Since the commonwealth heads of government are meeting within weeks of the US invasion of Grenada and within days of the unilateral declaration of independence by the so-called Turkish Cypriot assembly in respect of the Turkey-occupied part of Cyprus, it would have been odd if they had not expressed concern over “the vulnerability of small states to external attacks and interference in their affairs”. As it happens, they have also agreed to get the relevant issues studied urgently. This is a welcome development if the Goa declaration is not an exercise in escapism which the assembled presidents and prime ministers may have resorted to in order to get over their sharp differences over Grenada and Cyprus. But while it is only proper that the commonwealth, representing as it does one-fourth of the human race and cutting, as it does, through various divisions in the world, should interest itself in the question of the security and territorial integrity of small states, it would be naive to believe that the problem admits of a straightforward solution. It does not.
Broadly speaking, three rival concepts and forces are at work in our age, national sovereignty and all that implies by way of the right of a people, however small and weak, to arrange its own affairs, being just one of them. For, the power balance within a region and the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union are as pertinent in shaping our world as the anti-colonial revolution which has lent to the concept of national sovereignty the legitimacy it now possesses. Indeed, two other powerful forces at work within each society have a major influence on our lives – the yearning for individual liberty and the yearning for social and economic justice. These too are often not in harmony with each other. The result of the interaction of these competing ideas, ideals and forces cannot but be an unholy mess. Only the naive can believe that he or she can clear it up.
It is a tribute to the power and sweep of the anti-colonial revolution that so many tiny states have come into existence in the post-war period. But ironical though it may appear, it is also a fact that the stronger regional powers would have devoured many of them if the external powers, especially the two superpowers, were not there to stop it. The superpower competition creates a balance of a kind in a situation of imbalance. But the balance is inevitably unnatural and its survival requires at the very least that the tiny beneficiaries do not offend too much and too often the superpower which is also the dominant regional power in the area.
Afghanistan and Grenada provide the necessary illustrations. In the case of Afghanistan, it is not sufficiently recognised that President Daud Khan was the architect of the country’s tragedy and that the Shah of Iran was his principal accomplice. Ignoring the harsh reality that his country lay under the shadow of the mighty Soviet Union, President Daud Khan allowed himself to be tempted by the Shah’s fabulous offer of assistance which was conditional on his pursuing an anti-communist policy at home. He allowed Savak agents to operate freely in Kabul and began to take steps to purge leftists from the armed forces who had put him in power. Alarmed by this turn of events, the Russians responded by bringing together the two communist parties – the Parcham and the Khalq – with consequences which are there for the world to see. In Grenada the local Marxists, the Cubans and the Soviets similarly ignored the unpleasant reality of US power in the Caribbeans.
This is not to justify either the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan or the US action in Grenada but to suggest that weak states should be careful in defying the power realities around them. Sometimes they can get away with such a defiance. But quite often the result is disastrous for them. The Khmer Rouge in Kampuchea is one case in point. Idi Amin in Uganda is another example. Pol Pot thought he could ignore Vietnam because he enjoyed the support of China and Idi Amin believed he could insult Tanzania. Both were, of course, cruel dictators who should not have been tolerated by the international community. But they were not overthrown on that account. They fell because they did not respect the power realities.