s e f f o r t s to b u i l d S o u t h P a c i f i c r e g i o n a l i s m h a v e b e e n h a m p e r e d by l o n g - s t a n d i n g t e n s i o n s a m o n g v a r i o u s M e l a n e s i a n and Polynesian member-states. In August 1980, Papua New Guinea (PNG) forces (the "Kamul" force), backed by Australian military advisers and air transport logistics, assisted the government of newly independent Vanuatu (formerly N e w Hebrides) in quelling a secession movement led by French and mixedrace settlers of long residence. Led by Fiji (itself a Melanesian state), the SPF resisted PNG Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan's proposal that a Forumbased peacekeeping force be established for use in future South Pacific contingencies. Noting that the Vanuatu intervention episode created "an unpleasant and aggressive military precedent in the Island Communities," one Fiji parliamentarian, echoing the majority sentiment in his country, called instead for UN-sponsored peacekeeping operations to conduct future interventions in South Pacific crises. 10 M o r e r e c e n t l y ( 1 9 8 6 ) , t h e t h r e e M e l a n e s i a n s t a t e s of P N G , t h e Solomons, and Vanuatu formalized the "Melanesian Spearhead G r o u p " to press f o r F r e n c h decolonization of N e w C a l e d o n i a — t h e o n e remaining Melanesian dependency—and for the end of French nuclear testing in the
16
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY COOPERATION
South Pacific. Paris retaliated by encouraging Tonga and the Cook Islands to create a Polynesian-based regional subgroup within the Forum. W h i l e a change of French government in spring 1988 to one more sympathetic with N e w C a l e d o n i a n n a t i o n a l i s t a s p i r a t i o n s a p p e a r e d to d e f u s e t h i s confrontation, the threat o f rival blocs emerging in the S P F generated considerable anxiety among S P F elites accustomed to deciding subregional issues by consensus. As one respected observer noted, should this trend develop further, "it could introduce formal subregional bloc politics into the South P a c i f i c and so impede the e f f e c t i v e n e s s o f the various regional institutions, particularly in the area of strategic response." 11 It should be noted, however, that regional polarization can also, on occasion, act as a catalyst, facilitating rather than impeding joint security and development planning at the subregional level. The more imposing the threat appears to be in terms of dividing the region into opposing politico-military coalitions, the more incentive S R S O actors have for uniting to resist what they perceive to be prospects for regional anarchy or disintegration. G C C states, for example, were more inclined to circumvent their own suspicions of Saudi hegemonic motives, in order to cooperate with Riyadh in building a subregional military infrastructure to deter the more immediate regional threats emanating from Iraq and Iran. The OECS Third World and Security Committee conducted most of its meetings just prior to requesting the United States to intervene against the Cuban-backed leadership in Grenada; after the regionwide threat receded, no regular or systematic deliberations have been conducted by that O E C S component. In other instances, however, extraregional hegemonistic activity has had little apparent effect upon subregional security organization posture and alignment. The establishment of Soviet relations with Tonga in April 1976 and the U.S. tuna boat controversy during the early 1980s had little effect on the South Pacific Forum's overall posture of passive strategic alignment with the ANZUS powers. These incidents were viewed by the S P F members as the pursuit o f c o m m e r c i a l o p p o r t u n i t y and as the c u l m i n a t i o n o f a c o m m e r c i a l dispute, r e s p e c t i v e l y . T h e y were not regarded as d i r e c t challenges to a long-standing and, from the perspective o f the S P F islandstates, largely acceptable strategic environment in which their neighborhood was tacitly incorporated within the ANZUS deterrence system. Ideally, then, S R S O s are seen by their m e m b e r s as p r o v i d i n g an effective means for consultation and planning about local security needs and for resisting attempts by external powers to penetrate or dominate national institutions and values. S R S O goals can include the building o f m o r e effective communication networks, the promotion o f closer ties among various regional decisionmakers and interest groups, and the articulation of a common Third World against mutually perceived threats—all recognized functions o f a security regime.
LEGITIMACY FACTORS
17
T H E S R S O s AND EXTERNAL POWERS: SELF-RELIANCE VS. DEPENDENCY S R S O initiatives still may hinge upon the timely and effective assistance, either financial or military, of outside powers. If not introduced with care and sensitivity, however, such assistance can undercut S R S O "self-help" aspirations and reinforce an image of dependency on such outside powers. Alternatively, carefully measured external assistance can reinforce the sense o f distinctiveness and common identity that originally brought S R S O members together. The dependency issue has been paramount in postwar discussions of Third World security politics. Proponents o f the global interdependence argument, for example, believe that Third World states can achieve increased self-reliance only if both they and the Western industrial powers are willing to institute and support e c o n o m i c and p o l i t i c a l reforms n e c e s s a r y to guarantee developing state access to critical international markets and decisionmaking centers for the management o f global security. 1 2 T h o s e opposing this line of reasoning counter that underdeveloped or weak states want nothing l e s s than a w h o l e s a l e restructuring o f the international economic and security system, as mainly defined by the United States and its Western allies soon after World War II. In this context, S R S O member-states and other Third World actors are less concerned with achieving a balance between self-rcliance and interdependence ( " s e l f - h e l p " ) than in fundamentally altering the international system to their benefit. Stephen D. Krasner has offered a representative argument for this school of thought: "One strategy for ["the South" or underdeveloped world] . . . is to change the rules o f the game in various international issue areas. . . . Relations between industrial and developing areas are bound to be conflictual over the long-term because most Southern countries cannot hope to cope with their international vulnerability except by challenging principles, norms, and rules preferred by industrialized countries." 1 3 T h e truth, arguably, lies somewhere between these two positions. Subregional security actors, in fact, desire neither complete independence from external actors nor total revolution against their interests. Instead, most aspire to international systemic reform that is acceptable to both sides. A "reform," applying Hedley Bull's definition, "is a change brought about by procedures which are available under the old rules and institutions" within the existing international system. 1 4 The challenge undertaken by the S R S O s is to establish and pursue a middle ground between the globalist inclination toward "order-maintenance"—great powers controlling local and regional crises and wars from the outset via military intervention, or other forms o f coercive diplomacy, to prevent disruptions in the international balance o f p o w e r — a n d regionalist preferences for " s e l f - d e t e r m i n a t i o n , " in which
18
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY COOPERATION
imperialist suppression or global hegemony are to be contained in favor of international security politics emphasizing the rights of small, as well as large, states and in which systemic hierarchies are to be rejected whenever possible. 15 Because many S R S O s organized themselves to deal with a specific regional conflict actually taking place or threatening to occur, they have every interest in conflict termination or avoidance. Achievement of this simple objective establishes credibility for the S R S O s ' own collective security efforts in the eyes of outside powers, without ceding politicostrategic autonomy in the process. At the same time, SRSOs generally aspire to reform the international economic system sufficiently to enable their member-states to accrue greater control over their own raw materials, which constitute a major component of their economies; to secure more effective regulation over multinational corporations' commercial practices within their sovereign domains; to participate in increased technology transfers to strengthen their own research and production sectors; and to gain easier access to the international monetary system. These "casual variables" of power and influence are highly salient factors in the establishment of subregional security agendas and in the identification of institutions and objectives needed to implement those agendas. They also directly relate to an S R S O ' s ability to establish greater autonomy or self-reliance within the international community. 16
FACTORS OF S R S O L E G I T I M A C Y Three key factors determine how effective subregional security organizations can be as legitimate instruments to promote the security of member-states. They are: • How s u c c e s s f u l the S R S O s are in enabling their m e m b e r s to overcome their sense of strategic and economic vulnerability to the outside world; • The extent to which they allow members to overcome their suspicions of each other's intraregional ambitions and policies; and • The levels of military, economic, and diplomatic competitiveness S R S O members achieve, individually and collcctively. The Problem of
Vulnerability
Perhaps the most fundamental explanation for the rise of security cooperation at a subregional level in Third World areas lies in the widespread desire by weak and underdeveloped states to overcome their sense of strategic and
LEGITIMACY FACTORS
19
e c o n o m i c vulnerability. M a n y states that are m e m b e r s o f S R S O s are disadvantaged in terms of size and geographic location. T h e y often are e c o n o m i c a l l y d e f i c i e n t and short o f trained p e r s o n n e l , p o s s e s s only antiquated industrial facilities, and, more often than not, have only limited natural resource bases. Most are strategically insignificant compared to the superpowers, as well as militarily inferior to regional powers. Collective security guarantees at the global level are often viewed from the vantage point of these states as cosmetic, irrelevant, or even threatening. Small-state vulnerability historically has invited various forms o f military or, more commonly, nonmilitary security from external states. Military threats include direct aggression to seize territory or to neutralize foreign bases in memberstates. Such threats also include potential external assistance to or intervention in local succession movements or other civil disputes. Nonmilitary threats include formal economic sanctions, support for dissident political elements, disregard for territorial or economic enterprise zones, and threats to national cultures and core values. 1 7 Such threats, military and nonmilitary, can subject a Third World state to unacceptably high levels o f dependence upon outside countries for its political and economic survival. The late Jonathan Alford was correct to argue that the world is not so anarchical that we should "immediately conclude that every small state is about to be gobbled up by some great metropolitan power or even relatively powerful n e i g h b o r . " 1 8 Yet the threat o f v i o l e n c e against one or more subregional members from extraregional sources cannot be discounted. In circumstances where the sovereignty of an S R S O member is at risk, some external intervention may be required to achieve effective crisis management, peacekeeping, and the implementation o f nonviolent solutions. The key issue in this context is how concerned great powers or international institutions can legitimately and effectively help underwrite regional security without simultaneously appearing to undermine the building of collective self-reliance and the achievement of intraregional conflict resolution. 1 ? Many Third World countries lack established mechanisms to cope with social tensions, economic deficiencies, or external military threats. They instead opt to remain highly dependent on one or a group of external powers, compensating for their own inability or unwillingness to pursue alternative security policies. T h e drawback o f this approach for such developing countries is obvious. Their survival is subject to the vagaries of the guarantor state's own domestic politics and strategic constraints. I f the security interests of the sponsoring power should change over time in ways that are detrimental to the dependent state—expressed either through strategic disassociation or political manipulation—the latter may be unable to adjust. In general, the five S R S O s considered in this book increasingly have recognized that the strategic interests of the United States, the U S S R , and other outside powers often conflict with their own security aims.
20
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY C O O P E R A T I O N
Barriers To ¡ntraregional
Cooperation
A major challenge confronting the SRSOs is how to apply their limited resources and capabilities to the containment or resolution of intraregional security threats in ways that preserve individual sovereign interests and concerns. Intensified foreign policy coordination between SRSO members is an admirable objective, but making it a reality can be elusive. Nationalist factions in Third World states assert that a stable domestic order and a growing national economy provide the best guarantees against outside domination. They postulate that the process of nation-building is impeded by subjecting national security and development agendas to endless deliberations at the regional level. 20 Kuwait's attempts to convince the United States, the USSR, China, and various West European states to reflag and escort its oil tankers through the Persian Gulf during late 1987 illustrate the difficulties of reconciling one SRSO member's national security interests with the collective agenda of the organization. The reflagging plan was particularly worrisome to Oman. Oman was the G C C m e m b e r furthest from the center of the Iran-Iraq conflict, closest to Iran in terms of trade relations, and the least threatened by Iranian-sponsored Shi'ite domestic uprisings or sabotage (Oman's native population is approximately three-quarters Ibadi Muslim, one-quarter Sunni, and less than 4 percent Shi'ite). Oman was at least as concerned about its long-term rivalry with Saudi Arabia, with whom it has had intermittent border clashes, as it was about the threat to the oil exports of the other Gulf states. Consequently, Oman confined to a strictly case-by-case basis its p e r m i s s i o n f o r Western m i n e s w e e p i n g operations c o n d u c t e d f r o m its territory, to avoid direct confrontation with Tehran to the fullest extent possible. Oman's outlook toward reflagging Kuwait's vessels, moreover, reflected a more general GCC concern about not tilting so fully toward Iraq as to be faced with an implacably hostile Iran should U.S. naval power eventually be withdrawn from the area. 21 A second barrier to SRSO intraregional cooperation is the latent fear of smaller states that the largest p o w e r in an organization could use its comparative advantage in size and resources to seek the status of a regional hegemon. I n d o n e s i a ' s relationship with its Southeast Asian neighbors illustrates this point. By virtue of its size, population, resources, and history, Indonesia has long perceived itself to be the natural leader of ASEAN. As a result, Jakarta's smaller ASEAN partners have confronted a difficult policy dilemma. They know that any subregional organization without Indonesian membership would be ineffective but, at the same time, they feel the need "to contain any propensity on [Indonesia's] part for a hegemonial position." 2 2 To a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia's position within the G C C has been a concern to its SRSO allies, as has been Barbados's self-acclaimed Third
LEGITIMACY FACTORS
21
World role in the eastern Caribbean to the OECS states. Zimbabwe spans most of the main roads and railways in southern Africa and is SADCC's most industrialized state, a fact that creates tensions among other SADCC members, especially Mozambique. Australia's sheer size, its rapid force intervention capabilities, and its remaining close ties with Washington's geopolitics are all sources of concern for the SPF's Melanesian memberstates. A third impediment to intraregional security coordination emerges with the decline or disappearance altogether of the common threat that originally bound the SRSO members together. Vietnam's military power, for example, may now appear less dangerous to the ASEAN countries than in the late 1970s when Hanoi was flushed with victories in Indochina. Grenada is no longer seen as a threat to its OECS neighbors. Iran's revolutionary army appears to be less formidable than it was in the early 1980s. The problem of changing security agendas thus becomes critical, and a variety of new questions must be addressed. Is the need for economic policy coordination at the subregional level sufficiently compelling to ensure an SRSO's continued rclevance to its adherents? Or will various leaders of SRSO member-states focus their attention inward, redirecting their energies toward stifling national dissent so as to ensure regime survival and repel what they regard as unwarranted foreign influence from any direction, including that emanating from their subregional allies? A critical test of an SRSO's viability is the degree to which it can adapt to regional and global change that makes continued cooperation a rational policy choice. Despite these apparent threat reductions, most of the SRSOs have retained a sense of collective vulnerability, which has proved to be a strong inducement for member-states to cooperate on regional security matters. Most member-states have concluded that a major prerequisite contribution of SRSOs in this regard is to establish in their individual and official dealings with one another a finm basis of cooperation and trust. At the same time, any SRSO's mandate remains qualified, in that the organization as a whole must respect and deal with the varying national interests of its members. Recent efforts by other ASEAN states to discourage Indonesia from extending independent diplomatic feelers toward Vietnam is an example of the potential conflict existing between individual and collective interests. Collective interests prevailed in the case of the OECS's refusal to create a regional security system along the lines originally proposed by Barbados because it implied an excessively close military association with the United States. SADCC's collective determination to reduce South Africa's economic aggression against its neighbors is tempered by the pragmatic realization that individual members must do business with Pretoria in order to ensure their long-term economic survival. The SPF's commitment to resolve jurisdictional disputes between various South Pacific organizations (e.g., the South
22
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY C O O P E R A T I O N
Pacific Commission; the Pacific Islands Development Program [PIDP]; the Forum Fisheries Agency; and the Committee for the Co-ordination of Joint Prospecting for Mineral Resources in South Pacific Offshore Areas [ C C O P / SOPAC]) continues to be expressed in its ongoing quest to coalesce itself and these other bodies into a Single Regional Organization (SRO). Limited financial and professional resources in the South Pacific subrcgion mandate the need to find appropriate regional integration formulas that will accomm o d a t e the interests of subregional s o v e r e i g n states and r e m a i n i n g n o n independent territories alike, along with those held by those distant metrop o l i t a n p o w e r s h a v i n g l o n g - t e r m and l e g i t i m a t e political and e c o n o m i c interests in the S o u t h Pacific. It r e m a i n s to be seen h o w s u c c e s s f u l the S R S O s have been and will be in articulating a c o m m o n approach to mutually perceived external threats and in establishing a f r a m e w o r k for confidence in conducting subregional politics.
Building SRSOs' Competitive
Stature
T h e s u r v i v a l and c o m p e t i t i v e s t a t u r e of the S R S O s c a n n o t be e n s u r e d through a relentless pursuit of military power. Weaker states must initially devise sound e c o n o m i c strategies to c o m p e n s a t e for their inherent underdevelopment and lack of resources. T h e most succcssful developing states appear to be those that have balanced their energies and resources between improving national living standards and sustaining military establishments. It must be noted, however, that the S R S O s under consideration in this book have not been particularly successful in furthering their collective economic development. Leslie H. Brown was correct: "Aggregating weaknesses docs not lead to collective strength." 2 3 D e v e l o p i n g states generally s u f f e r f r o m chronic shortages of trained w o r k e r s ( w h o o f t e n emigrate to developed countries in search of greater f i n a n c i a l c o m p e n s a t i o n ) , f r o m a n t i q u a t e d industrial facilities, and f r o m military weakness. Furthermore, Third World states require time to close technology gaps, to bargain more effectively with foreign corporations, and to d e v e l o p the n e c e s s a r y institutions to p r o v i d e sophisticated d i p l o m a c y , g a t h e r i n t e l l i g e n c e , and b u i l d e f f e c t i v e s e c u r i t y f o r c e s . W i t h o u t s u c h institutions, formerly cooperative S R S O associates may regress and compete with each other for international aid and investment. Despite the primacy of economic development in S R S O member-states, the S R S O s have generally not forged economic policies that effectively strengthen either their region or their individual m e m b e r s . Until such m e c h a n i s m s are developed and used m o r e c o n s i s t e n t l y , p r o s p e c t s will r e m a i n l i m i t e d f o r s t r e n g t h e n i n g the international political and economic competitiveness of the developing states through S R S O affiliation.
LEGITIMACY FACTORS
23
S R S O PRINCIPLES A N D M A N A G E M E N T
The five SRSOs considered in this book were founded to pursue greater regional self-reliance in security and to facilitate mutual progress in e c o n o m i c development. Their actual management, however, is often predicated upon deferring collective action unless consensus decisionmaking is reached. SRSO goals have been invariably modest, reflecting the preference for what SADCC's Lusaka Declaration (April 1980) characterized as a "step-by-step" process to acquire habits of subregional cooperation in designated economic, cultural, and social sectors. It has been assumed that adopting a regional "grand strategy" would only engender interest conflicts and divisive negotiations, leading to SRSO policy paralysis. The promotion of regional peace and stability is certainly a principle embodied in each SRSO's founding document. However, the specific means of implementation have been left deliberately vague in the hope that the organization's policy planners and mechanisms will benefit from the process of trial and error as they attempt to cope with the factors of vulnerability, intraregional cooperation, and competitiveness. It appears that most SRSO bureaucracies have been prevented from realizing significantly increased cooperation by member-state elites primarily interested in safeguarding their own national interests. Given their history of regional interaction, it might be expected that the ASEAN states, for e x a m p l e , would have achieved the most progress in moving toward collective security. In fact, the ASEAN bureaucracy tends by design to inhibit, rather than encourage, intraregional security cooperation (see Figure 1.1 for an ASEAN organizational summary). A permanent secretarial directs a myriad of bureaus dealing mostly with economic development from its o r g a n i z a t i o n a l h e a d q u a r t e r s in J a k a r t a , and m e r e l y s u p p l e m e n t s a cumbersome system of national directors general situated in each member country, leaving ASEAN elites to resolve m a j o r questions of conflict resolution and Third World cooperation outside ASEAN's organizational framework. Such questions are dealt with separately by the individual foreign ministries and by occasional bilateral meetings between ASEAN heads of state. Intermittent, and largely cosmetic, formal summits involving the collective ASEAN heads of state are merely the products of compromise already reached at mid-level, and largely informal consultations between administrators and diplomats in an extra-ASEAN context. In a recent and useful treatment of ASEAN summitry, Michael Antolik has observed that as for using a [heads of state] summit as another political forum, there are reservations about its usefulness. On the contrary, such a gathering presents the participants with the challenge of resolving issues in the glare of publicity. . . .
24
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY COOPERATION
Figure 1.1 ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF ASEAN
Source: International Organization and Integration: Annotated Basic Documents and Descriptive Directory of International Organizations and Arrangements (Martinus Nijhoff, 1983). Reprinted by permission of Kluwer Academic Publishers.
LEGITIMACY FACTORS
25
A summit would then bring to the fore all of the problematic policy questions that plague the ASEAN agenda . . . [on which] ASEAN members have different views, no impetus to accommodate and, as a result, no reason to expect success. 24
At the conclusion of the December 1987 ASEAN summit in Manila, the heads of state reaffirmed their belief that future summits needed to be conducted only "every three to five years" at the most. A S E A N ' s approach to security problems unfolds primarily at the comparatively routine annual meeting of foreign ministers, which, in turn, is advised by a rotating standing committee chaired by the foreign minister of the member-state scheduled to host the next meeting and by various ambassadors and high commissioners of other member-states. ASEAN's regional security coordination efforts are decentralized, loosely coordinated, and subject to the pressures of national agendas. This situation tends to modify inclinations of ASEAN to establish precedents regarding joint security cooperation beyond the reiteration of long-standing nonalignment principles and of selected initiatives directed toward resolutions of the Indochina problem. 25 In July 1984, ASEAN considered the findings of a task force set up two years earlier to reevaluate the organization's machinery for decisionmaking and consultation. The task f o r c e ' s recommendation that the A S E A N secretariat be assigned a more active policy-initiating role, however, was summarily rejected. Instead, as Michael Leifer has pointed out, the "primacy of the national foreign ministries" in coordinating ASEAN positions on issues of high politics in the Third World remains intact because of the member-states' determination "to prevent centrist tendencies from developing in the form of corporate institutions with more than a minimal service function." 26 Other efforts to alter this decisionmaking style of ASEAN have met with a visible lack of success, including attempts to infuse life into the H i g h C o u n c i l (created by the 1976 A S E A N T r e a t y of A m i t y and Cooperation at Bali) as a regional peacekeeping instrument and Singapore P r i m e M i n i s t e r Lee K u a n Yew's short-lived p r o p o s a l ( a d v a n c e d in September 1982) for formal ASEAN multilateral military exercises. Again, Leifer has captured the essence of ASEAN" s rationales for avoiding a higher strategic profile:
A conventional security role has not been sought . . . certainly the formal anatomy of ASEAN would not suggest one. Within its extensive committee structure there is no provision for formal liaison between government representatives with Third World responsibilities, although intelligence chiefs do hold an unpublicized annual meeting prior to that of the foreign ministers. The paradoxical quality of ASEAN . . . has been present from the outset and sustained in that a conspicuous preoccupation with regional security has not been reflected explicitly in the bureaucratic structure of the Association. 27
26
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY COOPERATION
Requiring consensus on nearly any significant security question, even at the expense of institutional policy innovation and growth, often produces policy inaction as the lowest common denominator. Decisionmaking patterns of other SRSOs reflect the ASEAN experience. The O E C S and G C C have developed the security and military c o m p o n e n t s of subregional security cooperation to comparatively more advanced levels than ASEAN, S A D C C , or the SPF. Nevertheless, officials in these organizations are still reluctant to propose measures for organizational cooperation on security issues without reaching total consensus in advance. This is true despite O E C S and G C C success in avoiding A S E A N ' s somewhat entangled organizational structure. The G C C ' s secretariat general is located in Riyadh and oversees six "directorates" or "sectors" of activities in the areas of political affairs, economic affairs, environment and human resources, legal affairs, financial and administrative affairs, and information 2 8 (see Figure 1.2). The secretary general and his staff are accountable to the organization's Supreme Council, composed of the G C C heads of state. The Supreme Council is the principal organizational component that decides "higher policy" for this SRSO and that fashions its policies toward other states and international organizations. Consensus decisionmaking is embodied at the top of the G C C authority structure, but this arrangement may restrict the scope of G C C activity in the interest of avoiding substantive, yet potentially contentious, issues between the member-states. 2 9 T h e o r g a n i z a t i o n a l and f u n c t i o n a l s i m i l a r i t i e s b e t w e e n A S E A N ' s secretariat and the G C C ' s secretariat general are striking. Both are headed by a secretary general appointed for a three-year term. Both entities are subdivided into various bureaus dealing with economic, technological, and sociocultural affairs. Neither secretariat has direct influence on the decisionmaking of its organization. Policy authority is, instead, vested in the foreign ministry bureaucracies of the member-states. However, the G C C has formalized the ministerial decisionmaking process to a greater extent than has ASEAN; its Ministerial Council is a formal body that meets every three months and is composed of the member-states' foreign ministers and other appropriate officials of ministerial rank. It proposes and adopts f o r m a l resolutions on G C C policy, which must then be approved by the Supreme Council, which is composed exclusively of the heads of slate and which convenes at least once annually. As already noted, A S E A N heads of state convene only infrequently and tend to ratify policy already formulated by their foreign ministers via regular, albeit informal, consultations. 3 0 T h e A S E A N consultation "style" is to derive consensus and direction on SRSOwide p o l i c i e s t h r o u g h reliance on p e r s o n a l c o n t a c t s and r e l a t i o n s h i p s between key ministries at the national level, handing A S E A N leaders a series of prearranged faits accomplis on those infrequent occasions they do meet in an A S E A N context. The GCC, in contrast, emphasizes more formal collective decisionmaking, involving ministers acting in concert beyond the
L E G I T I M A C Y FACTORS
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SUBREGIONAL SECURITY C O O P E R A T I O N
nation-state (at the subregional level) and with the heads of state making authoritative decisions on high politics in an open manner. While no formal collective defense organ was originally written into the organizational structure of the GCC, its member-states' chiefs of staff convene regularly under formal GCC auspices to plan joint military exercises, collective weapons procurement strategy, and joint Third World defense industrial programs. 31 Since its founding in June 1981, the Organization of East Caribbean States has been developing its identity as a "self-reinforcing collective" for political and economic stability in the West Indies. A central secretariat is located in Castries, St. Lucia, while an Economic Affairs secretariat is headquartered in St. Johns, Antigua (sec Figure 1.3 for an OECS organizational table). All major decisions on organizational functions and policy, however, are made by the OECS Authority, composed of the member-states' heads of government. The OECS Authority's decisions, like those of the GCC's Supreme Council, require a unanimous vote. Both the GCC and the OECS, moreover, have displayed a visible propensity to engage in formal Third World security relations with the G C C ' s establishment of a Military Committee within its secretariat (covered specifically in Chapter 2) and the OECS's forming of a Defense and Security Committee. ASEAN, in contrast, has repeatedly downplayed any intent to become a formal military alliance and has suppressed occasional initiatives for military planning or coordination to take place within its organizational infrastructure. The OECS member-states have set themselves apart from the larger Caribbean Community (CARICOM), even though all the OECS states are also CARICOM members. They have established their own organization on the basis of their anglophone cultural and political heritage, which provides a more natural basis for consensus regarding political and development issues than does the more diverse CARICOM grouping. The cultural similarities, political systems, and economic problems shared by OECS members also provide the most cohesive basis for the small English-speaking states of the eastern Caribbean to identify and to overcome their mutual vulnerabilities, allowing them at the same time to establish their subregional competitiveness. Pursuit of such objectives in the shadow of the larger eastern Caribbean island-states is thus relatively less appealing to them. 32 The OECS, unlike the GCC, provides for a formal Third World and security committee in its organizational charter. However, the OECS does not begin to approach the GCC's extensive de facto network of Third World cooperation in terms of a central command structure or integration of military strategy. The Defense and Security Committee of OECS has, in fact, been inactive since Grenada. Individual OECS countries maintain national police forces primarily to interdict a serious drug traffic problem in the subregion. A Regional Security System (RSS) agreement was reached between most of the OECS states and Barbados in 1982, but its office in
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SUBREGIONAL SECURITY C O O P E R A T I O N
Bridgetown, Barbados, is quiescent relative to the sophistication of its G C C equivalent in Riyadh. The costs for manning a full-fledged defense force in the Eastern Caribbean would fall largely to Washington, and the United States has found the expense to be prohibitive relative to entertaining lowkey security ties with individual O E C S members. 3 3 In interviews with the author, OECS officials noted that both the Defense and Security Committee and the RSS could be quickly activated (with U.S. and British assistance) in the event a member-state was confronted with a future external threat. S A D C C decentralizes power to a much greater extent than the three o r g a n i z a t i o n s p r e v i o u s l y a s s e s s e d , u n d e r s c o r i n g its s e n s i t i v i t y to t h e demands of national sovereignty and self-determination (see Figure 1.4). These priorities arc pursued by S A D C C ' s ten Sectoral Coordination offices, one of which is located in each member-state except Lesotho, which hosts two. These include, Food Security, Technical, and Administrative Unit (Zimbabwe); Agricultural Research and Animal Disease Control (Botswana); Energy Sector, Technical, and Administrative Unit (Angola); Fisheries, Wildlife, and Forestry (Malawi); Trade and Industrial Coordination Division (Tanzania), Mining (Zambia); Tourism (Lesotho); Soil and Water Conservation and Utilization (Lesotho); Manpower Development (Swaziland); and Southern A f r i c a Transport and C o m m u n i c a t i o n s C o m m i s s i o n ( M o z a m bique). Their relations with the secretariat in Gaborone, Botswana, vary, depending upon the relative importance of the function in question and the level of bilateral coordination existing between members. T h e secretariat itself, however, has been kept deliberately small, in deference to the interests of the member-states in decentralizing power and relying upon consensus decisionmaking for shaping S A D C C policies. SADCC, more than most other SRSOs, uses its formal machinery and ad hoc joint commissions to involve e x t e r n a l p a r t n e r s in s o u t h e r n A f r i c a n d e v e l o p m e n t . A c c o r d i n g l y , it is something of an exception to the general preference of S R S O s and their respective members to assign priority to building a subregional community o v e r establishing more b a l a n c e d e c o n o m i c and security relations with outside powers. S A D C C also differs f r o m most other S R S O s in that it e n c o u r a g e s i n d i v i d u a l m e m b e r - s t a t e s to u n d e r t a k e t h e m a j o r r e s p o n s i b i l i t y f o r formulating strategies to fulfill their respective sector assignments. S A D C C is promoting the development of the subregion apart from any requisite plan for eventually moving toward a viable regional common market, such as that envisioned by the GCC or the OECS. Some observers have noted that, while this approach helps the poor African S A D C C states to avoid the expense of a large centralized bureaucracy, it stretches ministerial capacity at the national level to the limits of efficiency and encourages economic nationalism over regional c o o p e r a t i o n . 3 4 Since the m i d - 1 9 8 0 s , S A D C C h a s e m p h a s i z e d i n v e s t m e n t and e n t r e p r e n e u r s h i p as its p r e f e r r e d m e a n s f o r i n c r e a s i n g m e m b e r - s t a t e s ' industrial o u t p u t and e c o n o m i c d i v e r s i f i c a t i o n . It has
LEGITIMACY FACTORS
Figure 1.4 S o u t h e r n A f r i c a n D e v e l o p m e n t C o - o r d i n a t i o n C o n f e r e n c e — S A D C C : Sectoral Co-ordination Offices
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32
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY C O O P E R A T I O N
instituted a number of avenues for facilitating the involvement of private business firms in SADCC project planning—an approach also recently incorporated by ASEAN, which is the SRSO most resembling SADCC's own decentralized structure. 35 Not u n l i k e S A D C C , the S o u t h P a c i f i c Forum also has a loose organizational structure, a conscious effort to avoid a large centralized bureaucracy and to reinforce decisionmaking by informal consensus—often termed the "Pacific way" (see Figure 1.5). Indeed, the SPF is governed by no formal document or charter and has no formal rules pertaining to its membership or the conduct of its meetings. Nor are there any collective Third World arrangements between the member-states, apart from the 1944 Australian-New Zealand Canberra (ANZAC) accord, which has bound those two states' defense ties for almost half a century, and the long-standing status of forces agreement defining their military assistance relationship. More than in any other SRSO, no member-state in the Forum is likely to invade another or allow its territory to be used as a base of aggression. Richard Herr has best described the underlying reasons for this condition: The [SPF] region already constitutes . . . a security c o m m u n i t y . This circumstance arises partly from the conscious policy of the member-states of the South Pacific region and partly from physical limits on these states. In sharp contrast with the aggregations of small states in the Caribbean, Europe, and the Middle East, the South Pacific microstates do not have to share their region with vastly more p o w e r f u l countries. Small s i z e and limited resources make intraregional aggression both difficult and unprofitable. The absence of land borders is undoubtedly also a key factor. 35
The Forum has only recently attained the scope of subregional political status and authority it has sought since its founding, with the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Cooperation (SPEC) becoming the pro forma SPF secretariat in 1988. Previously, SPEC was an informal clearinghouse for the dissemination of information and advice to SPF member-states on trade, industrialization, and transport, but the Bureau had no real political or economic authority. The merger of SPF and SPEC is designed to allow the member-states to coordinate their development strategies and political affairs more effectively. In the latter context, the SPF goes much further than the o l d e r S o u t h P a c i f i c C o m m i s s i o n ( S P C ) , w h i c h has a m u c h w i d e r membership (twenty-seven states) than SPF and includes the United States, Britain, and France. The three distant metropolitan powers funnel most of their economic assistance to independent South Pacific states through this institution. The S P F - S P C r e l a t i o n s h i p is s o m e w h a t — b u t not c o m p l e t e l y — analogous to the relationship between OECS and CARICOM. OECS is the major subregional political vehicle of expression and action for the small English-speaking eastern Caribbean states within a larger e c o n o m i c
L E G I T I M A C Y FACTORS
F i g u r e 1.5 T h e S o u t h Pacific F o r u m
Marshall Islands
34
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY COOPERATION
association o f all the eastern Caribbean nations. O E C S member-states have economic problems similar to those o f the members o f S P F : reliance on one or only a few natural resource products as revenue-generating exports and a lack o f trained technical expertise or overall personnel bases. In both cases (Britain with the O E C S ; the United States and France in the South Pacific), c o l o n i a l p o w e r s p r o m o t e d r e g i o n a l i s m b e f o r e an i n d i g e n o u s r e g i o n a l m o v e m e n t emerged. 3 7 C A R I C O M , however, has a more visible politicosecurity identity and a more cohesive strategy o f economic integration than the S P C (which has virtually none). C A R I C O M has o c c a s i o n a l l y — a l b e i t unsuccessfully—explored plans for regional security coordination between the eastern Caribbean's more developed countries ( M D C s ) , such as Jamaica and T r i n i d a d and T o b a g o , and l e s s d e v e l o p e d c o u n t r i e s s p a n n i n g the Windwards and Leewards island chains; C A R I C O M also conducts heads o f state meetings, and it became integrally involved as a diplomatic force in the Grenada crisis. At present, the five S R S O s a s s e s s e d in this study have d e v e l o p e d bureaucratic styles and instruments reflecting a preference for maintaining narrow agendas, lest regional concerns compete with those o f the fragile member-states. T h e need to develop forms o f subregional order to protect member-states against internal disorder and external predators will provide, however, incentives to continue strengthening S R S O institutions. T h e y will do so to m i n i m i z e regional vulnerabilities, r e s o l v e l o c a l c o n f l i c t s and, whenever possible, reduce economic disparities between themselves and the more developed states.
NOTES 1. Robert Jcrvis, "Security Regimes," International Organization 36, no. 2 (Spring 1982), p. 357. 2. Oran R. Young, " International Regimes: Toward a New Theory of Institutions," World Politics 39, no. 1 (October 1986), pp. 104-122. 3. "Casual variables" are discussed by Stephen D. Krasner, "Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables," International Organization 36, no. 2 (Spring 1982), p. 195-204. 4. Jervis, "From Balance to Concert: A Study of International Security Cooperation," World Politics 38, no. 1 (October 1985), p. 73. 5. Ibid. 6. Theodore Olsen, "Thinking Independently About Strategy in Southeast Asia," Contemporary Southeast Asia 11, no. 3 (December 1989), p. 273. Olsen argues that "[w]ithout there being an explicit dimension of military security in ASEAN, a security regime extends through ASEAN and now envelops the region as a whole." 7. "The Gulf Wakes Up to Reality," The Middle East 174 (April 1989), pp. 5 - 1 0 ; Amy Kaslow, "Gulf Security: Iraq Looms Large," ibid., no. 183 (January 1990), p. 13; and The International Institute for Strategic Studies, Strategic Survey 1988-1989 (London: Brassey's, Spring 1989), pp. 181-182. 8. Ron Sanders, "The Relevance and Function of Diplomacy in International
LEGITIMACY FACTORS
35
Politics for Small Caribbean States," The Round Table, no. 312 (October 1989), pp. 413-424. 9. Ibbo Mandaza, "Perspectives on Economic Cooperation and Autonomous Development in Southern A f r i c a , " in Samir Amin, Derrick Chitala, and Ibbo Mandaza (eds.), SADCC: Prospects for Disengagement and Development in Southern Africa (London: The United Nations University/Zed Books, 1987), p. 217. 10. "Fiji Criticism of I n v o l v e m e n t , " Pacific Islands Monthly 51, no. 11 (November 1980), p. 33. For further analysis on Chan's proposal, see "Vanuatu: After the Santo Rebellion," Australian Foreign Affairs Record 51, no. 10 (October 1980), pp. 384-385, and Stuart Inder, "What the Forum Did—and What It Didn't Do," Pacific Islands Monthly 52, no. 10 (October 1981), p. 14. A good general background on the Vanuatu crisis is John Beasant, The Santo Rebellion: An Imperial Reckoning (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984). 11. Richard A. Herr, "Future Roles of Regional Organizations—Regionalism and Subregional Groupings: Implications for Policy," in Strategic Cooperation and Competition in the Pacific Islands, Vol. 1 (Washington D.C.: National Defense University, 1989), p. 147. Also see The Parliament of the C o m m o n w e a l t h of Australia, Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade, Australia's Relations with the South Pacific (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, March 1989), p. 201; and Henry S. Albinski, "South Pacific Trends and United States Security Implications: An Introductory Overview," in R. L. Pfaltzgraff and L. R. Vasey (eds.), Strategic Issues in the Southwest Pacific (forthcoming), pp. 18-19 of draft. 12. These arguments were embodied in the so-called Brandt Commission Report, released in 1980. See Independent Commission on International Development Issues, North-South: A Program for Survival (Cambridge, Mass./MIT, 1980). 13. Stephen D. Krasncr, "Third World Vulnerabilities and Global Negotiations," Review of International Studies 9, no. 4 (October 1983), p. 235. 14. Hedley Bull, "The Third World and International Society," The Year Book of World Affairs 1979, Vol. 33 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1979), p. 21. 15. These two approaches are discussed extensively by Charles F. Doran, "The Globalist-Regionalist Debate," in Peter J. Schracdcr (ed.), Intervention in the 1980s: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Third World (Boulder, Colo., and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1989), pp. 46-^7. 16. Agrippah T. M u g o m b a , " S m a l l Developing States and the External Operational Environment," The Year Book of World Affairs 1979 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1979), pp. 214-215. 17. These factors are raised in Report of a Commonwealth Consultative Group, Vulnerability: Small States in the Global Society ( L o n d o n : C o m m o n w e a l t h Secretariat, 1985), pp. 14-27. 18. Jonathan Alford, "Security Dilemmas of Small States," The World Today 40, nos. 8 - 9 (August-September 1984), p. 364. 19. Commonwealth Consultative Group, Vulnerability: Small States in the Global Society, pp. 16-17; and George Quester, "Trouble in the Islands: Defending the Micro-States," International Security 8, no. 2 (Fall 1982), especially pp. 162-163. 20. The critics' arguments are summarized by Roberto Espindola, "Security D i l e m m a s , " in Colin Clarke and Tony Payne (eds.), Politics, Security, and Development in Small States (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987), pp. 66-67. 21. Marie Colvin, "Growing Gulf Fear Is a War of Nerves," Sunday Times (London), 16 August 1987, p. 2; and Adel Darwish, "Kuwait's Doomsday Scenario," The Middle East, no. 160 (February 1988), p. 23. 22. Michael Leifer, " Foreign Relations of the New States," in Gung-wu Wang and J.A.C. Mackie (eds.), Studies in Contemporary Southeast Asia (Sydney:
36
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY C O O P E R A T I O N
Longman, 1973), p. 146. Also see M. Rajendran, ASEAN's Foreign Relations: The Shift to Collective Action (Kuala Lumpur: Arenabuku Sdn, Bhd., 1985), pp. 18-19. 23. Leslie H. Brown, "Regional Collaboration in Resolving Third World Conflicts," p. 218. 24. Michael Antolik, "The Pattern of ASEAN Summitry," Contemporary Southeast Asia 10, no. 4 (March 1989), p. 370. 25. Michael Leifer, ASEAN and the Security of Southeast Asia (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), pp. 17-50, 140-149; Ronald D. Palmer and Thomas J. Reckford, Building ASEAN (New York: Praeger, 1987), pp. 111-116; and Jusuf Wanandi, "Political Development and Regional Order," in Linda G. Martin (ed.), The ASEAN Success Story (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987), p. 154. 26. Leifer, ASEAN and the Security of Southeast Asia, p. 142. 27. Ibid., p. 28. 28. A summary of the specific tasks of the directorates is provided by Erik R. Peterson, The Gulf Cooperation Council: Search for Unity in a Dynamic Region (Boulder, Colo, and London: Westview Press, 1988), pp. 111-112. 29. John Christie, "History And Development of the Gulf Cooperation Council: A Brief Overview," in John A. Sandwick (ed.), The Gulf Cooperation Council (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987), p. 11, and R.K. Ramazani, The Gulf Cooperation Council: Record and Analysis (Charlottesvilie, Va.: University Press of Virginia, 1988), pp. 4-6. 30. Leifer, ASEAN and the Security of Southeast Asia, pp. 26-28, and Peterson, The Gulf Cooperation Council: pp. 107-116, o f f e r u s e f u l summaries of the organizational characteristics for ASEAN and the GCC, respectively. 31. Peterson, The Gulf Cooperation Council, pp. 202-203. 32. See the analysis of Colin Clarke, "Sovereignty, Dependency and Social C h a n g e in the C a r i b b e a n , " in his South America, Central America and the Caribbean 1988 (London: Europa Publishing, 1987), p. 34. The author is also indebted to OECS director general Vaughn Lewis for additional insights on OECS "separateness" from the larger island states of the eastern Caribbean. 33. Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner, The Caribbean in World Affairs (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989), p. 47. 34. Gavin G. Maasdorp, "A Changing Regional Role for SADCC?" Harvard International Review 12, no. 1 (Fall 1989), p. 10. 35. Ibid., p. 13. 36. Herr, "Regionalism, Strategic Denial and South Pacific Security," p. 173. 37. This point is raised by Gregory E. Fry, "Regionalism and International Politics of the South Pacific," Pacific Affairs 54, no. 3 (Fall 1981), p. 467.
SRSOs' Effectiveness: Case Studies The effectiveness of an SRSO can be measured in large part by ascertaining the degree to which two specific criteria have been met. First, have SRSOs' decisionmaking mechanisms facilitated collective self-reliance in security matters? Second have the SRSOs identified and adopted specific policies for conflict avoidance and/or conflict resolution? Collective self-reliance mechanisms may include regular SRSO defense consultations, mutual defense planning and intelligence sharing, collaborative production of weapons systems, and jointly coordinated military exercises. Conflict avoidance and conflict resolution may involve procedures for crisis management and response that unite indigenous crisis resolution with the judicious use of external assistance and resources. "Policy instruments" for these purposes include fact-finding and adjudication procedures, mediation, and/or the use of peacekeeping forces. Such measures are designed to isolate and reduce conflicts within the subregion, as well as to prevent the escalation of local conflicts into wider regional, or even global, security crises. The success of A S E A N , GCC, OECS, S A D C C , and SPF can be measured, in part, by employing the criteria presented above. Despite individual-state shortcomings, these SRSOs have attempted to realize the goals of self-help and self-reliance by seeking to establish more sustainable political, diplomatic, and defense policies, while simultaneously counting on friendly external powers to deter hostile acts against them. They have also attempted to internationalize their security agendas by e n c o u r a g i n g appropriate multilateral bodies such as the UN and the Commonwealth to support their efforts to bring about greater subregional stability.
THE ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS ASEAN was formed in August 1967 with the signing of the Bangkok Declaration by the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Brunei became the sixth ASEAN state in February 1984. ASEAN was conceived as an instrument to build up regional selfc o n f i d e n c e . It was designed to be s e l f - c o n s c i o u s l y i n w a r d - l o o k i n g , 37
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enhancing the social, economic, and political stability and the cohesion of its m e m b e r s h i p , as o p p o s e d to b e i n g directed t o w a r d external c o m m u n i s t threats, as was the case with SEATO. By the mid-1970s, ASEAN was faced with the task of fashioning a more stable local security environment, as the United States modified its traditional anticommunist containment posture in the region. This security issue was further complicated by the Soviet Union's increased capability to project military power into the South China Sea and beyond. China was emerging as a modern economic and military power, while North Vietnam was winning a decisive victory over Western-backed forces in South Vietnam. Such changes in the regional power equation were originally perceived by A S E A N governments as undermining their plans to engage in domestic economic reform unencumbered by outside security threats. T h e y feared initially that if they were forced to become unduly preoccupied with Soviet, Chinese, or Vietnamese military power, the cohesion and energy needed to heal internal social, economic, and political divisions would be lost. Yet ASEAN not only endured but, in many ways, prospered. To understand why, one must evaluate its success in moving toward collective self-reliance and in implementing policies for conflict avoidance and conflict resolution. ASEAN as a Facilitator
of Subregional
Security
In February 1976, the first ASEAN heads of state summit meeting convened in the Indonesian resort of Bali, where the Declaration of ASEAN Concord was drawn up, calling for informal cooperation by member-states in security matters. A S E A N states have taken the view that strengthening their individual n a t i o n a l d e f e n s e c a p a b i l i t i e s is the b e s t m e a n s of a c h i e v i n g subregional security. They agree that local military planning is best left to the individual states, in shaip contrast to the more regionally oriented paths to economic development. Subregional defense: progress and constraints. Since Bali, ASEAN has not evolved into a formal security pact. In fact, the organization has expressed its determination to avoid doing so, most recently during the A S E A N heads of state summit in Manila in December 1987. Instead, A S E A N remains what has been characterized as "a loose f r a m e w o r k which can a c c o m m o d a t e changes" and in which its members perceive any radical change of government within any one of the members as the greatest threat to the survival of all. 1 A S E A N military leaders are generally comfortable with this interpretation. M a l a y s i a ' s chief of defense forces has noted that A S E A N states, united by their a n t i c o m m u n i s m , h a v e as m a n y d i v e r g e n c e s as they do commonalities in their security needs. Better, he concluded, to avoid a military pact based on "rigidity and fiimness," which might deprive memberstates of necessary diplomatic and strategic flexibility. Consultations, rather
CASE STUDIES
39
than military integration, he concluded should be the hallmark of the ASEAN states' defense cooperation. 2 Furthermore, differing threat perceptions among ASEAN members have made formal collective defense policies elusive. Malaysia and Indonesia most fear China's long-term military potential and regional intentions. Thailand has intensified bilateral defense relations with Beijing to deter Vietnamese forces from violating its northeast frontier. Until recently, Singapore was most concerned about Malay irrcdentism, even while it publicly expressed continued concern about the buildup of the Soviet Pacific Fleet. The Philippines represents a special case within the A S E A N subregion, in terms of both threat perception and external power relations, as demonstrated by ongoing tensions over Sabah, by the continued strength of the New People's Army (NPA) communist insurgency movement, and by Manila's strained relationship with the United States over military basing rights. ASEAN members have generally adopted unilateral security measures to fulfill their national defense requirements. Malaysia, for example, developed a policy of defense self-reliance in 1971, in order to wage successful counterinsurgcncy operations against communist guerrilla forces. It expanded its military manpower and weapons procurement efforts under the P e r i s t a Plan, f o l l o w i n g V i e t n a m ' s 1979 invasion of C a m b o d i a (Kampuchea). 3 Thailand identified three internal institutions to be secured unilaterally to safeguard its national integrity: the monarchy, the Buddhist religion, and the concept of Thai nationhood. 4 Brunei's designation of national security priorities is very close to Thailand's. The monarchy reinforced its authority by banning Western-style political opposition, such as the Brunei National Democratic Party (BNDP), in early 1988 and by executing a general crackdown against "political opportunists" and other factions opposing the sultan's rule. Singapore has chosen to sustain an expensive, highly mobile, and technologically sophisticated military force to fulfill its advertised objective of "total defense." Indonesia has structured its armed forces around the Doctrine of N a t i o n a l Resilience (Doctrin Hankamnas), emphasizing the central role of its population-at-large in any conduct of war, the territorial integrity of the Indonesian archipelago, and the "dual function" of the country's armed forces as both a military and a sociopolitical instrument. The Philippines, as a society in transition, remains the one ASEAN state not to have fully defined its national security interests. 5 What security cooperation there is among ASEAN states is achieved largely outside the organization's framework. Thailand conducts bilateral and multilateral military exercises with all the other ASEAN members except the Philippines, although sharing intelligence with Manila. 6 Other significant military interaction on a subregional basis includes collaboration between Malaysia and Singapore within the Five Power Defence Arrangement's (FPDA's) recently expanded Lima Bersatu Maritime Air Defense exercise
40
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY C O O P E R A T I O N
and through the early 1989 agreement to conduct joint infantry exercises (Singapore's infantry will also train with Indonesian troops). There are also occasional Indonesian naval exercises with other ASEAN maritime forces, including very intermittent joint maneuvers with the Philippines navy—the only instance in which Philippine forces conduct formal military exercises with any of their ASEAN counterparts. 7 Joint border defenses are another common means by which ASEAN states have been willing to implement mostly bilateral military cooperation with one another, though not without tensions. Malaysia and Thailand provide a case in point. A 1976 border agreement between them established a "combined task force headquarters" to coordinate joint counterinsurgcncy efforts against pro-Chinese Malayan Communist Party (MCP) insurgents in southern Thailand. The agreement was important to Malaysia because that country suspected the Thais of providing sanctuary for MCP elements in southern Thailand. Thai leaders, in turn, believed the Malays provided tacit support for the Pattani United Liberation Organization (PULO), an Islamicbased insurgency movement fighting for the secession of Thailand's four southern provinces and their incorporation into Malaysia. Despite lingering suspicions of each other's policy motives, effective joint operations have proceeded, culminating in a major offensive against the MCP in May 1987, which destroyed a number of key MCP bases in Thailand's Narathiwat province, near the Malaysian border. Malaysia and Thailand have also established a Joint Development Authority area for maritime surveillance and resource management in the Gulf of Thailand, despite their continuing tensions over fishing rights and jurisdictions. There has been, however, no case of any military exercise where all five ASEAN states were simultaneously involved. No external threat confronting the subregion is viewed as sufficiently intense to justify changing from the relatively low-key, functional style of ASEAN military cooperation to more extensive forms of collective defense. Limited standardization of weapons has been attained, with most air forces deploying F-5E and, increasingly, F-16 jet fighters, and with naval patrol craft equipped with Exocet and Harpoon missiles. The ground forces, however, are more disparate, with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand employing British Scorpion armored fighting vehicles, and Indonesia and Singapore deploying the French AMX-13 light tanks. While Brunei, Malaysia, and Thailand are changing from primarily counterinsurgency forces to units capable of fighting conventional wars, the Philippines has moved in the opposite direction. It has closed down its Air Defense System's ground-based target tracking radar stations, grounded a number of F-8H jet fighters, and reequipped its F-5A and F-5B aircraft with radio c o m m u n i c a t i o n s s y s t e m s designed to increase their ground support capabilities. 8 ASEAN countries have also retained selective bilateral defense relations
CASE STUDIES
41
with the United States and other Western powers as a deterrent against Hanoi's willingness to resort to military solutions in disputes with its neighbors. These defense ties are long-standing. The Philippines and Thailand remain affiliated with the 1954 Manila Treaty, even though SEATO no longer operates as a formal organization. Both countries have separate bilateral defense agreements with Washington—the U.S.-Philippines Mutual S e c u r i t y T r e a t y (1954) and the R u s k - T h a n a t C o m m u n i q u é (1961), respectively. Malaysia, Singapore, and, increasingly, Brunei coordinate the defense of the Malaysian peninsula with Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom through the FPDA, originating in 1971 and replacing the 1957 Anglo-Malayan Defense Agreement (AMDA). Both Brunei and Singapore have taken their residual defense relations with the United Kingdom seriously, but have gravitated nevertheless more toward military selfreliance in the aftermath of the UK's strategic withdrawal from the subregion. While not electing to affiliate itself foimally with any Western power, Indonesia is the beneficiary of substantial military assistance from the United States and Australia, and participates in several weapons production arrangements with West European powers. Economic cooperation. ASEAN leaders remain concerned about foreign economic and cultural incursions which, along with rapid technological change, undermine traditional national value systems. Nevertheless, they regard economic progress as indispensable to their regional development strategy. ASEAN member-states have moved toward regional cooperation in trade liberalization, settling balance of payment issues, developing light industrialization, and other sectors of the economy. This program was guided by a UN report (the "Robinson Report") prepared in 1972, which identified key sectors of potential ASEAN economic cooperation. While ASEAN states are far from agreement on how such cooperation should be implemented precisely, there is now consensus regarding the need to move from importsubstitution to export-oriented economic development strategies. Progress has also been achieved on a general economic strategy toward the outside world. ASEAN states deal collectively with most of the world's industrial powers through informal exchanges and more formal ministerial conferences. They have been increasingly successful in lobbying to reduce international protectionism and tariff barriers. To do so was not easy because of slowdowns in the growth of the industrial economies in the West, decline in demand for oil, and an increase in the external indebtedness of the ASEAN countries. One of most notable achievements of ASEAN in the realm of economic cooperation is its record of consulting on international economic problems prior to entering into negotiations with external parties, thus p r e s e n t i n g a u n i f i e d image in those international negotiations. Therefore, some progress has been made in advancing ASEAN's regional interests with the industrial powers. For example, the ASEAN-U.S. Initiative
42
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY C O O P E R A T I O N
(AUI), formulated during 1984-1985, committed the U.S. trade representative to allow ASEAN greater access to U.S. markets by gradually reducing tariff and nontariff barriers on ASEAN exports to the United States. ASEAN unity also led to the recent resolution in ASEAN's favor of a serious airline route dispute with Australia over Southeast Asia-London routes. 9 However, while there have been advances in intra-ASEAN cooperation, a number of barriers must still be overcome. Most notably, the ASEAN states need to supersede what one regional analyst has termed "the politics of avoidance" often applied to many issues of regional economic integration. 10 ASEAN economic planners have tended to focus on small-scale projects and to avoid hard questions related to costs and financing involved in converting national development programs into regionwide projects. ASEAN leaders' reluctance to push economic integration was understandable, given the differences in member-states' levels of development and their mutually competitive exports and industrial policies. A wide disparity of tariff rates has also persisted throughout the subregion. By 1985, however, all six ASEAN states were experiencing serious declines in export volumes with the drop in world commodity prices and in rising protectionism against lower LDC finished goods in the industrialized world. Over the ensuing two years, measures were identified to strengthen intraregional preferential trading arrangements (PTAs), to move more rapidly toward an ASEAN free trade area, and to strengthen ASEAN industrial joint ventures by encouraging foreign investment in these projects and by applying official subsidization to their products. Without more efficient and competitive industries as measured by world standards, however, the value of expanding intra-ASEAN trade will remain limited. 11 The ASEAN governments have moved in recent years to coordinate their economic policies as a tangible way of achieving a degree of collective self-reliance. They have reduced their borrowing, regulated their economic growth more carefully, and modernized their industrial assets sufficiently to cut their dependence on primary exports. A free trade area along European Community lines is certainly not yet compatible with the interests of every ASEAN member-state. Each ASEAN country does, however, recognize the potential long-term advantages of intraregional trade liberalization: e.g., expanding industrial growth, attracting foreign investment, and opening up new domestic markets. Collective Diplomacy Against External Threats In November 1971, the ASEAN foreign ministers issued the Kuala Lumpur Declaration, institutionalizing the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN). This step marked ASEAN's official approach to insulating Southeast Asia from great-power conflicts and to achieving autonomous collective defense for the subregion. ZOPFAN initially evolved from the
CASE STUDIES
43
search for ways to prevent the Soviet Union, China, or Vietnam from exploiting what ASEAN viewed as a growing subregional power vacuum in the aftermath of SEATO's decline. The A S E A N states hoped that by projecting an image of unity, Moscow, Beijing, or Hanoi would be dissuaded from engaging in "divide and rule" tactics to establish strategic dominance in Southeast Asia. ZOPFAN and other variants of collective political defense remain, but they are somewhat limited in their effectiveness. ASEAN leaders are unwilling or unable to reinforce their collective security vision with adequate levels of military power, while simultaneously developing the economic and institutional means for ameliorating conflict within and among their respective societies. ASEAN, accordingly, has been less than successful in achieving truly viable collective defense arrangements. As a result, the ASEAN states are forced to a grudging acceptance of the reality that U.S. military power in the Asian-Pacific remains their most tangible safeguard for pursuing regional development without diverting excessive amounts of resources to meet internal or external threats. ASEAN has been more effective in confronting external regional challenges through applying collective diplomacy than in resolving intraorganizational differences over the best means for implementing collective defense. For example, it has opted to neutralize the Vietnamese threat through the application of three interlocking and, by consensus, distinctly nonmilitary components: • Isolating Vietnam by fashioning anti-Vietnamese coalitions within the UN and throughout the international arena; • Pursuing an indirect deterrence strategy by backing Cambodian insurgents and pressuring Hanoi into an acceptable political settlement of the Cambodian question; and • S i m u l t a n e o u s l y e n c o u r a g i n g the V i e t n a m e s e to enter into an agreement on Cambodia's status that would establish a neutral and independent regime in Phnom Penh capable of acting as a buffer between the ASEAN states and Vietnam. 12 However, there have been occasional cracks in ASEAN's unified stand regarding Cambodia. In March 1980, Indonesia and Malaysia released the divisive Kuantan Declaration, calling for Vietnam's security interests to be taken into account, a line that was quickly moderated in deference to Thai and Singaporean opposition. More recently (July 1988), Indonesian diplomats hosted a "cocktail party"—later known as the Jakarta Informal Meeting —for Vietnamese and Cambodian diplomats, to initiate a regionwide dialogue on conflict resolution in Cambodia. In this case, representatives from other ASEAN states supported Jakarta and attended the session. Tensions still surfaced, however, over Thailand's willingness to extend tacit political
44
SUBREGIONAI. SECURITY COOPERATION
support toward, and provide land for, refugee camps to the resurgent Khmer Rouge, the most powerful of the three anti-Vietnamese resistance factions in Cambodia. The Thais considered this o f f e r to be a bargaining chip for pressuring Hanoi into withdrawing its troops. The other ASEAN members regarded Thailand's position as too deferential toward Chinese support of the K h m e r R o u g e and d e t r i m e n t a l to f i n d i n g a p o l i t i c a l c o m p r o m i s e in Cambodia that the Vietnamese could accept. Yet ASEAN's efforts to adopt and adhere to a more unified agenda on broader regional security issues such as Cambodia have gradually produced tangible benefits. Frequent consultations between key ASEAN officials and through intermittent diplomatic initiatives presented to the international c o m m u n i t y - a t - l a r g e , c o m m e n c i n g w i t h the July 1981 I n t e r n a t i o n a l Conference on Kampuchea, have facilitated a broad international consensus regarding how to deal diplomatically and militarily with Vietnam's armed o c c u p a t i o n of C a m b o d i a , the event that most immediately threatened ASEAN regional security. By isolating the Vietnamese from the mainstream of world politics and from access to critical Western economic assistance and investments, ASEAN certainly influenced Hanoi's subsequent decision to announce the withdrawal of its forces from Cambodia by late 1989. This development must be considered a major achievement for ASEAN within the realm of international security politics. Regardless of how the Cambodian situation is ultimately resolved, A S E A N ' s collective political strategy applied toward this crisis must be viewed as a positive step in it* -im-st to engage in constructive international diplomacy.
Security Prospects and Challenges T h e v e r y c o m p o s i t i o n of A S E A N r e n d e r s r e m o t e the risk of f u t u r e intraregional conflict along the lines of that which occurred between the newly decolonized Malaysia and Sukarno's Indonesia during the early 1960s. Domestic conflicts between government and opposition insurgency forces, however, will probably continue until such time as strong middle classes, with a critical stake in the survival of existing political institutions, emerge. This is particularly true in the Philippines, and to a lesser extent in both Malaysia and Indonesia. A key question about ASEAN's future relevance as a security actor relates less to the extent to which formal military ties develop between its members and more to how other members respond should a radical group achieve power (e.g., a communist regime in the Philippines, a radical Islamic Malaysian state, or a resurgent nationalist movement in Indonesia). If one member-state experiences political upheaval, ASEAN would be tested to its limits and perhaps found wanting. The most fundamental challenge confronting ASEAN is how to define an acceptable balance b e t w e e n its m e m b e r s ' national and subregional
CASE STUDIES
45
security priorities. To date, ASEAN has remained devoted to the ideals initially set down in the Bangkok Declaration, emphasizing that individual freedom and national sovereignty are paramount. At the international level, however, ASEAN as a group is undoubtedly more influential than any one of its members. How successful the ASEAN states will be in reconciling their varying visions of national development and their collective approach to regional crisis management will largely determine how successful they will be in creating a more stable and peaceful future.
THE GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL The GCC is among the most homogeneous of the SRSOs, and yet, because of the type of security threats it faces, it is arguably the most vulnerable. Most GCC governments remain, at best, fragile, even as outside threats to their existence have intensified. In these circumstances, it is easy to understand why this subregional group has made the most progress among the SRSOs assessed in this book in identifying and developing collective defense mechanisms to deal with both internal challenges and external threats. The GCC was the product of apprehensions originally shared by small states finding themselves caught within a growing and dangerous power vacuum that had developed in the Persian Gulf after British forces withdrew from "East of Suez." A series of events during 1979, including the Iranian revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and, perhaps most importantly, the occupation of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by radical Sunni dissidents, enemies of the Saudi government, provided additional catalysts for Saudi Arabia and its smaller neighbors to band together in ways not previously thought possible. The conservative Arab monarchies realized they were not immune to revolutions of the type that had destroyed the shah of Iran, the most powerful monarch in the Gulf. This perception made Saudi Arabia's goal of extending its power throughout the subregion seem a prudent reaction, rather than a hegemonic aspiration. It served also to modify traditional resistance of its neighbors to such a prospect. The presence of some 100,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan further intensified the general apprehension of those conservative Arab regimes. Saudi Arabia and its neighbors were also concerned that the Carter Doctrine, a major factor in U.S. foreign policy throughout 1979-1980, represented a misguided U.S. reaction to events in the Gulf that could directly involve them in future superpower confrontations. Foreign military intervention designed to protect external access to oil supplies was not regarded as the best prescription for the maintenance of regional security. Regime survival and the containment of radical Islamic forces, combined with a determination to manage both external and internal
46
S U B R E G I O N A L SECURITY C O O P E R A T I O N
threats, brought the six ruling families of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) together in May 1981 to establish the GCC. 1 3 Internal Threats and the GCC's Security
Posture
T h e m e m b e r s of the G C C , to cite M a h n a z Zehra Ispahani, are " f e u d a l aristocracies ruled by single families . . . sharing a single state religion, Sunni Islam, and d e p e n d i n g ] upon a single resource, oil." 1 4 To preserve their power, however, GCC elites must increasingly reconcile the secular nationalism often espoused by social activists with their determination to preserve the sociopolitical status quo. Because these regimes are still patriarchial in nature, it would be unreasonable to expect them to endorse a transition to more democratic institutions and values. They are reluctant to s h a r e d e c i s i o n m a k i n g p o w e r and b r e a k w e l l - e s t a b l i s h e d t r a d i t i o n s of governance. They are not immune, however, to the problems of development and socioeconomic change, which have led to violence and upheaval in many Third World states, and which can lead, in turn, to external intervention or exploitation. Except possibly in Kuwait, which has had an active national assembly throughout much of its history, the modernizing G C C p o p u l a t i o n s h a v e little affinity f o r d e m o c r a t i c institutions. T h e ruling f a m i l i e s still cling to a u t h o r i t y by v i r t u e of historical right and selfp r o c l a i m e d l e g i t i m a c y . H o w e v e r , a w e l l - e d u c a t e d and i n c r e a s i n g l y heterogeneous middle class is becoming alienated from established political systems that deprive them of access to power. This problem could worsen if f u t u r e s u s t a i n e d r e d u c t i o n s in oil r e v e n u e s f u r t h e r i m p e d e e c o n o m i c development and prevent G C C governments from funding extensive social services and taking credit for improved living standards. The dilemma facing these elites is how to prevent increased alienation while they insulate their countries from revolutionary turmoil generated by Shi'ite unrest and the consequences of economic austerity. The ruling elites have been partially successful in deflecting internal political resistance by adopting a multifaceted strategy. This strategy consists of financing Islamic projects and upgrading the living conditions of their Shi'ite populations (prior to the recent oil glut); instituting fundamentalist Islamic laws of their own and enforcing them rigidly; and refraining from a d o p t i n g the excesses of total social control and s u m m a r y p u n i s h m e n t embraced by Iran's mullahs. This has so far contained, if not completely neutralized, prospects for what some analysts have termed "manipulative m o b i l i z a t i o n " — t h e ability of hostile external forces to c o m p r o m i s e the security of a G C C regime through the imposition of opposing symbols or values. 1 5 Diverse institutions, bureaucracies, and procedures, however, have begun to supplant the custom of "direct access" to the ruler by his subjects. The lack of codified procedures in the leadership succession process could
CASE STUDIES
47
cause problems as key governmental and technical positions are occupied by those who are not directly related to the ruling families. The GCC states also contain large numbers of expatriate workers (more than half of the population of Kuwait and two-thirds of that of the UAE and Qatar), most of whom have a standard of living well below that enjoyed by the indigenous population. Shortages of labor have led to the importation of foreign workers in substantial numbers, to the extent that domestic economies are dependent on external labor supplies. In 1982, foreign workers constituted about 35 percent of Oman's labor force. The figure for Bahrain was 59 percent, for Saudi Arabia 60-70 percent, for Kuwait 75 percent, and for both Qatar and the UAE, 90 percent. By the end of 1985, slight net outflows of foreign labor had occurred. The UAE's foreign worker force, for example, declined a bit, to around 75 percent, and Bahrain's hovered at 58 percent. Economists projected, however, that economic development plans would call for more foreign skilled workers, to maintain new capital infrastructure and service economies. 16 To make matters worse, most immigrant workers either come from countries at odds with the GCC (such as Iran), or arc members of displaced ethnic groups. One-fourth of the Palestinians, for example, live in GCC member-states. The Shi'ite population ranges from 70 percent in Bahrain to 8 percent in Saudi Arabia, 4 percent in Oman, and about 12 percent overall. 17 These expatriates are feared by GCC rulers as potential agents for fundamentalist religious (Shi'ite) or radical political (pro-Palestinian) resistance movements challenging the legitimacy of their own authority. They therefore constitute a major potential security problem. The prospect of a growing influx of foreign labor presents an inherent challenge to the policies of the conservative Sunni Moslem governments. The latter are concerned with protecting traditional social and political institutions and behavior, either from "corrupting" Western influences or from indigenous radical forces. Internal security has become a virtual obsession. Large segments of populations could be prone to manipulative mobilization tactics. However, one could also attribute the prospects of revolution and violent political change in GCC societies to the absence of legitimate political opposition and to the lack of m e c h a n i s m s to a c c o m m o d a t e legitimate political change. Until recently, expatriate workers from neighboring Arab countries provided the most likely target for manipulative mobilization. GCC elites remember well, for example, Egyptian leader Abdul Gamel Nasser's efforts to foster pan-Arabism in the late 1950s and early 1960s through his sponsorship of the Saudi Liberation Front and through his use of inflammatory oratory to provoke demonstrations in both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. They are only too aware of guest workers' potential for disruption and resistance. But the changing national composition of the foreign labor force (Pakistani S h i ' i t e s — a minority in their own country, which is p r e d o m i n a n t l y
48
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY COOPERATION
Sunni—are now being squeezed out of the professional sectors by Bangladeshis, Indians, Sri Lankans, and Filipinos, all of whom accept lower wages) and its growing importance have inhibited the implementation of proposed joint measures to deal with them. 18 Kuwait's sensitivity to the potential alienation of its foreign residents underscores the problem. This country has about 300,000 Palestinians living within its borders, as well as large numbers of Iranians, and both groups have the potential to generate tensions. Kuwait resisted a joint internal security agreement when it was first proposed in early 1982 by most other G C C m e m b e r - s t a t e s , f o l l o w i n g an Iranian-backed attempted c o u p d ' é t a t in Bahrain. It also declined to sign an Internal Security Agreement (ISA) at the December 1987 GCC summit meeting. The ISA was designed to provide for coordination of immigration, extradition, and antiterrorist and antismuggling policies. It would have provided for the creation of a security information center in Riyadh, building upon Saudi Arabia's existing extensive security network with every other GCC state except Kuwait. Kuwait resisted greater security integration despite an increasing number of sabotage incidents during the Iran-Iraq war and an attempt on the emir's life in May 1985. Instead, the Kuwaitis argued that the GCC should be more concerned with collective economic development than with internal security problems. The Kuwaiti National Assembly was particularly opposed to the ISA. It objected, in principle, to granting extraterritorial rights to Saudi Arabia or other GCC members in cases involving the arrest and trial of Gulf terrorists in Kuwait. In J u l y 1986, h o w e v e r , t h e A s s e m b l y w a s d i s s o l v e d f o l l o w i n g the i n t e n s i f i c a t i o n of d i s p u t e s inside the cabinet. N e v e r t h e l e s s , K u w a i t i representatives at the December 1986 GCC summit meeting continued to reject the ISA draft agreement. They expressed continued reservations about Article 12, which would allow the entry of security forces from other GCC states into Kuwaiti territory in hot pursuit of suspected criminals. 19 The problems of manipulative mobilization and expatriate assimilation will have to be resolved if GCC member-states are to remain stable. They must also cope with the challenges of political development, not be stifled by unenlightened autocratic rule, and avoid internal dissension. If these issues are not resolved, the subregion will become more vulnerable to external penetration. It is possible, however, that legitimate collective security efforts could be paralyzed by a preoccupation with economic and strategic disagreements. This would prompt governing elites to further alienate expatriate groups. If that occurred, the GCC would become irrelevant to the needs and aspirations of the inhabitants of its member-states.
Economic
Vulnerabilities
By 1989, GCC countries showed a collective account deficit of well over $U.S. 4 billion, in contrast to an account surplus of $21.7 billion in 1982.2°
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Overdependence on oil exports has long been characteristic of the subregion, as has the lack of both diversification and privatization beyond the hydrocarbon-related industries in the m e m b e r - s t a t e s ' respective economies. Further, prospects for closer economic integration, as stipulated in the November 1981 Unified Economic Agreement (EA) are not in sight over the near term. 21 Kuwait and the UAE continue to pump more oil than they are a l l o w e d u n d e r their O P E C q u o t a s , f o r e x a m p l e , w h i l e Saudi A r a b i a continues to build up its own petroleum inventories independent of any regional or oil cartel guidelines. Declining oil revenues have also eroded the depth of business and investor confidence in the Gulf's rudimentary industrial infrastructure, in the nonpetroleum sector, and in what frankly are mismanaged agricultural programs. 22 Efforts to merge the GCC's activities as an Arab trade bloc with more recently established organizations in the Middle East, such as the Arab Cooperation Council (also known as the ACC or "the Mashreq Group" and composed of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and North Yemen) and the Arab Maghreb Union (or the AMU, which includes Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, and Mauritania), are rationalized on two grounds: (1) that the Arab world is just now catching up with the rest of the international community in organizing itself into larger, regionally based economic units; and (2) that the GCC's ultimate survival depends on its gradual access to untapped natural resource reserves found in the AMU area and to the potential market base represented by the E g y p t i a n and Iraqi populations. 2 3 In reality, Saudi Arabia may perceive the ACC as an essential "buffer" between itself and a regionally ambitious Iraq, which—notwithstanding its fragile economic infrastructure and large foreign debt—unsuccessfully petitioned for G C C membership throughout much of the 1980s. Until Riyadh's own economic relations with its GCC neighbors are manifested with more precision than is now the case, it appears unlikely that a GCC-wide initiative for even a greater Arab free trade area (much less a more elusive customs union or common market) will emerge soon.
Territorial Disputes and Conflict
Resolution
The GCC needs to establish more efficient conflict avoidance and resolution mechanisms for negotiating territorial disputes among its members. It did, however initiate substantial diplomatic efforts to end the Iran-Iraq war, the Arab-Israeli conflict (the Fahd Plan, proposed in 1982), and other regional conflicts. It has also established the Commission for the Settlement of Disputes to mediate territorial and other disputes among GCC member-states and has worked to overcome the views held by some in the Arab world that the G C C ' s essentially conservative diplomacy detracts from the realization of pan-Arabism. The interrelationship between territorial issues and G C C security has
50
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY C O O P E R A T I O N
become increasingly obvious in recent years. If the GCC can resolve boundary disputes, the probability that military skirmishes in border regions or along contested sea lanes will widen into major regional conflicts will be reduced. The GCC has attempted, therefore, to mediate border disputes, in part to deprive "ambitious elements in the world of opportunity to infiltrate the region." 24 In late 1982, for example, Kuwait and the UAE managed to mediate border tensions between Oman and South Yemen over the demarcation of contested waters. More recently, in late 1987, the Saudis were successful in convincing Qatar and Bahrain to refer their boundary dispute over Harwar Island to the International Court of Justice. Other territorial differences remain unresolved, however, many of which concern Saudi political or administrative control over land claimed by its neighbors. This situation reflects fears of a Saudi hegemony and impedes progress on the adjudication of territorial disputes. Indeed, approximately two-thirds of the boundaries in the Persian Gulf still need to be finally demarcated. The GCC's efforts to arbitrate disputes elsewhere in the Arab world have demonstrated fairly high levels of diplomatic resolve but little in the way of actual influence. In late 1983, the GCC tried and failed to play a decisive role in mediating a cease-fire between rival factions of Lhe PLO in Tripoli. It was also unsuccessful in steering Syria away from supporting the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war. But the effectiveness of future GCC arbitration initiatives, and the overall standing of the organization itself, could well hinge upon the extent to which it can convince the Arab world and Islam that it is dedicated to the pursuit of the liberation of Palestine, to Arab control over the Holy Places of Jerusalem, and to independence from the superpowers and their allies. Balancing
Self-Reliance
with Outside
Help
Gulf leaders remain sensitive to the ways in which highly visible security ties with the United States or other Western powers affect their political image with both Islamic fundamentalists and Arab nationalists. Despite their obvious inability to protect their own merchant shipping, for example, they were concerned that a reflagging operation, such as that undertaken by the Kuwaitis, would signal a permanent and enlarged external presence in their subregion. Gulf leaders were also apprehensive lest such an operation pull them into the Iran-Iraq war. In addition, were Kuwaiti shipping to become too well protected, that of other GCC members would face the prospect of Iranian attacks. 25 The Kuwaiti tanker reflagging episode clearly demonstrated, however, that if decisive external military assistance is critically needed, and can be offered and implemented in a timely fashion, the GCC states will most probably accept it. When Iranian attacks on Kuwaiti shipping increased
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51
during late 1986, in retaliation against Kuwait's financial and other aid to Iraq, Kuwait informed the other G C C states that it would have to seek international protection for its shipping. All the permanent members of the UN Security Council were approached, and the United States agreed in March 1987 to reflag eleven oil tankers—half of Kuwait's entire fleet. The Soviet Union and the UK each chartered three of their own tankers for transporting Kuwaiti oil. 26 Other cases suggest that G C C member-states feel they can accept outside assistance without damaging their image of national and regional self-reliance. Two forms of external involvement seem especially appropriate: interaction with Western rapid deployment forces and purchasing state-of-the-art weapons systems from external suppliers. For example, Omani personnel participated in exercise Swift Sword with British military units during November 1986. They have also been involved in the Bright Star field training e x e r c i s e s c o n d u c t e d by the United States C e n t r a l Command (CENTCOM). 2 7 Traditionally, the United States has been the Gulf States' major supplier of advanced conventional weapons systems. Recently, however, the U.S. Congress, mindful of Israeli opposition to such sales and sensitive because of the Iran-Contra arms scandal, has been increasingly reluctant to approve military sales to prospective GCC customers. The Reagan administration's plan to sell AWAC surveillance aircraft to Saudi Arabia in 1981 was almost d e f e a t e d ; in early 1985, the C o n g r e s s blocked planned military sales packages to Saudi Arabia and Jordan that included the transfer of F-16 fighters. Late in 1987, Congress also disapproved Stinger antiaircraft missile sales to every GCC country except Bahrain, and Bahrain would be permitted to deploy them only under tight U.S. supervision. Kuwait was also forced to agree to modified terms for the delivery of forty U.S. F-18 warplanes in August 1987, accepting less advanced Maverick missiles for deployment on these aircraft after Congress threatened to block the entire transaction the f o l l o w i n g year (see C h a p t e r 3). 2 8 In O c t o b e r 1986, the G C C d e f e n s e ministers created a joint G C C P-3C maritime patrol force. Once again, however, Congress opposed any such transaction, and GCC military planners subsequently considered purchasing the French Atlantique or the Netherland's Fokker FG-27.29 Indeed, the West Europeans have been quick to replace U.S. arms suppliers. In July 1988, Britain reached agreement with Saudi Arabia to build air bases and to supply advanced Tornado jet fighters, as well as a number of trainer aircraft and battlefield helicopters, in a deal worth up to £10 billion. This contract followed another major agreement announced in September 1985 also involving the sale of Tornados and other aircraft for a total of £5 billion. France also provides significant military assistance to Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar, and deploys around a thousand military
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personnel in Saudi Arabia, inter alia, to run an armor training school at Tabuk. The Saudi navy also relies largely on French equipment, as do the country's air defense units. 30 The degree to which the GCC states can reduce their current de facto strategic dependence on the West may ultimately determine how credible the GCC's effort will be to become a more self-reliant regional security actor. Intense disagreement still exists among the G C C states over how much defense coordination and weapons production should actually be provided jointly by themselves, as opposed to continuing reliance on outside sources. Joint G C C weapons standardization and purchasing programs have been discussed, but actual implementation is a distant prospect. In addition to c o n c e r n s a b o u t e x c e s s i v e d e p e n d e n c e on o u t s i d e f o r c e s , c o n t i n u i n g resistance in some GCC quarters to foreign arms suppliers is due in part to the fear that armaments will fall into the hands of dissident groups. Kuwait, feeling vulnerable on both counts, continues to insist that all foreign bases and nuclear weapons should be kept out of the area and purchases weapons systems from both East and West to underscore its nonaligned status. Oman, by contrast, having effectively quelled the Dhofar rebellion with large amounts of outside assistance, grants U.S. and British forces access to its military bases on a case-by-case basis and purchases U.S. and British arms regularly. Bahrain still provides berthing facilities for ships of the small U.S. naval contingent permanently stationed there (the Middle East Force or MIDEASTFOR), but is becoming more reluctant to do so. 31 Until resolution of debates over how weapons procurement should be met and over how basing access should be managed, GCC member-states will continue seeking an acceptable balance between strengthening their own internal security mechanisms and pursuing limited security ties with outside parties.
Collective Self-Reliance vs. Collective
Defense
Even with a cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war, most G C C member-states recognize Iran as their most serious external threat. Iran is viewed as an aspiring regional hegemon, threatening Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf nations and pressing long-standing territorial claims against Bahrain, the UAE, and Kuwait, as well as against Iraq. Iraq also represents a latent threat to the Gulf states. Recently, Iraq's relationship with GCC members has been subordinate to the ongoing war against Iran. However, it still has differences with a number of the Gulf states, especially territorial disputes with Kuwait. Saudi Arabia and its allies must now be wary, lest Iraq regard what was really a military stalemate in its war with Iran as an outright victory and seek to intimidate the GCC into accepting Iraqi regional dominance. The GCC members have responded to this new set of conditions with the dual strategy of strengthening their own collective military planning and warfighting capacities, while still seeking external great-power backing to
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deter Iran and Iraq. Third World rhetoric about nonalignment and neutrality is employed as leverage with G C C benefactors, in order to get the best possible terms of assistance without appearing to b e c o m e strategically dependent in the process. Not unlike Thailand, which adheres to ZOPFAN while still maintaining its military ties with the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC), Saudi Arabia has moved to create a subregional military infrastructure that basically supports U.S. military strategy in the Gulf, notwithstanding recent and highly publicized deployment of DF-3 (Western nomenclature, CSS-2) ballistic missiles purchased from China. The Saudi initiative, however, is by no means the first indigenous effort among the Gulf states to define and implement regional collective defense. Following the settlement of their Shatt al-Arab River boundary dispute, removing the immediate threat of war in 1975, Iran and Iraq proposed various alternatives for subregional collective security to the other Gulf states. Each submitted a proposal to the November 1976 meeting of Gulf f o r e i g n ministers in M u s c a t , Oman. Iran advocated a Gulf Collective Security Pact, while Iraq supported an Arab Gulf Security Force. The Iranian plan suggested a comprehensive mutual defense alliance, which the shah had already described as "some kind of mutual assistance pact like NATO," including the Gulf littoral states and supported by major outside powers. The Iraqis countered with a less ambitious p r o p o s a l designed to preserve "Arabism throughout the Gulf." Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi military leaders were particularly suspicious of Iran's development of close defense ties with O m a n . Their o w n credibility, h o w e v e r , was u n d e r c u t by the continuing border disputes with Kuwait and by the lack of specificity in their proposal regarding how the freedom of international maritime passage could be guaranteed throughout the Gulf without the participation of foreign navies. The Iranian and Iraqi proposals were subsequently collapsed into an Omani working paper, which provided one of the models examined in the formation oftheGCC.32 More recently, in January 1988, Egyptian President Husni Mubarak resurrected the Iraqi formula in discussions with the Saudis. Egypt was interested in obtaining possible GCC funding for reviving the Arab Military Industries Organization and using collective defense as a means to legitimize its plans to revitalize Egyptian influence in the Arab world. Egypt's hostility toward Iran was viewed by the G C C as a natural counterweight to use a g a i n s t the I r a n i a n s . M u b a r a k , h o w e v e r , r e f u s e d to l i n k E g y p t i a n p a r t i c i p a t i o n in G C C d e f e n s e s w i t h a m e l i o r a t i o n of E g y p t ' s t r e a t y commitments to Israel. 33 T h e f o r m u l a t i o n of a r u d i m e n t a r y G C C m i l i t a r y " d o c t r i n e " was completed during the May 1981 organizational conference at Abu Dhabi. It was based on the principle of collective self-reliance and implemented through pursuing nonalignment politics and low-key military cooperation.
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Between 1981 and 1986, this doctrine was expanded to incorporate a collective defense commitment, based on the formula that an "attack on one is an attack on all," and to adopt a comprehensive GCC defense responsibility for territorial waters and airspace. 34 In reality, the GCC was careful not to strain what it knew to be the very limited set of military capabilities at its disposal. Instead, it intimated, through press statements offered by Gulf military officials and through its official communiqués during October and November 1986, that while the GCC had "interests" in international waters within which large sectors of the Persian Gulf's oil lifelines were located, it could not take "exclusive responsibility" for the defense of those arteries. 35 The GCC thus sidestepped the most dangerous commitments involved in regional defense, passing such responsibilities to interested external powers. A Military Committee was established within the GCC secretariat in May 1981. It met frequently during the first two years of the organization's existence. From those discussions, the Peninsula Shield joint strike force was conceived and organized, culminating in military exercises in Abu Dhabi during October 1983, and in northeastern Saudi Arabia late in 1984. In 1985, a standing 2,500-strong joint land force for rapid deployment was created under the GCC secretary general and a GCC chicf of staff, based at Hafr alBatin near King Khalid Military City, in Saudi Arabia. As various Western analysts have noted, however, the command's core force of two brigades is primarily symbolic of the GCC's determination to maintain a subregional deterrence "tripwire," rather than evidence of its ability or willingness to provide collective defense along NATO lines. The sheer heterogeneity of the force's composition underscores its problems of command and control. Out of a total force of about 200,000, 30,000 were Pakistanis. The bulk of these —an estimated 10,000-20,000—were stationed in Saudi Arabia but were withdrawn in 1987-1988, when Pakistan reportedly refused a Saudi request not to post Shi'ite personnel in Saudi Arabia and Islamabad tilted toward Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. 36 A potpourri of Egyptians, Iranians, other expatriates, and bedouin tribesmen with no real sense of national loyalty or service, make up a large percentage of the rest. Only marginal increases in participation by member-states in the rapid deployment force, other than Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, have occurred. A more positive development was the United Arab Emirates' assignment of its Third Battalion to the force. A common GCC air defense network is also being developed to supplement the Saudi-designated "Fahad line," which Saudi aircraft based at Riyadh defend in response to violations of GCC airspace. This effort was prompted by the landing of an Iranian pilot in an undetected Phantom F-4 at the Dhahran airport in 1982. It was further vindicated when Saudi F-15 fighters shot down two Iranian F-4s that intruded into Saudi airspace on June 5, 1984. 37 Other than ultimately relying upon Western intervention, the GCC, as its strategy implicitly recognizes, has few real military assets to employ against a well-equipped and determined aggressor bent on waging a full-scale
CASE STUDIES
55
invasion against one or more member-states. Thomas L. M c N a u g h e r characterizes its military planning as little more than a "deterrent shell." As McNaugher notes, two basic problems undercut the GCC's progress in collective defense planning: (1) there is little precedent for modern force planning or force buildups in the member-states, and (2) GCC force modernization may compromise governmental efforts to control domestic military forces that threaten their survival. 38 This latter consideration is reflected in the Saudi fear that advanced weapons systems of U.S. origin could fall into the hands of dissident younger officers in the air force. In addition to the problems of ethnicity and of controlling domestic military establishments, the development of a more extensive joint GCC command arrangement has eluded defense planners. Kuwait and the UAE are concerned that the defense establishments of Oman and Bahrain remain too closely tied to those of London and Washington. Other GCC memberstates fear that the Saudis would dominate any such command. Such concerns arc fueled, in part, by the fact that most of the GCC military intelligence data related to enforcing the ISA is managed from Riyadh. Although a true collective defense alliance in a Western sense is probably beyond the reach of independent subregional groupings, the development of GCC collective self-reliance in the defense sector has been significant, given the short life span of the organization. It seems clear, nevertheless, that both Iran and Iraq will, for the foreseeable future, retain military superiority over the GCC in the absence of direct outside military assistance. At a press conference conducted during the GCC's seventh summit, held in Abu Dhabi in November 1986, Rashid Abdullah, UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, noted that there was nothing on the agenda that could be seen as leading to a more formal and comprehensive military alliance beyond the present rapid deployment force arrangement. On the other hand, there was a GCC consensus to remain steadfast in warding off major security threats to member-states and to the Persian Gulf region in general. It was acknowledged that "there are objectives, principles, and ideas for a [common] security strategy, which, it is hoped, will be achieved soon." 3 ' Internationally, the GCC has sought Western support to address its most obvious vulnerability—threats in the form of air or missile attacks against GCC shipping facilities that are the key to the subregion's oil exports and overall economic well-being. Without the revenues from oil exports, disruptions would result within the GCC countries and set back whatever sense of subregional cohesion that has so far developed. In specific terms, most GCC members have acquiesced to the basing arrangements made by Bahrain and Oman with the West and have accelerated their own arms purchases from Western sources. However, until an interrelationship between Western and GCC strategic interests that is more comprehensive than the oil supplies issue is identified, the United States and its Western allies will be
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viewed with some distrust by most Gulf countries. The United States Central Command, with its substantial rapid deployment capabilities, will continue to be regarded with caution. The Saudis, in particular, remain sensitive to any prospect that U.S. forces might be used to safeguard their territory during a future Gulf crisis. U.S. military power is also suspect because it has been applied as a deterrent on Israel's behalf in that nation's disputes with Arab nations and their allies. This remains true, despite the U.S. warning to Israel not to attack C h i n e s e - m a n u f a c t u r e d intermediate-range missiles acquired by the Saudis in early 1988. While conservative Gulf regimes entertain suspicions of South Yemen, which maintained strong ties with the USSR and o t h e r Marxist states and groups throughout most of the 1980s, the May 1990 unification of North and South Yemen should modify such concerns. Perhaps the most difficult question for GCC leaders is how to utilize the United States and other NATO powers in facilitating their own domestic stability against the threats of disruptive forces at home and external attack by radical Moslem opponents. Keeping at a distance the U.S. superpower, with its track record of ambiguous strategic behavior in the Arab world, is still regarded by the GCC as the wisest overall policy course to follow. Unless there are radical changes in the subregional power balance, this view will continue to prevail. This remains true notwithstanding tacit G C C support for U.S. naval efforts to protect oil shipping in the Gulf. Throughout 1987, U.S. and British defense officials reportedly were irritated by the public ambivalence of the Gulf sheiks toward Western efforts to preserve their oil lifelines, as well as by their continued refusal to give Western forces access to G C C bases. The G C C diplomatic corps were somewhat more candid than their rulers. While noting their concern about the Western naval buildup in the Gulf, they nevertheless admitted to foreign journalists and diplomats that the presence of Western fleets had stabilized the situation. 40 GCC states would prefer to rely on a continued U.S. and allied over-thehorizon great-power presence to counter Iraqi and Iranian power in the Gulf over the short term, while ultimately pressuring Iran and Iraq to negotiate a final peace agreement through the UN, the Islamic Conference, and other international instruments of conflict resolution. Their view of an optimum settlement, however, would allow the GCC as much political and strategic independence from outside powers as possible. Recent G C C diplomatic initiatives have been made toward the West for maintaining Gulf lines of communication. At the same time, the Gulf states have kept their options open by responding to certain Soviet political overtures. During 1986, for example, O m a n and the U A E established formal diplomatic relations with Moscow, joining Kuwait, which previously had been the only G C C member to extend such recognition to the Soviet Union. Saudi Arabia initially indicated that it too would normalize relations with the USSR, not long after the completion of a Soviet military pullout from Afghanistan, but has not yet done so.
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THE O R G A N I Z A T I O N OF EAST CARIBBEAN STATES The founders of the OECS in 1981 wanted it to be an instrument of consensus building that would strengthen their individual fragile economic and political institutions. Political turmoil and economic disruption had been experienced by a number of the member-states, from the oil shocks in 1973-1974 through the People's Revolutionary Government's ( P R C s ) rise to power in Grenada in March 1979. Such domestic instability underscored the need for the OECS to develop and implement measures for strengthening its capability to aid its member-states, preserve their domestic tranquility, and to neutralize such varying threats as drug trafficking, other types of organized crime, illegal immigration, and natural disasters. Earlier proposals for centralizing subregional security planning such as the Eastern Caribbean Defense Community, advanced by the Carter administration in 1979, were justifiably suspect because of their external origins. They were criticized as a potential means for the United States to support entrenched subregional autocrats at the expense of democratic growth. 41 Since the founding of OECS, the English-speaking states of the eastern Caribbean have come to recognize their increasing dependence on each other for the development of effective policies for development and security. A n u m b e r of f a c t o r s u n d e r s c o r e this m u t u a l d e p e n d e n c e . All the states concerned share common experiences of British colonial rule and enjoy a continued affiliation with the British Commonwealth of Nations. Throughout most of the postwar era, British military power guaranteed a relatively peaceful political transition from colony to independent state, initially as part of the Federation of West Indies (formed in 1958) and, later, after the withdrawal of Jamaica and Trinidad-Tobago (in 1962), within the "Little Eight" federation arrangement. The Commonwealth Consultative Group, appointed by the latter organization's Heads of Government in 1983 to study small-state security, has observed that other critical factors have given the OECS microstates what it termed "a distinctive Commonwealth Caribbean identity." These include a common language, geographic continuity, and a parliamentary heritage. This identity has facilitated their adoption of a pragmatic diplomatic stance of nonalignment. 4 2 The OECS member-states have managed to come to terms with the Cuban revolution and the intermittent left-leaning regimes in Jamaica and Guyana. They nevertheless have simultaneously cultivated firm defense relations with the United States and, to a lesser extent, the UK, in order that future crises, such as that which exploded in Grenada during October 1983, do not threaten the security and order of the entire subregion. Subregional Security Threats and
Responses
Like the GCC, the OECS was preoccupied with security problems from its inception. At its initial organizational conference, it formed the Defense and
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Security Committee for mutual consultation in the event one of them is faced with an i m p e n d i n g threat. A separate M e m o r a n d u m of U n d e r s t a n d i n g (MOU), establishing a Caribbean Regional Security System (RSS) outside the OECS but involving all the member-states except Grenada, was negotiated with Barbados the following year (November 1982). While the M O U was meant to authorize a joint OECS/Barbados response to common external threats, it has led merely to the strengthening of domestic police forces within each member-state. As noted in Chapter 1, the Defense and Security Committee was dormant and had not convened since the Grenada crisis was resolved. 43 Even so, the OECS states remain highly susceptible to internal disruptions. They are very small states with underdeveloped economies and fledgling governmental institutions. The Caribbean people share a traditional fear of Marxism, regarding it as a poor model for development strategy and political progress. While tolerance within the OECS for ideological pluralism certainly exceeds that found in either A S E A N or the GCC, all the eastern Caribbean states arc apprehensive about Cuba's connections with fledgling opposition parties. In addition to the events in Grenada, for example, an armed insurrection was quelled in St. Vincent during 1981; three attempted coups d'état to overthrow the Charles government in Dominica occurred the same year; and planned but aborted insurrections in St. Kitts have occurred in the past Iwo decades. More than in the case of most other subrcgions, the compact geography of the eastern Caribbean requires that the OECS cope with a number of activities that defy unambiguous classification as cither internal or external security threats. This situation is further complicated by the highly unlikely prospect that the United States' strategic hegemony over the subregion will be displaced. Therefore any OECS threat assessment must ultimately take U.S. interests into account. Along with their concern about internal threats, however, the OECS and R S S m e m b e r states entertained a p p r e h e n s i o n s about e x t e r n a l security d e v e l o p m e n t s u n f o l d i n g around them. T h e a p p e a r a n c e of the P e o p l e ' s Revolutionary Government under Maurice Bishop in Grenada was of most c o n c e r n initially, a l t h o u g h h e s u b s e q u e n t l y d e v e l o p e d g o o d w o r k i n g relations with most of his OECS counterparts. Other events intensified the OECS sense of vulnerability to external threat. For example, young leftist military officers successfully engineered a coup in the former Dutch colony of Suriname in February 1980, moving it closer to Cuba and Grenada in its foreign alignment. T h e execution of their m a j o r domestic o p p o n e n t s in December 1982 further alienated the OECS stales. Suriname's effort to win o b s e r v e r status to C A R I C O M , a bid originally sponsored and strongly backed by Grenada's PRG, was thus rejected. 4 4 Many of the O E C S governments were also uncomfortable with the socialist politics of S u r i n a m e ' s western neighbor Guyana, led by President Forbes Burnham from the early 1970s until his death in August 1985.
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The disparate social and economic conditions in the Caribbean region precipitated widespread political change. As left-wing governments developed networks of diplomatic support and military assistance in the subregion, the OECS countries gradually modified their previous opposition to the United States' position that emerging left-wing forces in the area, with Soviet and Cuban backing, could directly threaten their own security. When Bishop was arrested during a PRG power struggle in mid-October 1983, the prevailing security concern held by most of OECS members was that "the continuing development of close military as well as political ties between Cuba and Nicaragua, augmented possibly by Suriname [and by an unpredictable regime in Grenada], create[d] the potential for a 'hostile alliance' or 'axis' emerging in the [Caribbean] Basin." 4 5 These external threats notwithstanding, the O E C S states were determined to project an image of political moderation. Prior to their reluctant decision to solicit U.S. military intervention against Grenada in October 1983, they declined to convene their Defense and Security Committee to discuss either the Grenada crisis or the disturbing fact that the strategic balance was shifting against them in the eastern Caribbean. They reacted very differently to the situation that developed after Bishop's New Jewel Movement came to power as the PRG in 1979. They convened an emergency meeting of the Council of Ministers of the West Indies Associated States (WIAS), which linked newly independent St. Lucia and Dominica with the other British Associated States of the Eastern Caribbean. Eastern Caribbean leaders then contemplated imposing economic sanctions against the new Grenadan regime, to deny it formal diplomatic recognition, and to call for the upgrading of local police forces to quell domestic insurrection at home. The WIAS members were overridden by the United Kingdom, however, which was interested in encouraging moderation in Grenada by incorporating it into long-term processes of subregional cooperation. The British example was emulated by the OECS in M a y - J u n e 1981, when it resisted U.S. efforts to deny Marxist G r e n a d a access to U.S. f u n d s e x t e n d e d to the C a r i b b e a n Development Bank. 4 6 W h e n the other O E C S states eventually asked the United States to intervene against the Revolutionary Military Council, which came to power after the assassination of Bishop in late October 1983, they confronted the obvious dilemma of applying their collective defense mechanisms against one of their own members. In a statement released on October 26, the O E C S noted that Article 8 of the OECS Treaty authorized them to act in concert to preserve peace and security against external aggression "operating with or without the support of internal or national elements" and to exercise the " i n h e r e n t right of i n d i v i d u a l or c o l l e c t i v e s e l f - d e f e n s e . " H o w e v e r , a c o n d i t i o n of " d i s p r o p o r t i o n a t e military s t r e n g t h " had d e v e l o p e d , with Grenada apparently a threat to the other OECS countries. It precluded them f r o m m e e t i n g t h e s u b r e g i o n a l threat r e p r e s e n t e d by G r e n a d a w i t h o u t
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requesting outside military assistance from "friendly countries" willing to form a multinational force with the OECS governments to restore order. The United States, Jamaica, and Barbados were identified as the three outside powers from which aid was being solicited. 47 The Grenada intervention was thus represented as an "in-house" matter, with an external military presence organized to assist the OECS in implementing collective self-reliance, and resolving a crisis that had subregion-wide ramifications. A key security issue thus confronting the eastern Caribbean states, illustrated by the Grenada episode, was the extent to which they could rely upon friendly outside military assistance without at the same time becoming strategically ovcrdependent on external powers and compromising their own sovereignty. The Grenada crisis had demonstrated the vulnerability of the small OECS states both in terms of their own domestic security and in their relative proximity to the United States. As Dr. Vaughn Lewis, director general of the OECS, has since recalled: "Grenada . . . underscored the need for regional mechanisms to be in place which are able to protect regional i n t e r e s t s e v e n in the f a c e of a s o m e t i m e s k e p t i c a l i n t e r n a t i o n a l community." 48 The Grenada incident also sensitized other eastern Caribbean governments to their vulnerability against both domestic unrest and external penetration. The founding charter of OECS contained provisions for activating collective self-defense. But it left open how any security mechanism between the member-states would be organized or where the decisionmaking authority would lie. Subsequent efforts to organize a Regional Security Service in the eastern Caribbean took place outside OECS auspices and faltered over the issue of whether such a force should be concentrated at a central point such as Barbados or, under a more dispersed command structure, decentralized on an island-by-island basis, with due rcspect to varying individual threat perceptions. Throughout 1984, a number of discussions took place between the OECS, other Caribbean states, and the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada on the best way to proceed with the RSS. Barbados and the external powers originally envisaged a 1,000-man-strong regional defense force funded largely by the U.S. government, to be stationed at St. Lucy in Barbados and headed by a unified command structure under the chief of the Barbados Defense Force (BDF). Tom Adams, then Barbados's prime minister, believed that a centralized force represented the most cost-effective RSS option. In support of a strengthened OECS defense capacity, the United States had intensified its own military assistance programs in the eastern Caribbean. In 1981, Congress appropriated $1 million for such assistance to the Regional Security Service; by 1985, the annual grant had increased tenfold. Similar assistance grants were tendered by the British government. Increased military assistance by Washington and London was justified by the high cost of modern weapons systems and problems of operation and
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maintenance. It was very unlikely that any OECS state could afford to maintain more than some form of coast guard and/or national police force. The OECS states, either individually or collectively, are still far from developing the type of intelligence capabilities or air/sea amphibious forces needed to carry out intraregional military cooperation without the logistical backing of one or more major powers. This remains the case despite the opening of six separate national coast guard bases in the OECS states during 1988-1989, and the provision of patrol boats and on-site technical assistance under a joint U.S.-UK military assistance program. 4 ' The OECS states are making progress in their quest to step up drug interdiction and maritime patrolling capabilities. But their security forces are clearly unable to mobilize sufficient resources or demonstrate sufficient military competence to earn the confidence of friendly external parties. These external powers doubt that the subregion can attain comparatively high levels of defense self-sufficiency in the near future. Even so, by late 1985, the concept of a unified RSS command structure was being reconsidered, especially in St. Vincent, but also in Barbados, where Errol Barrow had succeeded Adams as prime minister following the latter's untimely death. The new government was concerned that the RSS would be perceived throughout the subregion as a tool of U.S. containment policies. A number of observers have since argued that a security alliance along RSS lines would in any case be inappropriate for the OECS, because peacekeeping rather than use of military force would be the most critical need for any security organization in the eastern Caribbean. 50 If a specific internal threat to an eastern Caribbean state were to materialize, initial diplomatic efforts to meet the threat would, in most cases, be preferable to automatically resorting to a Grenada-style military intervention. Consensus about threat, however, must be paired with consensus about response. There must be willingness to find a balanced solution between rapid military intervention and respecting independent preferences for sociopolitical development. Even small contingents of paramilitary forces could be viewed as potential allies by secessionist groups or as the tools of exiled national dissidents. As St. Vincent's prime minister, James F. Mitchell, recently asked, "Who will guard the guards?" 51 Sensitive to such arguments and to the declining OECS interest in maintaining national standing armies as the Grenada crisis faded from sight, the United States gradually moved to disassociate itself from the "Adams Doctrine." In February 1984, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, in his discussions with Caribbean leaders, conveyed the Reagan administration's desire to downplay the need for OECS to form a regionwide military structure. Instead, Washington pursued closer bilateral military ties with eastern Caribbean states. U.S. Special Forces ("Green Berets") were dispatched to most RSS countries (Barbados and Antigua-Barbuda—the only OECS member-states capable of fielding even modest armies—were the
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exceptions) to assist police forces in establishing Special Service Units (SSUs).52 In 1985, the United States announced it would establish an R S S training c e n t e r at A n t i g u a , but e v e n t s in B a r b a d o s soon o v e r c a m e the significance of this plan. Meanwhile, Barrow announced in November 1986 that the B a r b a d o s D e f e n s e Force w a s d i s c o n t i n u i n g recruitment on the g r o u n d s that any f u r t h e r R S S b u i l d u p would serve only U.S. strategic interests in the region. The BDF was subsequently reduced from 1,800 to approximately 150 personnel. OECS officials admit that the sense of urgency for organizing formal security tics precipitated by the Grenada crisis and by prospects of greater Soviet or Cuban i n v o l v e m e n t in the subregion has diminished in recent years. 53 The OECS and Economic
Viability
Economic underdevelopment directly affects the internal security of the small eastern Caribbean states. Since the return of a pro-Western government in Grenada, capitalist development strategies have been endorsed by virtually all OECS states. In most of them, however, the public sector is expected to take the lead in charting national development strategics. One respected analyst of the region has labeled this preference "the social d e m o c r a t i c e t h o s . " 5 4 To e n g i n e e r f u r t h e r e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t s u c c e s s f u l l y , the Caribbean governments need to establish more reliable external markets, counter the high cost of energy and food imports, and fight the chronic problems of inflation and balance of payment deficits. T h e a c c e p t a n c e of capitalist d e v e l o p m e n t m o d e l s t h r o u g h o u t the subregion, however, does not guarantee rapid economic development. T h e d e p e n d e n c y of the Caribbean's small states on e c o n o m i c trends largely beyond its own control is still all too apparent. The availability of foreign capital f o r the O E C S subregion d e p e n d s upon the prevailing e c o n o m i c climate in the West's industrial democracies rather than the political stability of the eastern Caribbean itself. Patterns of socioeconomic dependence are maintained by well-intentioned but poorly designed bilateral or multilateral economic assistance and loan programs. U.S. tariffs against eastern Caribbean exports remain in effect despite President Reagan's 1982 Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). These tariffs lower market demand for O E C S products in the U.S. marketplace and fail to generate the financial and technical assistance needed to establish comparative advantage for O E C S economies. T h e subregion's economic dependency undercuts its development efforts and invites potential social and political unrest. The extent to which the OECS member-states will be able to develop greater national self-reliance through economic development over the short term is doubtful. Their long-range development plans can be met only by earning significant levels of foreign confidence. The application of m o r e flexible criteria for assistance and support by external donors could go far in
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i m p r o v i n g the rate of e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t in these s m a l l e r e a s t e r n Caribbean states. Prospects for Subregional
Federation
During late May 1987, the OECS governments announced their intention to become a federation, subject to the passage of referenda in each memberstate. This decision marked the first occasion w h e n an S R S O seriously weighed the prospect of political unification. Plans were announced to set up an OECS regional consultative commission, vested with the responsibility for communicating the advantages and disadvantages of integration to the respective populations (totaling around 580,000 for all seven countries). 5 5 In late November 1987, however, the O E C S Authority met in St. Lucia and reaffirmed the need for greater deliberation before a political union could occur. The need for such a unification was again expressed by the prime ministers of the Windward Islands—St. Lucia, Dominica, St. Vincent, and Grenada—at the December 1988 C A R I C O M meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, but no specific timetable was adopted for their integration. 56 The major opponent to the unification idea was the prime minister of Antigua-Barbuda, Vere Bird. Bird argued that the maintenance of national sovereignty still offered the best option for his o w n country's economic development and that past experiments in political integration, such as the West I n d i e s F e d e r a t i o n , had ended in failure. M o r e o v e r , o p p o n e n t s of integration argued that e c o n o m i c progress in the i n d i v i d u a l states w a s sufficiently impressive (averaging nearly 5 percent G N P growth in 1987) to w a r r a n t c a u t i o n a b o u t c l o s e r political u n i o n . D e s p i t e t h e s e c o n t i n u e d expressions of caution, the OECS states have continued working to promote the integration becausc, as St. Lucia's prime minister, John Compton, has observed: These islands cannot survive into the twenty-first century as individual units just waiting on the breadline of the world. . . . w e cannot make the type of economic and social progress which our people demand without some sort of association. 57
In the opinion of those backing the political integration initiative, the pace and weight of international events were too great for the individual OECS states to handle. The security and economic relations that have developed between the O E C S countries and the other states of the larger Caribbean Community ( C A R I C O M ) underscore the importance most O E C S member-states assign to progress toward subregional integration. C A R I C O M was founded by the 1973 Treaty of Chaguarmas and includes the eight so-called less developed countries of the Caribbean—the OECS states and Belize—and the four more
64
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY COOPERATION
developed countries—Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad-Tobago. The option of institutionalizing O E C S security and defense cooperation under C A R I C O M auspices was considered by C A R I C O M governments when the Grenada threat intensified in the early 1980s. Yet, the responses by Guyana and by Trinidad-Tobago to the Grenada crisis and to the more receñí crisis in Haiti have been too much at odds with those of the OECS governments for the latter to sustain faith in CARICOM's originally stated objective to "harmonize" CARICOM relations toward the outside world. Moreover, as argued in Chapter 1, politico-security issues that have dominated CARICOM agendas over the past decade have tended to be too i n t a n g i b l e and too divisive for more s p e c i f i c O E C S d e f e n s e needs. CARICOM's sponsorship of a vaguely defined and short-lived Caribbean peace zone and its constant preoccupation with border disputes illustrate its inability to define common threats and security interests with sufficient cohesion and to institutionalize and broaden subregional security cooperation. The O E C S member-states' sense of their "uniqueness" within the overall Caribbean setting, therefore, has been reinforced rather than modified by their CARICOM affiliation« In general, the OECS can be viewed as an effort by a group of microstates to overcome subregional factionalism in order to achieve stability and to secure maximum levels of subregional compromise and cohesion. They believe that they can also strengthen national cohesion at the same time. 5 9 The dilemma presented by the recent federation initiative demonstrated, however, that a higher level of security cooperation may well impinge upon individual national sovereignty.
SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COORDINATION CONFERENCE SADCC was formally established at a conference held in Lusaka, Zambia, in April 1 9 8 0 . Its m e m b e r s are A n g o l a , B o t s w a n a , L e s o t h o , M a l a w i , Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. During the Lusaka Conference, the overall objective of the new organization was defined as "liberating" the economies of southern African states from dependence on and vulnerability to the Republic of South Africa, and coordinating their economic development strategics at both the national and regional level. 6 0 Because of a lack of fiscal and military resources, S A D C C has consciously adopted a functional and low-key approach to security cooperation. The rationale for this approach has been based on a common recognition by SADCC members that progress in economic development is potentially their greatest strategic asset. B y enabling them to pursue "selective disengagement" from economic interaction with the apartheid state, economic develop-
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65
m e n t will p r e c l u d e South A f r i c a f r o m e x e r c i s i n g h e g e m o n y o v e r its neighbors. T h e governing principles of this S A D C C strategy include: reducing collective dependence on the South African economy; meeting critical regional d e v e l o p m e n t n e e d s ; and i d e n t i f y i n g areas of f u t u r e economic coordination among SADCC members. It was argued at the outset that regional integration in southern Africa would be more productive than enforcing a set of "rigid legal and functional relations" to control how member-states presently interact with the apartheid state. 61 The long-term effectiveness of SADCC hinges upon its ability to define and implement improved measures of collaboration at the subregional level, even at the expense of traditional sovereign prerogatives. The members' most critical sectors of economic development are transport and communications, food and energy production, and industrial modernization. All of these categories have assumed important security dimensions as well. For example, insurgency operations against transportation links continue, and agriculture is often at the mercy of severe drought conditions. There is also a discrepancy in industrial development between Zimbabwe and its SADCC allies. Other SADCC members (especially Mozambique) fear that Zimbabwe might one day replace South Africa as the predominant force in southern African economic growth and development. 62 SADCC's members have yet to regard the organization as indispensable to subregional security. All of them are affiliated with other economic or political associations, and S A D C C has studiously avoided any effort to supersede or override such groupings. SADCC is not a common market. Neither docs it have a military planning function such as that which exists within the GCC and the OECS. It remains deliberately accommodating to outside sources of economic assistance, a trend ASEAN has never replicated. It is less concerned about achieving immediate economic self-determination than about liberating itself from the binding ties to the South A f r i c a n economy. Diverse security perceptions of S A D C C members, however, undercut their opportunities for defining viable collective self-reliance strategies and complicate efforts to achieve a more enduring and stable regional order throughout southern Africa. South Africa's "Total Strategy" T h e e c o n o m i c v u l n e r a b i l i t y of S A D C C m e m b e r - s t a t e s in the t r a d e , investment, transportation, and technology sectors has been exploited by South Africa as part of its so-called "total strategy." This strategy seeks to promote economic and political collaboration with its neighbors on its own tenris, and to preserve access to regional resources without compromising its o w n political system. T h i s policy was f o r m a l i z e d early in 1979 in a "Constellation of States" (CONSAS) program, to be underwritten by mutual security agreements as well as various forms of political and economic
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SUBREGIONAL SECURITY COOPERATION
association. As originally conceived, CONSAS was to include South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland (the so-called BLS countries), Rhodesia, Namibia, and the Bantustan states (Transkei, Venda, Bophuthatswana, and Ciskei). The idea was advertised by Pretoria as a means for uniting an antiM a r x i s t " c o r e g r o u p " to c o m b a t the "total o n s l a u g h t " of A n g o l a a n a Mozambique against the white South African government, at a time when Western support for that regime was waning. 6 3 T h e coming to p o w e r of Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) party in Rhodesia during preindependence elections frustrated South African visions of C O N S A S , however, and prompted the adoption by South Africa of a harder-line strategy of destabilization. In the meantime, S A D C C became the black nations' response to CONSAS—with the BLS states and Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) opting to join SADCC and to reject the South African formula. Since its founding, SADCC has been subjected to a sustained campaign of orchestrated destabilization by South Africa. The South Africans have pursued this strategy through a "carrot and stick" approach. 6 4 Incentives have included managing a customs union (the South African Customs Union or SACU) with BLS states; providing selective technical assistance to railway systems, which arc the lifeblood of economic development; and making available export credits to various SADCC states. Such assistance, however, has not been altruistic. SACU protects South African exports to the BLS states, while the South African railway subsidies and credit facilities arc meant to deter the S A D C C countries from instituting competitive programs. Indeed, any positive aspccts of South African economic interaction with S A D C C a r e m o r e t h a n o u t w e i g h e d by t h e s a n c t i o n s a n d p e n a l t i e s constituting the "stick" of economic destabilization. These include threats to withdraw the above-mentioned credit and export and assistance programs; selective interruption of trade and transportation conduits; covert assistance to insurgency groups; and direct military intervention ("strike k o m m a n d o " action) by the South African Defense Force (SADF) against bridges, dams, railroads, pipelines, mines, oil installations, and other facilities. 65 South Africa's strategy of economic aggression has been complemented by a relentless campaign to apply military pressure against southern African liberation movements. South Africa has consistently provided substantial military assistance to the antigovernment National Union f o r the Total I n d e p e n d e n c e of A n g o l a ( U N I T A ) i n s u r g e n t s , and there w e r e a l m o s t continuous South African attacks on Angola during the 1980s. Only after a series of i n d e c i s i v e s e t - p i e c e battles b e t w e e n A n g o l a n , C u b a n , S o u t h A f r i c a n , and UNITA troops (including the u n s u c c e s s f u l A n g o l a n army Operation Party Congress offensive on UNITA positions at M a v i n g a and Cuito C u a n a v a l e in A u g u s t - S e p t e m b e r 1985 and a s u b s e q u e n t C u b a n / Angolan siege against UNITA/South African D e f e n s e Force units in the same locales during July 1987) was the Protocol of Brazzaville signed in December 1988. This agreement entailed an end of hostilities in Angola and
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67
Namibia and a phased withdrawal from Angolan territory of Cuban troops, which had been increased by 30 percent over the first part of 1988 to number over 50,000. C o n t i n u e d f i g h t i n g b e t w e e n South A f r i c a n forces and the South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), however, threatened to undermine that accord's key provisions. 6 6 South Africa's military pressure on its neighbors nevertheless remains an important component in its overall destabilization campaign against the S A D C C states. Between 1980 and 1986, the S A D C C states sustained war damage estimated at over $1.6 billion. They were forced, therefore, to divert to military purposes resources that otherwise could have been used for economic development. S A D C C member-state military expenditures were estimated at $3 billion between 1980 and 1984. The overall cost to S A D C C of the South African destabilization campaign was estimated at more than $10 billion during 1 9 8 0 - 1 9 8 5 . This sum was m o r e than all the f o r e i g n aid allocated to S A D C C members collectively, or one-third of all S A D C C export revenues during that five-year period. The total debt of S A D C C members had reached $16.6 billion by the end of 1986.67 To date, most observers agree that South Africa has been effective in b l o c k i n g S A D C C e f f o r t s to r e d u c e P r e t o r i a ' s e c o n o m i c and strategic dominance. South Africa has substantially impeded rail movement to the various S A D C C ports. In particular, the Benguela Railway has remained mostly closed to traffic since the Angolan war erupted in 1975. The Beira corridor from Zimbabwe through Mozambique has been periodically blocked by the South A f r i c a n - b a c k e d M o z a m b i c a n National Resistance ( M N R ) m o v e m e n t . T h e Z i m b a b w e National A r m y ( Z N A ) has c o m m i t t e d some 10,000-15,000 troops to guard the Beira corridor railway system in Mozambique against disruption and sabotage by M N R or South African commandos. This commitment of resources is justified by Zimbabwe's compelling need to sccure access to the eastern sea routes as an alternative to shipping its p r o d u c t s t h r o u g h S o u t h A f r i c a n t e r r i t o r y and f a c i l i t i e s . E s t a b l i s h i n g alternative rail transportation facilities to those controlled by South Africa became so central for S A D C C planners that other internal trade and industrial projects suffered as a result. 68 Moreover, S A D C C countries' industrial and t r a d i n g e n t e r p r i s e s are still not oriented t o w a r d regional m a r k e t s . "Mental decolonization" has been impaired by a prolonged habit of buying European or South African goods rather than "inferior" S A D C C products. 6 9
Constraints on Intraregional
Security
Cooperation
The S A D C C governments do not assist each other significantly in facing their many internal threats and security problems. In part, this is because the types of government within southern Africa differ so markedly. Conservative governments arc prone to collaborate tactically with South Africa in return for greater discretion in managing their own domestic affairs, or are reluctant to cooperate with Marxist Angola and Mozambique. Other S A D C C states,
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SUBREGIONAL SECURITY COOPERATION
including Zimbabwe, the most strategically significant and openly "nonaligned" member, rely extensively on continued Western economic and military assistance. These differences underscore the divisions within SADCC. The relations between Zimbabwe and Mozambique and the idiosyncratic policies of Malawi illustrate these divisions. The Zimbabwe National Army presence in the Beira corridor has fueled as m u c h tension as g o o d w i l l between Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Moreover, Zimbabwe perceives its own military and economic capabilities as greater than those of its Marxist neighbor and feels no need to develop close military ties with Mozambique's forces. Mozambique, on the other hand, periodically expresses resentment over what it believes to be Z i m b a b w e ' s l e a n i n g s t o w a r d " i m p e r i a l i s t " tendencies. 7 0 At the same time, the conservative regime in Malawi has, until recently, been accused of secretly assisting the M N R as part of its always tense relations with M o z a m b i q u e . In D e c e m b e r 1986, however, Malawi signed a defense and security agreement with Mozambique. By the following April, it had dispatched 300 troops of its own to supplement the ZNA forces protecting critical railway lines. While solidifying relations with its S A D C C associates, Malawi has remained the only member to retain diplomatic links with South Africa. It has recently announced that it will not engage in future sanctions or boycotts directed against Pretoria. 71 Other political barriers also impede S A D C C unity in development and security matters. The long-standing ties between the opposition movements in Zimbabwe and Botswana fuel tensions between the two countries. Recent trends in Lesotho also constitute a political problem. Early in 1986, Lesotho was subject to a comprehensive economic boycott and territorial blockade by South Africa in response to its supposed ambiguous position on hosting African National Congress (ANC) activists. This action led to the toppling of L e s o t h o ' s l o n g - t i m e l e a d e r , Chief J o n a t h a n , and the i n s t a l l a t i o n of a p r o - S o u t h A f r i c a n m i l i t a r y j u n t a less p a l a t a b l e to the o t h e r S A D C C members. The relations between Zambian President Kenneth Kuanda and Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Mugabe remain strained bccause of Kuanda's support of Joshua N k o m o , M u g a b e ' s long-time political f o e during the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) campaign to free Rhodesia from minority white rule. Relations between Botswana and Zimbabwe have been disrupted by B o t w a n a ' s sheltering of Z i m b a b w e a n political dissidents. Swaziland has resisted a similar inflow of Mozambicans. In sum, S A D C C member-states have demonstrated a limited capacity for reconciling their sovereign interests with intraregional cooperation that would reduce their mutual vulnerability and enhance their international competitiveness.
Prospects for Collective Self-Reliance and Conflict
Resolution
There is little evidence that anything but a quick and massive infusion of outside financial assistance will mitigate economic underdevelopment and
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lessen political instability in the S A D C C countries. U n d e r c u r r e n t circumstances, the SADCC members are still compelled to deal with South Africa even while they aspire to break its control of the region, and there is no guarantee that S A D C C ' s efforts to break out of a quasi-dependent relationship with South Africa will succeed where past efforts at African regional security have failed. Nevertheless, SADCC's "Program of Action" contains a specific and comprehensive blueprint for achieving collective sclfreliance: • Expanded production of goods and services by the member-states ". . . on the basis of complementarity, comparative advantage, and the equitable distribution of benefits"; • More systematic identification of SADCC members' development interests and better policy coordination for achieving them within a regional framework; and • Operational/functional decentralization of development strategy and bureaucracies to enhance project participation and to ease SADCC interaction with other functional groupings in the su'oregion such as the Southern Africa Transport and Communications Commission (SATCC) and the Southern Africa Center for Cooperation in Agricultural Research (SACCAR).^ These goals are designed to restructure the economic framework of southern Africa by moving toward diversity in production, markets, and services. They avoid threatening the political status quo or sovereignty of any SADCC member. They balance this sensitivity toward national prerogatives by recommending that each member strengthen its support for collective efforts to achieve regional peace and stability. Most of the SADCC economies, however, whether guided by capitalism or socialist planning, remain in a desperate plight. The effectiveness of SADCC's collective self-reliance strategy over the long term will depend in large part on what levels of support and cooperation it receives from industrial nations over the next few critical years. Canada and the Scandinavian countries have taken the lead in extending significant development assistance to the southern African states. In 1984, Canada initiated a multiyear program of support. The so-called "Nordic initiative," negotiated during J a n u a r y 1986, l i k e w i s e is designed to stimulate j o i n t v e n t u r e s and interregional trade as well as to upgrade cultural exchanges. The Reagan administration consciously avoided an active role in southern African development politics because of its preoccupation with ideological factors and because it was skeptical about the long-term viability of SADCC's strategy for economic liberation from South Africa. While the United States has invested several million dollars in the Beira railway and port modernization efforts, it has still tended to view overall SADCC enterprises, in the
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S U B R E G I O N A L SF.CURITY C O O P E R A T I O N
words of Chester Crocker, R e a g a n ' s undersecretary of state for African A f f a i r s , as a "triumph of ideological economics . . . the region's o w n folly." 7 3 Overall, none of the alternative trade or development assistance p r o g r a m s provided by the West have really supplanted South Africa as S A D C C ' s most d o m i n a n t market and trading partner. Until that occurs, Pretoria's destabilization campaign will remain effective. Ultimately, S A D C C will need to develop a more extensive base for coopération than the negative, single common denominator of opposition to apartheid if the organization is to survive. The organization's approach to modernizing its transport and communications networks—perhaps the most critical factor relating to immediate economic and military security objectives—typifies the problem. At present, such modernization is viewed solely as a means to "reduce economic dependency particularly, but not only, on the Republic of South Africa." 7 4 A critical test of the appeal of this program and o t h e r S A D C C p r o j e c t s to p r o s p e c t i v e outside d o n o r s is h o w e f f e c t i v e S A D C C will be in d e f i n i n g and i m p l e m e n t i n g its long-term goals and o b j e c t i v e s apart f r o m the South A f r i c a n rationale. It must pursue subregional development for its own sake. To do so will take more self-confidence and a greater willingness to develop cohesion and unity toward the outside world than the S A D C C states have thus far demonstrated.
THE SOUTH PACIFIC FORUM The SPF spans a Pacific island region of some 30 million square kilometers. The area actually consists of three "subrogions": Polynesia, in the center and east; M e l a n e s i a , to the w e s t ; and M i c r o n e s i a , to the n o r t h and west. C o n s i d e r a b l e cultural and ethnic diversity exists within e a c h of these s u b r e g i o n s , but m o s t of t h e S P F s t a t e s s h a r e t h e c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s of populations under 500,000 (the notable exceptions are Australia, with close to 16 million residents; Papua New Guinea, with a population of 3.5 million; N e w Zealand, with 3.3 million inhabitants; and Fiji, with o v e r 7 0 0 , 0 0 0 citizens). Further, most are economically dependent on the region's two industrialized states (Australia and New Zealand) or on more distant Western m é t r o p o l e s . In 1985, A u s t r a l i a t o p p e d " b i l a t e r a l a i d " d o n o r s to S P F countries, or to trust territories in the SPF region with $35 million; New Zealand subvented $23 million; the United Kingdom provided $20.2 million; Japan donated $16 million; the EC gave $9 million in aid; France contributed $6 million; West Geimany provided aid totaling $3 million; the United States also p r o v i d e d $3 million; and C a n a d a donated $1 million. A s e p a r a t e Australian bilateral aid program to P a p u a New Guinea totaled $ A 59.7 million in 1986. SPF states are courting new interest by external powers not p r e v i o u s l y associated with the region: the Soviet U n i o n , the P e o p l e ' s Republic of China, Taiwan, Libya, Indonesia, and Israel. 75 Gregory Fry has
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summarized Ihe challenging regional political environment now confronting S P F governments in their effort to forge a credible security agenda as an alternative to the traditional postwar A N Z U S formula of "strategic denial":
Here then, are all the ingredients of a complex and potentially volatile system of regional politics: a group of newly independent Pacific states committed to the promotion of regional cooperation and the fostering of an indigenous regional identity; c o n t i n u i n g A m e r i c a n and French c o m m i t m e n t to their P a c i f i c territories; new interest in the region on the part of the Soviet Union, China, and Japan; and attempts by Australia, New Zealand and the United States—as a [still active] A N Z U S strategy—to keep the newly independent states under their influence. As each of these groups is trying to influence developments in the region, political divisions, tensions, and conflicts are inevitable. 76
South Pacific Nation-Building: At Variance with Traditional Defense
Paradigms
Notwithstanding their heavy subsidy by foreign aid, South Pacific nations arc no longer content to rely on external powers to define their regional security agenda. They have recently asserted their independence from the West by declaring a South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone (SPNFZ), although attaching conditions designed to make it more facilitative of Washington's interests. Moreover, a new generation of nationalists in many South Pacific states are pressing the Western donor states to become more sensitive to their indigenous concerns, which have little relationship to traditional Western defense planning. These nationalist and regionalist-oriented leaders display open resentment when they perceive that the Americans and West Europeans, for example, arc indifferent to their development aspirations. They have criticized what they believe are Canberra's and Wellington's tendencies to play self-appointed roles of "regional policemen." They arc frustrated by their inability to implement their own version of a security "paradigm" or model upon which the energies of intrarcgional and extraregional security actors should be focused. Reducing island dependence on foreign financial aid or v u l n e r a b i l i t y to e c o n o m i c e n c r o a c h m c n t ( U . S . t u n a p o a c h i n g , epitomized by the 1984 Jeanette Diana case and Washington's subsequent sanctions levied against the Solomon Islands, is a case in point), drugs, environmental protection, natural disasters, high transportation costs, and m a n a g i n g social a n d i n s t i t u t i o n a l c h a n g e ( e d u c a t i o n , s t r e n g t h e n i n g governmental bureaucracies, urban migration, and burgeoning insurgency/ political opposition movements to existing political systems) are all matters of deep concern. M o r e traditional security issues, centering on regional peacekeeping mcchanisms to legitimize SPF intervention operations or SPF m e m b e r - s t a t e a f f i l i a t i o n with a g l o b a l o r r e g i o n a l p o w e r ' s s t r a t e g i c deterrence strategy, are less compelling. Kiribati President Ieremia Tabai
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S U B R E G I O N A L SECURITY C O O P E R A T I O N
recently summarized South Pacific security objectives in succinct terms: "What we want at the end of the day is basically what more developed countries want for their people: a happier and healthier life that in the long term can be sustained from our own resources." 77 The SPF is thus seen as providing its member-states a "regional voice" by creating the institutional mechanisms and diplomatic weight otherwise unavailable because of the states' small size, required to derive bargaining advantages against outside actors. SPF elites also view good regionalism as good domestic politics. Attendance at annual Forum gatherings affords them an image of statesmanship that enhances their political standing at home. Most importantly, as Fry has concluded, the assertion of indigenous Pacific values and control over various aspects of the regional security agenda can be regarded as an important symbol of the SPF's overall determination to build greater autonomy and self-determination against competing interests of outside powers. 78 If the symbolic values of regionalism are to be transformed into actual policy assets, however, the SPF members will need to overcome serious intramural political differences that at present threaten to undercut their strategic cohesion. Ongoing domestic political turmoil in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu combine with Vanuatu's aggressive diplomacy of nonalignment to create a uniquely Mclanesian dimension to the politics of South Pacific crisis, but one with potential reverberations throughout the region. However, both Polynesian and Micronesian states in the South Pacific have also increasingly challenged the traditional image of that region as a quiet backwater firmly ensconccd in the Western camp. While the South Pacific is far from being a "region in revolt," its tendency toward domestic political volatility and the diversification of South Pacific island-states' foreign policy interests are important and complex developments in the region's geopolitics. Fiji remains perhaps the most serious case, because of its highly volatile and seemingly intractable ethnic situation. Prior to mid-1987, 49 percent of the island's population was of Indian extract; indigenous Melanesians constituted a strong 46 percent minority. In May 1987, and again in September of that year, the Fijian army, led by Colonel (and later Major General) Sitiveni Rabuka, intervened when the ethnic Fijian-dominated Alliance party was defeated in democratic national elections by the Indo-Fijian National Federation party (under the leadership of the late Dr. Timoci Bavadra) and, subsequently, when a power-sharing agreement struck between the two political coalitions still left the Indians with too much political power for Fijian comfort. 79 At its eighteenth annual conference in May 1987, convened at Apia, Western Samoa, the SPF appointed a delegation to conduct negotiations in Fiji with the opposing parties. The proposed delegation, headed by Solomon Islands Minister Ezekial Alebua and SPEC Director Henry Naisali, was left
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without a mission, however, when Fiji's Governor General Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau politely rejected an S P F role in crisis resolution, instead adopting the logic of the Melansian S P F members who had previously expressed reservations about the S P F "interfering in internal Fijian affairs." Australian P r i m e M i n i s t e r B o b H a w k e had already p u t at risk the credibility of any S P F mission to Fiji by strongly opposing the military takeover in that country and by calling for "direct action" from the S P F to neutralize the coup's potential d a m a g e to r e g i o n a l stability. 8 0 A l o n g w i t h N e w Z e a l a n d and the U n i t e d States, Australia had already suspended its bilateral aid program to Fiji—a m o v e interpreted by the proud Melanesians living in that Pacific island-state as a betrayal of their o w n sovereign prerogatives. T h e appointment of the p r e v i o u s l y r e f e r e n c e d m i s s i o n w a s a l s o o u t o f c h a r a c t e r f o r the S P F m e m b e r s h i p , which, in general, had preferred to k e e p the F o r u m ' s activities, and those of its n e w l y upgraded secretariat, along safely functional lines rather than assign it high-profile peacekeeping or diplomatic tasks. 8 1 Indeed, the F o r u m h a s since declined to discuss the Fiji situation f o r m a l l y at its s u b s e q u e n t a n n u a l m e e t i n g s , d e s p i t e the e f f o r t s of that c o u n t r y ' s Indian political leadership to force the issue onto the agenda. 8 2 In the m e a n t i m e , Forum nations are m o v i n g ahead to deal with their c o m m e r c i a l and e n v i r o n m e n t a l p r o b l e m s t h r o u g h a d o p t i o n of a u n i f i e d political approach. In August 1989, they declared their region a "driftnet free z o n e " to combat Japanese, Taiwanese, and South Korean use of gillnets to harvest, but also deplete, albacore tuna fishing resources. Australia and N e w Zealand have committed funding to establish monitoring stations throughout the South Pacific to measure the greenhouse effect, which a growing body of their scientists believe could raise sea levels in the region and eventually w i p e out m a n y of its c o r a l atolls; and r e s o u r c e s h a v e b e e n allocated to relocate threatened island populations (the South Pacific Regional Environm e n t P r o g r a m ) . 8 3 T h e C o m m i t t e e on Regional Institutional A r r a n g e m e n t s ( C R I A ) was formed in 1987 to explore politico-economic means by which F o r u m m e m b e r - s t a t e s could b e c o m e b e t t e r o r g a n i z e d in t h e i r e f f o r t to o v e r c o m e m u t u a l problems of small-state vulnerability in an "increasingly complex [international] environment." A year later, the C R I A r e c o m m e n d e d the upgrading of the Forum secretariat in Suva, the establishment of a South P a c i f i c O r g a n i z a t i o n s C o o r d i n a t i n g C o m m i t t e e u n d e r S P F a u s p i c e s (to facilitate the effective policy coordination of such regional bodies), and the establishment of "dialogue partners," incorporating the A S E A N precedent to involve outside p o w e r s in S P F economic and environmental projects o n the lattcr's terms. 8 4
Balancing
External Power Security
Interests
T h e S P F has not openly embraced the politics of nonalignmcnt advocated by Vanuatu or adopted by other S R S O s reviewed in this study. Australia and
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New Zealand, as the two predominant actors in the organization, are still aligned with the Western Alliance. Most of the SPF member-states are still too dependent on the goodwill and material assistance of the A N Z U S and former European colonial powers to opt for significantly closer ties with extraregional opportunists recently more active in the South Pacific. Selected external power sponsorship of defense cooperation programs throughout the region are welcomed by the SRSO island-states as a cost-effective means to attain their o w n s e c u r i t y o b j e c t i v e s . A u s t r a l i a ' s D e f e n s e C o o p e r a t i o n Program (DCP), instituted in February 1987, is one example. Others include New Zealand's Defense Mutual Assistance Program and more informal U.S. bilateral security arrangements with Papua New Guinea and with its former territories, which are n o w S P F m e m b e r - s t a t e s (the F e d e r a t e d States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands). During the 1987 Forum conference at Apia, agreement was reached among the member-states to conduct systematic exchanges of information on regional security matters through Australian and New Zealand intelligence facilities. 85 Three types of regional change, however, could eventually move the SPF further away from the West's strategic ambit and complicate the South Pacific's overall security environment. First, as the last vestiges of U.S. and F r e n c h d e c o l o n i z a t i o n arc carried out in Micronesia and in P o l y n e s i a , respectively, the potential additions to SPF membership of Palau (Bclau) and N e w Caledonia may further impede the A N Z U S p o w e r s ' still-operative strategic denial posture. Second, strategic acccss to the region continues to be coveted by an array of outside powers, although the cast of players may be changing from those active in the region just a few years ago. Third, the South Pacific's intensive antinuclcar politics, combined with the changing international balance of power, may yet effect shifts in the Forum's global strategic orientation away from affiliation with U.S. and Western deterrence postures and toward an approach more compatible with that of Third World nonalignment politics. Strategic denial. Since the inception of their formal security network in 1952, the ANZUS powers have adhered to two major security objectives in the South P a c i f i c region: (1) p r e s e r v i n g control o v e r the key lines of communication and trade routes that emanate from Australia's east coast, through the Tasman Sea, and flow into the wider Pacific, connecting the North A m e r i c a n continent with greater Oceania; and (2) retaining predominant economic and political influence in the region by precluding the introduction of internal and external forces inimical to their own geopolitical interests there. Together, these interests have constituted the basis for the A N Z U S "strategic denial" strategy. N e w Z e a l a n d ' s decision to p l a c e its a n t i n u c l c a r politics a b o v e its traditional affiliation with U.S. extended deterrence strategy as a national security priority represents a more comprehensive erosion of the strategic
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denial posture's relevance in the 1990s and the precipitation of a general reconsideration of regional security in the South Pacific. While still valuing Western economic ties and limited security assistance, the SPF island-states are becoming increasingly sensitive to the costs and risks of associating themselves with Western security agendas. They are less willing than before to accept special U.S. claims of territorial access to dock nuclear-capable ships or to exploit regional fishing grounds without assurance that what they believe to be sufficient U.S. economic compensation and strategic commitment will be forthcoming. They are less comfortable with the notion of d i s c o u n t i n g Soviet and Third World accusations that the United States considers them to be within its own exclusive strategic domain. They are u n c e r t a i n about the c o n t i n u e d intimacy of the A u s t r a l i a - N e w Z e a l a n d participation in their regional security system as N e w Zealand's defense resources become more strained in a possible post-ANZUS contcxt and as Australia increasingly looks toward the Asian mainland for commercial o p p o r t u n i t i e s and p o l i t i c a l i n f l u e n c e . C o n s e q u e n t l y , they are s e e k i n g alternative formulas for ensuring that both their sovereign identities and regional tranquility will remain undisturbed. In this contcxt, as Richard Herr as argued, "there is diplomatic convenience of aggregating more than a score of tiny disparate politics into a regional grouping with some scmblance of h o m o g e n e i t y , " and, he might have added, with the blessing of all three practitioners of strategic denial and the formal participation of two. 8 6 Strategic access. This revised formula, of course, affords opportunity for heretofore excluded powers to establish physical access and political appeal t h r o u g h o u t the region. It also generates more pressure on those distant powers traditionally involved there to reconcile their own strategic interests with the revised, more crowded, regional security environment. T h r o u g h o u t the late 1970s and m o s t of t h e 1980s, the t w o m o s t opportunistic external powers appeared to be the Soviet Union and Libya. Moscow was believed to be utilizing the assets of its vast worldwide fishing fleet to collect intelligence on U.S. and A N Z U S military operations in the South Pacific and to lay the network for naval and air interdiction of Pacific lines of communication. The Soviets began pressing for negotiating fishing a g r e e m e n t s with Kiribati and Vanuatu, as well as e s t a b l i s h i n g f o r m a l d i p l o m a t i c relations with a wide array of island-states, in the h o p e of cultivating regional hostility against the United States and the West. 87 The SPF member-states, for their part, have declined to substantially upgrade their own bilateral ties with the Soviets (only Papua New Guinea conducts any measurable amount of trade with the U S S R , and neither Kiribati or Vanuatu have renewed their one-year fishing agreements with Moscow). S o v i e t r e g i o n a l d i p l o m a t i c e f f o r t s h a v e b e e n slightly u p g r a d e d . M o r e polished d i p l o m a t s are n o w stationed in, or tour through, the area than before, and Foreign Minister Shevardnadze visited Australia, New Zealand,
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and Fiji in early 1988. But the returns for such adjustments are still minimal. The USSR was denied participation in the Committee for the Co-ordination of Joint Prospecting for Mineral Resources in South Pacific Offshore Areas when it petitioned for formal entry in 1987, although it is a member of its Technical Advisory Group. Soviet support for the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty has been tainted by M o s c o w ' s attachment of caveats to its ratification of that pact and by reports of overly aggressive Soviet submarine surveillance of U.S. missile testing at the Kwajalein Missile Range, in the Marshall Islands. 88 To many SPF members, the USSR has been no more able to o v e r c o m e its z e r o - s u m approach to global politics in p r o j e c t i n g its interests and policies throughout the region than has its U.S. rival. Not unlike the Soviet Union, Libya has been less active in the region during the late 1980s, as Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's attention has been redirected toward events at home and in the North African region in general. Tripoli appeared to play virtually no role in the attempt of Barak Sope's pro-Libyan faction to seize power in Vanuatu in an unsuccessful coup effort during December 1988. Australia and New Zealand remain sensitive to the M e l a n e s i a n S p e a r h e a d G r o u p ' s p o t e n t i a l s u s c e p t i b i l i t y to L i b y a n influence, however, and to what they regard as the need to consult S P F regional leaders constantly on this issue. 8 9 More concern is now directed toward the motives of Indonesia, which has offered to upgrade substantially ils military assistance to Fiji in support of Suva's desire to become less dependent on Australian and New Zealand military assistance. Indonesia purportedly advertises such assistance as consistent with its promotion of nonalignment politics, but Jakarta's intense interest in Melanesian affairs, stemming from its intermittently difficult relations with Papua New Guinea, is self-evident. Indonesia has also been invited to be an "observer" to the South Pacific Forum annual conferences, although not a formal "dialogue" partner of that grouping. 9 0 Over the short term, Australia and New Zealand, as the two largest SPF members, should be successful in monitoring and controlling the tempo of interaction between other members of that SRSO and outside parties with objectives that could be regarded as inimical to Western interests. The future political status of the United States in the region, however, is far from clear. Both the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands foster resentment over aspects of their past colonial treatment by Washington, which may be reflected in their f u t u r e spirited d e f e n s e of antinuclear politics and in efforts to distance themselves from the United States through diversification of their foreign relations. 91 The U.S. refusal to oppose French nuclear testing in the South Pacific, to ratify the S P N F Z Treaty, and to take a more active role in pressuring France to accelerate the process of self-determination in New Caledonia illustrates the difficulty a global superpower has in reconciling its strategic interests to an increasingly
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distinct and independent local security agenda cultivated by most SPF member-states.
COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE SRSOs The five subregional security organizations considered in this study have all m a d e greater progress in meeting the requirements for collective selfr e l i a n c e and in i m p l e m e n t i n g m e a n s f o r c o n f l i c t a v o i d a n c e / c o n f l i c t resolution than either the collective defense or the larger regional security organizations that preceded them. Another critical measure of effectiveness in SRSO collaboration, however, is the extent to which the interests of the organization are taken into account by the individual members. Here the GCC, OECS, and SPF all earn fairly high marks, while ASEAN and SADCC are less impressive. ASEAN's member-states have enjoyed a long period of relative peace and stability since 1967. They have used this period to develop policies geared toward countering the penetration by and influence of external hostile powers. To date, this goal has been at least partly realized. It is unclear, however, whether ASEAN has been primarily responsible for preventing China and Vietnam from exporting their particular brands of Marxist politics to the subregion, or whether China and Vietnam have been preoccupied with their own domestic political consolidation and economic reconstruction efforts. The Sino-Soviet rift and increased Western involvement in Southeast Asian development programs have also been instrumental in providing ASEAN with greater levels of diplomatic flexibility and international credibility than those enjoyed by SEATO or other predecessors. Southeast Asian security analysts usually approach collective selfreliance in terms of ASEAN nations shifting the emphasis of their development programs from the national to the regional level. Twenty years after ASEAN's founding, however, its members are still debating precisely what sort of economic and security grouping they wish their organization to be. Like the GCC and the OECS, ASEAN has achieved greater institutional identity over time. Yet individual members retain differing national security objectives. They have not developed a unified subregional security posture as fiimly as have both the GCC and the OECS. Furthermore, ASEAN still lacks the strong secretariat or other institutional components found in both G C C and the O E C S to identify future policy directions. Nevertheless, through continuing consultation, existing ASEAN machinery does produce sophisticated elements of foreign policy on selected issues, most notably its successful campaign to isolate Vietnam over the Kampuchean issue. In the economic field, however, A S E A N is closer than the G C C or O E C S to a c h i e v i n g the level of e c o n o m i c c o o p e r a t i o n n e c e s s a r y to
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implement joint development projects that would facilitate integration of m e m b e r s ' e c o n o m i c interests. G e n u i n e i m p l e m e n t a t i o n of the m u t u a l assistance undertaking set out in the 1976 Bali Concord Declaration is not yet a reality. The search for national advantage still tends to overshadow the collective good in i n t r a - A S E A N economic relations in the all-important agricultural, energy, and marketing sectors, even while such bilateral differences are downplayed to possible external investors. 92 However, compared to other SRSOs, ASEAN has established an image as a unified economic actor, even if its economic and political integration is not fully realized. In contrast, ASEAN has thus far eschewed any intent to structure a joint defense capability along the lines of the G C C , or even to incorporate a formal defense component into its charter, as has the OECS. Instead, the A S E A N states h a v e p u r s u e d their o w n n a t i o n a l d e f e n s e p o l i c i e s and priorities. The incumbent leaders have been too preoccupied with combating internal insurgency threats to give subregion-wide defense issues more than polite, cursory consideration. One factor accounting for this reticence, however, may be genuine difficulty in identifying c o m m o n threats to the widely dispersed ASEAN membership, while U.S. maritime power remains the major determinant of the Asian-Pacific's strategic balance of power. A S E A N has also b e e n less s u c c e s s f u l than the G C C in m a n a g i n g intraregional conflict. Outstanding boundary disputes among various A S E A N members have, in a number of cases, been suspended, but are still unresolved. The GCC states, in contrast, have been moving fairly rapidly and e f f i c i e n t l y t o w a r d c r e a t i n g d i p l o m a t i c and legal m e c h a n i s m s f o r t h e adjudication of their own territorial differences. T h e success of A S E A N ' s diplomacy in Indochina has, to an extent, compensated for the inability or unwillingness of its members to accept higher levels of defense cooperation. If the Kampuchea catalyst is removed, however, other more visible forms of security cooperation, including greater coordination of military efforts, may be required if the organization is to achievc a viable collective self-reliance strategy. The G C C has faute de mieux become a major agent of diplomacy and development in the Persian Gulf. It cannot, by its very limited geographic and deliberately muted ideological nature, replace the Arab League or the Islamic Conference as the predominant multilateral instruments of policy expression and direction in the Arab world. T h e Gulf states are able to integrate individual sovereign interests into collective GCC concerns fairly s m o o t h l y , h o w e v e r , b e c a u s e they s h a r e a r e m a r k a b l y h i g h d e g r e e of c o m m o n a l i t y in t h e s t y l e s and f o r m s in their r e s p e c t i v e c u l t u r e s and governments, as well as in their outlook toward the outside world. T h e overall conservatism of G C C "consensus diplomacy" more often than not t e n d s to f a c i l i t a t e m o d e r a t i o n of d i s p u t e s b e t w e e n its m e m b e r s and presentation of a cohesive image to the international community. T h e t h r e a t s to t h e G C C m e m b e r s ' s o v e r e i g n e x i s t e n c e are m u l t i -
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dimensional. Internal threats are represented by the potential alienation of the professional and working classes, as well as the effect of potential challenges to traditional Arab values and erosion of Arab karamah (sclf-rcspcct) by Western cultural and commercial penetration. Externally, the GCC must still confront regional and global militancy from revolutionary Islam and the threat that superpower competition could still draw the subregion into unanticipated and unwelcome conflict situations. The termination of the IranIraq war may present Saudi Arabia and the Emirates with a new and more complex set of problems: how to fend off an Iraq no longer preoccupied with defending itself against Tehran's armies and how to cope with an Iran that can turn at least some of its attention to the sponsorship of revolutionary Islam in other Gulf states. It will not be possible for the GCC to use the uncertain balance of power in the Gulf in ways that allow its members to advance their own security interests without having to take into serious account that Iraq and Iran arc no longer preoccupied with their own war. Thus, new security challenges may be emerging for the GCC that will need to be met with a shrewd combination of economic, social, diplomatic, and military planning. Joint strategic cooperation is only one aspect of building collcctive selfreliance in response to persistent threats. To their immense credit, the GCC states have recognized this and have taken steps, for example, to pursue economic development strategies in preparation for the day when finite oil reserves arc exhausted. The Unified Economic Agreement (adopted in June 1982), the Unified Industrial Development Strategy and the Common Agricultural Policy (both adopted in November 1985), as well as the Gulf Investment Cooperation, illustrate GCC's strategy of creating a "suitable environment for development through common policies." 93 The GCC has outpaced other SRSOs in moving toward tangible arrangements for economic integration and a common development strategy. OECS members appear to be making progress in defining their collcctive security interests in the Caribbean, although they were still compelled to ask for outside intervention in their one great test of conflict resolution in Grenada. In contrast to the GCC's cultural and political traditions, which underlie its relatively smooth transition toward collcctive self-reliance, the eastern Caribbean states are moving in the direction of closer political collaboration by relying upon their heritage of constitutional government. The SPF has also managed to sustain a uniquely regional approach to policy decisionmaking. This has been characterized by its members' sensitivity to the need for preserving consensus and to the need to forge unified positions to outside economic and strategic forces in compensation for their own geographic isolation and resource shortages. The OECS members' common political heritage has overcome a number of disparities in their common effort to move toward collcctive self-reliance in defense. The operational aspects of OECS security planning, however,
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have remained largely undefined. There has been no real effort by the OECS to match the G C C Military Committee's assumption of concrete responsibilities for subregion defense planning and coordination. A proposal for a Central Liaison Office (CLO) of the Regional Security Service under the 1982 Memorandum of Understanding between the OECS and Barbados was jettisoned f o l l o w i n g Tom A d a m s ' s death in 1985. N o real evidence has surfaced that O E C S is yet prepared to compensate for the decline in that concept's momentum. The S P F member-states also have yet to translate how their limited resources will allow them to build and sustain any type of collective defense force infrastructure that would be taken seriously within and beyond the South Pacific. The danger felt by many Forum states is that the Melanesian countries could strike out on their own to forge a collective regional military identity—a fear that has no equivalent in the other SRSOs assessed in this study with the possible exception of Indonesia vis-à-vis the rest of ASEAN. OECS security policies are basically fashioned by its members' fears of individual state vulnerability. At least to some extent, this perception of vulnerability, brought about by events and forces beyond their control, parallels that entertained by the G C C states. The unlikely rcemergencc of a rival coalition to the pro-Western OECS in the eastern Caribbean would be grounds for reactivating formal defense mechanisms under OECS auspices. While S A D C C members have hardly been free of internecine conflict, their common determination to break the chains of South African economic and military domination has been the primary aspect of their economic and political interaction. This determination requires that intra-SADCC disputes be minimized whenever possible, in order to confront the greater security challenge represented by Pretoria. This determination, in fact, constitutes the key to S A D C C ' s existence. But it simultaneously narrows the f o c u s of decisionmaking to a point where "concerted action to secure international cooperation" for the members' development strategics becomes subordinated to the strategy for " e c o n o m i c liberation" contained in the 1980 Lusaka Declaration. Only recently has SADCC begun to match the other SRSOs in its attempts to define and implement broad agendas and complex institutional networks for economic development. While the SRSOs continue their efforts to define and implement their respective regional policy objectives and create organizational structures, their overall effect on the international security environment has thus far remained limited. The GCC failed to mediate a successful conclusion to the Gulf war. ASEAN still confronts major security challenges in Indochina and in the Philippines, without having generated a clear and u n a m b i g u o u s approach to cither. The OECS is no closer to converting its charter mandate into actual collective d e f e n s e m e c h a n i s m s than it was at its f o u n d i n g . S A D C C is still largely involved in negotiating with South African economic interests, instead of m o r e e f f i c i e n t l y c o m p e t i n g with them. T h e S P F ' s
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nuclear-free-zone treaty has yet to be ratified by three of the world's five key nuclear powers, and the three who have withheld their support are far more important to the future development and security o f the South Pacific than the two who have endorsed the treaty. All of these S R S O s , moreover, remain dependent on external markets. Barriers to the S R S O s ' gaining more political and strategic credibility remain, at both the subregional and international levels. T h e S R S O s still appear to play only secondary roles in conflict resolution efforts in their regions. It is typical of this situation that the settlement to the Angolan civil war was negotiated between the various political factions and the superpowers, raLher than through S A D C C channels. Fissures in A S E A N ' s united front on the Kampuchcan conflict are now appearing, in part as a result of A S E A N ' s own inability to guarantee continuing solidarity among its members over how to deal with Vietnam, especially with the prospect o f the Khmer R o u g e returning to power in Pnomh Penh. T h e geopolitical or ideological orientations of various members of four of the S R S O s — K u w a i t in the G C C , the Philippines in A S E A N , A n g o l a and M o z a m b i q u e in S A D C C , and Vanuatu in the S P F — a n d the overall division between the O E C S and its parent organization, C A R I C O M , continue to detract from unity of purpose and, therefore, from credibility. The limited success that the S R S O s have thus far achieved calls into question their long-term effectiveness. At present, however, there are few alternatives for regional crisis management and conflict resolution. Despite their i n t e r m i t t e n t t e n d e n c y to i n t e r v e n e in T h i r d World c r i s e s , the superpowers and the other advanced industrial states are increasingly daunted by the difficulty of controlling internal and interstate violence in underdeveloped regions. They arc very conscious of the potential dangers and penalties of intervention. If regional states can become more proficient in facilitating equitable political solutions or in playing more effective damage limitation roles, it seems likely that the developed world will welcome and support such efforts. There is, therefore, a need to examine how outside powers might collaborate with the S R S O s to help achieve more stable and secure regional order.
NOTES 1. Khong Kim Hoong and Abdul Razak Abdullah, "Security Cooperation in A S E A N , " Contemporary Southeast Asia 9, no. 2 (1987), pp. 1 3 7 - 1 3 8 . 2. " A Conversation With Malaysia's Chief of Dcfcnce Forces," Asian Defense Journal (September 1987), p. 35. 3. Ibid.; and S t e v e Hoadlcy, " M a l a y s i a ' s Military B u i l d - U p : A P o l i t i c a l Assessment," New Zealand International Review 13, no. 6 (November-December 1988), pp. 2 - 5 . 4. Muthiah Alagappa, The National Security of Developing States: Lessons from Thailand (Dover, Mass.: Aubum House, 1987), pp. 3 9 - 6 0 .
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5. A reccnt and comprehensive account of ASEAN military doctrines and structures is Chin Kin Wah (ed.), Defense Spending in Southeast Asia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1987). Also see Amitav Acharya, "Arms Proliferation Issues in ASEAN: Towards a More 'Conventional' Defense Posture," Contemporary Southeast Asia 10, no. 3 (December 1988), pp. 242-268. 6. Intelligence-sharing agreements reached between the Philippines and Thailand in 1977 are covered by Richard Deck, "The Case of ASEAN: Alliance or Regional Security Regime?" Department of Political Science, Stanford University, 1986, pp. 40-41; and Research Institute for Peace and Security, Asian Security 1984 (Tokyo: Nikkei Publishing, 1984), p. 169. 7. Ronald D. Palmer and Thomas J. Rekford, Building ASEAN (New York: Praeger, 1987), p. 125; Michael Vatikiotis and N. Balakrishnan, "Fading Suspicions," Far Eastern Economic Review 144, no. 15 (April 13, 1989), p. 29, and Sheldon Simon, The ASEAN States and Regional Security (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1982), p. 92. 8. Robert Karniol, "ASEAN's Need for Greater Defense Cooperation," Jane's Defence Weekly 10, no. 23 ( D e c e m b e r 10, 1988), pp. 1 4 9 5 - 1 4 9 8 . E x t e n s i v e background on ASEAN defense spending is offered in Chin Kin Wah, Defense Spending in Southeast Asia, passim. 9. Background on intra-ASEAN economic cooperation is provided by Majorie L. Suriyamongkol, Politics of ASEAN Economic Co-operation (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988), and by Seiji Naya, "Economic Performance and Growth Factors of the ASEAN Countries," in Maitin, The ASEAN Success Story, pp. 47-87. 10. Suriyamongkol, Politics of ASEAN Economic Co-operation, p. 55. 11. Suriyamongkol, Politics of ASEAN Economic Co-operation, pp. 226-237; Susumu Awanohara, "Will ASEAN Open the Door to Itself?" Far Eastern Economic Review 138, no. 49 (December 3, 1987), pp. 104-105; and Awanohara, "Nothing Ventured," ibid., 105-107. 12. These points are discussed cogently by Sukhumbhand Paribatra, "The Challenge of Co-existence: A S E A N ' s Relations with Vietnam in the 1990s," Contemporary Southeast Asia 9, no. 2 (September 1987), pp. 145, 152. 13. Background on the evolution of the GCC is provided by Christie, "History and Development of the Gulf Cooperation Council," pp. 7-20; R. K. Ramazani, The Gulf Cooperation Council: Record and Analysis, pp. 1-12; and Nancy Troxlcr, "The Gulf Cooperation Council: The Emergence of an Institution," Millennium: Journal of International Studies 16, no. 1 (Spring 1987), pp. 2-12. 14. Ispahani, "Alone Together," p. 161. 15. Mazher A. Hameed, Saudi Arabia, the West and the Security of the Gulf (London, Sydney, and Wolfeboro, N.H.: Croom Helm, 1986), pp. 42-47; and Laura Guazzone, "Gulf Co-operation Council: The Security Policies," Survival 30, no. 2 (March-April 1988), p. 137. 16. Figures extracted from Ispahani, "Alone Together," p. 168; Erik R. Peterson, The Gulf Cooperation Council, pp. 111-112; and Troxler, "The Gulf Cooperation Council," p. 4. Also see Avi Plascov, Security in the Persian Gulf: Modernization, Political Development and Stability (Totawa, N.J.: Allanhcld, Osmun, for the International Institute For Strategic Studies, 1982), pp. 72-78. 17. See Ramazani, The Gulf Cooperation Council, pp. 3 8 ^ 2 , as well as his "Shi'ism in the Persian Gulf," in Juan R.I. Cole and Nikki R. Keddie (eds.), Shi'ism and Social Protest (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 30-54. See also James A. Bill, "Islam, Politics, and Shi'ism in the Gulf," Middle East Insight 3, no. 3 (January-February 1984), pp. 3-12. 18. J.S. Birks, I.J. Seccombe, and C.A. Sinclair, "Migrant Workers in the Arab Gulf: The Impact Of Declining Oil Revenues," International Migration Review 20,
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no. 4 ( W i n t e r 1986), pp. 8 1 3 - 8 1 4 . 19. J o s e p h A . K e c h i c h i a n , " T h e G u l f C o o p e r a t i o n C o u n c i l : S e a r c h Security," Third
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7, no. 4 ( O c t o b e r 1985), pp. 8 5 5 - 8 5 7 ; A n t h o n y H .
the
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(Boulder, C o l o , and L o n d o n :
Westview
Press/Mansell P u b l i s h i n g , 1988), p. 156; and " N o B a r g a i n i n g on O u r H o m e l a n d ' s S e c u r i t y : U p to K u w a i t i s to J u d g e S a b o t e u r s , " Al-Sharq
r a d i o dispatch
Al-Awsat
m o n i t o r e d in L o n d o n , January 28, 1988 as translated and r e p r i n t e d in F o r e i g n B r o a d c a s t I n f o r m a t i o n S e r v i c e ( h e r e a f t e r c i t e d as F B I S ) , Near
F e b r u a r y 5,
East,
1988, p. 15. 20. " T h e G u l f W a k e s U p T o R e a l i t y , " The Middle
East, no. 174 ( A p r i l 1989),
p. 5. 21. Erik R . Peterson p r o v i d e s background on the E A in The Gulf
Cooperation
113-115.
Council,pp.
22. " T h e G u l f W a k e s U p to R e a l i t y , " pp. 7 - 8 . 23. S e e r e m a r k s o f Y o u s e f S i r a w i , B a h r a i n ' s m i n i s t e r o f D e v e l o p m e n t and Industry, in Mushtak Parker, " C o m e and Join Our C l u b , " The Middle
no. 174
East,
( A p r i l 1989), p. 34. 24. K u w a i t i press r e l e a s e o f A p r i l 16, 1981, cited b y K e c h i c h i a n , " T h e G u l f C o o p e r a t i o n C o u n c i l , " p. 871. 25. R e p o r t o f the D e f e n s e P o l i c y Panel and the Investigations S u b c o m m i t t e e o f the C o m m i t t e e on A r m e d S e r v i c e s , H o u s e o f R e p r e s e n t a t i v e s , National Policy
Implications
of United
States Operations
in the Persian
Gulf,
Security
100th C o n g . , 1st
sess., July 1987, pp. 6 2 - 6 4 ; A d e l D a r w i s h , " K u w a i t ' s D o o m s d a y S c e n a r i o , " Middle
The
East, no. 160 (February 1988), p. 23.
26. E x c e l l e n t analysis on the events and calculations l e a d i n g to the K u w a i t i d e c i s i o n to r c f l a g its v e s s e l s in the c o n t e x t o f its G C C relations can be f o u n d in National
Security
Policy
pp. 3 - 1 2 .
Implications,
27. O n the B r i g h t Star e x e r c i s e s , see L e n o r e G . M a r t i n , The
Unstable
Gulf
( L e x i n g t o n , Mass.: D . C . Heath, 1984), p. 133. O n e x e r c i s e S w i f t S w o r d , sec D a v i d Buchanan and R o g e r M a t t h e w s , " B r i t a i n to Step U p Patrols in G u l f , " Times,
Financial
N o v e m b e r 27, 1986, p. 46; and John Chipman, " E u r o p e a n Responses Outside
E u r o p e , " in Jonathan A l f o r d and K e n n e t h H u n t ( e d s . ) , Europe
in the
Western
( L o n d o n and B a s i n g s t o k e : M a c m i l l a n P r e s s I n t e r n a t i o n a l Institute f o r
Alliance
Strategic Studies, 1988), p . 133. 28. M i c h a e l W . S . Ryan, " A s s i s t a n c e to the Persian G u l f R e g i o n , " in W i l l i a m J. O l s o n ( e d . ) , US Strategic
Interests
in the Gulf
Region
(Boulder, Colo.:
Westview
Press, 1987), pp. 1 4 9 - 1 7 1 ; Susan F. Rasky, " K u w a i t i to S e e k R e v e r s a l o f M i s s i l e B a n , " New
York Times,
July 14, 1988, p . 3; and R o b e r t Pear, " U . S . E n v o y
C o n g r e s s to Overturn M i s s i l e Ban f o r O m a n , " New York Times,
Asks
M a r c h 12, 1988, p. 6.
29. Cordesman, The Gulf and the West, p. 155. 30. N i c k C o o k , " U K ' s £ 10 Bn. R e c o r d A r m s D e a l , " Jane's
Defence
Weekly
no. 2 ( 1 6 July 1 9 8 8 ) , p. 59; and R o b e r t H a z o , " B r i t i s h - S a u d i A r m s Washington
Report
on Middle
East Affairs
8, no. 4 ( A u g u s t 1988), p p . 7 - 9 . T h e 1985
T o r n a d o transaction is described in s o m e detail by A n t h o n y H . Cordesman, Strategic
Interests
in Saudi Arabia
10,
Deal," Western
( L o n d o n : C r o o m H e l m , 1987), p. 17. B a c k g r o u n d
on French military assistance is also found in Cordesman, ibid., pp. 145, 152, 160,
180. 31. U s e f u l accounts o f G C C arms procurement needs and d e p l o y m e n t patterns as w e l l as o f o v e r a l l G C C military relations with Western and S o v i e t b l o c sources are to b e f o u n d in K e c h i c h i a n , " T h e G u l f C o o p e r a t i o n C o u n c i l , " pp. 8 6 1 - 8 6 3 , and in J.E. Peterson, " T h e G C C and R e g i o n a l Security," American-Arab
Affairs,
no. 20 (Spring
1987), pp. 6 2 - 9 0 . 32. Hussein Sirriyeh, U.S. Policy
in the Gulf,
1968-1977
( L o n d o n : Ithaca Press,
84
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY COOPERATION
1984), pp. 28-31. 33. The Mubarak proposal is discussed by Saudi Arabia's King Fahd in a Baghdad INA radio news dispatch translated and reprinted in FBIS, Near East, January 20, 1988, p. 23. 34. Guazzone, "Gulf Co-operation Council: The Security Policies," p. 140. 35. See Oman's Major General 'Ali ibn Majid al-Mu'ammari's assessments of the GCC defense ministers' session in Muscat (October 5, 1986) in Uman (Muscat), October 12, 1986, as translated and reprinted in FBIS, Middle East and Africa (Daily Report), October 15, 1986, p. C-2. The 6 November 1986 GCC "Final Declaration" r e a f f i r m e d that organization's adherence to UN Security Council resolutions pertaining to "the freedom of navigation in international waters and freedom of passage of relevant vessels to and from GCC ports." A Riyadh Television Service broadcast version of the declaration is found in FBIS, Middle East and Africa, November 6, 1986, pp. C - l , C-2. 36. See Husain Haqqani, "Saudis Send Them Packing," Far Eastern Economic Review 138, no. 51 (December 17, 1987), pp. 51-52; a Dehli Domestic Radio Service report in English, November 29, 1987, reprinted in FBIS, Near East and South Asia (Daily Report), November 30, 1987, p. 69; and Keesing's Record of World Events 33, no. 11 (1988), p. 36312. 37. Cordesman, The Gulf and the West, p. 193. Also see Judith Perera, "Gulf Security: Is Self-Defense a Myth?" The Middle East, no. 119 (September 1984), pp. 15-18, and Peter Buhl, "Gulf States Look to Defense Cooperation," Jane's Defence Weekly 10, no. 1 (July 9, 1988), pp. 12-14. 38. Thomas McNaughcr, "Arms and Allies on the Arabian Peninsula," Orbis 28, no. 3 (Fall 1984), especially pp. 501-505. 39. Cited in Manama Wakh (Bahrain), November 3, 1986, p. C-l, as translated and reprinted in FBIS, Middle East and Africa (Daily Report), November 4, 1986, p. C-l. 40. Sec Ian Black, "Gulf States Worried by Build-up of Naval Forces," Guardian, October 15-16, 1987, p. 11, quoting UAE officials. See also Robert Harvey, "A Salute From the Sheiks," Daily Telegraph, October 20, 1987, p. 19, and the remarks of U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Richard L. Armitage in Hearings Before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Military Forces to Protect "Re-Flagged" Kuwaiti Tankers, 100th Cong., 1st sess., June 16, 1987, p. 96, complaining about a lack of U.S. diplomatic credibility in the region as evidenced by Kuwait's ability to "play o f f ' one superpower against the oilier in the Gulf to achieve its own limited strategic interests at their expense. 41. Pre-OECS Caribbean defense proposals by the United States arc covered in Jack Child, "Issues for U.S. Policy in the Caribbean Basin in the 1980s: Security," in Report of the Atlantic Council's Working Group on the Caribbean Basin, Western Interests and U.S. Policy Options in the Caribbean Basin (Boston: Oelegeschlager, Gunn, and Hain, 1984), p. 170. For general background on eastern Caribbean security problems, see Scott B. MacDonald, Erik Kopp, and Victor J. Bonnilla, "Heading Toward a New Instability in the Caribbean's Eastern Tier," in MacDonald, Harold M. Sandstrom, and Paul B. Goodwin, Jr. (eds.), The Caribbean After Grenada (New York: Praeger, 1988), pp. 178-183. 42. Report of the Commonwealth Consultative Group, Vulnerability: Small States in the Global Society, p. 28. 43. Interviews with O E C S o f f i c i a l s , Castries, St. Lucia, April 3, 1989. Additional background on the MOU is provided by Edward Fursdon, "The British, the Caribbean and Belize," Journal of Defense and Diplomacy 6, no. 6 (June 1988), p. 40.
CASE STUDIES
85
44. Mirlande Manigat, "CARICOM at Ten," in Jorge Heine and Leslie Manigat (cds.), The Caribbean and World Politics (New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1988), pp. 100-101. 45. Edward Gonzalez, "US Strategic Interests in the Caribbean Basin," in Heine and Manigat, The Caribbean and World Politics, p. 286. That such fears drove OECS security calculations throughout 1981-1983 were confirmed in author interviews with OECS officials, April 3, 1989. 46. Manigat, "CARICOM at Ten," in Heine and Manigat, pp. 90-97. 47. See "Organization of Eastern Caribbean States' Position on Crisis in Grenada October 26, 1983," reprinted in Institute of Caribbean Studies, Documents on the Invasion of Grenada (Rio Piedras, P.R.: Institute of Caribbean Studies, 1984), p. 85, and OECS, Treaty Establishing the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (Castries, St. Lucia: OECS Secretariat, 1981), p. 8. 48. Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, OECS in Perspective (Castries, St. Lucia: OECS/Central Secretariat, May 1987), p. 5. 49. "New Navies of the Caribbean," Defense and Foreign Affairs Weekly 14, no. 21 (May 30-June 5, 1988), p. 1. 50. Gary P. Lewis, "Prospects for a Regional Security System in the Eastern Caribbean," Millennium: Journal of International Studies 15, no. 1 (Spring 1986), p. 83. 51. Roberto Espindola, "Let Grenada Go Neutral, Says Security Report," Sunday Times, October 13, 1985, p. 20. 52. Lewis, "Prospects for a Regional Security System," pp. 83-84; and Andrew Walker, "Security of the Eastern Caribbean," Jane's Defence Weekly 7, no. 2 (January 17, 1987), p. 61. 53. Interviews with OECS officials, Castries, St. Lucia, April 3, 1989. Also see Braveboy-Wagner, The Caribbean in World Affairs, p. 47. 54. Testimony of Ramsford W. Palmer, professor of economics, Howard University, in a report prepared by the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, in a workshop for the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, The EnglishSpeaking Caribbean: Current Conditions and Implications for U.S. Policy, 99th Cong., 1st sess., September 13, 1985, p. 16. 55. Erasmus Williams, "Eastern Island Nations Agree to Form Single Nation," Caribbean News Agency (CANA) Newservice Dispatch (Bridgetown), as reprinted in FBIS, Latin America (Daily Report), 1 June 1987, p. B - l ; and Jeremy Taylor, "Mini States Plan to Merge as a Nation Within Two Years," Times, July 24, 1987, p. 9. 56. Canute James, "Caribbean Isles Ponder Prospect of Political Unity," Financial Times, December 20, 1988, p. 6. 57. Canute James, "Islands Plan To Unite as a Nation," Sunday Times, June 7, 1987, p. 9. The problem of merging OECS member-state sovereign interests with a more unified subregional foreign policy is analyzed cogently by Pamela Beshoff, " F o r e i g n Policy C o - o p e r a t i o n and R e g i o n a l I n t e g r a t i o n in the C a r i b b e a n , " Millennium: Journal of International Studies 15, no. 1 (Spring 1986), pp. 97-98. 58. Interviews with OECS officials, St. Lucia, April 3, 1989; and Manigat, "CARICOM at Ten," in Heine and Manigat, pp. 106-108. For a report on CARICOM efforts to establish a Caribbean peace zone, see dispatches from the World Peace Council meetings in Mexico City held during late 1983, in FBIS, Latin America (Daily Report), November 3, 1983, pp. A-l, A-2. 59. Anthony Payne, "Of Beauty, Vulnerability and Politics: Survival in the Caribbean," Third World Affairs 1987 (London: Third World Foundation, 1987), p. 222. 60. Background on the specific implications of the Lusaka Declaration on
86
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY
COOPERATION
Southern Africa: Toward Economic Liberation is provided by Joseph Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbors: Apartheid Power in Southern Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), pp. 17-19, and by Gavin G. Maasdorp, "Squaring Up to Economic Dominance: Regional Matters," in Robert L. Rotberg (ed.), South Africa and Its Neighbors (Lexington, Mass. and Toronto: D.C. Heath, 1985), p. 93. 6 1 . S e e the sectoral paper, " F i r s t Steps Toward E c o n o m i c Integration: Instruments, Institutions, Instrumentalities," presented to the S A D C C Steering Committee at the July 1979 organizational conference in Arusha, as reprinted in Amon J. Nsekela (ed.), Southern Africa: Toward Economic Liberation (London: Rex Collings, 1981), pp. 2 3 - 2 4 . 62. Roger Martin, "Regional Security in Southern Africa," Survival 29, no. 5 (September-October 1987), especially p. 396. 63. For additional information on the CONSAS proposal, see Robert S. Jastcr, South Africa and Its Neighbors: The Dynamics of Regional Conflict, Adclphi Papers No. 209 (London: The International Institute for Strategic Studies, Summer 1986), pp. 45^18. 64. This analogy is pursued by Reginald H. Green and Carol B. Thompson, "Political Economics in Conflict: SADCC, South Africa and Sanctions," in Phyllis Johnson and David Martin (eds.), Front Line South Africa: Destructive Engagement (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows Publishing, 1988), pp. 3 4 4 - 3 4 7 . Also see Dan O'Mcara, Destabilization of the Frontline States of Southern Africa, Background Paper no. 20 (Ontario: Canadian Institute for International Pcacc and Security, June 1988), pp. 2 - 5 . 65. William Claiborne, "The Front-Line States Are Getting Cozy with South Africa," Washington Post National Weekly Edition, April 11-17, 1988, p. 16; and Ibbo Mandaza, "Perspectives on Economic Co-operation and Autonomous Development in Southern Africa," in Amin, Chitala, and Mandaza, SADCC: Prospects for Disengagement and Development in Southern Africa, pp. 222-226. 66. The Protocol of Brazzaville and the accompanying Tripartite Agreement Among Angola, Cuba and South Africa are found in "Angola Namibia Accords," Department of State Bulletin 89, no. 2143 (February 1989), pp. 10-16. Background on events leading up to the settlement are provided by Kurt M. Campbell, Southern Africa in Soviet Foreign Policy, Adclphi Papers No. 227 (London: IISS, Winter 1987-1988), pp. 9 - 1 0 , and Robert Pear, "U.S. Steps Up Effort to End Angola War," International llerald Tribune, April 16-17, 1988, p. 3. The South African-SWAPO fighting is assessed by Scott Kraft, "Cuba, Angola and South Africa OK Plan to Restore Namibia Peace," Los Angeles Times, April 10, 1989, p. 6. 67. Southern African Development Coordination Conference, Overview to the 1986 Harare Annual Consultative Conference (Gaborone: SADCC, 1986), pp. 2 5 - 2 6 ; and O'Mcara, Destabilization of the Frontline States, p. 7. 68. C.R.D. Halisi, "Regional Development and Security in Africa: The Southern African Development Coordination Conference and South Africa," paper prepared for a workshop, "Soviet-U.S. Cooperation for Africa," at the Institute for African Studies, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow, December 1-3, 1987, p. 6. 69. Joseph Hanlon, SADCC: Progress, Projects and Prospects, Special Report no. 182 (London: The Economist Intelligence Unit, 1984), pp. 17-18; and Maasdorp, "Squaring Up to Economic Dominance," in Rotberg, p. 99. 70. Martin, "Regional Security in Southern Africa," p. 396. 71. For a good background on Malawi's tensions with both Mozambique and Zimbabwe, consult John McCracken, "Malawi: Recent History," in Africa South of the Sahara 1988 (London: Europa Publications, 1987), pp. 6 3 3 - 6 3 4 , and Thomas Young, "Mozambique: Recent History," in ibid., p. 704. 72. Southern Africa Development Coordination Conference, 1985-1986 Annual
CASE STUDIES
87
Progress Report (Gaborone: S A D C C , 1986), pp. 9, 2 4 - 2 5 . 73. Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbors, p. 25. 74. Southern African Development Coordination Conference, Transport and Communications Annual Report (Gaborone: S A D C C , February 5 - 6 , 1987), p. 3. 75. Data on bilateral aid is from the Australian Development Assistance Bureau testimony before the Australian Parliament's Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, March 1987, and cited by Denis McLean, "The Interests of Extra-Regional Powers," in Strategic Cooperation and Competition in the Pacific Islands 2, p. 386. 76. Fry, "Regionalism and International Politics of the South Pacific," p. 460. 77. Cited in "A Roar from the South Pacific," Asiaweek 15, no. 14 (April 7, 1989), p. 29. Also sec Paul Addison, " P a c i f i c Isles' Current Realities," Pacific Magazine 12, no. 4 (July-August 1987), p. 32; and Helen Frascr, "Big Brothers Lack Sensitivity," Pacific Defense Reporter 16, no. 4 (October 1989), pp. 2 0 - 2 1 . 78. Fry, "Regionalism and International Politics of the South Pacific," p. 468. A l s o s e e S a n d r a T a r t e , " R e g i o n a l i s m a n d G l o b a l i s m in t h e S o u t h P a c i f i c , " Development and Change 20, no. 3 (January 20, 1990), p. 89. 79. David Hegarty, "Political Stability and Instability in the South Pacific," in Strategic Cooperation and Competition in the Pacific Islands 1, pp. 110, 116-117; Hamish McDonald, " R a m p a n t or Restrained?" and "The Coup Is C o n d e m n e d , " Far Eastern Economic Review 138, no. 41 (October 8, 1987), pp. 1 2 - 1 3 ; M c D o n a l d , "Matters of Survival," Far Eastern Economic Review 138, no. 4 2 (October 15, 1987), pp. 19-20; Nicholas Rothwell, "Rabuka's Republic," Pacific Islands Monthly 58, no. 11 (November 1987), pp. 10--15; and Chris Sherwell, "Falling into the Third World Trap," Financial Times, May 15, 1987, p. 16. 80. "Fiji Puts Pressure on F o r u m , " Pacific Islands Monthly 58, no. 7 (July 1987), p. 17. 81. Hcrr, "Future Roles of Regional Organizations," pp. 150-151. 82. Fiji Coalition party leaders attended the Twentieth SPF and unsuccessfully pressured Vanuatu's delegation to introduce its grievances as part of the confcrence agenda. See "Ironing Out Key Issues," Pacific Islands Monthly 59, no. 19 (August 1989), p. 14. 83. " I r o n i n g Out Key Issues," p. 14; and Fran Wilde, associate minister of External Relations and Trade, "South Pacific and New Zealand in the 1990's," New Zealand External Affairs Review 39, no. 1 (October-December 1988), pp. 2 0 - 2 1 . 84. Hcrr, "Future Roles of Regional Organizations," pp. 149-150. 8 5 . M c L e a n , " T h e I n t e r e s t s of E x t r a - R e g i o n a l P o w e r s , " in Strategic Cooperation, p. 394. 86. Hcrr, "Regionalism, Strategic Denial, and South Pacific Security," p. 175. 87. Background is provided by David Hegarty, "The Soviet Union in the South Pacific in the 1990's," in Ross Babbage (ed.), The Soviets in the Pacific in the 1990's ( R u s h c u t t c r s Bay, Australia: B r a s s e y ' s , 1989), pp. 1 1 3 - 1 2 7 ; Paul D i b b , " S o v i e t Strategy Towards Australia, New Zealand, and the South-Wcst Pacific," Australian Outlook 39, no. 2 (August 1985), pp. 6 9 - 7 6 ; George K. Tanham, "Is the West Losing O u t ? " Pacific Defense Reporter 14, no. 12 (June 1988), pp. 2 4 - 2 7 ; Tanham, The Soviet Union in the South Pacific, P-7431 (Santa Monica, Calif.: The Rand Corporation, April 1988); and Dennis L. Bark and O w e n Harries (eds.), The Red Orchestra, Vol. 3: The Case of the Southwest Pacific ( S t a n f o r d , Calif.: H o o v e r Institution Press, 1989). The latter source, however, is unusually polemical, and much of its content may be less relevant as the Cold War recedes into the background. 88. Ed Rampell, "Kwajalcin: Furore in Perspective," Pacific Islands Monthly no. 14 (February 1989), pp. 3 1 - 3 2 . 89. Parliament of Australia, Australia's Relations with the South Pacific, 191-192, 201.
59, pp.
88
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY C O O P E R A T I O N
90. Michacl Vatikiotis, "Pacific Diplomacy," Far Eastern Economic Review 138, no. 42 (Octobcr 15, 1987), p. 21. 91. Henry S. Albinski, "South Pacific Trends and U.S. Security Implications: An Introductory Overview," in Robert L. Pfaltzgraff and Lloyd R. Vasey (cds.), The South Pacific: Political, Economic, and Military Trends. Special Report 1989, a publication of the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis (Washington D.C.: Brassey's [U.S.], Inc., 1989), pp. 1-26. 92. For a particularly candid assessment of ASEAN's "self-deception" in the economic planning sectors, see Hans H. Indorf, Impediments to Regionalism in Southeast Asia: Bilateral Constraints Among ASEAN Member States (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1984), pp. 48-64. 93. Abdullah Ibrahim El-Kuwaiz, "Economic Integration of the Cooperation Council of the Arab States of the Gulf: Challenges, Achievements and Future Outlook," in Sandwick, The Gulf Cooperation Council, pp. 81-82.
External Responses to SRSOs
When external actors become involved in subregional security matters, they often do so to preempt the efforts of SRSOs to pursue independent policies or to prevent rivals from achieving greater influence at their expense. Regional security and development needs thus become subordinate or expendable. The regional power balances that result may satisfy external actor security requirements but fail to serve and promote local needs (i.e., political stability and economic growth). Nevertheless, outside assistance is often solicited by the SRSOs, mostly from Western sources, to provide discreet security assistance and critical economic aid. Such assistance allows the SRSOs to address fundamental defense and development needs without overburdening scarce resources. In the defense sector, the assistance typically includes training police forces and paramilitary or military personnel for multipurpose use in a national or subregional crisis; transferring military equipment, participating in bilateral or multilateral defense arrangements at the request of SRSO states; and contributing to intelligence gathering and analysis as well as to defense contingency planning. To assist in economic development, external actors fund selected projects, encourage economic diversification programs, and help develop indigenous agricultural and industrial production capacity and t e c h n o l o g i c a l capability. T h e y have also helped train b u r e a u c r a t s , encouraged human rights practices, and facilitated independent media. At other times, outside powers or multinational organizations have become involved constructively in intraregional disputes at the invitation of subregional actors, or have included the SRSOs in landmark development accords. In August 1979, the UK and the Commonwealth were asked by the Front Line States (the SADCC membership, less Malawi, Lesotho, and Swaziland) to help author a constitution for majority rule in Zimbabwe. In July 1981, ASEAN secured the backing of the UN General Assembly for its opposition to Vietnam's military presence in Cambodia. The GCC states played a major role throughout late May 1984 in securing UN condemnation of Iran's efforts to blockade Gulf oil ports during the Iran-Iraq war. The Lomé Convention, initially signed in 1975 between the European Community and African/Caribbean/Pacific (ACP) countries (including the OECS and SADCC member-states), provides critical access to European markets
89
90
SUBREGIONAL SECURITY COOPERATION
for the agricultural exports of developing nations. All of these cases unquestionably represent contributions to SRSOs' security and thus to overall international stability.
THE UNITED STATES President Roosevelt and other U.S. policymakers near the end of World War II initially hoped that international organizations such as the U N would a s s u m e p r i m a r y r e s p o n s i b i l i t y f o r r e s o l v i n g d i s p u t e s and m a n a g i n g d e v e l o p m e n t in T h i r d World regions. These hopes have so far p r o v e d unrealistic. In fact, U.S. security assistance to S R S O states seems less f o c u s e d on building political stability and economic resiliency than on serving U.S. global deterrence strategy. In October 1986, U.S. Undersecretary of Stale for Political A f f a i r s Michael H. Armacost noted that the Gulf's oil-producing states, Zambia and Zaire in southern Africa, and the A S E A N countries "invite special attention f r o m the United States" and that the United States "strongly support[s] emerging Third World regional associations that arc demonstrating a collective will to solve problems." The G C C and ASEAN were specifically cited as positive examples of emerging Third World security organizations. 1 The State Department had already announced that S A D C C was regarded as a promising instrument for resolving regional conflicts and for removing "a sense of strategic u n c e r t a i n t y " in southern Africa resuliing from South Africa's dominance of the region's economic and transportation systems. 2 S i n c e the G r e n a d a invasion, the United States has regarded the O E C S m e m b e r - s t a t e s as meriting both political-economic support, through the Caribbean Basin Initiative, and military assistance, through the training and equipping of the Regional Security System. In an address given during mid1988, A r m a c o s t stated that the U n i t e d States s u p p o r t e d d i a l o g u e and negotiation as the primary m e a n s to resolve regional conflicts, and that multilateral institutions such as the SRSOs and the UN were frequently and properly at the forefront of these conflict resolution efforts. 3 Moreover, recent events in Europe and in the Soviet Union ultimately may render postwar East-West competition less important as a factor of international relations, with Washington formulating a restructured Third World policy to incoiporate multilateral approaches. In this context, U.S. and SRSO security agendas could yet become more compatible.
U.S.-ASEAN
Relations
The ASEAN-U.S. Dialogue was established in September 1977 to discuss economic and political issues. In addition, either the U.S. secretary of state or his assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs usually participates in
E X T E R N A L RESPONSES
91
annual A S E A N Post-Ministerial sessions with counterparts from the European Community, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. As previously noted, ASEAN has deliberately refrained from establishing defense arrangements along the lines of the GCC's Peninsula Shield or the OECS's Regional Security System. 4 In the post-Vietnam era, however, ASEAN has encouraged U.S. policies designed to ensure regional stability. ASEAN has supported political-economic cooperation at the organizational level and has promoted a "multinational strategy" featuring U.S. bilateral military assistance to Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia. The United States has not sought a formal alliance with ASEAN as a whole, but "seeks productive, multilevel ties, based on regional circumstances" with each of the A S E A N states. 5 The A S E A N member-states remain accountable to domestic political constituencies that harbor negative memories about excessive U.S. military involvement in the subregion, and would oppose plans to revive externally sponsored collective defense pacts there. Even as ASEAN resists its conversion to an updated SEATO, it incurs risks by associating too openly with the United States in security politics. The U.S. presence at bases in the Philippines is viewed increasingly in Manila as less relevant to the Philippines' own national security priorities, which arise largely from domestic insurgency movements. For the time being, both Indonesia and Malaysia support a continued U.S. military presence in the Philippines as a temporary expedient for sustaining a regional power balance, until such time as ASEAN's long-range aspiration for a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality can be realized. 6 Yet both Indonesia and Malaysia opposed the Carter and Reagan administrations' encouragement of Japanese rearmament and defense relations with China as threats to longterm subregional security. The Malay states doubt the United States' willingness or ability to sustain the type of regional strategic presence they believe is needed to forestall eventual Chinese or Japanese efforts to control Southeast Asia. 7 The ASEAN member-states also complain about U.S. indifference to their long-term trade and investment problems and the subregion's ultimate political stability. They sense that ASEAN is less important to U.S. global strategic needs than is the Persian Gulf or Northeast Asia. Yet A S E A N members rejected President Reagan's call for a U.S.-ASEAN summit in late 1983 as symbolizing continued U.S. subregional predominance. U.S. explicit military commitments and assistance to the subregion, however, remain intact. In fiscal year 1986 alone, for example, $335 million out of the $818 million the Reagan administration earmarked for foreign economic assistance to the Asian-Pacific region was concentrated in the three largest A S E A N m e m b e r s — I n d o n e s i a , the Philippines, and T h a i l a n d . 8 When A S E A N called for the United States to provide military supplies and aid to the Khmer People's National Liberation Front (KPNLF) in February 1985, at the height of a substantial Vietnamese military offensive in Cambodia,
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Congress responded by allocating additional, if modest, emergency military and economic assistance ($5 million). As the Kampuchean conflict winds down, ASEAN could renew efforts to strengthen its political and strategic importance to the United States by achieving consensus on how to advance ZOPFAN and other strategic priorities in ways that appear less assertive and more substantive to U.S. policymakers. ASEAN must review how it can improve Southeast Asia's importance to the United States. While ASEAN leaders strongly protested U.S. trade liberalization with OECS states through the Caribbean Basin Initiative (February 1982), because they felt such measures impeded ASEAN products from c o m p e t i n g in the U.S. marketplace, such barriers and perceived injustices cannot be remedied by mere protests. They must, instead, be corrected through further stabilization of the ASEAN members' own political and economic development and through a continued willingness to help advance Westem-ASEAN security within a broad international framework. However, initial A S E A N response to proposals for joint U.S.-ASEAN participation in the context of a larger Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which convened an exploratory conference in Canberra during November 1989, was unenthusiastic. Indonesia and Malaysia were especially critical, fearing that any such large grouping would dominate the ASEAN states and relegate their own interests to an inferior status compared to those of the larger Pacific economies. 9 Moreover, while other ASEAN states have supported a continued U.S. basing prcsencc in the Philippines, they sharply opposed U.S. e f f o r t s to negotiate a m o r e limited basing arrangement with Singapore, in anticipation that Filipino nationalism would force Washington to abandon that presence in the early 1990s.' 0 Yet, while some Southeast Asian security analysts have recently speculated about the advantages of ASEAN "diversifying its security options," to avoid what they regard as continued excessive strategic dependence upon the United States, no credible substitute for relatively benevolent and modest U.S. support has been identified. 11
U.S.-GCC
Relations
U.S. security relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council were upgraded following sharply intensified Iranian attacks against Kuwaiti-flagged vessels in September 1986. These attacks clearly represented an important test of any U.S. commitment to keep the Gulf's oil lifelines open and functioning. Writing two years before that particular crisis, Robert O'Neill suggested that U.S.-GCC relations could be strengthened through more systematic joint defense consultations. 1 2 Following the decision to reflag eight Kuwaiti tankers under U.S. registry, the GCC Council of Ministers passed a resolution supporting the U.S. action on behalf of Kuwait. The Saudis obtained approval from their GCC allies to extend airborne warning and surveillance
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coverage, using AWACs, to the lower Gulf in support of U.S. naval operations in the Straits o f Hormuz. Yet the increased U . S . - G C C contingency planning originally envisioned by O ' N e i l l failed to take place, largely because o f GCC concerns about the ability of the Reagan administration to sustain the reflagging in the face of congressional doubts. As Armacost told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, " W e sense in [the GCC] reaction a certain hesitancy with respect to making large commitments on their own prior to some clarification of the congressional attitude on this, because they . . . do not want to get too exposed before they understand we will follow through." 1 3 At present, no regular defense consultations are scheduled and none seem likely in the near future. In large part this situation reflects the United States' traditional ties to Israel, as evidenced by U.S.-GCC arms sales negotiations. At the height of the Kuwait reflagging crisis (October 1987), Congress rejected President Reagan's proposed sale of Maverick antitank missiles to Saudi Arabia and Stinger antiaircraft missiles to Bahrain. State Department officials have argued increasingly that both bilateral U.S. relations with G C C memberstates and overall U . S . influence in the Persian G u l f would decline in proportion to the volume of lost arms sales to Arab Gulf clients who represent no real threat to the Israelis. 1 4 Indeed, congressional rejection of a proposed sale of Stingers to Kuwait in 1984 prompted that country to purchase Soviet missiles, admit a small number o f Soviet military advisers, and eventually to ask Moscow for assistance in protecting its oil tankers from Iranian missiles and gunboats. In early July 1988, Congress again rejected a Kuwait arms deal by vetoing the Reagan administration's transfer of 3 0 0 Maverick missiles and scaling down a $1.9 million package in response to Israeli lobbying. Kuwait responded by awarding a small arms contract to the U S S R and by warning the United States it would seek to shift from its traditional reliance on U.S. weapons systems. 1 5 Arriving in Washington a few days after the congressional action, Kuwait's prime minister warned that "the ability of our friends to deliver is a barometer of friendship and cooperation." 1 6 President Reagan finally received authorization to sell forty F/A-18 Hornet fighter aircraft, with the antiship but not air-to-surface version of the Maverick, and with Kuwait returning one of its thirty aging A-4 Skyhawk jet fighters to the United States for every F/A-18 delivered. 1 7 In November 1989, the Bush administration announced its intention to sell Saudi Arabia 3 1 5 M 1 A 2 main battle tanks ( M B T s ) and associated equipment—a deal worth $3.1 billion. B y January 1990, however, U.S. defense budget cuts had jeopardized this weapons transactions with the Saudis because only sixtytwo M B T s were scheduled for production, raising the unit cost far above originally cited levels. 1 8 The Soviet Union cannot match the West either as a consumer of G C C products or as a source of development assistance, technology, and investment. Reminiscent o f A S E A N ' s economic pressuring of the United States,
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the G C C has been lobbying Washington to establish a free trade agreement along the lines of that it has already established with Israel and Canada. 1 9 But regular U . S . - G C C security consultations arc unlikely to materialize as long as the G C C perceives U.S. security priorities to be controlled by Israeli d e m a n d s . This is especially true given that the threat of the Iran-Iraq w a r spilling over into their region has largely dissipated because of the U N ceasefire. T h e G C C will p r o b a b l y continue to rely o n the U N to e n s u r e subr e g i o n a l p e a c e , w h i l e a c q u i e s c i n g to a l o w - k e y U . S . o f f s h o r e m i l i t a r y p r e s e n c e o p e r a t i n g f r o m Bahrain as i n s u r a n c e against the failure of U N peacekeeping arrangements.
U.S.-OECS
Relations
Since the Grenada crisis, O E C S security concerns have taken on economic overtones and moved away from the original vision of intensified Caribbean military integration. To some extent, this shift reflected O E C S concern that U.S. military assistance to the region is directed toward countering possible Nicaraguan or Cuban influence and not toward decreasing member-states' vulnerabilities to mercenary-inspired coups, drug smuggling, and other local threats. U.S. defense planners admitted that the Solid Shield m a n e u v e r s — a large-scale land and naval exercise conducted in Honduras and the Caribbean in M a r c h 1987, involving 50,000 U.S. military p e r s o n n e l — w e r e designed mainly to intimidate the pro-Cuban Sandinistas. A perceived " L i b y a n threat" also stems from Tripoli's alleged attempts to recruit and train eastern Caribbean political dissidents. 2 0 Reflecting its tendency to emphasize the security d i m e n s i o n of its C a r i b b e a n relations, the R e a g a n a d m i n i s t r a t i o n a l m o s t doubled its force presence in this subregion b e t w e e n 1982 and 1983 (from 15,500 to 27,900 personnel). Most of these troops were stationed to permanent U.S. bases in the area, including the P a n a m a Canal Zone, G u a n t a n a m o Bay in Cuba, and Puerto Rico. 2 1 U.S. military assistance levels to the O E C S also increased sharply during this time. 2 2 In justifying his decision during mid-1986 to scale down the Barbados D e f e n s e Force, Prime Minister Barrow argued that the United States wanted the Regional Security System to serve its containment strategy at the expense of the sovereignty of Barbados and each participating O E C S state. 2 3 Yet even before this policy announcement (September 1985), the United States had disbanded the U . S . - O E C S Caribbean Peace Force deployed at Grenada. It has since scaled back its military advisory personnel to RSS units. By early 1989, only a few advisers remained to assist the R S S c o m m a n d i n g officer in Barbados with intelligence and logistical coordination problems. T h e Caribbean Basin Initiative is instead viewed by O E C S countries as the best immediate hope for enhancing their e c o n o m i c security. 2 4 Nevertheless, U.S. motives in sustaining the CBI have been interpreted by a n u m b e r of e a s t e r n C a r i b b e a n political f i g u r e s as m a i n l y oriented t o w a r d Central
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America, instead of their own subregion. 25 While U.S. officials credited the C B I with fostering democracy and economic progress, a congressional delegation attending a symposium on the program in Bridgetown reported that O E C S conferees argued that U.S. military assistance funds should be reallocated to strictly development pursuits and that current CBI program restrictions actually sharpened ill-advised competition among Caribbean countries, instead of promoting regional integration and self-reliance. 2 6 A key test of the CBI's viability will be the United States' willingness to replace the development funding lost through reductions in concessionary financing support for OECS investment projects through the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The O E C S member-states still adhere to the principles of collective defense as defined both by the OECS Treaty and by the 1982 Memorandum of Understanding creating the R S S . As the ideological and political insecurities of the early 1980s have subsided, the legitimacy and appeal of prospective U.S. military intervention in the Commonwealth Caribbean have decreased commcnsurately. By limiting its permanent military deployments in the region, the United States appears to be sensitive to the security/ independence dilemma confronting the small OECS nations. But the United States' own Caribbean security agenda is still dominated by ideological and strategic considerations regarding Cuba and Central America, which might yet ignite subregional conflicts while seeking to preserve subregional order and stability. U.S.-SADCC
Relations
U.S. policy toward S A D C C has always been marked by the preeminence of e c o n o m i c development aid over military a s s i s t a n c e . T h e U . S . S t a t e Department has described this approach as resting on "the belief that a group of economically strong southern African states is important in itself and will be even more so when the destabilizing effect of apartheid has ended, enabling South Africa to play a role in the further development of the region." 2 7 Botswana is the primary recipient of very modest levels of U.S. military assistance in southern Africa, as U.S. military advisers assist its defense force with training and equipment for border patrols. Other S A D C C countries have occasionally been granted military funding through the Africa Civic Action Program, in effect since 1985. The Southern Africa Economic Progress Initiative, introduced by the Reagan administration in February 1987, was designed to help underwrite the costs of maintaining regional transportation systems. The aim was to overcome vulnerability to South Africa, promote intraregional trade and private investment, and support private sector economic reform. In addition to working with S A D C C in the transportation sector, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) collaborates in agricultural research and
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manpower development. Funding for the Economic Progress Initiative totaled $36 million for Fiscal year 1987 and $57 million for fiscal year 1988. From 1981 to 1987, however, total U.S. economic assistance to the SADCC member-states constituted only slightly more than 4 percent of the $2.37 billion total received from all Western donor states. The EC and Nordic countries have all been more forthcoming than the United States in funding SADCC projects. 28 U.S. funding assistance for SADCC has reflected ideological and geopolitical considerations. The United States extends no bilateral assistance to Angola and has withheld formal recognition of the government until Cuban troops are withdrawn from Angolan territory and UNITA is allowed to play a legitimate role in Angolan politics. SADCC members strongly criticized the United States for extending $5 million in USAID funds to help rebuild the Beira line through Mozambique in early 1986, while simultaneously earmarking up to ten times that amount for military assistance to UNITA. 29 The United States placed exclusionary clauses in its financial assistance to SADCC, designating, at various intervals, Angola, Mozambique, and Tanzania as "nonparticipants" in U.S.-funded projects. Washington has opposed SADCC efforts to define priorities in donor funding for development projects. 30 The United States has also resisted SADCC pressure to apply stronger sanctions against the South African government. Responding to intensified violent unrest in South A f r i c a ' s black townships during 1 9 8 5 - 1 9 8 6 , Congress passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, authorizing the Reagan administration to stiffen existing embargoes imposed against Pretoria. The administration, however, assumed a more cautious posture, arguing that South African stockpiling practices would limit the effectiveness of sanctions and that any effort to implement or expand sanctions needed to be multilateral. U.S. policy representatives have acknowledged that "U.S. pressure alone will be insufficient to accelerate the pace of change in South Africa." 3 1 U.S. officials identify the European Community and the UK, South Africa's major trading partners, as reluctant to adopt punitive but futile sanctions. The recent growth in SADCC trading tics with South Africa also supported the arguments of those opposing sanctions. U.S.-SPF
Relations
Immediately following World War II, the United States was well regarded throughout the South Pacific as a benign liberator and political role model. Over the past four decades, however, U.S. standing among South Pacific states has been disparaged by Washington's relative political and economic disinterest in the region (it contributes less than 4 percent of the region's total bilateral assistance). More recently, U.S. global strategic interests have appeared to be incompatible with the local interests of the SPF member-
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states. Differences over interpretations o f coastal sovereignty, leading to disputes about fishing rights and related environmental issues (e.g., the dumping of hazardous wastes), have increased the disparities between U.S. interests and policies in the South Pacific Forum area and those objectives and behavior pursued by indigenous regional actors. So, too, have disputes regarding the tactics the island-states have used to diversify their sources of foreign economic assistance and commerce, and over the applicability of nuclear deterrence. In a strategic context, the United States has forged a tacit division o f strategic burden-sharing labor with Australia and New Zealand, concentrating its own military presence and activities in Northeast Asia and the Philippines, while regarding Canberra and Wellington as the primary caretakers of Western security interests south of the equator. Even with the emergence o f increased tensions between the United States and the S P F nations, the latter still view Washington as the ultimate and legitimate imprimatur o f their regional security against future, if unforeseen, extraregional threats and hegemons. However, as John Dorrance has correctly asserted, the potential for greater hostility to U . S . and Western security interests is increasing "as more ideologically motivated and assertive island leaders replace those who emerged in the postcolonial period." 3 2 In 1987, the Reagan administration negotiated a five-year agreement with the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency, authorizing the licensing of U.S. fishing vessels, providing the annual payment o f $ 1 2 million in grants and fees, and limiting such boats to specific tuna catch quotas for the first time. This regional fisheries accord was designed to offset past incidents of Washington levying punitive trade and assistance sanctions mandated by the Magnuson Act against S P F states that had seized U.S. tuna boats fishing inside the island-nations' territorial waters. It also effectively reversed any Soviet geopolitical momentum that had been building in the South Pacific, by helping Kiribati and Vanuatu to reject modest Soviet financial offers as terms for renewal of one-year fishing agreements with these two countries. Until the United States moves closer to the fishery provisions outlined in the L a w o f the S e a Treaty, however, divisions over jurisdiction o f fishing grounds, innocent passage of Western naval and merchant vessels, and use of regional waters for various commercial pursuits that affect environmental trends will continue to be sources of tension between the United States and indigenous South Pacific actors. 33 The unfortunate legacy of U.S. nuclear weapons testing at Bikini Atoll is ingrained in the minds of most Pacific island-state residents, and nuclear politics remains as the most divisive issue between the United States the South Pacific Forum. The SPF, intent on removing the region from the vortex of postwar geopolitical competition, gave concrete expression to that objective by fashioning the Treaty o f Rarotonga (August 1 9 8 5 ) , which established a South P a c i f i c Nuclear-Free Zone. S P N F Z was designed, however, to be sensitive to U.S. concerns that the freedom of its military
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units to transverse the seas and skies of the region without disclosure of their specific nuclear/non-nuclear content would be preserved at least temporarily. The United States is thus allowed to negotiate with the SPNFZ signatories for nuclear transit rights on a case-by-case basis. Australian diplomats worked particularly hard to structure treaty language that would meet U.S. criteria for "acceptable" nuclear-free zones as originally applied to Latin America's Treaty of Tlatelolco and later adopted by the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). Among the most relevant provisions in this regard are the intraregional initiation; prohibition of nuclear explosions by zonal states; nondisturbance of existing security arrangements; respect for international law regarding freedom of navigation on the high seas and in international airspace; the right of innocent passage through territorial seas; and nonintervention concerning the rights of zonal parties under international law to grant or deny transit privileges, including port calls to and overflights over nonzonal states. 34 With the exception of New Zealand and Vanuatu, the Pacific island-states allow U.S. nuclear-capable ships into their ports on a case-by-case basis, without challenging the U.S. policy of "neither confirm nor deny" regarding its specific deployment of nuclear weapons. The Melanesian Spearhead Group continues to be the most opposed to the presence of U.S. nuclear-capable units in the SPF area but, to date, has been unable to compromise the organization's "loose constructionist" application of SPNFZ. Vanuatu has not signed the treaty, contending it doesn't go far enough in controlling all types of nuclear weapons involvement in the region. Tonga has also refused to sign, believing the treaty language goes too far in compromising traditional U.S. deterrence postures there. 3 5 U.S. military leaders visited both the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea during 1987-1988 and engaged in effective diplomacy to modify official resistance in those countries to a continued U.S. nuclear-capable presence in the South Pacific. U.S. naval engineering projects were slightly expanded in the Solomons, while the United States upgraded P-3 maritime surveillance operations it had previously conducted in Papua New Guinea on an intermittent basis. 36 Three major challenges for U.S. nuclear policy in the South Pacific remain problematic. One is Washington's reluctance to sign and ratify the SPNFZ Treaty on the rationale that to do so would encourage similar pacts in other regions, potentially restricting U.S. global military operations significantly. A second issue also relates to the inherent conflict between U.S. global strategy and local South Pacific security agendas: Washington's reticence to criticize France more strongly for testing nuclear weapons in French Polynesia, for fear of alienating a key European ally. A third question relates to the decolonization of Palau (Belau), currently delayed because Palauan courts have interpreted an antinuclear clause inserted in its constitution (assigning that island free association status with the United States) as forbidding the entry of U.S. nuclear-capable vessels. As the
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Philippines domestic political environment becomes less conducive to sustaining a U.S. basing presence in that country, Palau's importance as a possible alternative site increases for Washington's defense planners (it lies just 5 0 0 miles west of the Philippines). Its actual practicality for such a purpose remains highly tenuous, however. The United States and Palau must first resolve their current impasse over the implications of the constitutional antinuclear clause, originally written by U.S. State Department officials who failed to anticipate how broadly the indigenous Palauans might be inclined to apply its stipulations. 37 U.S.-SRSO Relations:
Summary
Overall, the modified version of collective defense behavior pursued by the United States with respect to the SRSOs has been ineffective. The essential challenge for the United States is to anticipate and deal with the rapid economic and political changes that many of the countries within the SRSOs are experiencing. The United States would generally prefer to preserve the status quo, because of its established commercial and political ties with existing regimes. The risk in doing so, however, is that if unexpected change docs occur, the United States suddenly could be viewed as antiprogressive, or even as an external threat, rather than as a proponent and supporter of SRSO-defined regional development and security. I f so, U.S. modified containment posture could actually provide more opportunities for the U S S R to enhance its own influence at U.S. expense.
EUROPE Western European states have related to the S R S O s in less ideological and geopolitical terms than has either the United States or the Soviet Union. Members of the European Community view their organization as a "third political-economic force," offering a security and development program more attractive to the S R S O s than either superpower. The EC's increasingly active role in coordinating development assistance to S R S O s focuses on food security, health services, and transportation. EC policy has been predicated upon the assumption that S R S O s ' security is principally dependent upon stabilizing member-states' trade flows with the world's developed nations and upon having access to international investment. Individual EC members have also retained or strengthened their bilateral military relations with separate S R S O countries as a means to sustain residual influence with their former colonies or to expand their arms markets. Divisions remain within the EC, however, over whether a multilateral or bilateral approach to Third World security problems is most effective. West Geimany prefers the multilateral formula, while France, in particular, and the
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UK, to a lesser extent, continue to favor bilateral approaches. The other EC members have been less inclined to get involved in the multilateral versus bilateral regional security policy question. Belgium, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal have all maintained bilateral economic and lowkey military relations with the SRSOs. Italy and Portugal are also involved in military advisery and sales programs. In January 1986, the Single European Act formalized the European Political Cooperation (EPC) system of political and security consultations. While the EPC still functions independently of the European Commission, acting only when consensus is reached on a specific issue (as opposed to the commission's majority rule decisionmaking format applied to intra-European trade and investment policies), it has nevertheless become an important "interlocutor" for Western Europe's relations with both developed and underdeveloped regions. A recent study of the EPC completed for the European Institute of Public Administration argues that the consultation proccss among EC/EPC member-states has led to more unified EC postures and behavior toward the SRSOs. 38 EC-ASEAN Political-Security
Cooperation
EC-ASEAN relations are by far the most institutionalized of those maintained with any SRSO. 3 ' EC officials regard ASEAN as the most coherent Third World grouping included within the Lomd Convention's extension of special trading privileges to Asian, Caribbean, and Pacific countries. They see ASEAN as a "stepping stone" toward a European political role in the Pacific. 40 The ASEAN states formed a Special Coordinating Committee in 1972 for negotiating commercial agreements with Brussels, but ASEAN would not sign a commercial cooperation accord until it was also guaranteed systematic consultations on political and security issues with the Europeans. Progress along such lines was made at the second EC-ASEAN Ministerial Conference, held at Kuala Lumpur in March 1980. The "Common Declaration on Political Questions" was promulgated, condemning the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as violations of international law and reiterating the EC's strong support for ZOPFAN. West German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich-Genscher was successful in his efforts to win renewed EC support for the Declaration at the third Ministerial Conference in October 1981. The Southeast Asian SRSO reciprocated eighteen months later by publicly supporting EC positions on the Middle East and on Afghanistan, at the fourth Ministerial Conference in Bangkok (March 24-25, 1983). EC officials are satisfied that their "Troika arrangement" for ASEAN consultation allows for high levels of policy coordination. 4 1 Under the Troika, the president, the immediate past president, and the presidentdesignate of the European Commission meet with a "permanent committee"
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of ASEAN diplomats stationed in Brussels whenever a security question of mutual concern arises. The EC-ASEAN Ministerial Conference, moreover, convenes every eighteen months, with the EC president and the ASEAN secretary general always present, and with most foreign ministers from each group participating. Multilateral diplomacy, established during the 1980s, is therefore a viable alternative to the more traditional bilateral relations with the ASEAN nations. 42 When Portugal boycotted the seventh Ministerial Conference in Jakarta in October 1986, because of its opposition to Indonesia's annexation of East Timor (a former Portuguese colony), other E C representatives publicly castigated Lisbon for violating the general understanding that bilateral issues should not interfere with EC meetings with other regional organizations.43 The UK is the one EC country that does retain a formal bilateral defense relationship in Southeast Asia. This relationship is primarily via the Five Power Defense Arrangement (FPDA) with Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Singapore, but also through the deployment of a Gurkha infantry battalion in Brunei. The UK is still affiliated with FPDA, in part to symbolize the importance of at least one NATO power other than the United States remaining militarily committed to the defense of Southeast Asian straits and archipelagoes. In early September 1988, the FPDA conducted its first major maritime air defense exercise, code-named Lima Bersatu. The UK provided the largest contingent and participated more seriously in the FPDA's Integrated Air Defense System ( I A D S ) than it had during the previous fifteen years. Four British Tornados were dispatched from the UK, and a naval task force, headed by the aircraft carrier HMS Royal and carrying 1,500 British commandos, was incorporated into the IADS. 4 4 The extensive British participation in these four days of maneuvers was clearly designed to reassure M a l a y s i a , S i n g a p o r e , and the other A S E A N governments that FPDA remains viable, despite New Zealand's decision to withdraw its 740-man defense force from Singapore, and Australia's decision to rotate jet aircraft into Malaysia's Butterworth Air Base instead of maintaining its previously permanent deployments there. The UK's recent FPDA activities also reflect a determination to maintain its revived arms sales to Malaysia. An argument can be made that EC-ASEAN political-security ties have advanced far more smoothly than their economic relations. Only the UK and West Germany appear to be investing significantly in Southeast Asia. The overall EC-ASEAN trade volume is impeded by global protectionism and by the high price of ASEAN exports. In May 1988, reports surfaced that the United States had asked West Germany to consider participating in a comprehensive multinational aid program for the Philippines. 4 5 While the proposal coincided with West Germany's rising importance as an ASEAN trading partner, the Americans have yet to make a sufficiently convincing case that West Germany and other EC states have an enduring stake in
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directly subsidizing ASEAN's weakest and most unstable political economy. Overall, ASEAN trade protectionism, the limited training and labor skills found in the subregion, and, except for Singapore, the area's overall lack of capital still detract from its appeal to serious European investors. 46 British Foreign Minister Sir Geoffrey Howe noted, during the sixth Ministerial Conference in Jakarta, that without a more genuine Asian common market, the Europeans would have little incentive to trade with or invest in the subregion. 47 This seems even more true given increased pressures for the EC to finance the economies of emerging democracies in Eastern Europe. The Gulf: Bilateralism and the WEU The EC has been a less significant factor in developing security relations with the GCC. Even though these two organizations signed an agreement of cooperation in June 1988 to strengthen their political, economic, and cultural relations, they have yet to fully define their mutual economic and political security. 48 By way of illustration, the EC and GCC have been unsuccessful in reaching a free trade agreement, because of Brussel's reluctance to eliminate high tariffs on GCC petrochemical imports. The UK and the Netherlands, in particular, are worried about Saudi Arabia and the other GCC oil producers being able to flood the European market with petrochemical exports, thus damaging domestic refineries. France is less concerned about the petrochemical issue, but remains skeptical that GCC economic planning will provide long-term markets for European goods and services. West Germany views the Gulf as a growing arms market, but is less inclined to develop trade and investment relations with the GCC. The recent slowdown of oil production in the GCC area will ultimately need to be compensated for through foreign investment and through the transfer of technology and industrial expertise from the EC and from other parts of the industrial world. The lessened Iranian military threat now reduces the incentive for the Europeans to negotiate a free trade agreement as a means of demonstrating their support for the GCC. EC skepticism about the political will of the GCC to form a customs union and other prerequisites of a common market exceeds its doubts about ASEAN's ability to implement such arrangements. The GCC states, for their part, resent the EC's free trade agreement with Israel. They believe that they are discriminated against in their economic and political relations with the Community. 49 The Europeans have opted to address Persian Gulf security issues through intensifying bilateral security relations with individual G C C member-states. They also use the consultative mechanisms of the West European Union to forge a unified position on regional crisis management. The West Europeans, and particularly the UK and France, provide extensive military assistance programs to GCC countries. The UK has maintained a separate, if small, naval patrol (the Armilla patrol) to protect merchant ships
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registered in the United Kingdom or British-dependent territories and passing through the Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz. 50 The British also have treaties of friendship with Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. As noted in Chapter 2, both the UK and France have developed extensive arms sales programs with various GCC states. For the time being, military assistance and arms sales to GCC clients have the effect of pulling the Gulf states toward greater de facto security alignment with their West European suppliers. However, the EC countries will need to develop more diversified programs than weapons sales, if they are to enhance Gulf security over the longer term. The Europeans, however, have applied their collective military assets to safeguard Western access to GCC oil supplies. During 1987-1988, the Western European Union facilitated the coordination of individual operations in support of U.S. naval escort and air surveillance operations in the area. A WEU report subsequently characterized these efforts as addressing a security problem that does not immediately pertain to the defense of Europe, but that may evolve to threaten European security more directly if left unaddrcssed. 51 But these European operations were undertaken without GCC political and military input, thus reaffirming the independent nature of WEU involvement and underscoring the individual national interests of the European states that did deploy naval units to the Gulf. 52 Multilaterism vs. Bilateralism in the Eastern
Caribbean
Three EC members—France, the Netherlands, and the UK—have postcolonial bilateral security ties with OECS member-states or with nations in the eastern Caribbean. European relationships with this subregion, however, again reflect the EC debate over bilateral, as opposed to multilateral, assistance strategies. The collective approach is favored by West Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and most other EC countries as a means to sway the United States from devoting excessive attention and resources to the Caribbean and Central America at the expense of NATO. The UK and France, however, prefer to maintain ties with the OECS member-states primarily at the bilateral level. 53 The British, particularly, resented the U.S. failure to consult sufficiently with London about events leading to the Grenada intervention. This resentment led to a flurry of British activity during 1984 directed at reestablishing the OECS's Commonwealth identity. The UK insisted on playing a role in the development of the Regional Security Service, contributing $1.1 million to help train and equip the Grenada police force alone, and issued a £4 million grant to the six OECS states to build coast guard bases to help combat drug smuggling. By the end of 1985, however, British f u n d i n g for building up R e g i o n a l Security Service military infrastructures began to diminish. While the UK still views the strengthening
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of the RSS as important, the costs of maintaining a garrison of 1,0()0 troops and four Harrier jet aircraft in Belize, and its forces in the Falklands, have reduced the British ability to channel funding to the OECS. Most assistance efforts now concentrate less on weapons transfers and logistical support and more on advising OECS police forces on how to upgrade their indigenous intelligence gathering and maritime surveillance and to curtail narcotics and smuggling operations. 5 4 France has about 8,000 troops, three naval units, and a significant air reconnaissance force in its Antilles-Guiana C o m m a n d , serving the two eastern Caribbean island-departments of Guadeloupe and Martinique and the S o u t h A m e r i c a n d e p a r t m e n t of F r e n c h G u i a n a . 5 5 T h e A n t i l l e s - G u i a n a Command has little interaction with O E C S military establishments, apart from occasional coordination of police operations. 56 Moreover, the French, along with most other EC members, opposed the OECS solicitation of U.S. intervention against Grenada. 5 7 The Netherlands retains sovereignty over the Netherlands Antilles, and its n a v y d e p l o y s an a m p h i b i o u s c o m b a t d e t a c h m e n t and a m a r i t i m e r e c o n n a i s s a n c e d e t a c h m e n t at C u r a ç a o . T h e D u t c h i n c r e a s i n g l y v i e w multilateral diplomacy and development assistance as the best means for ensuring regional stability throughout the greater Caribbean. They support the West German position that conflict reduction can best be achieved there t h r o u g h d i p l o m a c y and d e v e l o p m e n t rather than t h r o u g h m i l i t a r y containment. 5 8 This posture diverged significantly from that of the Reagan administration and, to a lesser extent, that of the UK. In June 1989, the United States, Britain, and the OECS member-states conducted "Tradewinds 89," a military exercise situated between Grenada and several of the outlying Grenadines island group. 5 9 The United States still prefers confrontation with Cuba and, at least until the February 1990 defeat of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua's elections, Washington remained determined, as did the UK, to sustain eastern Caribbean military forces in the aftermath of the Grenada intervention. West Germany's economic assistance philosophy toward the subregion was defined at the Euro-Central American Conference, held in San José, Costa Rica, in September 1984. It was later implemented through European Community grants to, and investment initiatives in, the OECS. The E u r o p e a n D e v e l o p m e n t Fund m a d e a v a i l a b l e a T r a i n i n g and G e n e r a l Technical A s s i s t a n c e Program to O E C S m e m b e r - s t a t e s and initiated a Caribbean Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Program. OECS officials, however, have been dissatisfied with both the administration and the slow p a c e of t h e s e p r o g r a m s . T h e y b e l i e v e t h a t e v e n w i t h t h e E u r o p e a n Community's increased attention and commitment to developing countries in the Western H e m i s p h e r e , E C aid and investment levels continue to lag behind comparable levels made available to the African and East Asian regions. 60
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Applying Multilateralism in Southern Africa T h e E C nations are greatly concerned about retaining a c c e s s , through dependable transport networks, to minerals from southern Africa. They also s h a r e W a s h i n g t o n ' s i n t e r e s t in e n c o u r a g i n g S A D C C ' s a n t i - M a r x i s t orientation. T h e South A f r i c a factor c o m p l i c a t e s the development o f regional security policies toward S A D C C . It presents the dilemma o f a developed, anti-Marxist state consciously opposing the very racial and social values underlying the liberal democratic societies of Western Europe. This problem is especially acute for the U K and West Germany, which have significant trading and investment relations with South Africa. The resolution o f this dilemma will largely determine the extent to which S A D C C and other decolonized nations of sub-Saharan Africa will be willing to trust and deal with the West. The decision by both Angola and Mozambique to become associated with the Lomé III arrangements ( 1 9 8 4 ) gave some indication of the progress being made in meeting this challenge. The E C is also continuing to work with S A D C C to implement a viable economic assistance program. E C officials cite transportation and communications as the two key sectors w h e r e European Development Program funding can help stabilize the economies and the long-term security of the S A D C C member-states. The UK and West Germany have also been especially troubled by the South Africa sanctions question. Prime Minister Thatcher has essentially adopted Washington's position, that more extensive sanctions to force internal political change would be counterproductive. This view has been shared by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The issue came to a head in 1 9 8 6 , at a conference in Lusaka between E C representatives and their counterparts from the Front Line States. The African delegates accused the Europeans of tacitly supporting apartheid by adhering to what they felt was the bland and ineffectual policy o f reforming South A f r i c a n domestic politics, instead of their own preferred strategy o f national liberation. 61 In August 1986, Thatcher's reluctance to commit her government to more comprehensive sanctions than the boycott o f steel, coal, and iron exports already approved by the E C isolated her from almost every other head of state attending a "mini-Commonwealth" conference in London. Throughout the remainder of 1986 and well into 1987, the British and West Germans found themselves at odds with the rest o f the E C member-states, who supported strengthening voluntary sanctions. 62 The E C ' s efforts to strengthen S A D C C institutions and programs have met with only limited success because South Africa has diversified and realigned its trading patterns in ways that compel most o f the S A D C C countries to maintain their trade relations and development projects with P r e t o r i a . E v e n more significant to Pretoria's continued e c o n o m i c pre-
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dominance in southern Africa have been continued divisions among SADCC members over the designation of subregional development priorities. A funding agreement was nevertheless signed at the EC-SADCC joint session convened in Harare in January 1986. It guaranteed S A D C C ' s right to designate priorities for spending EC donor funds. In return, SADCC members pledged not to complicate the donor process by breaking ranks and applying individually for EC regional development funds. 63 The European Community as a rule does not involve itself with direct military assistance to southern African countries. A partial exception to this was the decision of the E u r o p e a n C o m m i s s i o n ' s v i c e - p r e s i d e n t f o r d e v e l o p m e n t during 1987 to give " n o n l e t h a l " military assistance to Mozambique. The EC provided barbed wire, kerosene, and food for troops defending the Beira corridor against attacks by the South African-backed Mozambican National Resistance Movement. 64 Bilateral military assistance by West European nations to individual SADCC governments appears, moreover, to be diminishing. EC members seem to regard multilateral diplomacy and economic cooperation as reasonably effective in promoting their own interests. Europe in the South Pacific:
Security
vs.
Development
Most of the South Pacific Forum states (the exceptions are Papua New Guinea and Fiji) are classified as "least developed" members of the African, Caribbean, Pacific group of developing nations assisted by the European Economic Community under the terms of the Lomé Convention. France and Britain, moreover, are members of the South Pacific Commission, which monitors assistance programs of the EC and other international agencies. The SPF states have also used funds from the Lomé Convention to supplement the much greater volume of trade and assistance ties with Australia and New Z e a l a n d u n d e r the South P a c i f i c R e g i o n a l T r a d e and E c o n o m i c a l Cooperation Agreement (SPARTECA), providing SPF member-states with duty-free and unrestricted access to a wide range of antipodean products. 65 The good will accrued by the Europeans with the SPF in the development sector, however, tends to be overshadowed by anti-French feelings generated throughout the region by continuing French testing of nuclear weapons in the Mururoa Atoll and by France's resistance to immediate decolonization of New Caledonia, despite a sizable Melanesian independence movement—the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front—operating on that island. There are no prospects that France will slop its nuclear testing or accede to the protocols of the Treaty of Rarotonga any time soon (nuclear weapons are regarded as the most cost-effective means of preserving a credible French deterrent in central Europe). In 1986 and 1987, the SPF pushed through resolutions in the UN General Assembly urging France to conduct a plebiscite under UN auspices on the question of New Caledonia's
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independence. The French conducted their own referendum on selfdetermination in September 1987, which was boycotted by the Kanaks. While the referendum endorsed continued French control, separate Kanak demands for independence led to widespread violence throughout New Caledonia in early 1988. In June, a new French government negotiated the Accords de Matignon under which a new referendum would be held in 1998 and the political and economic rights of the Kanaks would be safeguarded. Tensions between the Kanaks and French settlers in the southern part of the island remain high, and it is by no means clear that the Matignon Accord will endure until the scheduled referendum date. The New Caledonian question may aggravate the already distinct Melanesian-Polynesian split within the SPF, as the Polynesian member-states still maintain close economic and political ties to Paris. Even Polynesians, however, are concerncd by growing strains between France and Tahiti (French Polynesia) over prospects that increased European settlement and investment in the islands following the accelerated European integration process scheduled for 1992 will overwhelm the native island population in this overseas territory, as well. 66
OTHER EXTERNAL POWERS
The Soviet Union Significant shifts in Soviet Third World strategy were announced during the Twenty-Seventh Congress of the Communist Party held in late February and early March 1986. The new Soviet leadership realized that Moscow's military power had not translated into diplomatic and political influence in the developing world to the extent originally anticipated. This appeared to be especially true in the five regions examined here. In Southeast Asia, the Soviets' Vietnamese client became internationally isolated by continuing its military occupation of Cambodia. In southern Africa, the Luanda and Nkomati accords, negotiated by South Africa with Angola and Mozambique, respectively, appeared to undercut Soviet and Cuban military assistance efforts. Events in Grenada reversed any hope M o s c o w might have entertained of expanding its bases beyond Cuba for military interdiction capabilities in the eastern Caribbean. Arms shipments to both Iraq and Iran had failed to convince either belligerent that the Soviet Union had a legitimate political role to play in the Iran-Iraq war, although the Khomeini regime upgraded its relations with Moscow early in 1989. The failure of Moscow to renew its fishing agreements with Kiribati and Vanuatu signaled that the South Pacific continued to be accorded a low priority status in the USSR's overall Third World policy. The Soviet Union's global influence throughout the 1970s and early 1980s was unquestionably based on its military power. It lacked "the sort of
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systemic and socioeconomic appeal that could broaden and deepen its hold on allies and clients, making their relationship more lasting." 6 7 With the departure of Soviet military forces from Afghanistan, Moscow also demonstrated its increasing sensitivity to the economic and geopolitical costs of "imperial overstretch"; it is improbable that Soviet leaders will be inclined to sustain military and e c o n o m i c assistance c o m m i t m e n t s in distant Third World locales at a time w h e n their o w n d o m e s t i c e c o n o m i c crisis has p r e c l u d e d them f r o m c h e c k i n g the politico-strategic u n r a v e l i n g of the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe. 6 8 This trend is accelerated despite occasional grumbling from U.S. defense officials that the Soviets still tend to supply large amounts of military equipment to selected Third World allies, in their effort to sustain some a global strategic presence. 6 9 The most significant aspect of Mikhail Gorbachev's regional security approach, however, is what it lacks. There is none of the ritual jargon that was so prominent in previous Soviet oratory about international revolution in developing regions. In key speeches delivered at Vladivostok, in July 1986, and at Krasnoyarsk, in September 1988, Gorbachev focused on redefining E a s t - W e s t c o m p e t i t i o n in l e s s h o s t i l e t e r m s and e m p h a s i z e d i n s t e a d confidence-building measures needed to resolve Third World disputes. 7 0 The Soviets appear to be revising their southern African policy to make it more compatible with SADCC's development priorities. Soviet delegates joined their counterparts from China and six other socialist nations in attending the SADCC summit at Harare, in January 1986. The USSR has begun to acknowledge that the diplomatic and economic ties it develops with southern A f r i c a n g o v e r n m e n t s m a y be of greater value over the long term than encouraging the politics of belligerency throughout the subregion, especially against a South African government that is showing every sign of seeking diplomatic arrangements as the preferred means to secure regional stability. Past southern African policies of confrontation with Pretoria have generally failed to prevent SADCC's Marxist regimes from dealing with the West on critical development and political issues, in any case: Soviet implementation of "new thinking" in Southern Africa reflects the broader patterns of recent S o v i e t policy toward the Third World. . . . But it also reflects the consequences of . . . years of active Soviet involvement in a specific region. Indeed, given the prominence of Southern Africa in the previous activist phase [of Soviet foreign policy], it seems reasonable to conclude that the regional learning experience itself was an important contributor to the broader recasting of Soviet Third World policy. . . . Although it is by no means inconceivable that the present or a subsequent Soviet leadership might be tempted into greater activism in the area at some future date, the opportunism of the mid-1970's concerning the region's revolutionary potential has fallen victim to the realities of regional politics. 71
In the Persian Gulf, pending the outcome of the Iran-Iraq war, the USSR
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courted conservative Arab leaders and downgraded its support of national liberation movements. It has been successful in establishing diplomatic relations with three GCC members and has been careful to avoid inflaming conservative opinion in the Gulf. Even though they opposed Western unilateral or multilateral naval operations in the Gulf in October 1987, the Soviets have favored joint peacekeeping operations in support of U N Security Council Resolution 5 9 8. 7 2 In Southeast Asia, a succession of visiting Soviet officials has applauded ASEAN's nonaligned stance. Cuba, however, remains a barrier to any intensified Soviet-U.S. regional security collaboration in the Caribbean Basin. China China's relations with Third World states tend to reflect domestic political trends. When ideological preoccupations have been ascendant in Beijing, the PRC has been more likely to support revolutions abroad, at least rhetorically. Over the past decade, however, a Chinese leadership, more preoccupied with development in its own country, has tended to moderate that policy. China faces what Samuel Kim has called a "status crisis." As a Third World state, the P R C competes with other developing nations for bilateral and multilateral economic assistance and for investment from the industrial world. Yet the PRC simultaneously ranks as a global power in a number of significant ways, including demography, military power, and overall GNP. 73 A S E A N is the SRSO closest to China geographically and the most important to Beijing politically. The Chinese arc likely to exercise sufficient restraint in their relations with the ASEAN states to be assured that their influence in and access to the ASEAN subregion is not diminished. The Sino-Vietnamese naval confrontation off the Spratly Islands in March 1988 illustrates this point. China did not use that incident as a pretext to occupy the entire island chain, over which it claims sovereignty. To have done so would have jeopardized relations with ASEAN, because the Philippines and Malaysia each claim part of the Spratlys and occupy some of the southernmost islands. Large-scale Chinese action against the Vietnamese forces in the Spratlys would, furthermore, almost certainly have led to a strong Indonesian protest. Only certain Thai military officials viewed the prospect of a Chinese invasion favorably. They believed that such an action would draw Vietnamese forces away from the Thai-Cambodian border. 74 China's interaction with more distant SRSOs is minimal. The Chinese have little or no contact with the eastern Caribbean, especially since openly dissenting to Cuba's tactics for exporting revolution during the mid-1960s. Beijing established diplomatic relations with Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Western Samoa in rapid succession during the mid1970s in response to Soviet diplomacy accelerating in the South Pacific at about the same time. Since then, however, Taiwan rather than the PRC has
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achieved political and economic inroads throughout the region. In southern Africa, China has been unable to compete diplomatically or militarily with the superpowers since it backed the unsuccessful National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) during the early 1970s. However, China does maintain limited military and economic assistance programs in various S A D C C countries. These include the maintenance of the Tanzanian-Zambian railway project (the TAZARA) built by Chinese engineers between 1967 and 1976; the provision of food supplies to Mozambique and other droughtstricken African nations; and the construction of military base camps in, as well as the export of small arms to, Zaire, Rwanda, and other S A D C C members. Africans remember, however, that Tanzania and Zambia were each forced to import over $ 1 2 0 million of Chinese goods to finance the original T A Z A R A construction p a c k a g e . 7 5 Moreover, China has maintained a generally favorable balance with African states, $1,086 billion in 1987 alone. As a self-proclaimed developing state, it initiated fewer programs to aid African states during the 1980s than in previous years and will reduce existing ones even further as it copes with domestic political and economic challenges in the aftermath of the Chinese government's suppression of the prodemocracy movement in June 1989. 7 6 Chinese policy on arms sales to various GCC and Middle Eastern clients appears to be motivated primarily by commercial, rather than geopolitical, considerations. 7 7 While China publicly declares its neutrality in wars throughout Southeast and Southwest Asia, its sales to customers in the Persian Gulf exceeded $1 billion at the height of the Iran-Iraq war. From the U.S. vantage point, the transfer of Chinese intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia and of Silkworm antiship missile systems to Iran contributed to the intensification of already dangerous regional tensions. Chinese officials have argued that such transactions were limited when compared to the volume and sophistication of weapons sales made in this region and throughout the Third World by the superpowers. 78 Japan Japan has taken a special interest in ASEAN, seeing Southeast Asia as a potential market and being attracted by its supplies of oil, natural gas, and other raw materials. It also perceives that region as a potential ally in opposing possible protectionist North American and European trade blocs or, alternatively, as a key component in any larger APEC grouping. Along with the United States, Japan is A S E A N ' s major trade and investment partner. Both A S E A N and the South Pacific Forum opposed an earlier Japanese version of APEC, the Ohira government's Pacific Community Concept advanced during the late 1970s, however, and they can be expected to resist any predominant Japanese role in APEC itself. 79 Smaller Asian-Pacific states remain highly sensitive to their potential economic vulnerability to Tokyo's
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regional mercantilism, and fully a quarter o f Japan's global trade volume (approximately $ 9 billion) remains situated in the Asian-Pacific region. 8 0 A S E A N was also the major beneficiary o f Japan's official development assistance (ODA), with the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand each receiving more than 100 billion yen in such assistance during 1987 alone and, along with other Asian-Pacific states, receiving about two-thirds of Japan's net disbursements, compared to about 9 percent of total U.S. ODA. 8 1 The Japanese, moreover, normally purchase over 80 percent of Indonesia's and one-third o f Malaysia's total oil exports. They buy significant amounts of iron ore and other raw materials but very few finished or processed goods. Japanese investment in Southeast Asia constitutes about 2 0 percent of its world total, but has recently declined in relative terms. Even so, the A S E A N states remain highly sensitive about their trade imbalances with the Japanese and fearful about eventually compromising their political independence to Japan. 8 2 Japan's resource vulnerability and its oil consumption affect its policies toward the countries o f the Persian Gulf. More dependent on foreign energy sources than any other industrial nation, Japan was crippled by O P E C ' s quadrupling of oil prices in D e c e m b e r 1 9 7 3 . Until recently, therefore, successive Japanese governments have taken special care to project a lowkey image o f neutrality in both Arab-Israeli and Persian Gulf hostilities. Japan subsequently sided with the E C in calling on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories, sending the PLO $5 million in economic assistance, and allowing that organization to open an office in Tokyo in 1976. It has simultaneously continued to side with the United States on most UN r e s o l u t i o n s pertaining to the A r a b - I s r a e l i dispute, arguing that A r a b diplomacy as applied by the UN intends to change the balance of power in the Middle East too radically. 83 In this sense, Japanese and G C C agendas coincided: supporting Arab regional claims for self-determination against the g e o p o l i t i c a l interests o f the United States and Israel but p r o j e c t i n g a " m o d e r a t e " image o f "loyal political opposition" relative to the United States, to avoid undercutting the considerable financial weight they could apply to other issues of regional and international political importance. In August 1987, however, Japan tilted decidedly to the United States in its Middle East politics, when it feared that the Iran-Iraq war could once more threaten its own oil lifelines (seven Japanese oil freighters were attacked in the Straits o f Hormuz during 1987 alone). Prime Minister Nakasone declared that the Japanese constitution did not preclude the dispatching o f minesweepers to help U . S . and West European naval units keep the Persian Gulf oil lifelines open. Tokyo subsequently provided a $ 1 2 million radio navigation system package to the G C C states, to aid Western vessels patrolling the Gulf. 8 4 As global oil supplies are projected to remain stagnant or to decline during the early 1990s, the balance o f power in relation to a highly resource-dependent industrial nation such as Japan will inevitably
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shift to the Gulf states. Indeed, Saudi Arabia and the UAE already account for a third of Japan's total oil exports. Japan is thus viewing the GCC as a potentially major market for Japanese goods, to help offset its own oil vulnerability. Japanese exports to the GCC states totaled $5.79 billion in 1987 and $6.79 billion in 1988 (compared to a total GCC-ACC-Maghreb regionwide import figure of $19.6 billion in 1988); Japan exported $4.1 billion to Saudi Arabia alone in the latter year. 85 Until recently, Japan's interest in the South Pacific was considerably less strong than its concern about Southeast Asia and the Middle East. As political rivalries and economic stakes intensify in the region, however, the Japanese attitude has begun to change. As one Japanese analyst has succinctly pinpointed the catalysts stimulating Japan's new interest in the region: To put it bluntly, the South Pacific . . . is now being transformed into a Pacific Islands region, the shared management responsibilities of which will be required of a larger number of "external" powers. The geographical composition and political changes in the Pacific Islands imply the increased importance of the region to the security interests of the West. In other words, the emerging regional entity, which we will now call the Pacific Islands, will be a testing ground for a new type of multilateral political cooperation. 86
Responding, in part, to both U.S. and Australian entreaties that weak South Pacific island economies would ultimately compromise mutual U.S., Japanese, and Australian security interests, Japanese Foreign Minister Tadashi Kuranari embarked on a January 1987 tour of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu (in addition to Australia and New Zealand) designed to underscore Japanese support for regional political and economic groupings and to establish annual consultations to be held in Tokyo between the Japanese officials and their counterparts in SPEC. 87 Japan has since sought to follow up the Kuranari Doctrine by emphasizing multilateral assistance to the whole region, rather than pursuing specific bilateral aid projects to specific SPF member-states. SPF member-states view Japanese involvement in their regional development not so much as a problem of geopolitics as one of reconciling Japanese commercial objectives in the South Pacific with their own development aspirations. In this context, Japan has had difficulty in both identifying appropriate aid projects to support, without experiencing bureaucratic inertia between competing ministries at home, and overcoming suspicion by South Pacific islanders that any such assistance will be primarily tied to Japanese commercial interests. 88 Japan's initial reluctance to sign a regional fishing treaty with the SPF, similar to that which the Pacific islanders negotiated with the United States, is a case in point, although Tokyo has recently commenced talks with SPF representatives on such a pact. 89 Moreover, Japan's ODA to the region remains small in comparative
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terms (in 1986, only 1.4 percent of that country's total bilateral ODA). To what extent Japan will be successful in adjusting its own commercial and strategic interests to coincide with South Pacific expectations that Tokyo will be more sensitive to regional economic initiatives and aspirations (even in the a b s e n c e o f sophisticated S P F infrastructures to harness J a p a n e s e resources to their own need with greater efficiency) remains to be seen. In 1987, Japan was acutely embarrassed when reports surfaced that it had become South Africa's premier trading partner (quadrupling exchange between 1973 and 1987, to reach $4.3 billion). This had occurred despite various trade s a n c t i o n s imposed by T o k y o throughout 1 9 8 5 - 1 9 8 6 to highlight its opposition to apartheid, because various "third party" and "dummy company" arrangements had been left virtually unaffected. 9 0 To c o u n t e r b a l a n c e its poor image on the South A f r i c a n issue, J a p a n has accelerated its O D A to the S A D C C member-states and to other nations throughout black Africa. In part, this can be attributed to sub-Saharan Africa's status as a critical supplier of raw materials to Japan—e.g., chromium, manganese, and uranium. However, the S A D C C states are relatively unimportant to Japanese commercial ventures in Africa compared to Liberia, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, Mauritania, and Gabon. 9 1 As implied above, Japan's official development assistance program is the most important way for it to assist in S R S O s ' development. Japanese economic assistance has risen to over $4 billion annually (fiscal year 1986 figure), a quadrupling o f such funding since the mid-1970s. Most of Japan's economic assistance has been concentrated in the Asian-Pacific region. A S E A N receives 4 0 percent o f its total economic assistance from Japan. Recent pressure on Japan by Washington has generated an additional $2 billion funding package earmarked for ASEAN, with much of it specifically geared toward the Philippines. 9 2 Japan has recognized that increasing its economic assistance to developing nations is becoming more integral to their long-term development and security. Much, however, remains to be done before Japan assumes a truly significant role in this area. Japan has, until very recently, devoted less than 0.3 percent o f its increasingly formidable gross national product to O D A , and at a time when U.S. budget deficits are precluding Washington's ability to sustain its own aid programs at existing l e v e l s . M a n y o f J a p a n ' s programs continue to be administered by an incredibly c o m p l e x national bureaucracy, which impedes its ability to understand and relate to developing nations' unique evolutionary problems. Japan has also tended to focus its aid on those areas promising greater Japanese trade or access to natural resources, rather than on areas attributable to more altruistic motives. In this context, neither S A D C C nor the O E C S appears to fit into Tokyo's plans. A majority of the S A D C C states feel that Tokyo still gives priority to its economic self-interest, at the expense o f African development needs; and, apart from Jamaica, the eastern Caribbean has received little attention from Japanese investors and little development
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assistance from the Japanese government. Australia and New Zealand Australia and New Zealand understandably direct their economic and military assistance programs to ASEAN and the South Pacific. Their role in the SPF has been reviewed in previous subsections. In 1983-1984, a parliamentary committee conducted a wide-ranging review of Australian foreign aid. It concluded that Australia's future aid programs should increasingly emphasize Southeast Asia. 9 3 Some prominent political leaders within ASEAN have even suggested that Australia and New Zealand join ASEAN. This prospect appealed to New Zealand but would be difficult to implement, given the intermittent tensions and permanent competition between Australia and Indonesia. 9 4 New Zealand's relevance to ASEAN security has also become increasingly uncertain, as a result of withdrawal of a New Zealand army training battalion from Singapore, traditionally seen as its contribution to the FPDA. The United Nations The United Nations remains the only recognized international body vested with the authority to initiate measures for crisis avoidance and conflict resolution. Most of the world's small states are UN members, if for no other reason than that the UN's special agencies provide them with economic assistance and valuable consultation on how to organize governmental structures and services. The UN's specialized agencies, moreover, contribute much to the political self-reliance and stable economic development of SRSO states. Trade liberalization, technical cooperation, refugee assistance, food research, international health assistance, and disaster preparedness/ relief are all components of the agencies' work. These problems often cannot be adequately addressed by a Third World state operating on its own. The UN's Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the World Bank, the Special New Program of Action for Least Developed Countries, adopted in 1981, and other agencies have all provided critical development assistance, although funding shortages could sharply limit their efforts in the near future. 95 Within the five subregions under consideration here, security problems that require more responsive and timely mechanisms than UN action either have risen, or could emerge quickly. The OECS, for example, initiated U.S. and, later, Commonwealth military assistance in the Grenada crisis. There seems to have been little, if any, contemplation of a UN role for resolving this particular crisis. The Commonwealth Consultative Group subsequently recommended that, when requested by a threatened state, the UN secretary general should play a more active part. 96 More recently (October 1989), the
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OECS member-states, along with Jamaica and the Bahamas, called for a UN rapid deployment force to be formed to combat drug traffic in the greater Caribbean. However, the United States and other possible sources of funding for such a force opposed it on the basis of expense and a preference for bilateral drug deterrence programs already in place. 97 Australia's proposal to appoint a UN governor general to oversee a similar UN peacekeeping force in Cambodia until free elections can be held in that country has been accepted in principle by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and provides even greater hope that the world body can become a significant force for achieving regional security in Southeast Asia. 9 8 It remains to be seen to what extent UN collective security mechanisms can overcome the determination of Cambodia's various political factions and their outside supporters to prevail in what has been one of the w o r l d ' s l o n g e s t o n g o i n g wars. U n t i l an a n s w e r to this q u e s t i o n is forthcoming, it is unclear that the UN can either support or supersede S R S O s ' a c t i o n s in regulating or r e s o l v i n g l o c a l c o n f l i c t s . R e g u l a r consultations with regional subgroups at UN headquarters could institutionalize UN information sharing and consensus building. An expanded UN conflict-prevention role might be developed under Article 9 9 . The UN secretary general could then take measures to respond to crises before they escalate and create international repercussions.
THE NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is another multilateral forum that could undermine or enhance the influence of S R S O s in the future. While the Bandung Conference in April 1955 is often designated as the beginning of the postwar nonaligned movement, the initial Conference of Nonaligned States met in Belgrade during September 1961, with twenty-five states attending. By March 1983, when the NAM convened in New Delhi, ninetynine states and two "liberation movements" were represented. A number of Third World observers have contended that the NAM both restrains otherwise unbridled great power and intraregional rivalries and generates political leverage for developing states. Skeptics have countered that the NAM's actual effect within the international system has steadily decreased. Its practice of decisionmaking by summits and by consensus, they argue, has tended to obfuscate, rather than clarify, its puiposes. Its internal contradictions, they conclude, detract from its ability to address and resolve real-world problems. 99 At present, the NAM's tendency to view its members' security problems in almost exclusively ideological terms would seem to preclude its having much influence on Third World leaders, who are increasingly preoccupied with economic modernization and defense o f sovereign interests. This
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irrelevance contrasts with the NAM's earlier contributions to the breakdown of multilateral (mostly Western) security blocs in the Middle East and Asia, and in forcing the Soviets increasingly to deal with the Third World on the latter's terms. Over the years the N A M ' s strategies to produce a more equitable world order have grown stale. Currently, the NAM can play only an informal and ad hoc role, which may be suitable to specific cases but which cannot have lasting effect in resolving the fundamental causes of Third World conflicts. Conflict resolution initiatives must, for the time being, come from other sources, including SRSOs where appropriate.
THE COMMONWEALTH The English-speaking Commonwealth enjoys fairly widespread support from its forty-eight member governments. It has been able to achieve significant levels of socioeconomic, political, and security cooperation, and its heterogeneity has enhanced its strength. Its first secretary general, Arnold Smith, noted that such diversity drives home the need to recognize and deal with a fairly representative cross section of mankind . . . balanced by a number of shared facilities, habits, working methods and traditions that, while they do not make understanding or agreement among nations easy, unquestionably do make them less difficult to achieve. 1 0 0
The Commonwealth is not meant to upstage the individual national security interests or the regional security priorities of small member-states. Consultation, rather than coercion, has been, and remains, the key modus operandi for Commonwealth security approaches. Commonwealth members thus perceive the organization as an instrument to provide mutual support and comfort, rather than as a self-ascribed agent for enforcement, with a multinational axe of authority to grind. Joint Commonwealth military efforts on behalf of one or more members, such as the dispatch of a multilateral peacekeeping force upon the invitation of belligerent(s), have occurred, but only very infrequently. Various defense resources of Commonwealth states could be made available, however, to support the establishment and maintenance of future regional peacekeeping forces. There is a Commonwealth Committee on Defense, consisting of twenty-eight members and three associate members, including one nonCommonwealth associate, the United States. It conducts triennial conferences on military equipment matters. There is also a Commonwealth Defense Science Organization, originally founded in 1946. Both of these organizations have executive staffs located in the British Defense Ministry. 101 The consultative and functional activities of the Commonwealth seem to be relatively effective in addressing the economic and security problems of
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small member-states. The secretary general maintains an office in New York for small states, which would otherwise not be able to afford a UN presence. Such special agencies as the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation ( C F T C ) , the Commonwealth Trade Union Council ( C T U C ) , and the Commonwealth Science Council compare favorably with their UN counterparts in terms of effectiveness. In many cases, they directly supplement UN efforts. For both historical and cultural reasons, the eastern Caribbean and southern Africa are the two SRSO areas where the defense establishments of Commonwealth members are most likely to be involved. In March 1984, the British House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee strongly underlined the importance of Commonwealth and Western security collaboration in small state crises. It decried the lack of consultation between Washington and London prior to the U.S. invasion of Grenada, and urged that a more "positive and distinctive" Commonwealth approach be directed toward the OECS and CARICOM states. 102 At the November 1983 New Delhi Commonwealth summit meeting, initially wide differences among the members were narrowed to the extent that the organization was committed to helping the OECS set up the Regional Security System. 103 Commonwealth interest has also been demonstrated in southern Africa. The 1977 Gleneagles Agreement pledged the Commonwealth to boycott South African sporting events and teams. In August 1979, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Lusaka directed the secretary general to make available some 1,300 diplomatic and military personnel from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Kenya to supervise the successful operation of the Lancaster House agreements for Zimbabwe's independence. This act of Commonwealth crisis management reflected a uniquely high level of consensus. The only opponent of the settlement was the white-majority regime in Salisbury. Accordingly, the Commonwealth established a favorable, if qualified, precedent for future conflict resolution opportunities.104 In 1985, sanctions were expanded at the Commonwealth conference in Nassau to include a boycott of krugerrands and exports of computer equipment, military technology, and oil to South Africa. The Commonwealth "mini-summit" in London (August 1986) added uranium, coal, iron, and steel to the Commonwealth list. 105 This gathering was, moreover, a muchneeded forum for SADCC leaders, supported by most of their OECS colleagues, to force Britain to make limited concessions to the majority, which strongly backed sanctions policies. Before that meeting, few expected any such shift in the UK's position. The CHOGM held in Vancouver in 1987 was once more dominated by the southern African question and by Britain's differences with virtually every other member on how to reduce the vulnerability of the Front Line States. Prime Minister Thatcher was alone in believing that additional commercial and political sanctions against South
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Africa would be counterproductive. T h e remainder o f the delegates endorsed a study by experts on h o w sanctions could be broadened, but remained concerned about how the C o m m o n w e a l t h or any other appropriate body could overcome the potential problem o f South Africa exerting "counters a n c t i o n s " or other forms o f intimidation against S A D C C member-states confronting Pretoria's vastly superior military power. 1 0 6 Nelson Mandela's February 1 9 9 0 release from a South African prison and the South African government's new-found willingness to negotiate with the A N C resistance movement still do not completely resolve such concerns. Past differences notwithstanding, the Commonwealth appears to have both the resources and the political will to extend significant assistance to S R S O s ' collective security efforts. T h e Commonwealth's inherent flexibility enables it to transcend the limited collective defense o f the old Westernsponsored regional security organizations, such as C E N T O or S E A T O . From this standpoint, it is a potentially positive asset for S R S O s ' security needs.
SUMMARY T h e superpowers and the world's other developed nations are gradually b e c o m i n g more sensitive to the argument o f Third World states and the S R S O s that problems and conflicts in developing regions should be resolved on their terms. S R S O m e m b e r - s t a t e s b e l i e v e that their survival is b e s t underwritten by development assistance and trade liberalization, rather than by s e l f - s e r v i n g military guarantees or conditional arms sales by outside powers. T h e United States and the U S S R cannot be expected to abandon all o f their g e o p o l i t i c a l o b j e c t i v e s when f o r m i n g and i m p l e m e n t i n g t h e i r r e g i o n a l s e c u r i t y p o l i c i e s . H o w e v e r , they, a l o n g with E u r o p e , J a p a n , Australia, and N e w Zealand, have concluded that greater influence with S R S O s can be secured by attempting to understand the vulnerabilities and help solve the needs o f those organizations, rather than by inducing or coercing them into participation in global power politics.
NOTES 1. Address by Armacost to the National Third World Studies Conference, Omaha, Nebraska, October 17, 1986, and reprinted as "U.S. Policy Toward the Third World," Current Policy No. 894 (October 18, 1986), p. 2. 2. "Southern Africa Economic Progress Initiative," GIST (Washington: U.S. Department of State, April 1987), p. 1. 3. Address by Armacost before the General Federation of Women's Clubs, Grand Rapids, Michigan, June 22, 1988, and reprinted as "Regional Issues and U.S.Soviet Relations," Current Policy No. 1089 (June 23, 1988), p. 2. 4. This posture was reiterated at the December 1987 ASEAN heads of state summit in Manila. See "ASEAN Not to Increase Military Cooperation," Agence
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5. Congressman Robert G. Torricelli, " T h e United States," in Martin, The ASEAN Success Story, p. 201; and John W. Garver, " T h e Reagan Administration's Southeast Asian Policy," in James C. Hsiung (ed.), U.S.-Asian Relations ( N e w York: Praeger, 1983), pp. 94-107. 6. David Humphries, "Malaysia Backs U.S. Bases," Times, April 18, 1988, p. 7; and N o o r d i n Soipee, " A S E A N : In F a v o r o f U . S . Bases in the P h i l i p p i n e s , " International Herald Tribune, March 12, 1988, p. 4. 7. Such fears are assessed in-depth by Robert O. Tilman, Southeast Asia and the Enemy Beyond (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987), pp. 125-147. 8. Testimony of Secretary of State Shultz in hearings before the Committee on A p p r o p r i a t i o n s , U . S . S e n a t e , Foreign Assistance and Related Programs Appropriations, FY 1986, 99th Cong., 1st sess., March 7, 1985, p. 31. 9. Michael Richardson, " A s i a Traders A r e Poised for N e w Era," International Herald Tribune, November 3, 1989, pp. 1, 6; Jacqueline Rees, "First Step Taken," Far Eastern Economic Review 146, no. 46 (November 16, 1989), pp. 10-11; and Paul H a n d l e y , " W h a t ' s in It f o r U s ? " Far Eastern Economic Review 146, no. 48 (November 30, 1989), p. 79. 10. See, f o r example, the remarks o f Malaysian D e f e n s e Minister Tengku Ahmad Rithauddeen in Bernama (Kuala Lumpur), August 10, 1989, as reprinted in FBIS, East Asia, August 11, 1989, p. 29. Also see William T. Tow, "Singapore O f f e r Prods U.S. to Assess Policy on Philippine Bases," The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, November 27, 1989, p. 17. in Asia: Problems 11. K.S. Nathan and M . Pathmanathan (eds.), Trilateralism and Prospects in U S.-Japan-ASEAN Relations ( K u a l a Lumpur: Antara B o o k Company, 1986), p. 22. 12. Robert O ' N e i l l , " R e g i o n a l Security and W o r l d Order in the 1980s," in Ayoob, Regional Security in the Third World, p. 46. 13. Testimony of Armacost in hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs and its subcommittees on Arms Control, International Security and Science, and on Europe and the Middle East, House Of Representatives, Overview of the Situation in the Persian Gulf, 110th Cong., 1st sess. June 11, 1987, p. 219. A l s o see Caspar W. W e i n b e r g e r , S e c r e t a r y o f D e f e n s e , A Report to the Congress on Security Arrangements in the Persian Gulf, in ibid, pp. 313-315. 14. Statement by the assistant secretary f o r N e a r Eastern and South Asian Affairs, Richard W. Murphy, before the Subcommittee on Europe and the M i d d l e East of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, October 13, 1988, and reprinted as "Update on the Situation in the Middle East," Department of State Bulletin 88, no. 2141 (December 1988), p. 43. 15. "Senate Blocks Reagan on Kuwait Arms Sale," New York Times, July 8, 1988, p. 6; and "Kuwait Signs Weapons Deal with M o s c o w , " ibid., July 11, 1988, p. 8. 16. " A n Address by His Highness the C r o w n Prince and prime minister o f Kuwait, Shaykh Sa'id al-'Abdullah to the Washington Press Club, July 13, 1988," reprinted in FBIS, Near East and South Asia, July 14, 1988, p. 18. A l s o see Hazo, " T h e Turning Point: British-Saudi Arms Deal," p. 8. 17. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Yearbook 1989: World Armaments and Disarmament ( N e w York: O x f o r d University Press, 1989), pp. 203-204. 18. Richard A . Clarke, assistant secretary f o r Politico-Military Affairs, " U . S . Sale o f Abrams Tanks to Saudi Arabia," Current Policy N o . 1235, (November 17, 1989); and "Cuts M a y Hit M B T Exports," Jane's Defence Weekly 13, no. 3 (January
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20, 1990), p. 89. 19. Lynn Simarski, "A Climate Which Awaits Improvement," The Middle East, no. 175 (May 1989), p. 33. 20. "Biggest Show of Strength in Central America," Times, March 23, 1987, p. 6; and " N o t to Be Forgotten," Defense and Foreign Affairs 17, no. 2 (February 1989), pp. 3 3 - 3 4 . The latter article is an interview with Dominican Prime Minister Eugenia Charles. 21. H. Michael Erisman, "The C A R I C O M States and U.S. Foreign Policy: T h e Danger of Central Americanization," Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 31, no. 3 (Fall 1989), p. 168. 22. Braveboy-Wagner, The Caribbean in World Affairs, p. 40, offers convincing data. U.S. military assistance to Barbados leaped from $17 thousand in International Military Education Funding in 1981 to near $1.5 million in Foreign Military Sales and Assistance Programs by 1986; G r c n d a d a f r o m almost no funding in 1983 to nearly $7 million in 1984; St. Kitts from nothing in 1983 to SI.8 million in 1984; and Antigua Barbuda from nothing in 1982 to $1.7 million in 1983 and over $2 million in 1985. All of these levels tailed off noticeably by the end of 1986. 23. Roberto Espindola, "America Faces Security Rebuff in Caribbean," Sunday Times, June 8, 1986, p. 9. 24. Noted Caribbean scholar Jorge Heine has asserted that the CBI was "the single most innovative and forward-looking piece of legislation in hemispheric affairs since the Alliance for Progress." See the Introduction, in Heine and Manigat, The Caribbean and World Politics, pp. 12-13. 25. See, for example, the r e m a r k s of G e o r g e Brizan, G r e n a d a ' s opposition leader, in FBIS, Latin America (Daily Report), November 10, 1988, p. 5. 26. S e e , f o r e x a m p l e , a d d r e s s by the f o r m e r assistant s e c r e t a r y for InterAmerican Affairs, Elliott Abrams, at the twelfth annual Miami conference on the Caribbean Basin, December 2, 1988, and reprinted as "Caribbean Basin: Accomplishments and Challenges," Current Policy No. 1137 (December 3, 1988); and hearing before the Subcommittees on International Economic Policy and Trade and on Weste m Hemisphere Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, The Caribbean Basin Initiative: A Congressional Study Mission and Symposium, 100th Cong., 1st sess., September 18-19, 1987, pp. 225-226. 27. " S o u t h e r n A f r i c a n D e v e l o p m e n t C o o r d i n a t i o n C o n f e r e n c e , " in GIST (Washington: Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, November 1987), p. 2. 28. "Southern Africa Economic Progress Initiative," pp. 1 - 2 ; and Chester A. Crocker, " F Y 1987 Assistance Request for Sub-Saharan Africa," Current Policy no. 814 (March 18, 1986), p. 6. 29. " S A D C C , " Africa Confidential 27, no. 4 (February 12, 1986), p. 7. 30. R e g i n a l d A. G r e e n a n d C a r o l B. T h o m p s o n , " P o l i t i c a l E c o n o m i e s in Conflict: S A D C C , South Africa and Sanctions," in Johnson and Martin (eds.), Front Line Southern Africa: Destructive Engagement, pp. 370-371. 31. J o h n C. W h i t e h e a d , deputy secretary of state, " T h e Potential I m p a c t of Imposing Sanctions Against South Africa," Current Policy No. 1081 (June 22, 1988), p. 2. 32. John C. Dorrance, " The Pacific Islands and U.S. Security Interests," Asian Survey 24, no. 7 (July 1989), p. 712. 33. See Paul F. Gardner, "United States Policy in the South Pacific: Reconciling Global, Regional, and Local Interests," in Strategic Cooperation and Competition in the Pacific Islands 2, especially pp. 3 6 0 - 3 6 4 . 34. Paul F. Power, " T h e South Pacific Nuclear Weapon-Free Z o n e , " Pacific Affairs 59, no. 3 (Fall 1986), p. 468.
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35. Gregory Fry, "Toward a South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 41, no. 6 (June-July 1985), pp. 18-19; "Nuclear Treaty: Half a Loaf Is Better Than None," Pacific Islands Monthly 57, no. 9 (September 1986), p. 35; and Keith Lorenz, " N u k e Free Treaty Not Radical," Pacific Magazine 12, no. 4 (JulyA u g u s t 1987), p. 46; and " S o u t h P a c i f i c N u c l e a r Free Z o n e Treaty (Treaty of R a r o t o n g a ) , " Australian Foreign Affairs Record 59, no. 8 ( A u g u s t 1988), pp. 302-303. 36. Albinski, "South Pacific Trends and United States Security Implications" in Pfaltzgraff and Vasey, pp. 2 6 - 2 7 ; and Gardner, "United States Policy in the South Pacific," pp. 364-365. 37. Albinski, "South Pacific Trends and United States Security Implications," p. 21; and James D. Berg, "Palau: The U.S. Angle," Pacific Islands Monthly 59, no. 5 (May 1988), pp. 2 6 - 2 7 . 38. G i o v a n n i J a n m u z z i , " E u r o p e a n P o l i t i c a l C o o p e r a t i o n and the S i n g l e European A c t , " P a n o s Taskaloyannis (ed.), in Western European Security in a Changing World: From the Reactivation of the WEU to the Single European Act (Maastricht, The Netherlands: European Institute of Public Administration, 1988), p. 106. 39. Much of the analysis in the following two paragraphs is extracted from Eric Teo's " A S E A N - E E C Diplomatic Consultations on the Eve of an Extended Kuala Lumpur Agreement," Contemporary Southeast Asia 7, no. 2 (September 1985), pp. 116-126. 40. Teo, "ASEAN-EEC Diplomatic Consultations," p. 124; and interviews with EC officials in Brussels, March 28, 1989. 41. Author interviews with EC officials in Brussels, March 28, 1989; and Stuart Harris and Brian Bridges, European Interests in ASEAN, Chatham House Papers 19 (London: Roulledge & Kegan Paul/The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1983), pp. 74, 79. 42. Interviews with EC officials, March 28, 1989. Background on the Troika is found in Niels J. Haagerup and Christian Thune, "Problems of Transition," in Alford and Hunt, Europe and the Western Alliance, p. 91. 43. "Portugal to Boycott Jakarta Discussions," Times, October 20, 1986, p. 9. 44. " E x e r c i s e ' L i m a B e r s a t u ' , " Asian Defense Journal, O c t o b e r 1988, pp. 13-19. For general background on the FPDA, see Brig. Gen. (Reservist) Lee Hsien Loongs "The FPDA and Regional Stability," Asian Defense Journal, February 1990, pp. 28-32. 45. "U.S. Reported to Seek More Philippines Aid," New York Times, May 8, 1988, p. 8. 46. Anthony Rowley, "Eastern Promise Fails to Lure Europeans," Far Eastern Economic Review 138, no. 49 (December 31, 1987), p. 110. 47. "New Common Market on Agenda for ASEAN," Times, October 21, 1986, p. 10; and "Report of the ASEAN-EEC High Level Working Party on Investment: E x e c u t i v e S u m m a r y , " ASEAN Economic Bulletin 3, no. 3 ( M a r c h 1987), p p . 395-398. 48. Interviews with E C officials in Brussels, March 28, 1989; Shada Islam, "Stuck on the Sidelines," Middle East International, no. 32 (June 24, 1988), p. 15; and "Chemical Reaction to the Gulf," The Economist 305, no. 7521 (October 24, 1987), p. 60. 49. Interviews with EC officials in Brussels, March 28, 1989. Also see Hazem Beblawi, The Arab Gulf Economy in a Turbulent Age (London: Croom Helm, 1984), pp. 129-130, and Quentin Peel, "EC Fails to Agree on Gulf Plan," Financial Times, October 22, 1987, p. 3.
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50. The most comprehensive official British description of the Armilla patrol is Statement on the Defense Estimates 1988, Cmnd. 344-1 (London: HMSO, 1988), pp. 35-36. 51. Assembly of Western European Union, Second Part of the Thirty-Third Annual Report of the Council to the Assembly of Western European Union (January 1987-December 1987), Document 1140, May 10, 1988, p. 3. Also see a paper by Representative Doug Bereuter, "Broadening the Security Agenda: A Proposal on Outof-Area Threats to Western Security," in a report of the twenty-eighth meeting of members of Congress and of the European Parliament, The Expanding Role of the European Community in International Security Issues, 100th Cong., 1st sess., April 11-13, 1987, pp. 8-10. 52. Author interviews with WEU personnel, London, March 31, 1989. 53. This theme is developed more completely by Scott B. MacDonald and Albert L. G a s t m a n , " G r e n a d a , the C a r i b b e a n Basin, and the E u r o p e a n E c o n o m i c Community," in MacDonald, Sandstrom, and Goodwin, The Caribbean After Grenada, pp. 229-250. 54. Author interview with OECS officials, April 3, 1989. 55. International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 1988-1989 (London: IISS, Autumn 1988), p. 65. 56. Author interviews with U.S. Department of State officials, April 24, 1989. 57. Anthony Payne, Paul Sutton, and Tony Thorndike, Grenada: Revolution and Invasion (London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1984), p. 87. 58. MacDonald and Gastman, "Grenada, the Caribbean Basin, and the European Economic Community," in MacDonald, Sandstrom, and Goodwin, The Caribbean After Grenada, pp. 239-240. 59. "Blaize Calls for Cooperation in 'Tradewinds 89'," FBIS Latin America (Daily Report) June 21, 1989, p. 7. 60. This view is reflected in a report by the Caribbean Community Secretariat, Special Consultation on Small States, CCS (Spec.) 86/1/5 (Castries, St. Lucia: Caribbean Community Secretariat, October 1986), pp. 18, 57. 61. "A Bridge Too Far," Africa (London), no. 175 (March 1986), p. 37. 62. Philip Webster, "Thatcher Isolated as Summit Fails," Times, August 5, 1986, pp. 1, 14, and David Watt, "Mrs. Thatcher's Costly Triumph," Times, August 8, 1986, p. 12. The West German position is outlined in "Bonn Set to Follow Lead from London," Times, August 6, 1986, p. 5. 63. "SADCC: Report from Harare," Africa Confidential 27, no. 4 (February 12, 1986), p. 7. 64. Author interviews with EC officials, Brussels, March 28, 1989. 65. McLean, "The Interest of Extra-Regional Powers," in Strategic Cooperation and Competition in the Pacific Islands, pp. 388-389. 66. Stephen Henningham, "French Polynesia: Pressures for More Autonomy," International Herald Tribune, July 20, 1989, p. 4. 67. Report prepared for the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives by the Congressional Research Service, The Soviet Union in the Third World 1980-1985: An Imperial Burden or Political Asset? 99th Cong., 1st sess., September 23, 1985, p. xxiv. 68. An excellent analysis of the interrelationship of Soviet commitment costs to Eastern Europe and the Third World is offered by Rajan Menon, Soviet Power and the Third World (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 154-166. 69. See the remarks of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz as reported by Michael R. Gordon, "Soviets Faulted on Regional Conflicts," New York Times, November 3, 1989, p. 10. 7 0 . A S o v i e t a n a l y s i s of t h e U S S R ' s Third World s t r a t e g y r e f l e c t i n g
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Gorbachev's "world v i e w " is M . Petrov's, " T h e USSR for Peace and Security in A s i a , " International Affairs (Moscow), no. 5 (1986), pp. 61-69. A good Western account is M e l v i n A . Goodman, " T h e Soviet Union and the Third World: The Military Dimension," in Andrzej Korbonski and Francis Fukuyama (eds.), The Soviet Union and the Third World: The Last Three Decades (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 59-62. 71. S. Neil MacFarlane, " T h e Soviet Union and Southern African Security," Problems of Communism 38, nos. 2-3 (March-June 1989), p. 87. 72. See "Speech by the Head of the Soviet Delegation to the U N , " Pravda, September 25, 1987, p. 34, as translated and reprinted in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press (CDSP) 39, no. 39 (October 28, 1987), pp. 19-20, where Soviet Foreign Minister E.A. Shevardnadze's proposals are reported. A Western report is by Norman Kempster and James Gerstenzang, "Shevardnadze Calls for a U.N. Patrol in Gulf," Los Angeles Times, September 24, 1987, pp. 1, 13-14. 73. Samuel Kim, "China and the Third World: In Search of a Neorealist World Policy," in Kim (ed.), China and the World (Boulder, Colo., and London: Westview Press, 1984), pp. 181-182. 74. "The Dragon's Long Reach" and "Calculating the Risk Factor," Far Eastern Economic Review 140, no. 18 (May 5, 1988), pp. 23-26; and Zara Dian, "The South China Sea—The Next Battleground?" Asian Defence Journal, (June 1988), pp. 4-5. 75. The best study of the Chinese involvement with T A Z A R A is by George T. Yu, China's Africa Policy: A Study of Tanzania ( N e w York: Praeger, 1975), pp. 125-148. 76. The trade balance figure is extracted from the International Monetary Fund, Direction of Trade Statistics (Washington: IMF, 1988), p. 136. Additional background on Chinese-African trade relations is offered by Lillian Craig Harris, "China's Third World Courtship," Washington Quarterly 5, no. 3 (Summer 1982), pp. 135-136; and Keith Somerville, "China and Africa: Maintaining a L o w Profile," in Colin Legum (ed.), African Contemporary Record 1985-1986 (New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1987), pp. A-200-A-207. 77. See Y i t z h a k Shichor, " T h e Year of T h e S i l k w o r m s : China's A r m s Transactions, 1987," in SCPS Yearbook on PLA Affairs (Kaohsumung, Taiwan: Sun Yat-sen Center for Policy Studies, 1988), pp. 153-182. 78. Hong Kong Agence France Presse report reprinted in FBIS, China (Daily Report), September 7, 1988, p. 5; Li Wei, " P R C Defense Minister and U.S. Defense Secretary Hold Talks in B e i j i n g , " Zhongguo Xinwen She, September 6, 1988, translated and reprinted in FBIS, China (Daily Report), p. 1; and Daniel Southerland, "Talks in China on Arms Leave Carlucci Satisfied," International Herald Tribune, September 8, 1988, p. 1. 79. Background on the P a c i f i c Community Concept is o f f e r e d by A k i o Watanabe, ' T h e Pacific Islands and Japan: Perspectives and Policies," in Strategic Cooperation and Competition in the Pacific Islands 1, pp. 262-263. 80. William Nester, "The Third World in Japanese Foreign Policy," Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 18, no. 3 (Winter 1989), pp. 380-386. 81. Juichi Inada, "Japan's A i d Diplomacy: Economic, Political or Strategic?" Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 18, no. 3 (Winter 1989), pp. 402-^03. 82. For additional background on Southeast Asia's sensitivity to the "Japanese dependency factor," see Nester, "The Third World in Japanese Foreign Policy," pp. 386-387; Tilman, Southeast Asia and the Enemy Beyond, pp. 106-124; and Willard H. Elsbree and Khong Kim Hoong, "Japan and A S E A N , " in Robert S. Ozaki and Walter Arnold, Japan's Foreign Relations: a Global Search for Economic Security (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985), pp. 119-131. 83. Nester, "The Third World in Japanese Foreign Policy," pp. 388-389.
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84. Clyde Haberman, "Nakasone Says Law Permits Japan to Sweep Mines in Gulf," New York Times, August 30, 1987, p. 16; Ian Rodger, "Japan Starts Talks on Navigation Data System," Financial Times, October 21, 1987, p. 7; and Robert Whymant, "Japan to Take Role in Gulf," Daily Telegraph, October 8, 1987, p. 7. 85. "Towards a New Relationship," The Middle East, no. 183 (January 1990), p. 35. 86. Watanabe, "The Pacific Islands and Japan," in Strategic Cooperation, pp. 258-259. 87. Hamish McDonald, "Checking the Soviets," Far Eastern Economic Review 134, no. 40 (October 2, 1986), pp. 26-27; Tokyo Bearing Gifts," Far Eastern Economic Review 135, no. 5 (January 29, 1987), pp. 30-31; and Parliament of Australia, Australia's Relations with the South Pacific, pp. 192-193. 88. Hamish McDonald, "Unambitious Recipients," Far Eastern Economic Review 134, no. 40 (October 2, 1986), pp. 26-27; and "Aid for the 'Home Town'," Pacific Islands Monthly 59, no. 9 (September 1988), pp. 28-29. 89. Paul Addison, "Fishing for Praise," Far Eastern Economic Review 144, no. 20 (May 18, 1989), pp. 25-26. 90. Nester, "The Third World in Japanese Foreign Policy," p. 392. 91. Eileen M. Doherty, "Japan's Foreign Aid Policy: 1987 Update," in Jon K.T. Choy (ed.), Japan: Exploring New Paths (Washington: Japan Economic Institute, 1988), p. 110. 92. R.S. Sassheen, "ASEAN Reaffirms Regional Solidarity and Cooperation," Asian Defence Journal (January 1988), p. 98. On Japan's aid relationship with ASEAN, see Elsbree and Hoong, "Japan and ASEAN," in Osaki and Arnold, especially pp. 125-126. More general background on Japanese ODA expenditures is provided by Ellen L. Frost, For Richer, for Poorer: The New U.S.-Japan Relationship (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1987), pp. 134-141. 93. Australian Parliament, The Jackson Report on Australia's Overseas Aid Programme, (Canberra: Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, 1985); and Peter McCawIcy, "Economic Relations Between Australia and Indonesia," Australian Outlook 40, no. 3 (December 1986), pp. 179-180. 94. "Wellington Interested in Tunku's ASEAN Proposal," Times, January 2, 1986, p. 4. 95. Background on these factors is provided by Richard L. Jackson, The Nonaligned, the UN and the Superpowers (New York, Westport, and London: Praeger, 1983), passim. 96. Report of the Commonwealth Consultative Group, Vulnerability: Small Slates in the Global Society (London: Commonwealth Secretariat, 1985), p. 111. 97. Don A. Schanche, "Caribbean States Want UN in Drug War," Los Angeles Times, October 23, 1989, p. 5. 98. Jonathan Power, "United Nations Moving Toward a New Age," Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1990, p. B-7. 99. See, for example, Egyptian analyst Esam El-Din Gabal, "Non-Alignment and Security," in Mohammad El-Sayad Selim (ed.), Non-Alignment in a Changing World, Cairo Papers in Social Science no. 3 (Cairo: The American University, September 1983), p. 60; and A.P. Rana, "Non-Alignment and International Change," Non-Aligned World 2, no. 2 (April 1984), pp. 324-345. 100. Arnold Smith, "Commonwealth Cross Sections: Pre-Negotiation to Minimize Conflict and to Develop Cooperation," International Peace Academy, Multilateral Negotiation and Mediation (New York: Pergamon, 1985), p. 54. 101. William Gutteridge, "Military Ties," in A.J.R. Groom and Paul Taylor (eds.), The Commonwealth in the 1980s: Challenges and Opportunities (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1984), pp. 121-122.
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102. United K i n g d o m , House of Commons, Foreign A f f a i r s Committee, Grenada (Second Report), Session 1983-1984, March 15, 1984, p. xi. 103. Colin Legum, "Grenada: Linkage and Impact on the Third World," in Jiri Valenta and Herbert J. Ellison (eds.), Grenada and Soviet/Cuban Policy: Internal Crisis and U.SJOECS Intervention (Boulder, Colo., and London: Westview Press, 1986), p. 159. 104. M.E.K. Neuhaus, " A Useful C H O G M : Lusaka 1979," Australian Outlook, 42, no. 3 (December 1988), pp. 161-166. 105. Lloyd John Chingambo and Stephen Chan, "Sanctions and South Africa: Strategies, Strangleholds and Self-Consciousness," Paradigms 2, no. 2 (Winter 1988-1989) pp. 115-116. 106. Chingambo and Chan, " Sanctions and South Africa," p. 125.
4 Conclusions for Western Policymakers During the early postwar years, emerging small states in developing regions made little progress in establishing credible security postures. Their lack of political stability and limited economic capabilities hindered their ability to achieve independence from the great powers. There were no real alternatives to affiliation either with the East or West blocs or the broader security organizations—the UN and the N A M . SRSOs gradually developed as an acceptable new approach to Third World collective self-reliance and defense. Such organizations are typically less ambitious than the characteristically grand designs for regional security preceding them, but have been sufficiently unified geographically to utilize the limited diplomatic, economic, and military resources of a subregion. The SRSOs were formed to help eliminate vulnerabilities, protect sovereignty, and strengthen the international competitiveness of their members. In brief, they are the product of their members' desires to have their individual and collective security interests taken more seriously within the international community. DO SRSOs MATTER? SRSOs have registered some concrete achievements in their effort to make a difference in the shaping of international security. In the areas of regional conflict avoidance and resolution, these organizations have provided additional and welcome means for collective security policy deliberation, formulation, and expression, the absence of which would leave their memberships more open to strategic exploitation by other regional and/or global powers. Accordingly, the SRSOs provide their members with greater self-confidence, both in confronting threats and in managing assistance from the outside world. As importantly, the S R S O s , much more than previous regional security arrangements, have provided identifiable focal points for the projection of interests by outside powers during times of regional crisis. Opportunities for strategic miscalculation are thus reduced, and the exacerbation of various regional conflicts is more easily avoided. The S R S O s have yet to attain the levels of economic cooperation necessary to realistically aspire to economic integration. Neither have they institutionalized their defense cooperation to the levels that characterize a 127
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valid security regime. The upgraded Western naval presence in the Persian Gulf during 1987-1988 and U.S. intervention in Grenada in late 1983 are illustrative examples of instances where external power support was more critical than i n d i g e n o u s d e f e n s e c o o p e r a t i o n in p r e s e r v i n g an S R S O ' s preferred regional security order. The inability of both A S E A N and SADCC to negate the presence and effects of great power-sponsored military factions contesting their own regional security orders attests to the f u n d a m e n t a l weakness of SRSOs against determined and sustained opposition to their regional security agendas, when such challenges arc supported by outside parties.
S R S O SURVIVAL FACTORS SRSOs have survived the formidable threats to regional security that initially prompted their founding. These organizations are now positioned to refine those diplomatic and institutional mechanisms that sustained them over the period when those threats most seriously challenged their respective regions. While a n u m b e r of obstacles need to be o v e r c o m e if the S R S O s arc to become more significant factors in the international security equation, their i m p o r t a n c e as institutions c a p a b l e of r e s p o n d i n g with i m m e d i a c y and sensitivity to individual member-states' security problems is unquestionable. SRSOs essentially function as geopolitical conduits for the airing of outside p o w e r s ' concerns that intraregional security disputes not be allowed to escalate into larger regional or global crises, in which such outside powers would be forced to become more directly involved. Are S R S O s ' roles as intraregional security clearing houses and focal points for extraregional concerns sufficient to guarantee their continuation as viable international security actors? Several considerations arc particularly relevant in response. First, the pertinence of these organizations to regional security must be sustained, once the initial sense of threat that b r o u g h t them into being evaporates. Second, the common security objectives and policies of SRSOs m u s t n o t be u n d e r m i n e d by the n a t i o n a l i n t e r e s t s of their i n d i v i d u a l members. Third, sufficient external assistance must be m a d e available to the SRSOs, even if their security interests fail to always coincide with those of their benefactors. Finally, changes in relations between the great powers must not be allowed to transform the international security environment so completely as to render the subregional security approach obsolete.
Reduced
Threats
Critics of SRSOs have argued that such organizations are simply the product of intraregional stress, rather than agents of conflict resolution—ASEAN vs.
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Indochina; the G C C vs. Iran; S A D C C vs. South Africa; the O E C S vs. Cuba or Nicaragua; and the South Pacific Forum vs. a latent Soviet maritime threat. 1 If so, their viability may soon be put to the test. Many of the causes of stress that led to SRSO formations appear to be subsiding, in response to conflict resolution efforts largely initiated by external powers. In Southeast Asia, the Kampuchean conflict was initially defused by a Soviet decision to reduce financial and military assistance to its Vietnamese clients and, more recently, by all the interested great powers' apparent acquiescence to an Australian proposal to introduce a U N peacekeeping force into that war-torn country. The Persian Gulf conflict was settled largely by the exhaustion of its participants, but sustained offshore Western military pressure against Iran and on the G C C ' s behalf in the Straits of H o r m u z allowed Iraq enough breathing space to fight Tehran to a military standoff. No prospect for a resurgence of Cuban influence currently exists in the eastern Caribbean, and use of that subregion as a transit point by drug cartels now constitutes the most obvious regional "threat." A key factor for the continued relevance of SRSOs is how adroit these organizations will be in demarcating and institutionalizing regional security agendas independent from the traditional imperatives of threat assessment. A S E A N , f o r e x a m p l e , has b e e n consistent in p r e s s i n g for its regional security objective of Z O P F A N , even while that S R S O has worked with interested external powers to end the Indochina conflict. A S E A N ' s future task will be to convert the ZOPFAN ideal into a more tangible means lor resolving outstanding intraregional territorial disputes, establishing more credible avenues for realizing a subregional environment free of nuclear weapons, and foiming long-term habits of security consultation and cooperation that, in turn, will lead to the emergence of a viable and enduring security regime throughout Southeast Asia. The other four SRSOs assessed in this study have not yet advanced any agenda comparable to ZOPFAN f o r reducing their own vulnerability and coping with future regional threats. In assessing G C C " c o m m o n security concerns," R. K. Ramazani notes that "neither the Charter of the G C C nor the statements of its founding fathers clarified its political philosophy." 2 In the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war, no real consensus has developed within that S R S O regarding what constitutes the primary threat to its collective membership. The elements that unite A S E A N members in seeking an end to conflict in Indochina and a prevention of Vietnamese hegemony there, for example, are absent in the calculations of G C C states. The lattcr's threat perceptions instead encompass a multiplicity of internal and external issues, often operating at cross-purposes with one another. T h e Adams Doctrine, envisioning the establishment of a small but permanently deployed regional defense force for the eastern Caribbean to deter both local insurrections and external threats, was regarded by OECS leaders as an inappropriate rationale for tying the subregion into East-West strategic rivalries. 3 In not enjoying
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greater credibility within the OECS itself, this initial effort to define and implement a security agenda for the eastern Caribbean and beyond was doomed to be short-lived. With Cuba's departure from southern Africa, the USSR's increased support for pacific settlement of regional disputes in that vicinity, and South Africa's pending recognition of the African National Congress, S A D C C will be less able to rationalize Western economic assistance in response to immediately pressing threats of economic and political suppression. It will increasingly need to market itself more effectively as the most promising entity available for achieving regional economic and technological development throughout southern Africa. In doing so, it must effectively counter South Africa's traditional tendency to emphasize its own "natural economic predominance" in the region. The SPF will need to reconcile the increasingly distinct security and development agenda of its Melanesian affiliates with those entertained by its Micronesian and Polynesian member-states. Even in the absence of more tenable regional security doctrines, the SRSOs are more likely to make a difference on issues pertaining to regional security and conflict than either the old Western-oriented security alliances in the Third World or those regionwide and international institutions directly concerned with regional security affairs. By virtue of their streamlined and geographically proximate memberships, SRSOs can respond most quickly to crises that emerge in their immediate environs, relying on their sense of common subregional identity and on ready-made legacies of intraorganizational consultations. Accordingly, they provide a natural reference point for communications and policy interaction with outside powers who entertain vital interests in selected regional disputes. ASEAN initiation o f conflict resolution diplomacy in the UN on the Kampuchean crisis is illustrative of an SRSO's capacity to compensate for its lack of military and economic power by effectively representing its regional security agenda in a global forum. So, too, was the G C C ' s success in prompting the UN Security Council to support the right of free navigation in the Persian Gulf, notwithstanding arguments by that conflict's belligerents to the contrary. Neither the OECS nor its larger counterpart, CARICOM, was formed with its member-states intending to seek international coalitions against any one common threat. Both organizations, however, were effective in functioning as diplomatic conduits between Marxist Grenada and the Western powers, prior to Maurice Bishop's overthrow and the New Jewel Movement's descensión into violent anarchy in late 1983. O E C S then authorized U.S. military intervention in the region, by linking such action to Article 8 of its founding charter and by advertising the U.S. action as a legitimate peacekeeping venture. Regional order was restored on behalf of the eastern Caribbean nations, who themselves were too small and weak to exercise such a role without outside assistance. The SPF was able to create and declare a pragmatic nuclear-free zone even while one of its own—New
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Zealand—was involved in a monumental dispute with the region's traditional security benefactor, the United States. In doing so, this SRSO may well have structured a treaty that will become the "role model" for future efforts by other regions to define and achieve nuclear disarmament in their own purview. National
Interests
If mutual vulnerability to external threats becomes a less pressing consideration, the forces of nationalism may yet undermine the SRSOs. Collaboration in socioeconomic areas has yet to capture the enthusiastic support of most SRSO members. The removal of external threats can also break down the restraints that they have previously imposed upon themselves regarding their own territorial disputes, ethnic rivalries, religious and ideological divisions, and other sources of intraregional conflict. 4 In theory, multilateral cooperation by SRSO members is the best line of action for pursuing regional economic development and minimizing dependency by member-states on external sources for strategic supplies and services. It is also their best guarantee for ensuring that what bilateral ties are developed with wealthier and stronger outside powers take into full account their own national and regional economic interests. In reality, as we have seen, the efforts of SRSO states to integrate their economic strategies have been less than impressive. ASEAN's record of cooperative industrial development and trade liberalization has not been as strong as its memberstates' continued wariness of relinquishing their own plans for national economic development and of pursuing intraregional trade at the expense of compromising their more lucrative bilateral trade relations with Western industrial powers—most notably Japan and the United States. The collapse of the oil market in the early 1980s eroded the GCC's plans to coordinate member-state policies in the hydrocarbon, industrial, and trade sectors. The OECS continues to suffer from overdependence on an unpredictable international agricultural commodities market, as well as from an absence of any notable industrial infrastructure. SADCC cooperation is inhibited by individual member-states' continued adherence to preferential bilateral trading agreements or separate customs unions arrangements with South Africa—a state that has every interest in sustaining the continued dependency of SADCC economies on its own. The SPF is vulnerable to future Japanese and, to a lesser extent, EC investment drives in member-states, where indigenous populations lack the skills and political mobility to control such penetration. Diversification of the member-states' industrial assets and distribution infrastructure still seems to be a distant vision. The goal of national integration, deemed as most important by the elites of recently decolonized countries, also undeimines the propensity of SRSO members to overcome regional divisiveness. In ASEAN, the Sabah dispute
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between Malaysia and the Philippines, the Moro separatist movement in Mindanao, the division of Malaysian politics along strongly ethnic lines, and the problem of successor generations testing military rule in Indonesia are all examples of tensions that could threaten SRSO unity. Ethnic divisions are also rampant throughout the SPF region. In the Persian Gulf, strains arise from revolutionary Islam and the disenfranchisement of less-privileged classes or of alienated intelligentsia. In the eastern Caribbean, links between the Cuban Communist party and various opposition political parties, narcotics traffic, mercenary-led coups d'état, a lack of government services, and aggressive trade union movements blur consensus regarding "national interests." In southern Africa, violent opposition groups in Angola, Mozambique, and Lesotho drain the energies of governments, which could otherwise be employed to reduce what are perhaps the most fundamental set of debilitating problems faced by any SRSO: food shortages, drought, rudimentary transportation and communications systems, and a labor force highly dependent on South Africa for employment and housing. SRSOIBenefactor Assistance
Criteria
The breakdown of an SRSO's intraregional collaboration by a radical overthrow of one of its member-state governments could have a major impact on the preparedness of traditional external suppliers to continue extending economic and military assistance. The U.S. invasion of Grenada, for example, was not so much a successful case of SRSO conflict management as a belated reaction by Washington and its eastern Caribbean friends to the fact that political self-determination can evolve along lines inimical to Western interests. They recognized that countermeasures were necessary if mutual OECS and U.S. security interests in the subregion were not to be undermined. Recent expressions of support by ASEAN leaders for a continued U.S. basing presence in the. Philippines can also be attributed to their underlying perception that, in the absence of the U.S. military, rival factions could threaten the Philippines' democratic institutions and throw it into a state of long-term political anarchy and violence. Yet many Filipinos viewed U.S. military intervention on behalf of President Aquino's government in December 1989 not as a legitimate act of military assistance for a beleaguered ally, but as a violation of Filipino sovereignty and of the ASEAN-wide principle of noninterference in regional affairs by outside powers. Debate over distinguishing assistance criteria from unwarranted outside domination may become less relevant in the 1990s. Intensified U.S. fiscal problems, the EC's inward turn toward greater union in 1992, and growing Japanese sensitivity to the political ramifications of its trading behavior also work to discourage the industrialized democracies from undertaking expanded assistance and security commitments. Potential alternative
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suppliers, such as the Soviet Union or China, have become either more preoccupied with their own domestic affairs or less enamored of supporting revolution abroad. Difficulties faced by SRSOs in securing financing from major multilateral institutions, such as the World Bank or private banking consortia centered in traditional donor countries, are intensifying as their capital flows are becoming more restricted. This precipitates small-state vulnerability to the will of those countries enjoying substantial influence with the lending institutions and generates considerable political pressure for national and subregional political and strategic acquiescence to the donor states. The assistance criteria applied to SRSO security will thus be carefully weighed and cautiously implemented by both the member-states and their prospective beneficiaries. The SRSO's security objectives will need to be compatible with those aspects of stability or change that reflect the interests of the concerned external power or organization. But prospects must also be good that the SRSO will advance toward regional self-reliance, demanding less military protection and assistance over time, in return for an initial external security commitment. SRSO policies meant to ensure national and regional stability and to encourage conflict resolution in their immediate locales should enjoy reasonably high levels of public support in the industrialized democracies. The member-states may be asked to pool their collective resources in ways more facilitative of an efficient use of regional technical and professional skills. While not all S R S O s will advance toward regional stability and development at the same pace, potential benefactors will continue to search for criteria that will provide a strong justification for their assistance. SRSOs and International
Change
Notwithstanding recent shifts in the way the superpowers relate to one another on problems of regional conflict and competition, the political and strategic orientation of SRSOs will continue to be important. Both the United States and the USSR will maintain specific security interests in the various subregions and compete with one another for influence in Third World settings. The context of their involvement, however, is visibly shifting from military to diplomatic, and even economic, competition. This will be even more true as Europe moves away from traditional postwar patterns of EastWest competition and both Washington and Moscow adjust their military strategies to fight in limited conflicts, closer to their own homelands. Until now, ASEAN has been a significant area for Western investment and economic development activities, but has remained something of a backwater in terms of US global security planning. Since the end of the Vietnam War, the USSR, while remaining active in Vietnam, has not really perceived ASEAN as a foreign policy priority, apart from a concern that the
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subregion should not fall under Chinese domination. While the Soviets have expressed concern about the region ever since Leonid Brezhnev first advanced his Asian Collective Security proposals in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mikhail Gorbachev's suggestions for an All-Asian Forum clearly are integral to his overall outlook on international security. Gorbachev's diplomacy must therefore be viewed by the West as a more formidable Soviet effort to strengthen the U S S R ' s influence throughout Southeast Asia. Both superpowers share a desire to avoid direct military involvement in southern African conflicts and a long-standing distaste for the South African apartheid regime. The U S S R justifiably regards SADCC as an instrument for advancing Western economic investment in the subregion at Soviet political expense. T h e Soviets are not, however, prepared to compete with the capitalist powers in a game in which support for tenuous Marxist regimes among the Front Line States creates a financial drain. Nor is the Soviet Union prepared to compete with U.S. or British influence in the eastern Caribbean. It is looking instead to Cuba to represent its interests, as best it can, in the region. The Persian Gulf remains the most likely subregion for Soviet-U.S. competition because o f its geographic proximity to the U S S R and the continued uncertainty of world energy supplies. Especially in the Gulf, but in the other subregions as well, the Western powers, along with the Soviet Union and perhaps China, progressively will need to seek and maintain effective means for conflict avoidance. As the S R S O s work toward achieving stronger economies, higher levels of institutional self-confidence, and proven modes of conflict resolution on their own, it appears they could develop into appropriate organizations for the superpowers and other outside parties to underwrite, in the interests of more stable regional order.
STRENGTHENING THE SRSOs Ways to strengthen S R S O s remain debatable, but some policy recommendations can be made. First, outside powers should take care that security commitments made to individual members of an S R S O do not undermine whatever momentum for subregional security cooperation has been achieved by the S R S O as a whole. There is every reason to avoid military commitments that lead to intensified subregional c o n f l i c t . S e c o n d , external assistance should be designed primarily to strengthen an S R S O ' s collective self-reliance, rather than to augment the outside power's influence as the predominant force in shaping subregional development. Beneficial steps include limited military assistance to S R S O peacekeeping forces and economic assistance that strengthens S R S O member-states. Third, security assistance to SRSOs by friendly external powers must be provided if a crisis erupts and spreads despite the best eiforts of an S R S O to contain it. Even the Grenada episode illustrated the fact that military operations conducted by
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extraregional forces on behalf of an SRSO can buy it time to strengthen its own means for self-reliance. Similarly, the Kuwait reflagging incident also appears to have secured worthwhile benefits for the GCC. No formal alliance was created or revived, but strategic objectives were achieved through an informal coalition between the OECS and the United States in the first instance, and then between the GCC and a U.S.-WEU-sponsored naval consortium. One can discern trends pointing toward the durability of subregional security organizations. First, the legitimacy of superpower military intervention as a means of preserving small-state security is apparently eroding, except when genuine requests for assistance are made by the SRSOs because they cannot independently maintain subregional order. Second, various forms of bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, peacekeeping initiatives, and economic assistance programs with security overtones show promise and appear acceptable in the subregions. Third, the evolution of revised subregional approaches to security has been accompanied by the recognition of a need to be able to anticipate local crises. Finally, even in those regions where the great powers retain significant interests, the subregional organizations have demonstrated a willingness and capacity to engage in the politics of conflict resolution, and to enhance conflict avoidance through intraregional negotiation and adjudication. SRSO credibility might thus be strengthened if these indigenously derived organizations represented themselves effectively as standing for regional progress and stability and as positive alternatives to military intervention in Third World disputes by the superpowers or their allies. Addressing local security issues with a consensus position could reinforce advertised SRSO objectives of regional self-reliance and conflict resolution without great power involvement. It is not contended that subregional security organizations are the only form of security program for small states. However, it is apparent that exclusive reliance upon global security formulas for achievement of a more stable international order is unlikely to guarantee subregional stability and development. The price Western architects of international security policy will inevitably pay if they ignore the issues underlying small-state vulnerabilities was aptly characterized by the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, in 1984. Citing the limited capacities of small states to respond effectively to either internal crisis or external threat, the Committee noted the potentially disproportionate effects of such weaknesses on the dynamics of world politics: Wars break out and alliances fall apart, not so often as the result of deliberate decisions by the major powers but as the result of the inability of the great power system . . . to cope with the problems of small countries in faraway parts of the globe. 5
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Increasingly, the larger powers' strategies are being modified by awareness that events and crises in the subregions could well determine their own ability to help define and shape a more stable and enduring international order. Encouraging the development of subregional systems for security and cooperation that can assist in coping with the problems faced by small states may well be one of the most difficult, yet vital, challenges that managers of international security politics must confront in the next decade and beyond.
NOTES 1. See especially the remarks of Mohammed Ayoob, "Regional Security and the Third World," and S.D. Muni, "Comments," in Ayoob (ed.), Regional Security in the Third World, pp. 18-19 and pp. 31-32, respectively. 2. Ramazani, The Gulf Cooperation Council, p. 6. 3. See Lewis, "Prospects fora Regional Security System," pp. 80-81. 4. The idea of reduced great-power intervention creating a "decompression effect" or a loosening of Third World states' self-restraint with regard to intraregional conflicts and disputes is advanced by José Thiago Cintra, "Regional Conflicts: Trends in a Period of Transition," in The Changing Strategic Landscape, Part III, Adelphi Papers 237 (London: Brassey's/IISS, Spring 1989), pp. 96-103. 5. United Kingdom, House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee, Grenada (Sccond Report), p. xxxix.
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FOREIGN GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS Assembly of Western European Union. Second Part of the Thirty-Third Annual Report of the Council to the Assembly of Western European Union (January 1987-December 1987). Document 1140, May 10, 1988. Australian Parliament. The Jackson Report on Australia's Overseas Aid Programme. Canberra: Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, 1985. Caribbean Community Secretariat. Special Consultation on Small States, CCS (Spec.) 86/1/5. Castries, St. Lucia: Caribbean Community Secretariat, October 1986. The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. Australia's Relations with the South Pacific. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1989. Statement on the Defence Estimates 1988. Cmnd. 344-1. London: HMSO, 1988. United Kingdom, House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee. Grenada (Second Report), Session 1983-1984, March 15,1984.
U.S. NEWSPAPERS Claiborne, William. "The Front-Line States Are Getting Cozy with South Africa." Washington Post National Weekly Edition, April 11-17, 1988, 16.
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Gcrstenzang, James. "Shevardnadze Calls for a UN Patrol in Gulf." Los Angeles Times, September 24, 1987, 1,13-14. Gordon, Michael R. "Soviets Faulted on Regional Conflicts." New York Times, November 3, 1989, 10. Haberman, Clyde. "Nakasone Says Law Permits Japan to Sweep Mines in Gulf." New York Times, August 30, 1987, 16. Kempster, Norman and Gcrstenzang, James. "Shevardnadze Calls for a U.N. Patrol in Gulf." Los Angeles Times, September 24, 1987, 1, 13-14. Kraft, Scott. "Cuba, Angola and South Africa OK Plan to Restore Namibia Peace." Los Angeles Times, April 10, 1989, 6. "Kuwait Signs Weapons Deal with Moscow." New York Times, July 11, 1988, 8. Pear, Robert. "U.S. Envoy Asks Congress to Overturn Missile Ban for Oman." New York Times, March 12, 1988, 6. Power, Jonathan. "United Nations Moving Toward a New Age." Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1990, B-7. Rasky, Susan F. "Kuwaiti to Seek Reversal of Missile Ban." New York Times, July 14, 1988, 3. Schanche, Don A. "Caribbean States Want UN in Drug War." Los Angeles Times, October 23, 1989: 5. "Senate Blocks Reagan on Kuwait Arms Sale." New York Times, July 8, 1988, 6. "U.S. Reported to Seek More Philippine Aid." New York Times, May 8, 1988, 8.
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"ASEAN Not to Increase Military Cooperation." Agence France Presse report reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, East Asia (Daily Report), December 15, 1987, 1. Barnard, Michael. "Soviets Try to Hook into Pacific Region." The Age (Melbourne), July 12, 1988,13. "Biggest Show of Strength in Central America." Times, March 23, 1987, 6. Black, Ian. "Gulf States Worried by Build-Up of Naval Forces." Guardian, October 15-16, 1987, 11. "Bonn Set to Follow Lead from London." Times, August 6, 1986, 5. Buchanan, David, and Roger Mathews. "Britain to Step Up Patrols in Gulf." Financial Times, November 27, 1986, 46. Colvin, Marie. "Growing Gulf Fear Is a War of Nerves." Sunday Times (London), August 16, 1987, 2 Delhi Domestic Service radio news report November 29, 1987. Reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Near East and South Asia, November 30, 1987: 69. Espindola, Roberto. "America Faces Security Rebuff in Caribbean." Sunday Times (London), June 8, 1986, 9. . "Let Grenada Go Neutral, Says Security Report." Times, October 13, 1985, 20. "GCC Summit Closes with Final Statement." Riyadh Television Service in Arabic, November 5, 1986. Translated and reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Middle East and Africa (Daily Report), November 6, 1986, C-l, C-2. Harvey, Robert. "A Salute from the Sheiks." Daily Telegraph, October 20, 1987, 19.
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Henningham, Stephen. "French Polynesia: Pressures for More Autonomy." International Herald. Tribune, July 20,1989,4. Hong Kong Agence France Presse report reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, China (Daily Report), September 7, 1988, 5. Humphries, David. "Malaysia Backs U.S. Bases." Times, April 18,1988,7. James, Canute. "Caribbean Isles Ponder Prospect of Political Unity." Financial Times, December 20,1988: 6. . "Islands Plan to Unite as a Nation." Sunday Times (London), June 7,1987, 9. Keesing's Record of World Events 33, no. 11 (1988): 36312. "King Fahd Interviewed on GCC, Arab Affairs." Cairo Al-Ahram, in Arabic, January 15, 1988, 3, 7. Translated and reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Scrvice, Near East and South Asia (Daily Report), January 20,1988,22-26. Li, Wei. "PRC Defense Minister and U.S. Defense Secretary Hold Talks in Beijing." Zhongguo Xinwen-She, September 6, 1988. Translated and reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Scrvice, China (Daily Report), September 7,1988, 1. Manama Wakh (Bahrain), November 3, 1986. Translated and reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Middle East and Africa (Daily Report), November 4,1986, C-l. "New Common Market on Agenda for ASEAN." Times, October 21, 1986, 10. "No Bargaining on Our Homeland's Security: Up to Kuwaitis to Judge Saboteurs." Al-Sharz Al-Aswat radio dispatch monitored in London, January 28, 1988. Translated and reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Servicc, Near East, February 5, 1988, 15. "Official on GCC Defense Ministers Discussions in Muscat," in Arabic, October 12, 1986. Translated and reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Servicc, Middle East and Africa (Daily Report), October 15,1986, C-2. Pear, Robert. "U.S. Steps Up Efforts to End Angola War." International Herald Tribune, April 16-17,1988, 3. Peel, Quentin. "EC Fails to Agree on Gulf Plan." Financial Times, Octobcr 22, 1987, 3. "Portugal to Boycott Jakarta Discussions." Times, Octobcr 20,1986, 9. Remarks of George Brizan, Grenada's opposition leader, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Latin America (Daily Report), November 10, 1988, 5. Richardson, Michael. "Asia Traders Are Poised for New Era." International Herald Tribune, November 3, 1989: 1, 6. "Rithauddeen, U.S. Admiral on Foreign Bases." Bernama (Kuala Lumpur), August 10, 1989. Reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Scrvice, East Asia, August 11,1989, 29. Rodger, Ian. "Japan Starts Talks on Navigation Data System." Financial Times, October 21, 1987,7. Sherwell, Chris. "Falling into the Third World Trap." Financial Times, May 15,1987, p. 16. Soipee, Noordin. "ASEAN: In Favor of U.S. Bases in the Philippines." International Herald Tribune, March 12, 1988,4. Southerland, Daniel. "Talks in China on Arms Leave Carlucci Satisfied." International Herald Tribune, September 8,1988,1. "Speech by the Head of the Soviet Delegation to the UN." Pravda, 25 September 1987, 34, as translated and reprinted in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press (CDSP), 39, no. 39 (Octobcr 28,1987), 19-20. Taylor, Jeremy. "Mini States Plan to Merge as a Nation within Two Years." Times, July 24,1987,9. Tow, William. "Singapore Offer Prods U.S. to Assess Policy on Philippine Bases."
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Asian Wall Street Journal, November 27, 1989, 1, 6. Watt, David. "Mrs. Thatcher's Costly Triumph." Times, August 8, 1986, 12. Webster, Philip. "Thatcher Isolated as Summit Fails." Times, August 5, 1986, 1. "Wellington Interested in Tunku's ASEAN Proposal." Times, January 2, 1986, 4. Whymant, Robert. "Japan to Take Role in Gulf." Daily Telegraph, October 8, 1987, 7. Williams, Erasmus. "Eastern Island Nations Agree to Form Single Nation." Caribbean News Agency (CANA) Newswire Dispatch (Bridgetown). As reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Latin America (Daily Report), June 1, 1987, Bl. World Peace Council Meetings in Mexico City held during late 1983 in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Latin America (Daily Report), November 3, 1983, A-l, A-2.
U N P U B L I S H E D PAPERS Albinski, Henry S. "South Pacific Trends and United States Security Implications: An Introductory Overview." Unpublished draft of paper to appear in R.L. Pfaltzgraff amd L.R. Vasey (eds.), Strategic Issues in the Southwest Pacific, forthcoming. Deck, Richard. "The Case of ASEAN: Alliance or Regional Security Regime?" Unpublished paper, Department of Political Science, Stanford University, 1986. Duncan, Neville C. "Collective Security In The Eastern Caribbean." Unpublished paper prepared for a confcrence on "Democracy, Development and Collective Security in the Eastern Caribbean: The Lessons of Grenada," at the Caribbean Institute and Study Center for Latin America, Inter American University, San German, Puerto Rico, October 17-19, 1985. Halisi, C.R.D. "Regional Development and Security in Africa: The Southern African Development Coordination Conference and South Africa." Unpublished paper prepared for a workshop on "Soviet-U.S. Cooperation for Africa" at the Institute for African Studies, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow, 1 - 3 December 1987. Lewis, Dr. Vaughn A. "International National and Regional Security Arrangements in the Caribbean." Unpublished paper presented at workshop of the International Peace Academy on "Peace, Development, and Security in the Caribbean Basin: Perspectives to the Year 2000" at Kingston, Jamaica, March 22-25,1987.
INTERVIEWS/CORRESPONDENCE EC Officials. Interview by author, 28 March 1989, Brussels. OECS Officials. Interview by author, 3 April 1989, Castries, St. Lucia. U.S. Department of State Officials. Interview by author, 24 April 1989. WEU Personnel. Interview by author, 31 March 1989, London.
Index Accords de Matignon, 107 Africa Civic Action Program, 95 Antilles-Guiana Command, 104 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), 92 Assistance criteria for SRSOs, 132-133 Australia, ASEAN, SPF, and, 114 Australia-New Zealand Canberra accord (ANZUS), 6, 16, 32. See also South Pacific Forum (SPF); Strategic access; Strategic denial Arab Cooperation Council (ACC), 49 Arab League. See League of Arab States Arab Mahgreb Union (AMU), 49 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): founded 5-6, 37-38; as a security regime, 14; organization and management, 23-26; subregional defense issues and, 38—41; economic cooperation and, 41-42; collective diplomacy and, 42-44; challenges to, 44-45; United States and, 90-92; European Community and, 100-102; Australia, New Zealand, and, 114. See also Subregional security organizations (SRSOs) Cambodia, ASEAN and, 43-44 Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), 62, 90, 92, 94-95 Caribbean Community (CARICOM), 28, 32, 34, 130; founded, 63-64 Caribbean Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Program, 104 Caribbean Peace Force, 94 Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), 1-2, 118 Clhina, People's Republic of (PRC); SRSOs and, 109-110 Commonwealth (British), 57; SRSOs and, 116-118 Commonwealth Consultative Group, 57, 114
Constellation of States (CONSAS) program. See South Africa Cooperation within SRSOs, barriers to, 20-22. See also individual SRSOs by name Dependency, 17-18 Economic and competitive stature of SRSOs, 22, 77-78. See also Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI); Cooperation within SRSOs, barriers to; Legitimacy of SRSOs; National interests; South Africa Economic Progress Initiative; and other individual SRSOs by name Effectiveness of SRSOs, compared, 37, 77-81 Ethnic divisions: SPF and, 70; in Fiji, 72-73. See also Cooperation within SRSOs, barriers to; Expatriate workers in GCC member-states; Melancsian Spearhead Group; National interests European Community (EC): SRSOs and, 99-100; ASEAN and, 100-102; GCC and, 102-103; OECS and, 103-104; SACC and, 105-116; SPF and, 106-107 European Development Fund, 104 European Development Program, 105 European Political Cooperation (EPC) system, 100 Expatriate workers in GCC member-states, 47-48 External actor and SRSOs, 89-90, 118. See also under Subregional security organizations (SRSOs); individual SRSOs by name Five Power Defence Arrangement (FPDA), 39,41, 101, 114 Grenada crisis. See Organization of East
151
152
INDEX
Caribbean States (OECS) Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), 8; founded, 6-7, 45—46; as a security regime, 14, 16; organization and management, 26-28; internal threats and, 46^18; economic vulnerabilities within, 48-49; conflict resolution within, 49-50; external powers and, 50-52; self-reliance and collective defense within, 52-56; United States and, 92-94; European Community and, 102-103. See also Subregional security organizations (SRSOs) Hegemonic behavior, 15-16, 20-21, 52. See also South Africa International change, 133-134 Iran-Iraq war. See Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Japan, SRSOs and, 110-114 Kampuchea. See Cambodia League of Arab States, 2, 6 Legitimacy of SRSOs, 18-22. See also Survival factors for SRSOs Management principles of SRSOs, 23-24 Mashreq Group. See Arab Cooperation Council (ACC) Matignon Accords. See Accords de Matignon Melanesian Spearhead Group, 15-16, 98 National interests, 131-132. See also Cooperation within SRSOs, barriers to New Zealand, ASEAN, SPF, and, 114 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM); SRSOs and, 115-116 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 2, 101, 103 Organization of African Unity (OAU), 2, 6 Organization of East Caribbean States (OECS), 8, 32, 24; as a security regime, 15-16; organization and management, 28-30; founded, 57; security threats and, 57-62; economic issues and, 62-63; federation and, 63-64; United States and, 94-95; European Community and, 103-104. See also Subregional security organizations (SRSOs)
Organizational structure. See Management principles of SRSOs Regional Security System (RSS) agreement of OECS, 28, 30, 58, 60-62, 94-95, 103-104 Security, global, pacts and, during Cold War era, 1-4 Security regime, defined, 13-14 Self-reliance, 17-18. See also Effectiveness of SRSOs, compared; Legitimacy of SRSOs South Africa, 96; "total strategy" of, in southern Africa, 65-67; sanctions against, 105-106, 117-118; Japan as a trading partner of, 113 South Asian Association for Cooperation (SAARC), 7-8 South Pacific Bureau for Economic Cooperation (SPEC), 32 South Pacific Commission (SPC), 32, 106 South Pacific Forum (SPF), 8-9; founded, 6; as a security regime, 15-16; organization and management, 32-33; diversity and dependence on aid within, 70-71; nationbuilding and, 71-73; external powers' security interests and, 73-77; United States and, 96-99; European Community and, 106-107; Australia, New Zealand, and, 114. See also Subregional security organizations (SRSOs) South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone (SPNFZ), 71,76, 97-98, 130 South Pacific Regional Trade and Economical Cooperation Agreement (SPARTECA), 106 Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 1-2,38,41, 118 Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), 8; founded 6, 64; as a security regime, 15; organization and management, 30-32; governing principles of, 65; constraints on cooperation within, 67-68; prospects for self-reliance and conflict resolution within, 67-68; United States and, 95-96; European Community and, 105-106. See also South Africa; Subregional security organizations (SRSOs) Southern Africa Economic Progress Initiative, 95-96 Soviet Union, SRSOs and, 107-109
INDEX
153
Strategic access, 7 5 - 7 7 Strategic denial, 9, 71, 74-75 Structure. See Management principles of
Treaty of Rarotonga, 106. See also South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone (SPNFZ)
SRSOs Subregion, defined, 4
Unified Economic Agreement (EA), 49 United Nations, SRSOs and, 114-115 United States: ASEAN and, 9 0 - 9 2 ; GCC and, 9 2 - 9 4 ; OECS and, 9 4 - 9 5 ; SADCC and, 9 5 - 9 6 ; SPF and, 9 6 - 9 9 ; SRSOs and, 99
Subregional security organizations (SRSOs); development of, 4 - 9 ; as security regimes, 13-16; relations of, with external powers, 17-18; vulnerability of small states and, 18-19; barriers to cooperation within, 2 0 - 2 2 ; competitive stature of, 22; principies and management of, 2 3 - 3 4 ; effectiveness of, compared, 7 7 - 8 1 ; external actors and, 89-90, 118; United States and, 99; European Community and, 9 9 - 1 0 0 ; Soviet Union and, 107-109; China and, 109-110; Japan and, 110-114; United Nations and, 114-115; NonAligncd Movement and, 115-116; Commonwealth (British) and, 116-118; achievements of, 127-128; survival factors for, 128-134; strengthening of, 134-136 Survival factors for SRSOs, 128-134 Threat assessment and reduction, 128-131
United States Central Command (CENTCOM), 51, 56 United States Middle East Force, 52 United States Special Forces ("Green Berets"), 61 Vietnam, ASEAN and, 43-^14 Vulnerability within SRSOs, 18-19. See Assistance criteria for SRSOs
also
Warsaw Pact, 108 Western European Union (WEU), 102-103, 135 West Indies Associated States (WLAS), Council of Ministers of, 59
About the Book and the Author Within the past decade, traditional regional security organizations formed during the cold War have gradually been supplanted by more indigenous groupings designed specifically to address local security problems. Professor Tow argues that these subregional security organizations ( S R S O s ) have provided their members with a new self-confidence, encouraging them to formulate their common security interests and to face the "outside" world in a more unified fashion. The strategic and economic vulnerability of the new a s s o c i a t i o n s , h o w e v e r , has not b e e n o v e r c o m e to the extent that their members originally had hoped, and their continued relevance in an environment of rapid international change remains uncertain. Tow assesses the extent to which five SRSOs—the Association of Southeast A s i a n N a t i o n s ( A S E A N ) , t h e G u l f C o o p e r a t i o n C o u n c i l ( G C C ) , the O r g a n i z a t i o n of E a s t C a r i b b e a n States ( O E C S ) , the S o u t h e r n A f r i c a n Development Coordination Conference ( S A D C C ) , and the South Pacific F o r u m ( S P F ) — h a v e s u c c e e d e d in m e e t i n g c o m m o n l y d e f i n e d security threats, in ameliorating their m e m b e r s ' political and e c o n o m i c vulnerabilities, and in compelling the major powers to accept the legitimacy of their regional security agendas. He also considers more general questions of "regional" vs. "subregional" security and the regime characteristics that have contributed to the formation of SRSOs. His final chapter focuses on the significance in the context of broader security issues. William Tow is assistant professor in the School of International Relations, University of Southern California.
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