|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The Role of the Nonaligned Movement
| Article
# : |
20489 |
|
|
Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
|
| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1992 |
2,645 Words |
| Author
: |
W. Scott Thompson
|
During the cosmic changes in world power of the past three years, has the Third World moved farther than before to the sidelines? On the one hand, the answer must be affirmative, as the United States reacts to the great changes in the former Soviet Union; on the other, we must remember that the greatest contest, in the interim, has been over the resolution of a struggle between Third World aggressor Iraq and Third World victim Kuwait.
There is a second key question. It is true that the Third World has failed to participate in any of the several revolutions that have contributed to the new world order? The answer might well be affirmative for the past three years, especially if we ignore the democratic revolution spreading throughout the world and instead concentrate on changes in world politics. If we look at the Third World over a slightly longer period of time--since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, let us say--then we can argue that the shifts in the Third World, and in U.S. relations as well, predated and have been proportionately as significant as those in other areas. Let us look at several Third World venues to better understand these changes.
More Peaceful?
It is hard to believe that only a generation has passed since Third World leaders began to dominate the rostrums and corridors of the United Nations. There, they dictated the agendas of international bodies and even set the fashion in much international diplomacy, so that those not with them were pariahs.
True, the world was in some ways a more peaceful place then, because dictators seldom dared upset the precarious balance of power by grabbing another country's territory. Saddam Hussein aggressed against Iran in 1980, but he could do so only because Iran was in everybody's bad graces. His attempt to gobble up Kuwait had to wait until after the demise of the Cold War and nonalignment (or so he thought), for until then such a grab would have provoked Washington to accuse Moscow of attempting to enlarge its influence in the Middle East through a client state.
To see how far the tables have turned, one has only to look at the true and ultimate arbiter of status in the world: development and the creation of wealth. Of the states that made the running in the Third World in the 1960s--nonalignment founders India, Ghana, Guinea, Egypt, Yugoslavia, and Indonesia--only the last is prospering. But the real success stories are the onetime so-called pariahs themselves,
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
