INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS: A SURVEY
By Prof. M. VENKATARANGAIYA
Every
age has its own political fashions. It has become the accepted fashion of the
present day for heads of States to undertake trips to foreign countries, meet
their opposite-numbers, exchange views on all world problems and issue a joint
communique at the end. Such visits are increasing in number and frequency. They
are supposed to create mutual understanding and remove causes of tension. They
are considered to be necessary in supplementing the routine work done from day
to day by the regular envoys and ambassadors stationed in foreign capitals. In
any survey of international affairs these visits have to be taken into consideration.
It
is true that the communiques issued consist mostly of platitudes saying that
all the major problems of the day were approached with a common purpose, that
the talks were conducted in an atmosphere of cordiality and friendship, that
the discussions were quite frank and that every effort was made to have the
different viewpoints correctly understood. In spite of their platitudinous
nature the communiques are valuable for the light they throw what the statesmen
of the day consider to be the most significant international issues which have
to be talked. If the communiques issued in the course of the last three months
are analysed from this standpoint, it will be found that the problems which are
engaging the attention of statesmen today are: (1) Disarmament; (2) the changes
in Soviet Russia; (3) the situation in the Middle East; (4) the re-unification
of Germany, and (5) the Far East. It is round these that international affairs
are revolving at present.
Disarmament
is a longstanding problem. It has gained in importance in recent years because
of the armament race that has been going on in the atmosphere of the cold war.
Resources that can be usefully spent on raising the real income of the people
and their standard of comfort have been diverted to build armies, navies,
air-craft, atom-bombs, hydrogen bombs and all kinds of conventional weapons.
Defence expenditure is everywhere on the ease and in some countries, including
Soviet Russia and Britain, it has become too heavy for the people and their
governments to bear. This race in armaments has also been responsible for
the growth of mutual suspicion among the great powers and the increasing world
tension. One special aspect of this phenomenon is the stockpiling of atom and
hydrogen bombs and the large number of nuclear test explosions undertaken by
the United States and Soviet Russia. These explosions have contaminated the
atmosphere and it is felt that the radio-activity which they have released is
undermining the health and strength of people in very many countries–especially
of Asia–as it is in Asia and its neighbourhood that these nuclear tests are
being made. Protests have therefore come from Japan, Indonesia, several islands
in the Pacific, India and other countries against nuclear tests and statesmen
therefore had to give careful consideration to such protests.
It
is against this background that the Disarmament Commission of the U. N. O. and
its sub-committee have been considering the general problem of disarmament in
recent months. It is unfortunate that no agreement could be arrived at owing to
the cold war atmosphere that still divides Soviet Russia and the Western
States. In these discussions they have become divided as usual into two
opposing camps, each putting forward its own proposals and unwilling to come to
some kind of compromise. One peculiarity of these proposals has been their
changing nature; Changes of course are good as no discussion is possible if
each party rigidly adheres to one set of views, but it has So happened in these
debates that when a new set of proposals was made by one party the other party
brought another set of new proposals, with the result that the gulf dividing
them continued to be as wide as ever. The problem of disarmament is therefore
no nearer solution today than what it was five years ago, even though its
harmful effects heave become graver and more serious in the interval.
The
issues in this problem have to be clearly understood. There is first a
reduction in the size of armies. The latest position is that Soviet Russia has
reduced the strength of her armies by 600,000 last year and proposes to reduce
it 1,200,000 now, irrespective of what other States do. Moreover she has
accepted the Western proposal that the big powers–U.S.A., U.S.S.R. and
China–should each have a maximum strength of 2,500,000 and that Britain and
France should each have 750,000. She however is against any of the other States
having more than 200,000 each. This is not acceptable to the
Western powers as they have already decided that Western Germany should be rearmed
and that she should have an army of 500,000. On the question of Germany no
compromise is possible and this has created a sort of stalemate.
There
is next the question of the use of nuclear weapons in war, the destruction of
the existing stock-piles, the cessation of their future production and the
cessation also of further nuclear tests. On these there has so far been no
agreement. First because of the insistence that all issues connected with
disarmament should be simultaneously settled, and second because of differences
in regard to the constitution and powers of the organ of control for seeing
that there prohibitions and cessations are really put into effect. Britain has
expressed herself in favour of limitation (as distinguished from prohibition)
of nuclear tests.
Next
there is the question of the solution of the major political problems like the
unification of Germany, of Korea, Viet-Nam etc. It is the view of the Western
powers that the problem of disarmament is closely linked up with the solution
of these political problems. They point out that so long as these are not
settled by peaceful negotiation there is a danger of the outbreak
of war to solve them and that disarmament would adversely
affect their chances of winning in such a war. It will therefore be a risky
step for them to disarm when world tensions still exist.
There are also other issues
involved. There is for instance President Eisenhower’s plan calling for aerial
inspection of important military centres so that any sudden attacks like the
Japanese Pearl Harbour attack might be prevented. It is however the case of
Russia that this has nothing to do with disarmament.
So
the endless debate goes on. Proposals and counter-proposals are ever on the
increase. But disarmament is receding. It is true that Soviet Russia has
unilaterally reduced her forces by more than a million and a half. But no one
knows what the original strength of her armies was and at what figure it stands
after this reduction. Consequently no significance can be attached to this
unilateral action.
The
conclusion that follows is that so long as there is suspicion between Soviet
Russia on one side and the Western powers on the other, disarmament on any
substantial scale is not possible. These suspicions have to be removed. And it
is this that gives importance to the political changes in Soviet Russia.
Reference
has been made to these changes in the last survey. Soviet aggressiveness in the
past is attributed by the new rulers of Russia to Stalin. They now argue that
Stalinism is dead; they are determined to revise his policies to cultivate
understanding with all the countries and adhere to the
principle of peaceful co-existence. They point out to their acceptance of
Titoism, their signing of the Austrian treaty and their visits to several
countries as evidence of this change. It is for the Western powers to recognise
the reality of this change and to reciprocate friendship to the new rulers of
Russia who are so anxious for peace and goodwill. Such a response from the
West–it is argued–will result in the removal of mutual suspicion and bring
about disarmament automatically.
An
the Western powers are not agreed that there has been a real change in Soviet
Russia. It is for instance the view of the Americans that Soviet leaders have
not given up the ideal of spreading Communism in the whole world, that.
consequently they continue to threaten the existence of democratic freedom and
that they have not given up their control over their satellites in Central and
Eastern Europe. They also point out that the present rulers of Russia are more
active than Stalin in the Middle East and Africa, that they are stirring
trouble in these areas and that their object in all this is to put an end to
whatever influence the West has in such areas. They are supplying arms to
countries like Egypt; they are giving them economic aid; they are sending their
technical experts and they are using their weapon of propaganda for undermining
the prestige of the West. In these circumstances the Americans refuse to
believe that there has been any real change in Soviet Russia.
Britain
has not gone to this extreme. She thinks that there is some change but it is
not substantial. Even if it is substantial it will not be consistent with her
commitments to the United States and the North Atlantic Alliance to embark on a
course of policy opposed to that of the United States. It is a policy of ‘wait
and see’ that she is anxious to adopt.
French
statesmen do see a change in Russia. Moreover their traditional hostility to
Germany drives them towards Soviet Russia. But they too are swayed by
conflicting emotions. France is a member of the North Atlantic Alliance. She
has in recent years cultivated a close association with the United States. She
is also enraged by Soviet policies in the Middle East as these have strengthened
Egypt which in the French view is behind the Algerian nationalists.
It
is true that in the recent Conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers Pandit
Nehru strongly impressed on the other members that Soviet Russia has really
changed and that it would be best to recognise this and put an end
to the cold war mentality. His colleagues might have been influenced morally by
his views but it is not quite certain whether, tied as almost all of them are
to the wheels of the American chariot, they feel free to act in accordance with
their moral convictions. Besides this there are statesmen like Chancellor
Adenauer of West Germany, whom Pandit Nehru met and with whom he discussed the
world situation, that are still not convinced that there has been a real change
in Soviet policy.
There
are several others who wish to wait before they change their attitude towards
Soviet Russia and they are influenced in this by another consideration. They
expect that, in course of time, Soviet Russia will become weak in consequence
of rebellions in the satellite States like Poland and Czecho-Slovakia and that
will be the time for them to really negotiate with her. They think on these
lines because they expect that what happened recently in the industrial city of
Poznan in Poland would happen in course of time in other places also. Here
there were in June serious riots started by workers in one of the leading
factories. They were of course suppressed, but the authorities realised that it
was hunger that was at the root of these riots and that effective steps should
be taken tQ provide bread to the workers. This was all a highly revealing
situation. Communist countries are generally pictured by propagandists as
places where the labourers and peasants are rolling in comfort, and that the
best thing for all other countries in the world is to overthrow the feudalist
and the bourgeoise regimes and to substitute Communist governments in their
place. It is therefore a matter which would be a real eye-opener to many that
workers in a Communist country like Poland should complain of hunger and take
to rioting in their desperation. The fact of the matter is that in all these
countries, including Soviet Russia, the rulers are fanatic admirers of rapid
industrialisation on the basis of planning. What the West took a century and
more to accomplish they are trying to achieve in a decade or two. This is
possible only when workers are compelled to work on starvation wages, when a
high proportion of national income is compulsorily saved and invested in the
production of capital goods instead of consumer goods, and when regimentation
is resorted to in running factories and agricultural farms. This is the cost
which has to be paid if under-developed countries are anxious to get rapidly
industrialised and this is what happened in Poland. The Poznan riots are
inevitable under circumstances like these.
There
may be political reasons also for the outbreak of these riots. The Poles are a
highly patriotic people. Poland is one of the countries
which may be considered as the birth places of modern nationalism. The iron
hand of Soviet Russia is perhaps not in a position to completely destroy Polish
nationalism. The poznan riots may be a faint indication that patriotism is not
dead among the Poles. It is quite possible that Stalinist terror has not
succeeded in killing it, that his successors might be feeling that terror is no
longer a practicable policy and that there should be a relaxation of the Soviet
iron control. The riots might have been the first fruits of such relaxation.
Whatever
it be the Western powers are not yet sure that there has been a real change in
Soviet Russia and they are therefore unwilling to substantially change their
attitude towards her.
The
situation in the Middle East has not become very much improved from the point
of view of world peace. There are several sources of trouble here. First there
is the Arab-Israeli dispute. The Arabs do not like the existence of the State
of Israel in their midst. They want to put an end to it if possible. On this
all the Arab States are at one. If they can’t destroy it they wish to deprive
her of some of her territory, to compel her to take back the refugees and
prevent her from utilising the waters of the Jordan river in the way she wants
to utilise them. There is now only a truce between them and this is supervised
by aU. N. Commission which has been meeting with all sorts of obstacles in
doing its work.
The
second source of trouble is the rivalry among the various States in the Middle
East apart from Israel. They are now divided broadly into two blocs. Egypt,
Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Syria are in one bloc; Iraq, Iran and Turkey in the
other. In between them are Lebanon and Jordan. The first bloc is opposed to the
Baghdad Pact. It is completely anti-Western. It is led by Egypt with which
Yemen and Saudi Arabia have recently entered into a military pact. Preliminary
steps for a federal union between Egypt and Syria have also been taken
recently. Jordan has partly broken away from her old ally, Britain. Colonel
Nasser has become the President of Egypt and holds uncontrolled sway over her
twenty-two millions of people. He is determined to put an end to the British
and American influence in the Middle East. And in recent months he has come
closer to Soviet Russia. He has been driven to take this course by the British
and American refusal to finance the Aswan Dam on the Nile on which rests to a
great extent the future prosperity of his country. It was a mistake on the part
of these two Western States to have refused the aid they previously agreed to
grant. This has made Egypt more anti-Western than before and the trouble in the
Middle East is consequently on the increase.
A
third Source of trouble is the unrest in Algeria and in Cyprus.
Algeria is a French colony and the nationalist revolt in it has been going on
for a fairly long time now. In Cyprus the Greek majority is
determined on the island being united with Greece; the Turkish minority is
against it. The British who are its present rulers want to hold it as their
military and naval base. Turkey is also in favour of British control as the
island is very near her coast.
A
fourth source of trouble is the increasing interest which Soviet Russia is now
taking in the Middle East. She has come with offers of economic aid and
technical assistance. She has become a competitor of the Western powers in
extending her economic influence in this area. She is putting into effect the
principle of competitive co-existence.
Although
in Europe there is the unification of Germany and although in the Far East
there are problems connected with Formosa, the
unification of Korea and of Viet Nam, it is the growing trouble in the Middle
East that is engaging the attention of statesmen. The
trouble is bound to continue so long as the States in the area are divided
among themselves and thus give an opportunity for the big powers to interfere
with their politics. There does not seem to be any way out of
this trouble at present. Time alone can overcome it.