As we reported on Sunday, President Irfaan Ali recently declared that among our country’s foreign policy objectives is for Guyana to obtain a place of “respect and regard” in the international community, “…such that we can contribute to influencing global decision-making for good and better”. Within the last three years, more than 70 world leaders or their representatives have either visited Guyana or have had direct bilateral engagements with him, because, he said, “they believe that we can contribute to leadership in the world and in the pursuit of a peaceful and economically-stable world. My government intends to live up to their expectations by ensuring that Guyana plays a full part in fashioning an international system that is fair and just”. In so doing, he continued, Guyana will continue to seek alliances with other countries but, at all times, will remain “independent and principled” by standing up for values set out in the UN Charter and in international law.
While the 11 billion barrels of discovered oil and the one million barrels we will be pumping in four years have brought us world attention, Guyana still remains a “small State” in the global order and it is important to note how such States are seen – starting with the “Classical Realists”. According to one expert, “For classical realists, the absence of a sovereign power in the international system with the ability to enforce the rule of law through coercion means we are left with a system where to quote Thucydides, “the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must”.
“This is a particular problem for small States, as inevitably they will be worse off in situations of confrontation and conflict when confronted by larger, more powerful states. Small is, in this respect, a relative term – small, in terms of military, economic, and/or political power, when compared to other more powerful states….(However, seemingly in line with President Ali’s premise,) “Scholars who have examined the development of cooperative relations between States similarly argue that norms of cooperation can develop and deepen over time, making conflict and the exercise of raw power the exception rather than the rule of international relations. Trust, once established, becomes a strong binding factor that facilitates mutually-beneficial cooperation.
“A second stream of realist thinking on international relations (IR) developed during the Cold War. This approach, initially put forward by American theorist Kenneth Waltz, is described as neo-realism. (They) discount human nature as an explanatory factor in international relations. For Waltz, States are like units faced with a system of anarchy. However, States are differentiated with respect to their relative power, and the system as a whole is defined by the most powerful States within the system.
Thus, for Waltz, a balance of power system of IR is the most likely outcome over the long term. This view reflects, in many respects, the experience of the Cold War, but need not be confined to that era. Neorealists focus much of their attention on strong States as the defining players of the system of balance of power…with a single hegemonic power, a bi-polar system, or a multi-polar system. Some also focus on the role of regional hegemons – defined as the strongest State in a particular region, and how these States influence and are influenced by the global balance of power.”
Of interest to Guyana and President Ally should be this piece of information: “A neorealist exception to this focus on larger States is another American theorist, Stephen Walt.
Walt sets out two principal strategies that States can adopt in alliance formation – balancing or bandwagoning. Balancing takes place when a State aligns with others to balance against a stronger power; bandwagoning occurs when States join an alliance with the stronger power. For Walt, the key determinant of state behaviour relates to the degree of threat smaller States feel with respect to States with greater power. Balancing and bandwagoning on the part of smaller States are, therefore, a response to threats, with threat perception being influenced by the aggregate power of another State, its physical proximity, its offensive capability, and its offensive intentions.” A word to the wise.
